The White Heron

I absolutely love Sarah Orne Jewett’s story “The White Heron;” the breathless cool beauty with which she painted her story is dynamic in a surprising way. In some ways, it reminded me of Hawthorne – but in most ways her voice is distinctive and hers.

“Has she been nine years growing and now, when the great world for the first time puts out a hand to her, must she thrust it aside for a bird’s sake? The murmur of the pine’s green branches is in her ears, she remembers how the white heron came flying through the golden air and how they watched the sea and the morning together, and Sylvia cannot speak; she cannot tell the heron’s secret and give its life away.”

I love the twining of life and beauty; no matter what we might say about Jewett’s faith, this is a very Christian idea. It seems like the dilemma set before Sylvia – accentuated to marvelous effect by Jewett’s regionalism – is love at the expense of life within the context of people, or life at the expense of love, within the context of the world. She chose the latter, and I don’t blame her. People are transitory, and love (although doubtless in the future little Sylvie will realize how necessary people, and by extension love for them, are.) for them fragile. The world, or nature at any rate, always remains more or less constant, and its enduring beauty was, to Sylvie at any rate, worth protecting over giving this new, pleasant, bloodied young man what he wanted. In some ways I envy this little girl her union with nature (not a naturalist. NOT.) if it was more of a means to enjoy and commune with God through His creation. Her choice was a completely valid one (even if it would be more meaningful if situated in a Christian context)—she kept her integrity with nature.