Page:The Homes of the New World- Vol. I.djvu/266

Rh dumb Laura, and she was so struck by the sight of this poor, imprisoned being, that she sate certainty above a quarter of an hour lost in the contemplation of her, whilst large tears streamed unceasingly down her cheeks. Laura was not quite well, and she was therefore more than usually pale and quiet. One can hardly imagine a greater contrast than these two beings, these two lives. Fanny Kemble with all her senses awake to life, powerful enough to take possession of life in all its manifold phases and its fulness; Laura Bridgeman shut out from life, her noblest senses closed, dead, without light, without hearing, without the power of speech!!——and yet, perhaps, Laura was now the happier of the two, at least in her own sense of existence. She even made intelligible her lively sense of happiness, in reply to the question which was put to her. Fanny Kemble wept, wept bitterly. Was it for Laura, for herself, or merely from the contrast between them?

I went up to her several times to offer her some refreshment, but she merely answered “By and by,” and continued to gaze at Laura, and tears continued to fall.

In awhile she became composed, and we had an hour's cheerful and amusing conversation with the Lowells. After which I took a little sketch of Laura.

Fanny Kemble, as you know, has been married to a wealthy American and slave-holder, Mr. Butler, and is now separated from him. This marriage and its consequences seem to have embittered her life, especially the separation of herself and her two children. I have heard her lament over this in the most heart-rending manner, and I cannot conceive how the social spirit of America, in general so favourable to woman and to mothers, can permit so great an injustice when the fault which occasions the marriage separation is on the man's side. To separate a mother from her children! That ought never to take place if she does not openly forfeit her right to them! In this tragedy of marriage the two principal