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Show 62 UNCLE TOM'S CADIN: OR, him most was her sunny head looking out the gate for his distant approach, and her childish question,-" Well, Uncle Tom, what l1nvc you got for me to~day?" Nor was Eva less zealous in kind offices, in return. Though a child, she was a beautiful reader;- a. fine musical ear, a quick poetic fancy, and an instinctive sympathy with what is grand and noble, made her such a reader of the Bible as Tom had never before heard. At first, she read to please her humble friend; but soon her own earnest nature threw out its tendrils, and wound itself around the majestic book; and Eva loved it, because it woke in her strange yearnings, and strong, dim emotions, such as impassioned, imaginative children love to feel. The parts that pleased her most were the Revelations and the Prophecies,- parts whose dim and wondrous imagery, and fervent language, impressed her the more, that she questioned vainly of their meaning ; - and she and her simple friend, the old child and the young one, felt just alike about it. All that they knew was, that they spoke of a glory to be revealed,- a wondrous something yet to come, wherein their soul rejoiced, yet knew not why ; and though it be not so in the physical, yet in moral science that which cannot he understood is not always profitless. For the soul awakes, a trembling stranger, between two dim eternities,- the eternal past, the eternal future. The light shines only on a small spaco around her ; therefore, she needs must yearn towards the unknown; and the voices and shadowy movings which come to her from out the cloudy pillar of inspiration have each one echoes and answers in her own expecting nature. Its mystic imagery arc so many talismans and gems inscribed with unknown hieroglyphics ; she folds them in her bosom, and expects to rend them when sho pas'cs beyond the veil. |