Books Should Be Free Loyal Books Free Public Domain Audiobooks & eBook Downloads |
|
Margret Howth, a Story of To-day By: Rebecca Harding Davis (1831-1910) |
---|
![]()
A STORY OF TO DAY
by Rebecca Harding Davis "My matter hath no voice to alien ears." TO MY MOTHER. CHAPTER I. Let me tell you a story of To Day, very homely and narrow in its scope
and aim. Not of the To Day whose significance in the history of
humanity only those shall read who will live when you and I are dead.
We can bear the pain in silence, if our hearts are strong enough, while
the nations of the earth stand afar off. I have no word of this To Day
to speak. I write from the border of the battlefield, and I find in it
no theme for shallow argument or flimsy rhymes. The shadow of death
has fallen on us; it chills the very heaven. No child laughs in my
face as I pass down the street. Men have forgotten to hope, forgotten
to pray; only in the bitterness of endurance, they say "in the morning,
'Would God it were even!' and in the evening, 'Would God it were
morning!'" Neither I nor you have the prophet's vision to see the age
as its meaning stands written before God. Those who shall live when we
are dead may tell their children, perhaps, how, out of anguish and
darkness such as the world seldom has borne, the enduring morning
evolved of the true world and the true man. It is not clear to us.
Hands wet with a brother's blood for the Right, a slavery of
intolerance, the hackneyed cant of men, or the blood thirstiness of
women, utter no prophecy to us of the great To Morrow of content and
right that holds the world. Yet the To Morrow is there; if God lives,
it is there. The voice of the meek Nazarene, which we have deafened
down as ill timed, unfit to teach the watchword of the hour, renews the
quiet promise of its coming in simple, humble things. Let us go down
and look for it. There is no need that we should feebly vaunt and
madden ourselves over our self seen rights, whatever they may be,
forgetting what broken shadows they are of eternal truths in that calm
where He sits and with His quiet hand controls us. Patriotism and Chivalry are powers in the tranquil, unlimited lives to
come, as well as here, I know; but there are less partial truths,
higher hierarchies who serve the God man, that do not speak to us in
bayonets and victories, Mercy and Love. Let us not quite neglect
them, unpopular angels though they be. Very humble their voices are,
just now: yet not altogether dead, I think. Why, the very low glow of
the fire upon the hearth tells me something of recompense coming in the
hereafter, Christmas days, and heartsome warmth; in these bare hills
trampled down by armed men, the yellow clay is quick with pulsing
fibres, hints of the great heart of life and love throbbing within;
slanted sunlight would show me, in these sullen smoke clouds from the
camp, walls of amethyst and jasper, outer ramparts of the Promised
Land. Do not call us traitors, then, who choose to be cool and silent
through the fever of the hour, who choose to search in common things
for auguries of the hopeful, helpful calm to come, finding even in
these poor sweet peas, thrusting their tendrils through the brown
mould; a deeper, more healthful lesson for the eye and soul than
warring truths. Do not call me a traitor, if I dare weakly to hint
that there are yet other characters besides that of Patriot in which a
man may appear creditably in the great masquerade, and not blush when
it is over; or if I tell you a story of To Day, in which there shall be
no bloody glare, only those homelier, subtiler lights which we have
overlooked. If it prove to you that the sun of old times still shines,
and the God of old times still lives, is not that enough?
My story is very crude and homely, as I said, only a rough sketch of
one or two of those people whom you see every day, and call "dregs,"
sometimes, a dull, plain bit of prose, such as you might pick for
yourself out of any of these warehouses or back streets. I expect you
to call it stale and plebeian, for I know the glimpses of life it
pleases you best to find; idyls delicately tinted; passion veined
hearts, cut bare for curious eyes; prophetic utterances, concrete and
clear; or some word of pathos or fun from the old friends who have
endenizened themselves in everybody's home... Continue reading book >>
|
Genres for this book |
---|
Fiction |
Literature |
eBook links |
---|
Wikipedia – Rebecca Harding Davis |
Wikipedia – Margret Howth, a Story of To-day |
eBook Downloads | |
---|---|
ePUB eBook • iBooks for iPhone and iPad • Nook • Sony Reader |
Kindle eBook • Mobi file format for Kindle |
Read eBook • Load eBook in browser |
Text File eBook • Computers • Windows • Mac |
Review this book |
---|