A Mirror in Time

About the Author: Doris Gwaltney is the author of two adult novels, SHAKESPEARE'S SISTER and DUNCAN BROWDIE, GENT. Her middle-grade novel, HOMEFRONT, was published by Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers in 2006. Her poetry and short fiction have been published in Greensboro Review, Poet's Domain, The Beacon, The William and Mary Review, Virginia Adversaria, Cube, and In Good Company. She has presented workshops and served on panels at a number of colleges, and at The Virginia Festival of the Book. She teaches writing for the LifeLong Learning Society at Christopher Newport University, and resides in Smithfield, Virginia.

"A Mirror in Time" is a wonderful series of monologues of romantic--and sometimes not-so-romantic--love between people from our historic past: Will Shakespeare, Edgar A. Poe, Tsali of the Cherokee. Johannes Brahms. Harriet Tubman. General and Mrs. Pickett ...and others.

Book Excerpt (Copyrighted Material) :

Table of Contents
Preface
Chapter one: Katherine Parr
Chapter Two: Queen Elizabeth I
Chapter Three: William Shakespeare
Chapter Four: Susanna Wesley
Chapter Five: William Byrd II
Chapter Six: Patrick Henry
Chapter Seven: Tsali of the Cherokee
Chapter Eight: Edgar Allan Poe
Chapter Nine: Kate Hogarth Dickens
Chapter Ten: Johannes Brahms
Chapter Eleven: Emma Wedgewood Darwin
Chapter Twelve: Thomas Jonathan Jackson
Chapter Thirteen: Harriet Tubman
Chapter Fourteen: George Edward Pickett
Chapter Fifteen: La Salle Corbell

PREFACE
Thinking back to my childhood on a peanut farm in Isle of Wight County, Virginia, I remember a particular morning. It was summer. All the windows in the house were open. And I, the youngest of four daughters, having no assigned job to do, was sitting on the cool front porch in the shade of two huge maple trees. I was reading, of course. But then I heard voices. Two distinct voices. I knew them at once.
The sound grew louder as a mule and cart, bearing the two people, came into view and proceeded up the road. I could see them clearly across the large peanut field to the left of the house. Coming ever closer to our brick gateposts and the crepe myrtles that marked off our yard from the roadway.

As the mule and cart drew opposite the gateposts, I could catch a word or two of the conversation. Then slowly the sounds began to fade. The cart moved out of view. And I knew as sure as Christmas that Dinks and Vertly were on their way to Smithfield to buy some necessity. Dinks Pitt. Vertley Crumpler. They lived together. They weren't married. And no one else on any of the farms in the neighborhood was guilty of that fault.
I didn't know then that it was Common Law Marriage. I didn't know that within my lifetime it would become as ordinary as my own parent's marriage till death did them part. Or possibly beyond. Daddy died at 68 and Mama at 95. She lived 35 years after his death, and during any of those 35 years if anyone ever inquired if she was married, she said yes. In her mind she was.
But what of Dinks and Vertley?
"Dinks is all to me, everything," Vertley said. "We don't see nothin' unless we see it together. And we don't talk about nothin' unless we talk about it together."
All these years later, I can't think of the name Dinks without remembering Vertley. They go together. They are bigger than life. And their relationship, like Mama and Daddy's, lasted throughout their lifetime.

So is this what marriage truly is? A relationship that lasts throughout a lifetime and, by and large, brings happiness to both members of the couple? And what does love have to do with it? Love is not easy to define. We talk around it, drawing ever closer as generations pass. We know what it is, we feel it, but the concept is impossible to express to those who have not experienced it. An early edition of Webster's dictionary defines love as "affection of the mind excited by beauty or worth." That's getting closer, but a concrete definition still eludes us.
Marriage is defined as a legal union of a man and a woman. But is that also due for a change? What things really matter? There was a time when brides were captured from neighboring tribes and carried off to become a lifetime mate. Later, brides were bought. Still later, they were required to bring a dowry. Then troubadours sang of love and introduced the concept of romantic love to the world. Life has never been the same.
Throughout the ages, the institution of marriage waxed and waned, but always it affected people. And now the idea of relationship is taking on different connotations which also affect people and change history. The Oxford Desk dictionary states that a relationship is "an emotional association between two people," giving wide latitude to the idea. It is no longer true that the couple must be of opposite gender. Only that they desire to be together.
It seems to me that love, relationship and marriage are like a historical mirror. Two images reflecting two lovers and the time in which they live.