A formidable
analogy, much in the nature of a proof, with very serious
consequences, which moralists and match-makers would do well to
remember! Double vision with the eyes of the heart is a dangerous
physiological state, and may lead to missteps and serious falls.
Whether Dudley Venner would ever find a breathing image near enough to
his ideal one, to fill the desolate chamber of his heart, or not, was
very doubtful. Some gracious and gentle woman, whose influence would
steal upon him as the first low words of prayer after that interval of
silent mental supplication known to one of our simpler forms of public
worship, gliding into his consciousness without hurting its old
griefs, herself knowing the chastening of sorrow, and subdued into
sweet acquiescence with the Divine will,--some such woman as this, if
Heaven should send him such, might call him back to the world of
happiness, from which he seemed forever exiled. He could never again
be the young lover who walked through the garden-alleys all red with
roses in the old dead and buried June of long ago. He could never
forget the bride of his youth, whose image, growing phantom-like with
the lapse of years, hovered over him like a dream while waking and
like a reality in dreams. But if it might be in God's good providence
that this desolate life should come under the influence of human
affections once more, what an ecstasy of renewed existence was in
store for him! His life had not all been buried under that narrow
ridge of turf with the white stone at its head.
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