The Female Prose Writers of America/Mary S. B. Shindler/A Day in New York
Here I am in New York—the great, busy, bustling world of New York; and after my year’s rustication in a quiet Southern village, you may be sure that my poor little head is almost turned! Even now, while I am writing, there is a diabolical hand-organ, grinding under the window its mechanical music, with a disgusting little monkey—a caricature upon poor humanity—playing its “fantastic tricks before high heaven!” Do not, I entreat you, suppose me in a pet, for after all, I acknowledge that hand-organs, and even monkeys, have their uses, as well as their abuses, and may, by a serious philosophizing mind, be turned to very good account; but, just at this moment, I may perhaps be pardoned for wishing them somewhere else.
Ah! now comes a band of music—real music! breathed through various instruments by the breath of human beings, playing in accordance, keeping mutual time, obeying the same harmonious impulses, now delighting the ear and affecting the heart by a soft and plaintive strain, and now stirring the spirit by a burst of martial melody; yes, that is music; there is mind, there is soul, there is impulse, there is character in what I now hear, and you must excuse me while I hasten to the open window, and linger there till I catch the faintest echo of the rapidly-retreating harmony. There! It is gone—like so many of life’s pleasures—only to linger in the memory. Well! God be praised for that!
Day before yesterday I visited Greenwood, your beautiful cemetery. Oh, I wish I could reveal to you all the secret and varied workings of the mind within, as I wandered with a chosen friend—a kindred spirit—through that beautiful and consecrated ground. Thoughts too big for utterance—too spiritual and mysterious to be clothed in words—came crowding thick and fast upon me, till at length I could contain myself no longer, and the tide of softened feeling overflowed its barriers; for tears, not bitter tears, came trickling down each cheek. To add to the solemn interest of the occasion, the bell was tolling for a funeral. It was the funeral of a little Southern boy, who had died while pursuing his studies in one of the city schools. His young school companions, all in uniform, and each with a badge of mourning hanging from the left elbow, marched solemnly and silently to deposit the mortal remains of the youthful stranger in his Northern grave! My busy mind instantly wandered to his home and mine, in the land of the sunny South! Had he a father? Had he a mother? Had he brothers and sisters who were yet to learn the mournful tidings that the dear little fellow who had left them, recently perhaps, in all the healthful buoyancy of his young existence, had closed his eyes in a land of strangers, and was sleeping his last sleep so far away from his Southern home? Or, was he an orphan, whose young days had been shaded by sorrow? Then, perhaps, he had gone to join the sainted dead! Then, perhaps, he had gone to complete a family in heaven! Glorious, delightful, soothing thought! At any rate, I knew that his young spirit was in the keeping of an infinitely-merciful Father, and there, well cared for, I was content to leave the little Southern boy.
Near the entrance, sat a lady clad in the habiliments of the deepest mourning. She had been, probably, or was going, to the grave of some loved one, “to weep there,” as Jesus did! She had been mitigating or increasing the pangs of separation by the views and feelings she had been indulging at that loved one’s grave! Perhaps her sorrow was a sanctified sorrow, and she had meekly yielded up the chosen one of her heart, at the summons of her Heavenly Father, resolved to wait patiently for the period of a blissful reunion. If so, she had experienced the truth of the Saviour’s words—“Blessed are they that mourn, for they shall be comforted!” But if not, if, in the insanity of grief, she had been dwelling on the past, disregarding the injunction of the apostle to forget the things which are behind, and press forward to those which are before, how doubly was she to be pitied! Ah, mourning heart! didst thou but know that when we view the matter rightly, the dead are with us, more potently and beneficially than they were in life, thy sorrow would be turned into a pensive joy, creating within thee and around thee precious and purifying influences!
I pass by the splendid monuments which attract the attention of every stranger, to mention one which arrested my footsteps by its exceeding simplicity and beauty. It was a plain white marble shaft, upon which was inscribed one single word, and that was “Mary.” I always loved the name, but was never before so struck with its unpretending beauty. It was the name of the virgin-mother of our Lord, it was the name of her whom Jesus loved, and of the erring one whose pardon he pronounced so graciously. And here it was, to designate the resting-place of a youthful wife who had but recently departed to her eternal home. What a world of meaning must that one word convey to the bereaved husband, when, solitary as he must be now, his lonely footsteps seek that sacred spot! Let me tell thee, sorrowing husband, thy Mary is not lost to thee, she has but “gone before;” and if thou hearest and heedest well the voice which issues from that marble tablet, it shall be well with thee! They never can be lost to us, whose memories we love!
While thy spirit shines above;
And this earth so fresh and verdant,
But reminds us of thy love.
Knew how pure its throbbings were;
O’er that heart, which throbs no longer,
Memory sheds her purest tear.
And the blank felt in thy home,
Live as freshly in our bosoms
As the rose-leaves o’er thy tomb.
All our comfort and our pride;
Now that thou art gone to heaven,
Oh! to heaven our spirits guide!
Be our brilliant polar star!
From earth’s storms, and clouds, and darkness,
Lead us to bright realms afar.
To this holy spot we turn,
Let the mem’ry of thy meekness
Teach us, loved one, how to mourn!
I saw, too, the monument which has been recently erected over the grave of Dr. Abeel, the Chinese missionary. I knew and loved him well, and yet my feelings, when I stood beside his grave, had not a tinge of sadness! Indeed, why should they have? He had fought the good fight, he had finished his course, he had kept the faith, and I knew that he was in actual possession of his crown of glory! It was, then, a time and a place for joy and for triumph, and not for mourning and despondency. The Christian hero had gone to his reward, was that a cause for sadness?
I have not emptied my heart of half its tide of feeling, but I must forbear; time would fail me, and perhaps your patience also, were I to attempt it. Have you ever noticed, in your Greenwood rambles, a deeply-shaded spot, most appropriately labelled “Twilight Dell?” ’Tis there I would like to lay my weary head, when the toils and cares of life are over! Next to a grave in the far-distant West, where some of my loved ones sleep, or in my own Southern home, where my Kindred lie, would I prefer one in the beautifully shaded Twilight Dell of Greenwood.