'^*(:^^;^^^ix::::,j:Mu:.t^.\ ^w^Ts^mm^ THE GIFT OF A- \'^'i>% Mr.lT. ^?S(^ Cornell University Library PN 6331.P14C4 Chatelaine, Cornell University Library The original of tliis book is in tine Cornell University Library. There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text. http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924027290729 The Chatelaine. "II libra del Perche stampato ancor non e." toe Peter Paul BMk emtms BRflalo, new y«rk 1*97 Copyright, J897 by G. E. X. Printed and bound by Tlie Peter Paul Book Company in Buffalo, Wew York. l)Old on, hope hard in the subtle thing Chat's spirit; though cloistered fast, soar free. —ROBERT BROWNINe. A DONNA,-Ia cara Donna mia,— commands me to fetch her a chatelaine:— "not one of those housewives' devices jin- flingf with scissors, needles, keys, ut one made up of countless chains, of countless lengfths, some of them mere links of a chain,— and all to have depending from them anhangsels, ikons, crosses, crescents,— symbols all, charms all." Such her command. Surely it were a simpler thing to build for la Donna mia, a shrine, — or, for her carve a prie-diea;— hut it is a chatelaine— shx. would have— a chatelaine, hung with signs and symbols, christian and heathen: these to be gathered from all lands; and among them she will find one — some— the which to hold between her hands' palms. Her hands' palms!— that sounds like prayer. Such her will:— I obey:— and pray la Donna mla to be my Cady of tbe Gbatelaine, to whom, on bended knee, I offer this her command, tbe Chatelaine. Hth FebruAty, 1897. HEN wofk is entered upon for a loved object, the mind pur- sues the tracks of ligfht with no common pleasure, and makes over the result of its labor without reservations or g:radations, since less than all could not satisfy a mind so inspired. T is amongf the pleasant truths of Friendship that it is not required to give security,— correspond Jngf to bonds in the commercial world,— but it is its privilege to offer evi- dences, the charm of which is their sim- plicity. A leaf, a flower, and Friendship has the better thing than bonds. WALLOW-WINGED is Love, sweeping the lake with wingfs of delicious joyousness and making between earth and sky fascinat- ing flights. . . . Eagle-winged is Friendship, making by ever ascending circles its rock-high eyrie, from whence, with wings pinioned for any storm, it makes its flights, as secure in the blast as does the swallow-winged in the breeze. HERE are no natures so beautiful as those which, like to sacred vestments, retain, however worn in service or desecrated by mutilation, their rich desig;n, mas- terful execution, soft coloring;. Note. — The emtiroidered ■wonders may be seen for a sbiUing in the churches' ward- robe rooms. ET the sense of feeling; he but fine enougfn^ and the wonder will cease that a princess there was who could not sleep because of a rumpled rose leaf in her pillow. 13 There are too many threads woven into so«I-Iife for the shuttle to have been in any hand but His who weaves the eternal destinies. HERE is in Nature an audible silence,— a silent noise,— that is the only acceptable accompani- ment to thougfhts that are as sensitive to the jar of social silence as to its noise. "Then,— ro«nd me the sheep Fed in silence— above, the one eagle •wheeled slow "It was a holy hush, a warning that heaven was stooping low to whisper some good thing to the listening earth,"— and " Once more the sti-ing Of my hai^ made response to my spirit." 15 EE to it that Opportunity weaves a woof fine, and that Purpose embroiders it fittingfly,— and thus wilt thou possess a veil as suited to thy soul's holy of holies as that which shut the inner from the outer court in Jerusalem's great temple. Beware of buildingf an altar, ''To the despaired of." Hope will waste none of her fire upon such. Any board is a festal board if at it we drink^ with another, the wine of life. 17 T is well that the lines of some lives are cast in the open, indif- ferent as they are to the conven- tional, caringf only for the full, strong air of life. To such, soci- ety living would be a tormenting yoke, and like the untamed, caged, creat- ures of the mountains, they would ever be pining for the succulent bit of stalk among the rocks. So perfectly is the natural born in bone and blood of them, that it seems the dead and gone is incar- nate, toned only a trifle by latter-day conditions. How, they love it all:— the hills and forests!