Dawn
Adams, Harriet A., -1885
English
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Below is a summary of Dawn
Edited by Charles Aldarondo (aldarondo@yahoo.com)
DAWN.
BOSTON:
LONDON:
1868.
DAWN.
CHAPTER I.
They sat together in the twilight conversing. Three years, with
their alternations of joy and grief had swept over their married
life, bringing their hearts into closer alliance, as each new
emotion thrilled and upheaved the buried life within.
That night their souls seemed attuned to a richer melody than ever
before; and as the twilight deepened, and one by one the stars
appeared, the blessed baptism of a heavenly calm descended and
rested upon their spirits.
"Then you think there are but very few harmonious marriages, Hugh?"
"My deep experience with human nature, and close observations of
life, have led me to that conclusion. Our own, and a few happy
exceptions beside, are but feeble offsets to the countless cases of
unhappy unions."
"Unhappy; why?" he continued, talking more to himself than to the
fair woman at his side; "people are only married fractionally, as a
great thinker has written; and knowing so little of themselves, how
can they know each other? The greatest strangers to each other whom
I have ever met, have been parties bound together by the marriage
laws!"
"But you would not sunder so holy a bond as that of marriage, Hugh?"
"I could not, and would not if I could. Whatever assimilates,
whether of mind or matter, can not be sundered. I would only destroy
false conditions, and build up in their places those of peace and
harmony. While I fully appreciate the marriage covenant, I sorrow
over the imperfect manhood which desecrates it. I question again and
again, why persons so dissimilar in tastes and habits, are brought
together; and then the question is partly, if not fully answered, by
the great truth of God's economy, which brings the lesser unto the
greater to receive, darkness unto light, that all may grow together.
I almost know by seeing one party, what the other is. Thus are the
weak and strong--not strength and might--coupled. Marriage should be a
help, and not a hindrance. In the present state of society, we are
too restricted to know what marriage is. Either one, or both of
those united, are selfish and narrow, allowing no conditions in
which each may grow."
"Do I limit you, Hugh?"
"No, dearest, no; I never meant it should be so, either. When I gave
you my love, I did not surrender my individual life and right of
action. All of my being which you can appropriate to yourself is
yours; you can take no more. What I take from you, is your love and
sympathy. I cannot exhaust or receive you wholly."
"But I give you all of myself."
"Yet I can only take what I can absorb or receive into my being. The
qualities of a human soul are too mighty to be absorbed by any one."
"What matters it if I am content in your love that I wish for none
other?"
"I have often feared, dear Alice, that your individual life was lost
in your love for me."
"What matters it, if you give me yourself in return?"
"It matters much. If we are not strong for ourselves, we are not
strength to each other. If we have no reserve force, we shall in
time consume each other's life. We can never be wholly another's."
"Am I not wholly yours, dear Hugh?" she said, raising her eyes
tenderly to his, in that summer twilight.
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