BEAUTY OF FORM AND BEAUTY OF MIND [3]
heaven we are at home again within our own four walls,"
said mamma-in-law and daughter both, on their return after a year's
absence.
"There is no real pleasure in travelling," said mamma; "to tell
the truth, it's very wearisome; I beg pardon for saying so. I was soon
very tired of it, although I had my children with me; and, besides,
it's very expensive work travelling, very expensive. And all those
galleries one is expected to see, and the quantity of things you are
obliged to run after! It must be done, for very shame; you are sure to
be asked when you come back if you have seen everything, and will most
likely be told that you've omitted to see what was best worth seeing
of all. I got tired at last of those endless Madonnas; I began to
think I was turning into a Madonna myself."
"And then the living, mamma," said Kaela.
"Yes, indeed," she replied, "no such a thing as a respectable meat
soup- their cookery is miserable stuff."
The journey had also tired Kaela; but she was always fatigued,
that was the worst of it. So they sent for Sophy, and she was taken
into the house to reside with them, and her presence there was a great
advantage. Mamma-in-law acknowledged that Sophy was not only a
clever housewife, but well-informed and accomplished, though that
could hardly be expected in a person of her limited means. She was
also a generous-hearted, faithful girl; she showed that thoroughly
while Kaela lay sick, fading away. When the casket is everything,
the casket should be strong, or else all is over. And all was over
with the casket, for Kaela died.
"She was beautiful," said her mother; "she was quite different
from the beauties they call 'antiques,' for they are so damaged. A
beauty ought to be perfect, and Kaela was a perfect beauty."
Alfred wept, and mamma wept, and they both wore mourning. The
black dress suited mamma very well, and she wore mourning the longest.
She had also to experience another grief in seeing Alfred marry again,
marry Sophy, who was nothing at all to look at. "He's gone to the very
extreme," said mamma-in-law; "he has gone from the most beautiful to
the ugliest, and he has forgotten his first wife. Men have no
constancy. My husband was a very different man,- but then he died
before me."
"'Pygmalion loved his Galatea,' was in the song they sung at my
first wedding," said Alfred; "I once fell in love with a beautiful
statue, which awoke to life in my arms; but the kindred soul, which is
a gift from heaven, the angel who can feel and sympathize with and
elevate us, I have not found and won till now. You came, Sophy, not in
the glory of outward beauty, though you are even fairer than is
necessary. The chief thing still remains. You came to teach the
sculptor that his work is but dust and clay only, an outward form made
of a material that decays, and that what we should seek to obtain is
the ethereal essence of mind and spirit. Poor Kaela! our life was
but as a meeting by the way-side; in yonder world, where we shall know
each other from a union of mind, we shall be but mere acquaintances."
"That was not a loving speech," said Sophy, "nor spoken like a
Christian. In a future state, where there is neither marrying nor
giving in marriage, but where, as you say, souls are attracted to each
other by sympathy; there everything beautiful develops itself, and
is raised to a higher state of existence: her soul will acquire such
completeness that it may harmonize with yours, even more than mine,
and you will then once more utter your first rapturous exclamation
of your love, 'Beautiful, most beautiful!'"
THE END
.
said mamma-in-law and daughter both, on their return after a year's
absence.
"There is no real pleasure in travelling," said mamma; "to tell
the truth, it's very wearisome; I beg pardon for saying so. I was soon
very tired of it, although I had my children with me; and, besides,
it's very expensive work travelling, very expensive. And all those
galleries one is expected to see, and the quantity of things you are
obliged to run after! It must be done, for very shame; you are sure to
be asked when you come back if you have seen everything, and will most
likely be told that you've omitted to see what was best worth seeing
of all. I got tired at last of those endless Madonnas; I began to
think I was turning into a Madonna myself."
"And then the living, mamma," said Kaela.
"Yes, indeed," she replied, "no such a thing as a respectable meat
soup- their cookery is miserable stuff."
The journey had also tired Kaela; but she was always fatigued,
that was the worst of it. So they sent for Sophy, and she was taken
into the house to reside with them, and her presence there was a great
advantage. Mamma-in-law acknowledged that Sophy was not only a
clever housewife, but well-informed and accomplished, though that
could hardly be expected in a person of her limited means. She was
also a generous-hearted, faithful girl; she showed that thoroughly
while Kaela lay sick, fading away. When the casket is everything,
the casket should be strong, or else all is over. And all was over
with the casket, for Kaela died.
"She was beautiful," said her mother; "she was quite different
from the beauties they call 'antiques,' for they are so damaged. A
beauty ought to be perfect, and Kaela was a perfect beauty."
Alfred wept, and mamma wept, and they both wore mourning. The
black dress suited mamma very well, and she wore mourning the longest.
She had also to experience another grief in seeing Alfred marry again,
marry Sophy, who was nothing at all to look at. "He's gone to the very
extreme," said mamma-in-law; "he has gone from the most beautiful to
the ugliest, and he has forgotten his first wife. Men have no
constancy. My husband was a very different man,- but then he died
before me."
"'Pygmalion loved his Galatea,' was in the song they sung at my
first wedding," said Alfred; "I once fell in love with a beautiful
statue, which awoke to life in my arms; but the kindred soul, which is
a gift from heaven, the angel who can feel and sympathize with and
elevate us, I have not found and won till now. You came, Sophy, not in
the glory of outward beauty, though you are even fairer than is
necessary. The chief thing still remains. You came to teach the
sculptor that his work is but dust and clay only, an outward form made
of a material that decays, and that what we should seek to obtain is
the ethereal essence of mind and spirit. Poor Kaela! our life was
but as a meeting by the way-side; in yonder world, where we shall know
each other from a union of mind, we shall be but mere acquaintances."
"That was not a loving speech," said Sophy, "nor spoken like a
Christian. In a future state, where there is neither marrying nor
giving in marriage, but where, as you say, souls are attracted to each
other by sympathy; there everything beautiful develops itself, and
is raised to a higher state of existence: her soul will acquire such
completeness that it may harmonize with yours, even more than mine,
and you will then once more utter your first rapturous exclamation
of your love, 'Beautiful, most beautiful!'"
THE END
.