Fate Now
Seemed To Have Done Its Worst, And She Was Resigned To It.
I am sure
it was no mere curiosity, but a desire to be of service, that led me
to approach her and say, "Madam, where are you going?"
"The Lord only knows," was the utterly candid response; but then,
forgetting everything in her last misfortune and impelled to a burst
of confidence, she began to tell me her troubles. She informed me
that her youngest daughter was about to be married, and that all her
wedding-clothes and all her summer clothes were in that trunk; and as
she said this she gave a glance out of the window as if she hoped it
might be following her. What would become of them all now, all brand
new, she did n't know, nor what would become of her or her daughter.
And then she told me, article by article and piece by piece, all that
that trunk contained, the very names of which had an unfamiliar sound
in a railway-car, and how many sets and pairs there were of each. It
seemed to be a relief to the old lady to make public this catalogue
which filled all her mind; and there was a pathos in the revelation
that I cannot convey in words. And though I am compelled, by way of
illustration, to give this incident, no bribery or torture shall ever
extract from me a statement of the contents of that hair trunk.
We were now passing Nahant, and we should have seen Longfellow's
cottage and the waves beating on the rocks before it, if we had been
near enough. As it was, we could only faintly distinguish the
headland and note the white beach of Lynn. The fact is, that in
travel one is almost as much dependent upon imagination and memory as
he is at home. Somehow, we seldom get near enough to anything. The
interest of all this coast which we had come to inspect was mainly
literary and historical. And no country is of much interest until
legends and poetry have draped it in hues that mere nature cannot
produce. We looked at Nahant for Longfellow's sake; we strained our
eyes to make out Marblehead on account of Whittier's ballad; we
scrutinized the entrance to Salem Harbor because a genius once sat in
its decaying custom-house and made of it a throne of the imagination.
Upon this low shore line, which lies blinking in the midday sun, the
waves of history have beaten for two centuries and a half, and
romance has had time to grow there. Out of any of these coves might
have sailed Sir Patrick Spens "to Noroway, to Noroway,"
"They hadna sailed upon the sea
A day but barely three,
Till loud and boisterous grew the wind,
And gurly grew the sea."
The sea was anything but gurly now; it lay idle and shining in an
August holiday. It seemed as if we could sit all day and watch the
suggestive shore and dream about it.
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