Her simple, careless, childish flow of spirits often made me sad. She
seemed to me like a butterfly at play in a flickering bit of sunshine,
and mistaking it for a broad and eternal summer. We sometimes hold
mirth to a stricter accountability than sorrow; it must show good
cause, or the echo of its laughter comes back drearily. Priscilla's
gayety, moreover, was of a nature that showed me how delicate an
instrument she was, and what fragile harp-strings were her nerves. As
they made sweet music at the airiest touch, it would require but a
stronger one to burst them all asunder. Absurd as it might be, I tried
to reason with her, and persuade her not to be so joyous, thinking
that, if she would draw less lavishly upon her fund of happiness, it
would last the longer. I remember doing so, one summer evening, when
we tired laborers sat looking on, like Goldsmith's old folks under the
village thorn-tree, while the young people were at their sports.
"What is the use or sense of being so very gay?" I said to Priscilla,
while she was taking breath, after a great frolic. "I love to see a
sufficient cause for everything, and I can see none for this. Pray
tell me, now, what kind of a world you imagine this to be, which you
are so merry in."
"I never think about it at all," answered Priscilla, laughing. "But
this I am sure of, that it is a world where everybody is kind to me,
and where I love everybody. My heart keeps dancing within me, and all
the foolish things which you see me do are only the motions of my
heart. How can I be dismal, if my heart will not let me?"
"Have you nothing dismal to remember?" I suggested. "If not, then,
indeed, you are very fortunate!"
"Ah!" said Priscilla slowly.
And then came that unintelligible gesture, when she seemed to be
listening to a distant voice.
"For my part," I continued, beneficently seeking to overshadow her with
my own sombre humor, "my past life has been a tiresome one enough; yet
I would rather look backward ten times than forward once. For, little
as we know of our life to come, we may be very sure, for one thing,
that the good we aim at will not be attained. People never do get just
the good they seek. If it come at all, it is something else, which
they never dreamed of, and did not particularly want. Then, again, we
may rest certain that our friends of to-day will not be our friends of
a few years hence; but, if we keep one of them, it will be at the
expense of the others; and most probably we shall keep none. To be
sure, there are more to be had; but who cares about making a new set of
friends, even should they be better than those around us?"