THE TEXAN HUNTRESS. 335 
from her, exclaim :—“It is all over! The struggle is closed 
for me! He will finish the work alone!” 
I reached her side as soon as possible. She was most pain- 
fully haggard, and her eyes were distended to a degree which 
made their expression seem peculiarly ghastly. She recog- 
nized me with a smile of such genial sweetness, as for the 
first time showed me directly the infinite depth and tenderness 
of that strong heart. She had never revealed herself to me 
before, so that I felt her recognition; she had kept all her 
sympathies with an austere exclusiveness for her husband, 
and those she had given to me were merely general, such as 
she would have given to any other member of the human 
family. She beckoned me to come to her. I came and 
threw myself on my knees by the side of her couch, she 
placed her hand upon my head, saying, in a low, solemn 
voice :— 
“My son, while I am yet strong enough, I wish to explain 
much to you that you neither have nor could have compre- 
hended. I seem to you, no doubt, a wild and incomprehen- 
sible fanatic—my husband a dreamer! Neither idea is the 
true one. We are both enthusiasts—and love our common 
purpose more than we love each other—for a great thought 
is, and should be, far more sacred than any passion. Love 
is only spiritualized in reality when two souls mect in the 
same idea! Animals have passions, even stronger than ours 
—but have they a purpose? They have the purpose of living. 
We have, or ought to have, a higher! We have something 
more to do than to ‘live, and move, and have a being’—we 
have to work.! Work for what? For its men and women— 
its animals, its birds, its insects, its fishes, its reptiles, its 
monsters, anthropophagi, and all !—Work to elevate, enlarge, 
expand—to beautify—to glorify! Work to make the flowers 
like those we know in dreams—the trees express our thoughts 
of ‘overshadowing strength and love—the rocks, of grandeur 
