FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   137   138   139   140   141   142   143   144   145   146   147   148   149   150   151   152   153   154   155   156   157   158   159   160   161  
162   163   164   165   166   167   168   169   170   171   172   173   174   175   176   177   178   179   180   181   182   183   184   185   186   >>   >|  
s. 'If you forsake me now, I must die--and I have lived so short a time on the earth, I have known so little happiness and so little love, that I am not fit to die! But you will protect me! You are good and brave, strong with weapons in your hands, and full of pity. You have defended me, and spoken kindly of me--I love you for the compassion you have shown me.' Her language and actions, simple as they were, were yet so new to Hermanric, whose experience of her sex had been almost entirely limited to the women of his own stern impassive nation, that he could only reply by a brief assurance of protection, when the suppliant awaited his answer. A new page in the history of humanity was opening before his eyes, and he scanned it in wondering silence. 'If that woman should return,' pursued the girl, fixing her dark, eloquent eyes intently upon the Goth's countenance, 'take me quickly where she cannot come. My heart grows cold as I look on her! She will kill me if she can approach me again! My father's anger is very fearful, but hers is horrible--horrible--horrible! Hush! already I hear her coming back--let us go--I will follow you wherever you please--but let us not delay while there is time to depart! She will destroy me if she sees me now, and I cannot die yet! Oh my preserver, my compassionate defender, I cannot die yet!' 'No one shall harm you--no on shall approach you to-night--you are secure from all dangers in this tent,' said the Goth, gazing on her with undissembled astonishment and admiration. 'I will tell you why death is so dreadful to me,' she continued, and her voice deepened as she spoke, to tones of mournful solemnity, strangely impressive in a creature so young. 'I have lived much alone, and have had no companions but my thoughts, and the sky that I could look up to, and the things on the earth that I could watch. As I have seen the clear heaven and the soft fields, and smelt the perfume of flowers, and heard the voices of singing-birds afar off, I have wondered why the same God who made all this, and made me, should have made grief and pain and hell--the dread eternal hell that my father speaks of in his church. I never looked at the sun-light, or woke from my sleep to look on and to think of the distant stars, but I longed to love something that might listen to my joy. But my father forbade me to be happy! He frowned even when he gave me my flower-garden--though God made flowers
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   137   138   139   140   141   142   143   144   145   146   147   148   149   150   151   152   153   154   155   156   157   158   159   160   161  
162   163   164   165   166   167   168   169   170   171   172   173   174   175   176   177   178   179   180   181   182   183   184   185   186   >>   >|  



Top keywords:
horrible
 

father

 

flowers

 

approach

 

mournful

 
things
 
solemnity
 

thoughts

 
companions
 

deepened


strangely

 

impressive

 
creature
 

dreadful

 
secure
 

dangers

 
compassionate
 
defender
 

continued

 

admiration


astonishment

 

gazing

 

undissembled

 

heaven

 

distant

 

longed

 

listen

 

flower

 

garden

 

frowned


forbade

 
looked
 

voices

 

singing

 

perfume

 
preserver
 

fields

 
wondered
 

eternal

 
speaks

church
 

forsake

 
destroy
 
awaited
 

suppliant

 

answer

 
protection
 

assurance

 
history
 

humanity