— and the crunch of the leaves, noiu, under their feet ! Savage ? Yes, in their untamed love of the mountain's majesty, of the plain's beauty, of the sea's grandeur, of the desert's si- lence! Nature's love unchangeable. •JWTt" HE secrets of the violet and the rose d^readily reveal themselves in mad flats where the warmth of dear old mother earth is extinct, the wonder is that they blos- and som at all. HERE are words of which every lettef holds a mystery; and though there is a key, we do not always care to use it, since for the sake of the sense of joy there is in the unexplored, we would not repeat, in its entirety, any one sentence. THE PURPLE GALLERY. HEN the dost and heat of the way hegfin to doll the brain, and an almost fatal inertia overtakes it, wander into The Purple Gallery, breathe its atmosphere, and turn the leaves of book and book; not for study but for the sake of being borne along; on winged words through the days and to be floated on the dreams and fan- cies of them into the oblivion of nieht. A close, snug place this Purple Gallery, with comers into which any dreams will fit, any moods find sympathetic touch. Here the spirit rules: and here the brain wakes to the heroic or sleeps in dreams, whichever chances to be the "sweet will" of it. A book ties open:— the eye follows a line and the ear hears the soft notes of some sweet singer,— a wail,— a chant,— a song coming out of the distance ; thrill- ing with its sadness, comforting with its sweetness. A book lies open:— its pages half hid- den in obscurity, that obscurity which ''proceeds from the profoundness of the sentences; containing: contemplation on those human passions which are either dissembkd, or not commonly discoursed of } and do yet carry the g^reatest influ- ence among; men. An obscurity come of that strong: individuality which subtil- izes, rationalizes, concentrates,— which crowds the use of words, and thinks more than words can express. Sentences, full stored with meaning;, and words sen- tences." The eye follows the pagfe, and the brain wakes to the heroic A new world is discovered, and Thougfht the courier of it. No long;er is the will subject, but master, —sovereign supreme ! A Viking is watching from his ship's prow the sun chase the mists from the mountain's side, disclosing to him the place of the buried gold. The ship's prow strikes the shore,— the Viking walks along the shelv- ing bank,— at a turn, the bank breaks away and a rock, cold and hard, juts out, — the way ends. A rock, cold and hard, but wearing a crown of superb life;— a tall, straight pine, that tosses its head in feathery fullness against the sky, and with its roots overspreads the rock's hardness. The Viking questions, What kind of an affinity is this? Why a form so splendid in itself, should thus cling to a rock:— a thing througfh which the warm throb of life never passed ? Law ?— what law? The book lies open. Here is a life that had failed in the attainment of its possibilities unsupported. The soft, yieldingf earth had failed to raise it sky- ward, or to brine from it those g'entle qualities that made the rock beautiful as a thingf of life : and thoug;h the rock felt not the warmth of those clinging roots,nor the pine a response to the pulse of its life currents, a law, beneficent in its exac- tions, was fulfilled. The gold is within the Viking's grasp ! A book ties open:— and from the page a cry of pain comes through the Gallery's silence. "Oh, why should the great Creator shatter one of His most admi- rable works? If the order of the sun and the stars is adorable, if the law by which earth and sea are governed man- ifests the Hand of Supreme Wisdom and Power, how much greater than these the perfection of beauty, as manifested in man. And here, a soul,— rich in gifts, rich in attainment, placed in a form sur- passingly lovely, and this form so surpass- ingly beautiful in its union with, and subordination to the soul, as to be almost the soul's true expression: yet this choic- est, rarest being, this rarest specimen of the 23 Almigfhty's skill He has pitilessly shat- tered, in order, that it may inherit a higher and eternal perfection! O mys- tery of mysteries, that heaven may not be obtained without such sacrifice ! And the awful mystery remains to that day when all things shall be made light." Love, here had laid a parting benediction upon ''the head of the beloved and gone on his way in rapturous sorrow," crying, singing, oh, "Heart of my heart, when that great light shall fall Boming away this veil of earthly dust. And I behold thee beautiful and stroi^, My own true, perfect angel, wise andjust— If the strong passion of this mortal life Should in me vital essence still remain, Would there be then, as now, some cruel bar On which my tired hands shall beat in vain ? Or shall I, drawn and lifted, folded close In eager asking arms, unlearn my fears. And in one transport, ardent, ■wild and sweet. Receive the blessings of the endless years ? " Crying, singing, till the great light shall A book ties open: — a.a.