Page:Orange Grove.djvu/95

 "That is very good," observed his mother.

"I had no idea that I had a poet brother," said Rosalind. For a few moments her interest in Walter's poetical attempt rallied her drooping spirit, but immediately a reaction came, when an overwhelming surge of grief bowed her like a bulrush, and she buried her face in the sofa and wept.

There are some bold, inquiring spirits who will never accept reason or written evidence, as proof of those great truths which must become a part of the inner consciousness, to be felt as well as believed.

It is written, "Ask and ye shall receive; knock, and it shall be opened unto you; "and if the soul occasionally reaches after knowledge that belongs not to this world, it is only anticipating what shall be revealed hereafter. When first we stand in the presence of a deep affliction, as if the fountains of life were suddenly unsealed, we are prompted by the rushing stream of emotion to accept the present and its vicissitudes only as we can dive into futurity and solve the problem of life. It is perhaps fortunate for most people that the healing effect of time, and the returning attractions of the world, divert them from such a field of speculation, as fruitless as it is perplexing.

The investigating mind of Rosalind was not to be satisfied with any thing short of the uttermost bound of human possibility, seeking from analogy with the most minute details of positive knowledge, the solution of those mysteries that belong to eternity.

This sudden diversion of the healthy vivacity of