Mary Baldwin College - Bluestocking Yearbook (Staunton, VA)

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2 The Angusta Seminary Annual. kneels at tlie feet of a lad} ' sitting at her tapestry frame. Eagerly she tells again her story, and over the pale face of the mother comes a light as of smishine l)real ing through a cloud, and she bends to kiss the nptnrned face. Will her darling always he as fair as the mountain blossoms in her hair, as tender-hearted as when she carried the lost lamb back to the fold V she asks her- self. Time alone can and will tell. The shadows of evening have fallen ; the last glow of the set- ting sun is dying in the west. In the time-honored hall are gath- ered the Thane, his lady and little Gruoch. The night winds swing the tapestries to and fro, and the suits of mail on the wall rattle ominously, as if some warrior-ancestor of ye olden time had come back again to don his arnior ; but there is no trace of fear in the dark eyes the child turns upon them. Slipping her hand confidingly into her father ' s as she sits on a footstool at his feet, she begs her mother for a song. The lady smiles sadly and draws down from its place on the wall a rusty harp. Some of its strings are broken, telling of shattered chords in the harmony of her life. The soft liarp, so long hath been known To mingle love ' s language with sorrow ' s sad tone. Little by little the tired head of the child droops upon her father ' s knee, the long lashes fall over the dusky eyes, and Gruoch is asleep. The years have come and gone ; the summer flowers blossomed and faded again ; autumn flaun+ed her banners of crimson and gold to the sky and furled them. Time has touched the old castle gently and it is little grayer or grimmer than wlien we saw it years ago. But one voice is still forever in the silence of the tomb, and it is Gruoch ' s white hand which at eventide now wakes the echoes of the old harp for her father. The summer day is drawing to a close and the purple shadows are lengthening on the castle walls. On tlie threshold stands a girl, the same, and yet iiot the same, we knew of yore. The care- less grace of childhood has ripened into the lovely curves of wo- manhood, but the eyes, those wondrous, shadowy eyes, are still unchanged. There she stands in unconscious grace on the brink, with reluctant feet, Vhere the brook and river meet Womanhood and childhood fleet,

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THE AUGUSTA Seminary AnnuaId Vol. IV. Staunton, Va., May, 1894. No. 1 The Girlhood and Womanhood of Lady Macbeth. EVERY laiulscape lias its varying lights and shadows, its shift- ing scenes of brightness and of gloom ; and such is the girl- hood of Lady Macbeth to her after-life — a ])ackground whose golden sunshine and happiness only throw int j stronger relief the horror and darkness of her womanhood. Let us turn for awhile from that dark scene of sorrow and woe to the fairer picture lying back in the memories of the Past. Far uj) among the glens and rock-bound fastnesses of Elgin, upon the still, green shores of the loch, in whose blue depths the fleecy clouds sail slowly by, stands a Scottish castle, worn gray and grim with the lingering touch of time. Long, graceful festoons of ivy hang from turret and tower and lend their beauty to the crumbling walls. Out on the air floats the music of childish laugh- ter, and the old, grisled man-at-arms smiles as he hears the trip- ping feet, and says fondly to himself, It is my little Lady. Bounding lightly across the court comes the little girl ; the long, dark hair is wre athed around with the l)lue gentians she has gath- ered, and her great star-like eyes are glimmering through the mist of unshed tears. In her arms she carries a little bleating lamb. Donald, says she, and the childish voice is tremulous, please help me And the poor little lamb ' s mother. It got lost and was so lonesome out on the hills by itself. The old retainer, breath- ing a blessing on Gruoch ' s head, takes her little hand in his and, having done as she wished, leads her to the castle. On the threshold he pauses while the child runs forward and

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' Hie Augusta Seminary Annual. 3 •jiizini; toi-tli into tlic (lai ' kii( ' s . Who is it the Kiuly (iriioch ex- l)eets this iii , ' ht ' . No uX vv than Macbeth, Thane of (Tlaiiiis, and the son (»f licr father ' s friiMid. Stay ; even now the elear notes of the elai ' ion come echuiiii ; ii] the i;Ien. Ah I he is come; and the plaided, tartaned strange)-, witli the ea le feather in his bonnet, starts at tlie si ht of the iiirli h form in tlie doorway. He had not lioped to find so fair a Hower blooming in s j wihl a place. As for her, tlie brave blood of a long line of noble ancestors surges hotly throngh her veins as, at the sui)])er-l)oard that night, he tells of feats of arms and deeds of valor. The days tly by on golden wings, and still the young Thane stays, and (iruoch learns to find pleasure only when he is with her. Together they seek out the sweetest flowers of the wind- sheltered glens or ride to hunt at early dawn. The old Thane watches the pair well pleased, and wlien Macbeth at length asks the maiden ' s hand in marriage he gladly gives consent. Nfacbeth, rejoicing, carries the fair Ijride off to his own castle. But her woof of fate is woven ; she has reached the turning of the roads — the middle point — where the sunbeams of one path in- termingle with the shadows of the other. She has left the tur- rets and ivy-mantled battlements of her home, and her fate is tied to that of her husband for weal or for woe. To him she confides her earthly happiness, her life, her soul, her all, and to help him attain the golden round she hesitates not to sear her conscience and break her heart. Before long she is to prove the strength of that love she has declared for him. For him she tramples under foot all her natural tenderness and womanly weakness — outrages her very nature and finally dies. The powers of evil seem to have leagued together to destroy Macbeth ' s soul, and in the gray duskiness of the lonely heath the Weird Sistei ' s have already struck the evil chord in him which answers responsive to their touch. Glamis he is, and Cawdor and the other— he will attain. And so his wife through love for him and to gain for all his days and nights, Solely sovereign sway and masterdom, calls on the murdering ministers that wait on nature ' s mischief, to stop u]) the access and ])assage to remorse, that no compunctious visitings of nature shaixj her fell purpose. Yet, even then Mac-