(i through its pages run, what " Was the site once of a city great and gay." The spirit is fascinated with the story of its vanished greatness ; by its vanished gayety appalled. There, on the level length of hill run the broken ramparts:— 24 so broken that the lizard scarce finds shelter from the blaze of the sun that scorches and sears the forsaken land, bat, " Soch plenty and perfection see, of grass Never was I Such a carpet as, tfiis suminer-time> o'erspreads And embeds Every vestige of the city, ........ Oh heart 1 oh blood that freezes, blood that bums ! Earth's returns For vrhole centuries of folly, noise and sin I Shut them in, 'W^ith their triumphs and their glories and the rest I Love is best." A book ties open.*— and all the Gallery is suffused with a light, warm and glow- ing. The eye glances down the page, and the brain feels unmeasured charm in that art which has here hung a morning- like mist about word-pictures, to soften lines too realistic and to enhance their beauty by a beautiful half-concealment. Poetic art here disposes of words with skill as consummate as that which an artist of the brush employs, when he drapes, without concealing, the beauty of his modeL In this art there is no need to transfer a story,— the charm of which is personal,— into the impersonal, and there to manipulate the 'oerve poetiqae out of it ; but here, draped with all delicate af- fluence, it retains its own wealth of indi- 25 vidoality, so that minds alike, whether ethereal ot material are charmed:— charmed with that poetic decorum which handles a delicate subject with that high- bred delineation which is the true beauty of all art. The ever softeningf light in the Gallery reveals, yet more and more, the wonderful beauty of the page's senti- ment,— the wonderful beauty of thoughts that breathe and of words that burn,— of pauses as eloquent as the sentences ! Like rich, picturesque tapestry, the story has been fashioned upon a woof almost coarse; for such woof lends itself to masterful dramatic representation just as did the hempen stuffs to the needle-poets of the middle ages. Ah ! those courtly dames, who with soft wools, and here and there a shimmering thread, stitched pictures wherein, though we see a spasmodic rough- ness in natures otherwise fine, the poetic delineations are through and through suf- fused with that uniform coloring which gives to every sentiment an underglow as pure as it is rich ! c/1 book ties open.*— and the eye follows a fine line down the page's margin to where a thought is set aside,— a trysting ground for two I Companionship grows close. Here is granted the privilege to take large outlooks into the intellectual and spiritual living of another. The privilege to see its possibilities, to feel its experiences, its meanings, its realities. And through the gleam and splendor of these, to see, with no uncertain distinct- ness, a. personality,— ooiae. here, into The 'Purple Gallery, to establish a companion- ship;— a companionship independent of conditions or circumstances. From henceforth these are to see through the same window,— from henceforth to wor- ship at the same shrines— /rom henceforth! From henceforth to feel the infinite charm in discovering how hidden is life,— hidden in its openness under the very light that makes bright its noonday of social en- tretiens:— to feel the infinite charm in discovering how it speaks its own lan- guage, enjoys its own joys, seen and not seen, lives alone and not alone. Why so difficult the recognition that makes such companionship possible? Why? There is one heard to answer, "The continual deceptions imposed upon us by society, called manners, politeness, consideration, make our entire life a masquerade," wherein " Love itself dares not to speak its own language or main- tain its own silence." Here, in The Purple Gallery, all this masquerading ends. Companionship grows close:— the best of two lives, the dross of neither, coalesce 27 and make an opalistic virtue^— a gem in its own right,— wherein all the scintillat- ing fires of love are safely fased with and into, the white light of friendship. A gem to be worn upon the brow as upon the heart. A book lies open:— and the spirit rules! Dreamily a white-wonder of a cloud floats across a narrow strip of sea:— and the morning paints her ensign on the vanishing darkness. Nearness grows! The old and the new troop into that hidden place where Life abides! The cramped and confined conditions of ex- istence, are gone. From across the nar- row strip of sea,— over book and book,— nearer, nearer,- till the ear catches the clear notes of the old Persian singer,— singing, come " With me along the strip of herbage strown. That just divides the desert from 4e sown— Where name of Slave and Sultan is forgot,— A book of verses underneath the bou^ A jug of wine, a loai of (wead-and Thoa Beside me