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1、【英文文学】DawnChapter 1They sat together in the twilight conversing. Three years, with their alternations of joy and grief had swept over their married life, bringing their hearts into closer alliance, as each new emotion thrilled and upheaved the buried life within.That night their souls seemed attuned
2、 to a richer melody than ever before; and as the twilight deepened, and one by one the stars appeared, the blessed baptism of a heavenly calm descended and rested upon their spirits.Then you think there are but very few harmonious marriages, Hugh?My deep experience with human nature, and close obser
3、vations of life, have led me to that conclusion. Our own, and a few happy exceptions beside, are but feeble offsets to the countless cases of unhappy unions.Unhappy; why? he continued, talking more to himself than to the fair woman at his side; people are only married fractionally, as a great thinke
4、r has written; and knowing so little of themselves, how can they know each other? The greatest strangers to each other whom I have ever met, have been parties bound together by the marriage laws!But you would not sunder so holy a bond as that of marriage, Hugh?I could not, and would not if I could.
5、Whatever assimilates, whether of mind or matter, can not be sundered. I would only destroy false conditions, and build up in their places those of peace and harmony. While I fully appreciate the marriage covenant, I sorrow over the imperfect manhood which desecrates it. I question again and again, w
6、hy persons so dissimilar in tastes and habits, are brought together; and then the question is partly, if not fully answered, by the great truth of Gods economy, which brings the lesser unto the greater to receive, darkness unto light, that all may grow together. I almost know by seeing one party, wh
7、at the other is. Thus are the weak and strong-not strength and might-coupled. Marriage should be a help, and not a hindrance. In the present state of society, we are too restricted to know what marriage is. Either one, or both of those united, are selfish and narrow, allowing no conditions in which
8、each may grow.Do I limit you, Hugh?No, dearest, no; I never meant it should be so, either. When I gave you my love, I did not surrender my individual life and right of action. All of my being which you can appropriate to yourself is yours; you can take no more. What I take from you, is your love and
9、 sympathy. I cannot exhaust or receive you wholly.But I give you all of myself.Yet I can only take what I can absorb or receive into my being. The qualities of a human soul are too mighty to be absorbed by any one.What matters it if I am content in your love that I wish for none other?I have often f
10、eared, dear Alice, that your individual life was lost in your love for me.What matters it, if you give me yourself in return?It matters much. If we are not strong for ourselves, we are not strength to each other. If we have no reserve force, we shall in time consume each others life. We can never be
11、 wholly anothers.Am I not wholly yours, dear Hugh? she said, raising her eyes tenderly to his, in that summer twilight.Not all mine, but all that I can receive.It may be true, but it seems cold to me, she replied, a little sadly.Too much philosophy and not enough love for your tender woman nature, i
12、s it not, darling?I think you have explained it. I feel as though you were drifting away from me, Hugh, when you talk as you do to-night. Although I dearly love progress and enlarged views of life, I do not like many of the questions that are being agitated in reference to marriage.Because you do no
13、t take comprehensive views of the matter. I can, I think, set you clear on the whole subject, and divorce from your mind the thought that liberty is license. Liberty, in its full, true meaning, is the pure action of a true manhood, in obedience to the laws of the individual. For a simple illustratio
14、n, look at our neighbors, Mr. and Mrs. Danforth. She, as you well know, is an ambitious woman; smart, and rather above the majority of her neighbors, intellectually, but not spiritually. Her husband is a kind-hearted man, content to fill an ordinary station in life, but spiritually far her superior.
