rning of daily
bread.
His trunk was standing open, half packed, though his destination was
still undecided; and among the first things that had gone into it was a
box containing a number of small rolls of neat manuscript. As he thought
of them his heart warmed and his eyes grew soft.
"The world's mine oyster, and with my good pen I'll open it," he
joyously paraphrased. But toward what part of the world should he turn
his face--to what market take his precious wares? That was the
all-important question! How much his fortune might depend upon his
decision!
As he stood at the window, he stared into the brilliancy and the shadows
of the icy, unresponsive night--seeking a sign. But the cold splendor of
the cloudless sky and glittering moon and the inscrutible shadows in the
garden below where the leafless trees and bushes cast monster shapes
upon the frozen ground, alike mocked him.
Presently there was the first hint of softness in the night. It came
like a sigh of tender pity across the stillness and he bent his head to
listen. It was the voice of the faintest of breezes blowing up from the
south and passing his window. He threw wide his arms to empty space as
if to embrace some invisible form.
"Ligeia, Ligeia, my beautiful one," he breathed, invoking his
dream-lady, "Be my counsellor and guide! Let thy sweet voice whisper
whither I must go!"
But the voice was silent and all the night was still again.
He turned from the window and threw himself into his arm-chair, letting
his eyes rove about the room as though he would seek a sign from its
walls. Suddenly he sat erect, his dilated pupils fixed upon a point
above the chimney-piece--upon a small picture. It was a little
water-color sketch done by the hand of his versatile mother, and found
among her belongings after her death. Like her miniature and her
letters, the picture had followed him through his life and had always
adorned the walls of his room. Often and over he had studied it until he
knew by heart every stroke of the brush that entered into its
composition. Yet he stared at it now as if he had never seen it before.
Finally he took it down from its place on the chimney and held it in his
hands, gazing upon it in deep abstraction.
Underneath the picture was written its title: "Boston Harbor--Morning,"
and upon its back,
"For my little boy, Edgar, who must love Boston, the place of his birth,
and where his mother found her best and most sympathetic
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