singing in the wilderness — Oh, wilderness were Paradise enow I Wander on, through The Purple Gal- lery:— a^/^^e books He open,— And adown their pages bloom the snow-white lilies of prayer,— the blood-red poppies of 28 dreams. The same life:— the same hope; —the same want:— "A jog of wine, a loaf of twead— and Thou" bat, "Into the 'wilderness Love went in search of Love— and lost himself." HE wind, the *am, and the sunshine permeate Nature, darch unddarch, and, with a minute and delicate tenderness, help her to develop her beauty, until, its perfection warrants some "Wind of the summer mom, Tearing the petals in twain, 'Waiting; the fragrant soul Of the rose through valley and plain," to that demesne in which the Summer has failed to fulfill the promise of the Spring ! 30 HEN one being; holds in completeness the imagination of an- other, no third, from whatsoever point of the compass he may enter, will be able to cast a shadow thereon. 31 HERE are possessions that sleept as it were, in one's bosom^ and are constantly testifyingf to their nearness by being oftenestinone'sthougfhts. When these thoughts lead to acts they are the fullest, the freest, and ought to be the best;— with thought widening and deepen- ing as time goes on. O thoughts make thei* own en- vironments, or do the environ- ments make thoughts? Try- turning the leaves of Thought to the rhythm of mighty winds, wherein the very pauses are filled with the thunder-notes of a coming storm! Try turning them to the softer ways of Nature,— where the land ripples, like water, away from the hills to lose itself in those grassy dells, to which the morn- ing breezes come, riding on a witchery of white cloud and from which they steal away with the perfume of the dells! Try. " street imaginings are as an air, A melody some wondrous singer sings." 34 " But thoughts are free and visions play. Free as tfae air tliis Auttunn day— ' Yet wliat they are, I will not say," ** 'Tis better ; tlien the silence grows To that decree, you half beUieve It must get rid of ■what it kno'^rs Its bosom does so heave." Thoughts there are he will not say. Locked in his heart, from the ^rorld away: None quite worthy on ivhom to bestow— No wonder that, for this I know— If the thot^hts that swell -within his breast Are as fond and true as those expressed The life that shared them blest would be As a ship safe in from a storm-tossed sea. I hear a. refrain 1 it is floating a Alone. With hand outstretched To ask by gentle knock admission,— As humblest knight might do,— When, softly on its hinges, swung The temple's door, and there, With downcast eyes and timid grace One questioned. Why, Sire, for entrance ask? Dost mou not wear the signet ring ? And, art thou not of iul this land and temple. King?" Then answered he, — 'with look most reverent, E'en pleading, gtowa,— " 'Tis true. Fair Lady, tliat I wear the signet ring : But come I here in quest of crown ; No king is wholly king till he be croTvned." Then 3ae, with changing color on her brow and cheei^ " And is it so tliat yet thou dost possess No crown ?— and that, the one,— the one,— Just tliere— beyond— " :(and pointing To a veil, a shimmering vei^ Which like to that between the outer and the inner court Of Solomon's great temple hung)- "Beyond— is thine? . . . Thy cro'wn to wear?" Thrai he, with joy of answered searching, "Thou say' si Us there ?— Thou ... say'st . . . Just there — beyond ? Wilt lead ni«, Lady fair ? - . . . My arm about thee,— so :— not for support— But to make sure that thou indeed Art leading me. Thou 1 ... So, see, I follow I See, ... Seel- 1 -walk with thee I . . . . And all thy flowing draperies of filmy lace Clinging and shaping themselves to thy soft motion 1 — Ah 1 -what king ever trod his -way to throne Like this I Look up,— mine own,— look up into mine eyes— Ah l-'tis true I-'tis true I-I see 1-SecI- Thine eyes I — So ■wondrous deep 1— Down In their liquid deeps I see,— thy soul I — Thy very soul 1 What see'st thou in mine ? My soul, or, thine ?— Thou canst not tell ? Nor L- But, ah, thine eyes 1— What wondrous eyes I Look on I— Art leading me ? or, dost thou foIlow^? . What matter,— min^ —look on I . . . Look on I— Take not thy hand from mine 1 . , . .... The veil?— Aye, true:— yet not thy hand alone I— See,— thus in mine,— in mine I— Togetherl " The veil, soft, shimmering. Fell to place again. 58 It would be graceless ingfrati- tude in him wno has found joy to fail to make rejoicings and to invoke blessings. 