15、 His nature is rich in affection; her nature is cold and intellectual. He knows nothing of other womans views, consequently has no standard by which to form an estimate of those of his wife. If she was wise, as well as sharp, she would see that she is standing in her own light; for the man whom she
16、wishes to look upon her, and her only, will soon be a pure negation, a mere machine, an echo of her own jealousy and selfish pride. Now, freedom, or his liberty, would give him the right to mingle and converse with other women; then he would know what his wife was to him, while he would retain himse
17、lf and give to her his manhood, instead of the mere return of her own self. At present he dare not utter a word to which she does not fully subscribe. She talks of his love for her; it should be his servility. They live in too close relation to be all they might to each other. I have heard her proud
18、ly assert, that he never spent an evening from home! I think they are both to be pitied; but, am I making the subject of freedom in any degree clear to your mind, my patient wife?Yes, I begin to see that it is higher and nobler to be free, and far purer than I supposed.Yes, dear one, he said, drawin
19、g her close to his heart, we must at times go from what we most tenderly love, in order to be drawn closer. The closest links are those which do not bind at all. It is a great mistake to keep the marriage tie so binding, and to force upon society such a dearth of social life as we see around us dail
20、y. Give men and women liberty to enjoy themselves on high social planes, and we shall not have the debasing things which are occurring daily, and are constantly on the increase. If I should take a lady of culture and refinement to a concert, a lecture, or to a theatre, would not society lift up its
21、hands in holy horror, and scandal-mongers go from house to house? If men and women come not together on high planes, they will meet on debasing ones. Give us more liberty, and we shall have more purity. I speak these words not impulsively; they are the result of long thinking, and were they my last,
22、 I would as strongly and as fearlessly utter them.I feel myself growing in thought, to-night, Hugh, and O, how proud I feel that the little being who is soon to claim our love, if all is well, will come into at least some knowledge of these things.In a few weeks she expected to become a mother, and
23、was looking hopefully forward to the event, as all women do, or should, who have pleasant homes and worthy husbands.I, too, am glad that we can give it the benefit of our experience, and shall be proud to welcome into the world a legitimate child.Why, Hugh! what do you mean? All children are legitim
24、ate, are they not, that are born in wedlock?Very far from it. In very many cases they are wholly illegitimate.His wife looked eagerly for an explanation.All persons who are not living in harmony and love, are bringing into the world illegitimate offspring. Children should be born because they are wa
25、nted. A welcome should greet every new-born child, and yet a mere physical relation is all that exists between thousands of parents and children, while thousands who have not given physical birth are more fitted by qualities of heart and soul to be the parents of these spiritual orphans than the blo
26、od relations, who claim them as their own. I often think that many in the other life will find, even though they may have had no offspring in this, that they have children by the ties of soul and heart-affinity, which constitutes after all the only relationship that is immortal.Ten days after the ab
27、ove conversation, the eventful period came. All night she lingered in pain, and at daybreak a bright and beautiful daughter was laid at her side. But, alas! life here was not for her. Mother and babe were about to be separated, for the fast receding pulse told plainly to the watchful physician that
28、her days were numbered. Her anguished husband read it in the hopeless features of the doctor, and leaning over the dear one he loved so well, be caught from her these last words,-Call her DAWN! for is she not a coming light to you? See, the day is breaking, Hugh,-then the lips closed forever.Come ba
29、ck, come back to me, my loved, my darling one, broke from the anguished heart of the stricken husband, and falling on his knees beside the now lifeless form, he buried his face in his hands, and wept.But even grief cannot always have its sway.A low, wailing cry from the infant moved his heart with a
30、 strange thrill, he knew not whether of joy or pain, and rising from the posture in which grief had thrown him, he went and bowed himself over the silent form.One gone, another come.But the little being had her life in its veins, and slowly he felt himself drawn earthward by this new claim upon his
31、love and sympathy.A strange feeling came over him as the nurse took the little child, and laid upon the bed the robes its mother had prepared for it.It was too much, and the heart-stricken man left the room, and locking himself in his library, where he had spent so many happy hours with his lost one
32、, gave full vent to the deep anguish of his soul. He heard the kind physicians steps as he left, and no more. For hours he sat bowed in grief, and silent, while sorrows bitter waters surged over him.No more would her sweet smile light his home; no more her voice call his name in those tender tones,
