--Too late! "It might have been."-
-Amen!--How many thoughts go to a dozen heart-beats, sometimes!
There was no long pause after my remark addressed to the company,
but in that time I had the train of ideas and feelings I have just
given flash through my consciousness sudden and sharp as the
crooked red streak that springs out of its black sheath like the
creese of a Malay in his death-race, and stabs the earth right and
left in its blind rage.
I don't deny that there was a pang in it,--yes, a stab; but there
was a prayer, too,--the "Amen" belonged to that.--Also, a vision of
a four-story brick house, nicely furnished,--I actually saw many
specific articles,--curtains, sofas, tables, and others, and could
draw the patterns of them at this moment,--a brick house, I say,
looking out on the water, with a fair parlor, and books and busts
and pots of flowers and bird-cages, all complete; and at the
window, looking on the water, two of us.--"Male and female created
He them."--These two were standing at the window, when a smaller
shape that was playing near them looked up at me with such a look
that I--- poured out a glass of water, drank it all down, and then
continued.]
I said I should like to tell you some things, such as people
commonly never tell, about my early recollections. Should you like
to hear them?
Should we LIKE to hear them?--said the schoolmistress;--no, but we
should love to.
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