MABEL CLIFTON. A NOVEL.
BYFRANK BRIERWOOD.
"So heed, oh, heed well, ere forever united, That the heart to the heart flow in one, love-delighted; Illusion is brief, but Repentance is long." —SCHILLER.
PHILADELPHIA:
CLAXTON, REMSEN & HAFFELFINGER.
Nos. 819 & 821 MARKET STREET.
1869.Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1868, by CLAXTON, REMSEN & HAFFELFINGER, In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States in and for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania. J. FAGAN & SON, STEREOTYPERS, PHILADELPHIA. MOORE BRO'S, PRINTERS.
AFFECTIONATELY
AND
RESPECTFULLY
DEDICATED
TO
Mrs. Lieut. Gen. Sherman,
BY THE
AUTHOR.
PREFACE.
IN the silence and beauty of that enchanted land, where the loveliness and freshness of Nature contrast with all we can imagine of solitude and gloom; that land in which lie entombed magnificent cities with scarce a stone or column to mark the spot where once they stood; and where, firm and immutable as the everlasting hills, rise in melancholy grandeur the mausoleums of "a thousand line of kings,"—sadness and mirth, life and death, still go hand and in hand, as in ages past, when in the gayest revels a skeleton sat veiled and crowned.——The setting sun is shining on palace and tomb, as a young girl emerges from a grove of citron and palm, and steals quietly along under the drooping branches of the acacias which fringe the bank of that river, for a taste of whose waters the exile pines in far-off lands. In the distance gleam the mosques and minarets of Cairo: gold and rose-color blended with a silvery tissue, bright as the lining of a cloud. But she sees not the beauty spread out before her, as she kneels, and with trembling hands places on the smooth water a mimic boat freighted with flowers,—the graceful lily of the Nile, sacred to the moon, page: viii-9[View Page viii-9] and heaps of fragrant roses and floral treasures, that bloom only under an Egyptian sun.
Tears fall on the creamy petals, and the crushed fragrance rises like incense, as with a hurried prayer she lights the tiny colored lamp, and the boat glides silently away.—Darkness shrouds the river, and still she kneels on the yellow shore, and watches with straining eyes the flickering, uncertain gleam. That freight is not alone flowers: her heart is in the venture, and if the light goes out, her hopes will set in darkness. —— —— Like that lonely girl, I place, with trembling, timid hand, my humble offering on the dim, mysterious river, where many a nobler bark has been wrecked,—many a true heart has broken, waiting for the waves to carry out on the broad waters the vessel which never left the shore until the eyes watching its glimmering radiance were forever closed.—Many a fairer bark has gone down silently,—yet still my fearful, uncertain feet press the brink of the fatal river. My eyes are dim with fear and expectation, and my fluttering heart goes with the mimic boat as it trembles on the turbid water. —— Will it sink, gentle reader, or will the glancing waves bear it gayly onward toward the Ocean of Eternity?
