There is a germ of bliss within her . Her long-hoarded constancy , her memory of the bliss that was remaining amid the gloom of her after-life like a sweet-smelling flower in a coffin , is a symbol that all may be renewed . In some happier clime the Rosebud may revive again with all the dewdrops in its bosom . THE THREEFOLD DESTINY . A FAËRY LEGEND . I have sometimes produced a singular and not unpleasing effect , so far as my own mind was concerned , by imagining a train of incidents in which the spirit and mechanism of the faëry legend should be combined with the characters and manners of familiar life . In the little tale which follows a subdued tinge of the wild and wonderful is thrown over a sketch of New England personages and scenery , yet , it is hoped , without entirely obliterating the sober hues of nature . Rather than a story of events claiming to be real , it may be considered as an allegory such as the writers of the last century would have expressed in the shape of an Eastern tale , but to which I have endeavored to give a more lifelike warmth than could be infused into those fanciful productions . In the twilight of a summer eve a tall dark figure over which long and remote travel had thrown an outlandish aspect was entering a village not in `` faëry londe , '' but within our own familiar boundaries . The staff on which this traveller leaned had been his companion from the spot where it grew in the jungles of Hindostan ; the hat that overshadowed his sombre brow , had shielded him from the suns of Spain ; but his cheek had been blackened by the red-hot wind of an Arabian desert and had felt the frozen breath of an Arctic region . Long sojourning amid wild and dangerous men , he still wore beneath his vest the ataghan which he had once struck into the throat of a Turkish robber . In every foreign clime he had lost something of his New England characteristics , and perhaps from every people he had unconsciously borrowed a new peculiarity ; so that when the world-wanderer again trod the street of his native village it is no wonder that he passed unrecognized , though exciting the gaze and curiosity of all . Yet , as his arm casually touched that of a young woman who was wending her way to an evening lecture , she started and almost uttered a cry . `` Ralph Cranfield ! '' was the name that she half articulated . `` Can that be my old playmate Faith Egerton ? '' thought the traveller , looking round at her figure , but without pausing . Ralph Cranfield from his youth upward had felt himself marked out for a high destiny . He had imbibed the idea -- we say not whether it were revealed to him by witchcraft or in a dream of prophecy , or that his brooding fancy had palmed its own dictates upon him as the oracles of a sybil , but he had imbibed the idea , and held it firmest among his articles of faith -- that three marvellous events of his life were to be confirmed to him by three signs . The first of these three fatalities , and perhaps the one on which his youthful imagination had dwelt most fondly , was the discovery of the maid who alone of all the maids on earth could make him happy by her love .
He was to roam around the world till he should meet a beautiful woman wearing on her bosom a jewel in the shape of a heart -- whether of pearl or ruby or emerald or carbuncle or a changeful opal , or perhaps a priceless diamond , Ralph XXXXX little cared , so long as it were a heart of one peculiar shape .
Cranfield Spain Turkish after-life evening first londe tinge twilight world-wanderer