The Heart

A woman, by reason of her great tenderness of heart which makes her

suffer overmuch for those she loves, has not the strength to bear

the pain of loving more than one or two so entirely, and my mother's

whole heart was fixed with an anxious strain of loving care upon my

stepfather and my brother. I have seen her sit hours by a window as

pale as a statue while my stepfather was away, for those were

troublous times in England, and he in the thick of it. When I was a

lad of six or thereabouts they were bringing the king back to his

own, and some of the loyal ones were in danger of losing their heads

along his proposed line of march. And I have known her to hang whole

nights over my brother's bed if he had but a tickling in the throat;

and what could one poor woman do more?

She was as slender as a reed in this marshy country of Virginia, and

her voice was a sweet whisper, like the voice of one in a wind, and

she had a curious gracefulness of leaning toward one she loved when

in his presence, as if, whether she would or no, her heart of

affection swayed her body toward him. Always, in thinking of my

mother, I see her leaning with that true line of love toward my

stepfather or my brother John, her fair hair drooping over her

delicate cheeks, her blue eyes wistful with the longing to give more

and more for their happiness. My brother John looked like my mother,

being, in fact, almost feminine in his appearance, though not in his

character. He had the same fair face, perhaps more clearly and less

softly cut, and the same long, silky wave of fair hair, but the

expression of his eyes was different, and in character he was

different. As for me, I was like my poor father, so like that, as I

grew older, I seemed his very double, as my old nurse used to tell

me. Perhaps that may have accounted for the quick glance, which

seemed almost of fear, which my mother used to give me sometimes

when I entered a room where she sat at her embroidery-work. My

mother dearly loved fine embroideries and laces, and in thinking of

her I can no more separate her from them than I can a flower from

its scalloped setting of petals.

I used to slink away as soon as possible when my mother turned her

startled blue eyes upon me in such wise, that she might regain her

peace, and sometimes I used to send my brother John to her on some

errand, if I could manage it, knowing that he could soon drive me

from her mind. One learns early such little tricks with women; they

are such tender things, and it stirs one's heart to impatience to

see them troubled. However, I will not deny that I may have been at

times disturbed with some bitterness and jealousy at the sight of my

brother and my stepfather having that which I naturally craved, for

the heart of a little lad is a hungry thing for love, and has pangs

of nature which will not be stilled, though they are to be borne

like all else of pain on earth. But after I saw Mary Cavendish

all that passed, for I got, through loving so entirely, such

knowledge of love in others that I saw that the excuse of love,

for its weaknesses and its own crimes even, is such as to pass

understanding. Looking at my mother caressing my brother instead of

myself, I entered so fully into her own spirit of tenderness that I

no longer rebelled nor wondered. The knowledge of the weakness of

one's own heart goes far to set one at rights with all others.