33、that had so often been music to his ears; no more could they walk or sit in the moonlight and converse. Was it really true? Had Alice gone, or was it not all a troubled dream?Noon came, and his brow became more fevered. But there was no soft hand to soothe the pain away. Night came, and still he sat
34、 and mourned; and then the sound of voices reached his ears. He roused himself to meet the friends and relations of his dear departed one, and then all seemed vague, indefinite and dreamlike.The funeral rites, the burial, the falling earth upon the coffin lid; these all passed before him, then like
35、one in a stupor he went back to his home, and took up the broken threads of life again, and learned to live and smile for his bright-eyed, beautiful Dawn. May she be Dawn to the world, he said unto himself, as he looked into her heaven-blue eyes; then thanked God that his life was spared to guide he
36、r over lifes rough seas, and each day brought fresh inspirations of hope, new aspirations of strength, and more confiding trust in Him whose ways are not as our ways.Chapter 2Dawn grew to be very beautiful. Every day revealed some new charm, until Hugh feared she too might go and live with the angel
37、s. But there was a mission for her to perform on the earth, and she lived.Each day he talked to her of her mother, and kept her memory alive to her beautiful traits, until the child grew so familiar with her being as to know no loss of her bodily presence, save in temporal affairs.A faithful and eff
38、icient woman kept their house, and cared for Dawns physical wants; her father attending to her needs, both mental and spiritual, until she reached the age of seven, when a change in his business required him to be so often away from home, that he advertised for a governess to superintend her studies
39、 and her daily deportment.What was mamma like? asked Dawn of her father one evening as they sat in the moonlight together, was she like the twilight?He turned upon the child with admiration, for to him nothing in nature could better be likened unto his lost and lovely Alice.Yes, darling, he said, ki
40、ssing her again and again, mamma was just like the twilight-sweet, tender, and soothing.Then I am not at all like mamma? she remarked, a little sadly.And why?Because I am strong and full of life. I always feel as though it was just daylight. I never feel tired, papa, I only feel hushed.Heaven grant
41、my daughter may never be weary, he said, and stooped to kiss her, while he brushed away a tear which started as he did so.I shall never be weary while I have you, papa. You will never leave me, will you?I hope to be spared many years to guard and love my charge.A few days after, Dawn was surprised t
42、o find the governess, of whom her father had spoken, in the library, and her father with his carpet-bag packed, ready for a journey.Am I not going too, papa? she said, turning on him her face, as though her heart was ready to burst with grief. It was their first parting, and equally hard for parent
43、and child.Not this time, darling, but in the summer we shall go to the sea-shore and the mountains, and take Miss Vernon with us. Come, this is your teacher, Dawn; I want you to be very good and obedient while I am away, and then, looking at his watch, he bade them both adieu.He knew the child was w
44、eeping bitterly. All the way to the cars, and on the journey through that long, sunny day, he felt her calling him back. There could be no real separation between them, and it was painful to part, and keep both so drawn and attenuated in spirit.In vain Miss Vernon exerted herself to make the child h
45、appy. It was of no use. Her delicate organism had received its first shock; but in due time her spirit broke through the clouds in its native brilliancy, and there was no lingering shadow left on her sky. Dawn was as bright and smiling as she had been sad and dispirited.I will gather some wild flowe
46、rs and make the room all bright and lovely for papa, she said, and in a moment was far away.Its no use training her, you see, Miss, the good housekeeper asserted, as a sort of an apology for the child, whom she loved almost to idolatry, might as well try to trap the sunlight or catch moonbeams. Shel
47、l have her way, and, somehow to me, her way seems always right. Will you please step out to tea, Miss, and then I will go and look after her; or, if you like, you can follow that little path that leads from the garden gate to the hill where she has gone for her flowers.Miss Vernon was glad to go; an
48、d after a light supper, was on her way, almost fearful that the child might consider her an intruder, for she instinctively felt that she must work her way into the affections of her new charge.She followed the path to the hill, and after walking for some time and not finding Dawn, was about to retr
49、ace her steps, when she heard a low, sweet voice, chanting an evening hymn. She sat upon a bed of grey moss until the chanting ceased, and then went in the direction from which the sound came.There sat Dawn, with eyes uplifted, lips parted as though in conversation, and features glowing with intensest emotion. Then the eyes dropped, and her little hand