On this page
-
Text (1)
-
Untitled Article
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
-
-
Transcript
-
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
Additionally, when viewing full transcripts, extracted text may not be in the same order as the original document.
Untitled Article
In the course of a few moons , Leah had often met Akiba , as he was driving her father ' s herds out to pasture , or homeward to the fold . She had spoken to him kindly , and made many inquiries as to his life in the valley ; and he had told her without reserve all his little history . He had told her also of the seasons and their produce ; of the plants and flowers , their putting forth , and their decay ; of the rise of the stars , and their declination ;
and of what all these things betokened to those whose bed was the green field , and whose roof the heavens . And Leah listened to him with more pleasure than 3 he had yet found in the voice of any other man . Whether the great sun , bending his effulgent countenance over Egypt , looked creative power upon her breast ; whether the evening- twilight in sweet sadness , walked with her meditative
passion through the dim pathetic glades ; or the clear morning star grew pale in the altitude of his silent fields ; Akiba ' s watchful soul held but one thought , and his heart grew sick in his bosom with deep relapse from too great expansion . Akiba loved Leah , yet he dared not breathe the words into her ear ; not for that she was the daughter of the rich man Zahoran , but by reason of his intense feelings and the pure respect of sacred love .
At length they both knew the love that was in each other's , hearts , and there was no disguise of that feeling . And Akiba said , I will arise in the strength of my devotion , and it shall give me words to say unto thy father more than I can say to thee . And 1 will ask thee of him in marriage , and Zahoran shall not answer my prayer with punishment , nor drive me from his presence with scorn . ' And Leah wept .
Akiba went forthwith before Zahoran , and if his knees trembled under the weight of his heart , it was not through fear , but the feelings that filled him . And he spoke thus to his master , with a manly modesty and a reverential air . ' I come before Zahoran , not to speak to him of the welfare and the increase , the sickness or the health , of his flocks and
herds ; but of that which in the comparison maketh them poor in price and of little worth . Is not thy daughter Leah fairer than pure silver ; is not her happiness more precious than fine gold and jewels , which adorn the " outer form only , and shed no lasting ra ys within ; and doth not her innocent beauty strike deeper into the soul than that of all thy flocks , shining like the driven snow that passeth over the hills ancj valleys ? Behold now , O father ° f Leah ; the herdsman Akiba , thy servant , hath come to tell * hee that he hath dared to love thy daughter , even unto seekingher for his wife ? And be not thou wratn with her when Akiba
Wleth thee , that thy daughter hath not despised his heart , nor looked upon him us a beast of the field whose countenance is torned earthward because of his lowJy station . Let , then , the Boble feelings of thy child Leah plead somewhat with thee for
Untitled Article
Akiba . 647
-
-
Citation
-
Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Sept. 2, 1834, page 647, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2637/page/43/
-