Literary Cadet And Rhode Island Statesman

A sketch from 'Scenes And Thoughts BY WASHINGTON IRVING.

I endeavored to learn the story of the ill-fated Ellen. and the interesting mourner whom I had beheld hovering over her ashes. and I found that they were indeed the pangs of a mother's heart which had caused the grief I had witnessed.

She had attended her husband abroad, through many a scene of trial and hardship; she had dressed his wounds upon the day of battle, and she had watched over her soldier's lowly pallet, with firm and unremitting tenderness; but his wounds were healed, and he arose from his sick bed, astonished at her magnanimity, and grateful for her affection.

They returned together to their native country, that they might seek a reward for their past sufferings in the bosom of the country that gave them birth, and in the happy retirement which they best loved. Several children blessed their union, but some were nipped in the bud of infancy, and the rest prematurely destroyed ere yet they were fully unfolded in blossoms. One beloved daughter—their beautiful Ellen—alone remained to them. All the tender shoots were withered save this one; and her they cherished as their sole remaining pride, their only surviving prop. That child grew up all that her doating parents wished; and lovely in mind as in person, she constituted their sum of happiness on earth.

But, alas! the sweetest and most delicate flowers are often nipped the soonest by the chill wind, or by the blighting mildew.—Her fragile form but too easily sunk under the pressure of disease; and like a tender reed, bent beneath its own unsupported weight. Her eyes, indeed, sparkled with unusual lustre, but it was no more like the brilliance of health than the false glare of a wandering meteor resembles the clear and steady effulgence of the meridian sun: and though a bright bloom coloured her check, it was not the rosy tint of vigour but the harbinger of approaching ruin.

The terrified parents beheld with horror, the dreadful symptoms. In an agony of mind, which none besides can fully appreciate, they tried all that nature dictated, or art devised, to stop the progress of the fatal malady. But it was late. It made rapid and gigantic strides; and hope itself was soon obliged to droop in anguish. The lovely victim saw her fate before her, but her wings were plumed for Heaven, and she wished not to hover longer on earth. While her body drooped and languished, her mind became strengthened and fortified; and the undecaying spirit seemed to shine forth more visibly and more beautifully, when the mortal shroud which enveloped it was gradually falling. At length life gradually waned—and waned until its lamp shot up one bright, but quivering gleam, and then was darkened forever! She was dead—but the rose still lived on her cheek, and a smile still played upon the half closed lips whose last accents had breathed the fond name of mother! And those who looked upon her could scarcely believe but that she sweetly slept.