Henry Cuyler Bunner (1855-1896)
Bunner`s fame rests on the work he published in the last fifteen years of his life. Born at Oswego, N. Y., he went when he was very young to New York for his education. It soon became apparent that literature was to be his career, and he joined the staff of the Arcadian. Later he became the editor of Puck. The first of Bunner`s stories to meet with success was The Midge (1886), a tale of New York life. Then followed a number of others which were subsequently collected in several volumes, Short Sixes (1891) among them. His stories are distinguished by simplicity of motive, and are related with subtle humour and an underlying pathos, escaping any sentimentality.
A Letter and a Paragraph is reprinted from Stories of H. C. Bunner, copyright, 1891, 1896, by Charles Scribner`s Sons, by permission of the publishers.
A Letter and a Paragraph
The Letter
New York, Nov. 16, 1883.
My Dear Will
You cannot be expected to remember it, but this is the fifth anniversary of my wedding-day, and to-morrow it will be to-morrow before this letter is closed is my birthday my fortieth. My head is full of jhose thoughts which the habit of my life moves me to put on paper, ‘where I can best express them; and yet which must be written for only the friendliest of eyes. It is not the least of my happiness in this life that 1 have one friend to whom I can unlock my heart as I can to you.
The wife has just been putting your namesake to sleep. Don`t infer that, even on the occasion of this family feast, he has been allowed to sit up until half past eleven. He went to bed properly enough, with a tear or two, at eight; but when his mother stole into his room just now, after her custom, I heard his small voice raised in drowsy inquiry; and I followed her, and slipped the curtain of the doorway aside, and looked. But I did not go into the room.
The shaded lamp was making a yellow glory in one spot the head of the little brass crib where my wife knelt by my boy. I saw the little face, so like hers, turned up to her. There was a smile on it that I knew was a reflection of hers. He was winking in a merry half-attempt to keep awake; but wakefulness was slipping away from him under the charm of that smile I could not see.
His brown eyes closed, and opened for an instant, and closed again as the tender, happy hush of a child`s sleep settled down upon him, and he was gone where we in our heavier slumbers shall hardly follow him. Then, before I could see my wife`s face as she bent and kissed him, I let the curtain fall, and crept back here, to sit by the last of the fire, and see that sacred sight again with the spiritual eyes, and to dream wonderingly over the unspeakable happiness that has in some mysterious way come to me, undeserving.
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