Page:The Galaxy, Volume 5.djvu/763



PRIL 3, 1865.—Thank God!

February 10, 1867.—As I sit and look at those two words, there comes back to me the vivid recollection of how and when I wrote them. I remember the surge of feeling which swelled my heart almost to pain as I heard the great news that day brought; as I realized that the long doubt and agony and struggle were over; that the awful human sacrifice was ended; that the physical consciousness of blood—which, like Lady Macbeth, I had had incessantly upon me, its horrible smell in my nostrils and stain upon my hands—might now pass away. If I had been a praying man, I should have gone down upon my knees; being what I am, I came home and sat quietly down in this room until the inner tide should ebb to a controllable level. Partly from habit and partly from a desire to steady myself, I took out my note-book to glance at my engagements for the next day. The front of it is full of business memoranda; but toward the end I am apt to scribble down scraps of poetry, quotations, anything and everything that comes into my head, until I often think that, taken altogether, it is a truer representation of my real self than my photograph would be. Turning presently to this blank space, I wrote that date, as the most momentous I should ever chronicle. And then, from the depths of my heart and soul, there sprang those two words, as the faint, irrepressible echo of the unutterable.

I don't know why I have turned to that entry to-night—yes I do; why should I shrink from acknowledging the truth to this blank page and myself. It is because I have almost the same feeling at my heart, the same impulse to write those words again. And all because I have seen a woman of whose existence in the flesh I was unconscious but a few hours ago. Yet now that I sit here I do not dare to carry out my purpose. It seems like tempting Providence to thus triumph at the mere threshold of what must make or mar my whole, life. If I were a really heroic soul, I suppose the simple fact that such a woman lives in the world would make me sing hymns of rejoicing; but I am only a man, with great, hungry needs and wants in my nature, and I must wait to give thanks for my fate until I know that they are to be satisfied.

It was by the merest chance that I met her. After the day's work is over, I go up to the club to dine; and then, if I have an engagement in the evening, I like to drop into John Conway's cosy home, and smoke and chat until it is time for me to go. John and I have been friends all our lives. In the race of life I have always outrun him, at school, at college, and now in the courtroom; and yet he is the only man whom I sincerely envy. As I see all shadow of the cares of this world and the deceitfulness of riches fade from his face as he turns it homeward, as I watch that light spring up in the depths of his wife's eyes at the mere sound of his coming, I recognize, with a curious pang, which of us has been really wise and successful; I comprehend that the man who is all the world to the woman he loves can well afford to let the rest of creation wag as it will.