The Yoke Of The Thorah

of it, at least, as bore upon the question of matrimony-had apparently suffered sudden and total annihilation. Under the light of love,

He had accepted them as facts stated upon authority-had taken the rabbi's word for them, just as he had taken the rabbi's word for the boundaries of the State of Nebraska, and for the date of the Battle of Bunker Hill. But, now, when, for the first time, circumstances had led him to bring to bear upon them a little analysis and common-sense, to exercise a little his right and his power of private judgment, now their absurdity had beco

e a Hebrew, you're white; and any how, religion don't worry us much in this household, and never did. I'm a Universalist, myself; and Chris-well, I guess no one knows what she is. One thing's certain-she might have gone further, and fared worse; she might, for a fact. You're a perfect gentleman; and you can't help it, if you were born a Jew. You don't look like one, and you don't act like one. Of course, there's your name-Bacharach-a regular jaw-breaker; but I shan't stick on a name. It ain't I that's got to bear it; and so long as Chris

nd I'm not going to be separated from her in my old age. He's got to fetch his traps, and live in this house, besides, because I'm used to

seconds that he had been permitted to pass upon Christine's threshold, looking into her room, breathing the sweet air of it, and noting its hundred pretty little girlish

e golden age. Yes, indeed: the period, long or short, during which first love holds sway over our hearts, tyrant though the ruler be, is notoriously our golden age, never to come but once. In this respect history does not repeat itself. Elias felt that each of his five senses had been sharpened, and that, moreover, he had acquired a sixth sense, a super-sense. The homeliest things, the most familiar sights, the commonest occurrences, took on a beauty, a significance, a suggestiveness, undreamed of until now. They aroused thoughts in his brain, emotions in his breast. He had used to regard New York as a somewhat sordid and unpicturesque metropolis: now he held it to be the most romantic cit

nt state, are merely potential, latent. For love-is it not the very soul and life of life itself? I know a poem which says: 'Through love to light! Oh, wonderful the way, that leads from darkness to the perfect day!' That expresses exactly what I mean. The life I lived before I knew you

that he shall think clearly, feel deeply, and see truly-see the truth, the whole truth, and the very heart of the truth. Until one has lived in this sense, one's art will never be real art. It will only be a nicer, a more complex, species of mechanics. It will be the body of art, without the spirit of it. Well, did I live, did I think, feel, see, before I knew you, and loved you? A little, perhaps; vaguely, incompletely; by fits and starts; as in a glass, darkly. But now? Oh, it is as though you had given me a soul! You have quickened the dormant soul that was in me, given it eyes, ears, perceptions, sympathies. At last I am alive, tingling and throbbing to my finger tips with life, with warm, buoyant, intense, eager life. My existence now is a constant exaltation, a constant inspiration. Whatever my eye looks upon, whatever my ear hears, whatever my fingers touch, means something, says something to me, and wakes a response in my own heart. I think, feel, see, and consequently paint, with a zest, an impetus, a power, and yet a serenity, a repose, of which I never even had a conception in the old days, Christine! Oh, my love! '...When I look at you, Christine, and realize that you are my betrothed-that you love me, and that you have promised to be my wife; and when I take your little hand in mine, and stroke it, and feel its wondrous warmth and softness, and bring it to my lips, and breathe that most delicate fragrance which ever clings to it; and when I gaze into the luminous depths of your eyes, and behold your spirit burning far, far down in them: oh! my blood seems

think: may be, after all, it is a dream. At such moments, I hasten to see you, to verify it. I can not reach you quickly enough. At what a snail's pace the horse-car drags along! How endless are the intervals when it stops, to take in or to let off a passenger! I count the seconds, I count the inches. All the while, my soul is trembling within me; nor does it cease to tremble, till I have crossed your threshold, and beheld you with my eyes, and touched you with my hands, and thus, so far as seeing and feeling are believing, convinc

me concert-hall, listening to the same music? We may have passed each other in the street a great many times. We may even have ridden in the same horse-car together, and not have noticed each other. Isn't it strange? But think, if I had not happened to go to my father's shop that afternoon! Or, if you had not happened to go there, too, at just the same time! Why, then we might never have known each other at all! It takes my breath away, to think of it; doesn't it yours? How strange and empty and incomplete our lives would have been? We should have gone through life, without ever really knowing what life meant-without ever realizing the greatne

he world began; and scarcely giving a thought, either, to the time when, by and by, the curtain would be rung down, and the theater emptied, and the foot-lights put out. So shortsighted, so self-absorbed, is love. The two letters from which I have just quoted, lie before me now. It is not such a great while since

-color drawings of her. He never tired of striving to transfix something of her exquisite beauty upon the pages of his sketch-book. The effort was always a pleasure. The result was always a disappointment. He did not, however, by any means, confine these experiments to his sketch-book. All the blank paper that passed his way, ran an imminent risk of being seized upon, and made to bear an attempt at her likeness. I have on my d

was a high rock, the top of which was carpeted with many generations of pine needles, and screened from the vulgar gaze by a girdle of pine trees. Here, when the weather was warm enough, they would stop to rest for a little after their jaunts; and here, though he never suspe

, hurry up-town, and ring her door-bell. Of course, unapprised of his coming, she would not always be at home; but if the maid could inform him whither she had gone, he would be sure to follow

roken off, and that her partner was holding that heel in his hand, and inspecting it with curious eyes, he could no longer contain himself. Another man to profane with his touch the heel of Christine's slipper! He advanced upon the couple, scowling savagely; and addressing the young man: "Give me that," he commanded gruffly. He got hold of it, and stuck it into his pocket. Christine shot dagger-glances at him. On their way home, in the carriage, she scolded him roundly for his jealousy and his

! It seemed year

ffect upon him, so far as shaking his resolution was concerned; but he supposed that there would be a scene, and a very stormy and disagreeable one, and he dreaded it; and so he had procrastinated-or, as he phrased it, had waited for a favorable opportunity. He had gone on living in the same house, eating at the same board, with this old man, his uncle; chatting with him, even, as a precaution against possible suspicions, saying his prayers and reading his Bible with him, and all the while keeping the one dominant fact of his life shut close in from sight. Sometimes the secret weighed very heavily upon his mind, pressed hard for utterance, got even so far as the tip of his tongue. But t

't. But I had better tell you candidly that he will strongly disapprove of my marriage, simply and solely on the ridiculous ground that Christine happens not to have been born a Jewess. I hope you won't let this have the slightest influence whatever upon you; bec

He and Christine had spent a very ecstatic evening with each other; but, of course, by and by it behooved him to take his leave; and so, toward eleve

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id

t breaking the n

What

s-the news of

of very serious surprise. "Do you mean to

hat's just the

rebuke, "I supposed, of course, you had told him lon

ns it would have caused. He lives in my house, you know; and if we had had a row, he would have felt obliged to clear out, and all that. So I kept my own counsel; and I'm very glad I did. For now my idea i

out even letting him know. You ought to have told him long ago. It will hurt his feelings awfully, when he finds out how long you have kept it from him-when he finds that you

Chri

m right away. That letter by the pilot! I don't understand how you could have t

a look of inflexible determination upon her gentle face, that she would never, nev

he should have gone to

wake h

d she, pacified, went off to bed, whether to sleep or to lie awake, in either case, w

tudy, and rehearsed the scene that would there shortly have to be enacted in very truth. Elias was surprised at the excessive dread he felt. He strove to reason it away, repeating to himself, "He can do nothing, absolutely nothing. He can only talk; and talk doesn't hurt." But all the same, when he arrived in front of his house, and rea