I but crave
The sad, caressing murmur of the wave
That breaks in tender music on the shore.
With the growth of Mrs. Thaxter's children and the death of her
father, the love and duty she owed her mother caused her to return in
winter to the Shoals, although a portion of every summer was passed
there. This was her husband's wish; his sense of loyalty to age and
his deep attachment to his own parents made such a step appear
necessary to him under the circumstances.
But she had already tasted of the tree of knowledge, and the world
outside beckoned to her with as fascinating a face as it ever
presented to any human creature. It was during one of these returning
visits to the Shoals that much of the delightful book from which I
have quoted was written; a period when she had already learned
something of the charms of society,--sufficient to accentuate her
appreciation of her own past, and to rejoice in what a larger life now
held in store for her.
Lectures, operas, concerts, theatres, pictures, music above all,--what
were they not to her! Did artists ever before find such an eye and
such an ear? She brought to them a spirit prepared for harmony, but
utterly ignorant of the science of painting or music until the light
of art suddenly broke upon her womanhood.
Of what this new world was to her we find some hint, of course, in her
letters; but no human lips, not even her own exuberant power of
expression, could ever say how her existence was enriched and made
beautiful through music.
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