"Still! still!" said Vavasor, apostrophizing the river as if it were a
live thing and understood him; "do not speak to me. I cannot attend even
to your watery murmur. A sweeter music, born of the motions of my own
spirit, fills my whole hearing. Be content with thy flowing, as I am
content with my being. Would that God in the mercy of a God would make
this moment eternal!"
He ceased, and was silent.
Hester could not help being thrilled by the rhythm, moved by the poetic
phrase, and penetrated by the air of poetic thought that pervaded the
utterance--which would doubtless indeed have entranced many a smaller
woman than herself, yet was not altogether pleased. Never yet had she
reached anything like a moment concerning which even in transient mood
she could pray, "Let it last forever!" Nor was the present within sight
of any reason why she should not wish it to make way for a better behind
it. But the show of such feeling in Vavasor, was at least the unveiling
of a soul of song in him, of such a nature, such a relation to upper
things that he must one day come to feel the highest, and know a bliss
beyond all feeble delights of the mere human imagination.
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