Basil and his sister sat longer that summer evening than was their wont. There was a deeper intoning of sentiment, a closer blending of thought, or rather, their individual states had been more clearly defined by the day's incidents.
They were of those rare types of mind which know just how far they can be together, and not detract from each other; just when the mental and spiritual assimilation was becoming attenuated, and each needed solitude. Thus they were constantly coming each to the other, and consequently drew from exhaustless fountains of intellectual and physical strength.
Life is replete with harmonies ready to inflow, if we are but receptive and delicate enough to receive and appropriate them. Blest are they who recognize life's indications, its index-fingers which are pointing each hour to some new experience, which will deepen and expand our lives.
Generally there is great danger of two persons settling into themselves, as these two seemed to have done, but Basil and Beatrice were so catholic they could afford it, in fact they needed just the close companionship which they held. The brother, with his colossal spirit, lofty and original, moving forward through life with that slow majesty which indicates the wholeness of the individual, unlike the airy advance of natures which rush with but one faculty quickened, and mistake speed for greatness, supplied the sister with that manly, noble quality, which must ever exist in the real or ideal of every woman. No wonder her warm, beneficent nature expanded daily, until her heart seemed a garden full of flowers of love and gratitude.
Did life at times seem dim and hazy, and the mind full of a thousand doubts, he could dispel the cloud, wrench the truth from its old combinations, and present it to her in striking contrast with its opposite error.
No wonder that new purposes and aspirations were born every hour in that woman's heart, impregnated by his manliness of quality. Yet each drew through the subtle texture of soul a different hue of life, as in a bed of flowers, from the same sunlight, one draws crimson, another azure, as though conscious of the harmony of complement and difference.
"I feel a rich, deep vein of thought to-night," said Beatrice, "as though I could write a poem or a book, so vivid are my thoughts."
"Your life has been a poem, full of sweetly blended words. You have lived yours out, while others have written theirs."
"But there is such power in books, Basil."
"I know it well. 'Some books are drenched sands on which a great soul's wealth lies all in heaps, like a wrecked argosy.' And some are sweet and full of passion-tones, and you feel on every leaf that you are turning, as though their heart-beats were going into yours; that they were dying that you might have life. Books are indeed great, but lives are greater; lives that are full of earnest purpose, and that fail not, even though the tide beats strong about them and the heavens hang thick and dark with clouds. The greatest poems are true lives, now surging with grief and passion, now pulsing with joy-notes, thrilling on each page of life. Some books, as well as persons, make us feel as though we stood in the presence of a king, while some give us tears. Some books and some beings dome us like a sky. Sister, you are the dome which ever overarches my life,--if day, with its azure and ermine clouds; if night, with its stars. Nay, do not write a book, but breathe and live your life out each day."
"Yet I know that you, Basil, could write one, and make it full and perfect."
"I could make one full of words, if not of thought; but come, the night is passing, we shall scarce have an hour's rest before sunrise."
"Indeed, I think we are in a fair way to see its early brightness."
To their dreams and life we will leave them awhile, knowing that to such hearts will ever come peace, whether sleeping or waking.
Past midnight, that silent hour when the earth is peopled with other forms. It is the hour for the brain to receive the most subtle influences, whether sleeping or waking.
Some kinds of sleep bring us brighter states than day gives us. They are awakenings, in which the understanding, instead of being dethroned, acquires a power and vivacity beyond what it possesses when the external form is awake and active. The soul seems emancipated from earthly trammels. The ruling thought of a man's life is not unlikely to shape itself into dreams, the constant thought of the day may encroach on the quiet of the night. Thus Columbus dreamed that a voice said unto him, "God will give thee the keys of the gates of the ocean." So any earnest longing, resting on our minds when we composed ourselves to sleep, may pass over into our sleeping consciousness, and be reproduced, perhaps in some happier mood.
Modern writers on the phenomena of sleep, usually concur in the assertion that man's sleeping thoughts are meaningless, and that dreams are, therefore, untrustworthy. Such was not the opinion of our ancestors. They attached great importance to dreams and their interpretations. They had resort to them for guidance in cases of difficulty, or great calamity. We do not claim for all dreams, a divine or reliable character, but that some are to be trusted, every individual of any experience can testify. Plato assumes that all dreams might be trusted, if men would only bring their bodies into such a state, before going to sleep, as to leave nothing that might occasion error or perturbation in their dreams.
A young lady, a native of Ross-shire, in Scotland, who was devotedly attached to an officer, with Sir John Moore in the Spanish war, became alarmed at the constant danger to which her lover was exposed, until she pined, and fell into ill health. Finally, one night in a dream, she saw him pale, bloody, and wounded in the breast, enter her apartment. He drew aside the curtains of the bed, and with a mild look, told her he had been slain in battle, bidding her, at the same time, to be comforted, and not take his death to heart.
The consequence of the dream was fatal to the poor girl, who died a few days afterward, desiring her parents to note down the date of her dream, which she was confident would be confirmed. It was so. The news shortly after reached England that the officer had fallen at the battle of Corunna, on the very day in the night of which his betrothed had beheld the vision.
Another, a lady residing in Rome, dreamed that her mother, who had been several years dead, appeared to her, gave her a lock of hair, and said, "Be especially careful of this lock of hair, my child, for it is your father's, and the angels will call him away from you to-morrow."
The effect of the dream on her mind was such, that, when she awoke, she experienced the greatest alarm, and caused a telegraphic notice to be instantly dispatched to England, were her father was, to inquire after his health. No immediate reply was received; but, when it did come, it was to the effect that her father had died that morning at nine o'clock. She afterwards learned, that, two days before his death, he had caused to be cut off, a lock of his hair, and handed it to one of his daughters, who was attending on him, telling her it was for her sister in Rome.
Well authenticated cases might be multiplied till they filled volumes; but the two we have cited, suffice to prove that in sleeping, as well as in waking hours, our minds may receive impressions of truth, or, that the spirit goes out to other scenes, and there takes cognizance of events and conditions.
Dawn slept on; her beautiful white face was still and upturned, as though gazing into the heavens. The excitement of the day had gone, and the look of keen pleasure on her features was changed to one of intensest emotion, for she was away, her spirit beside one whose life seemed almost ebbing out of this state of existence. She saw his pale features half hidden in the snowy pillows, the deep, soft eyes looking as though in search of one they loved; and then she heard him call her name, in tones touching and tender. She wept, and awoke. The sun was shining brightly through the window. She arose, and dressed for her departure, and, to the surprise of her friend, announced her intention of leaving that morning for home.
"You are no more to be depended on than the rest of your sex, Miss Wyman," remarked Mr. Austin, who really enjoyed having her with them.
She was in no mood to reply in the same spirit, but said quietly:
"I have concluded not to tire you out completely this time, for I want to come again."
"I think your going must be the result of some very hasty conclusion, Dawn. I had no intimation of it last evening. Really, unless you are ill, you are quite unfair to leave us so soon." Mrs. Austin having made this remark, glanced for the first time at Dawn's white face. What had come over her? Was it Dawn who sat there so still and white? "Are you ill?" she asked, the tremor of her voice betraying her deep solicitude for the welfare of her visitor.
"No; but anxious. I must go to-day, however, or I shall be sick, and............