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Show DOLORES, 89 thoughts that reached beyond the tomb ; the dim rays of natural religion barely gave a gleam of hope that Dolores still lived in another sphere they might feebly cheer, they could not guide me. And even as I recalled that nightly hope, or watched that daily ray, I ultimately resigned myself to look for happiness only beyond the grave, or nursed the hope of liberty and revenge. Ah ! could I escape, I would raise a band of dead hearts like mine and wage in-expiable war on kings. " At last all hope died out. Even the desire for vengeance died. I was conscious only of a dull pain. The memory of the dead seemed as a dream of long forgotten years ; and when I spoke, as sometimes I did, aloud, my own voice jarred on my ear. For two years the jailer who brought my food was all I saw ; then for awhile I had a companion in captivity. But we said little; confinement had deadened the social instincts. We talked neither of the strug-gles of the past, nor of hope for the future ; our hearts had died in the awful solitude. Without passing through death, we were inmates of the tomb. " Why I was released finally I never knew. But I was, with all the others, probably because all danger of insurrection was past, and the government regarded us with contempt. But I came into the world as not of it. My father had died late in ' 48 ; my mother, worn with grief, had soon followed him ; my sisters had married even before my return from America, and other cares and other loves filled their hearts. Worse than all, liberty was dead. France, Germany, Italy, Hungary, had yielded again to despots; I saw no hope, for the rights of man. Again I sought the Rocky Mountains, whose majestic scenery brought balm to my wounded heart. I have learned that he who yields to fierce impulses or excessive feeling, does so but to lay bai* e his soul to a thousand strokes ; that he who would move faster than his age, will soon be alone with sorrow, and that the Brotherhood of Man conies not by spasmodic struggles, but by steady toil. " Here, where my misery began, in communion with mighty nature I find peace. The memory of Dolores has become a mild joy ; her image is ever present to cheer me. The thought of our affection has become a sort of religion. Near where I found and lost her, I best love to dwell, and every returning autumn finds me a pilgrim to the little mountain gleu that contains her grave." |
