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Uncle Tom's Cabin | Harriet Beecher Stowe | |
Of Tom's New Master, and Various Other Matters |
Page 2 of 11 |
"I have received yours,--but too late. I believed all I heard. I was desperate. _I am married_, and all is over. Only forget,--it is all that remains for either of us." And thus ended the whole romance and ideal of life for Augustine St. Clare. But the _real_ remained,--the _real_, like the flat, bare, oozy tide-mud, when the blue sparkling wave, with all its company of gliding boats and white-winged ships, its music of oars and chiming waters, has gone down, and there it lies, flat, slimy, bare,--exceedingly real. Of course, in a novel, people's hearts break, and they die, and that is the end of it; and in a story this is very convenient. But in real life we do not die when all that makes life bright dies to us. There is a most busy and important round of eating, drinking, dressing, walking, visiting, buying, selling, talking, reading, and all that makes up what is commonly called _living_, yet to be gone through; and this yet remained to Augustine. Had his wife been a whole woman, she might yet have done something--as woman can--to mend the broken threads of life, and weave again into a tissue of brightness. But Marie St. Clare could not even see that they had been broken. As before stated, she consisted of a fine figure, a pair of splendid eyes, and a hundred thousand dollars; and none of these items were precisely the ones to minister to a mind diseased. |
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Uncle Tom's Cabin Harriet Beecher Stowe |
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