69 O be in a position that exempts one from the results of circumstances ex- traordinary, is to enjoy a royal reprieve from discipline. T is only now and then that we may cut through the gordian knot of things; for the most part we must with pa- tient fingers untie it. N emergfencies nature is too swift in its actions for the cooperation of the more or less deliberate will, and so commits that " worse than a crime, a blunder." But, it is thus that experience is gained. T is a brave spirit that can go on livingf amongf the tattefs and rags of other men's doings. To such a spirit there is a wonder side, a sort of mosaic, wherein if one bit is somber another is full of color ; and so the Master's de- sign is made perfect. F you may not he spared from the orchestra in which you have sigfned a life contract^— not for one hour spared,— how are you not to hear the dissonance when your associates play out of time and tune ? In that most beautiful of the Saint Cecilias she lisiens to a chorus that she sees not, in the air above. 64 HE necessary in most de- partments of life over- laps and even effaces the contingent, and un- der the ruling of this autocratic tyrant beautiful wishes and strong desires are alike helpless to serve the crea- ture man,— unless it be at inter- vals, when he is allowed to come to the surface for one refreshing breath. 65 T was up amongf the fastnesses of the Grampians, where "the winds had been so tempestuous that the eagfles had forsaken their nests," that we hegfan wishing for the softer ways of the south wind and dreaming; dreams of —a far away land, A land of glory and sfiiminering sand, ^here soft are the nights and clouds unseen, The land of the Pharaohs,— the land of our dream! But we dreamed not that that wind, so tempestuous, would follow us down from Scotland's Iiilk to make " weather " in the Bay of Biscay, gather force among the Spanish Sierras, and toss us with as little ceremony as it had the eagles from their nests, into the very Bay of Algiers. Sure- ly no old pirate of these seas ever intro- duced his captives to this beautiful bit of water with a courtesy so rude as this of our north wind, and most surely no cap- tive of them all ever greeted the freeboot- er's harbor with such delight. Algiers !— the pearl ! The Arabs are fond of com- paring this gem of their country to a dia- mona in an emerald setting, but the fig- ure impoverishes the richness of a scene that is soft and warm with life and throb- bing with the fulness of life. . . . The emerald green of the hills does not hold 66 this wlihe^ gflistening; Alg-emie g;em as a setting its oiamond, but allows the gem to sink into the soft greenness as grace- fully as an anemone into the green waters of the sea, " See the Bay of Naples and die " is a proverb ; See Algiers and her bay and Ime! is a truth. Live to climb the terracelike ways of the hills* far tops and look away to the foot of the Atlas mountains that lie beyond the verdant plain of the Metidja,— live to wander from mosque to villa that hide themselves in the sylvan recesses on the gentle slopes of the Sahel,— live to loiter about the roadways that overhang the sea at one point, and are at another lost in forest recesses,— live to lie upon the shell-strewn beach that stretches between the sea and those gardens of palms and aloes, of orange and lemon,— gardens Arcadian,— that make of Mustafa Superieur a para- dise spot,— live to drift back by starlight, from Cape Matifou through twelve miles of water liquid gold,— yes, live to see all this and more, in a land where Nature wears that marvelous yasmack which is made by the mists of the sea, the blue of the sky, the radiance of the sun, the soft- ness of the stars; and which makes of her a beauty truly ra^issante. Through this shimmering veil we had our first vi- sion of Oriental beauty, and in the light of that vision out little boat weighed anchof, stood out to sea, and spread her sails to Skirt the shores of tliat sea most fair>— To drink the sweet fragrance that fiiUed the air,— To rock safe at anchor within the bay Where Carthage' proud queen gave shelter one day To the ships of a lover,— faithless he As the waves that drove him in from tlie sea. Then, away to the land where no cloud d'wells. And again the sails the full breeze swells. Oh, rapturous life, beyond compare I — Fill the cup brimming,— a bounteous share. And drink to the life and the love of to-day As we sail toward the Nile-land, the Nile-land awayl 68 EEP faith with pretty traditions,— imagfine veiled beauty to be all that it appears,— super- latively beautiful,— and the unveiled reals of the Occi- dent will be transformed into something like the veiled ideals of the Orient. N Eastern legfend tells, how when Paradise faded from earth a singfle rose was saved and treas- ured by an angel, who gives to every mortal, sooner or later, one breath of fragrance from the immor- tal flower, one alone. I thought all roses perished With the paradise that ^rent, Nor dreamed an angel cherished With one, the dear intent, To some day, sooner, later, give The heavenly breath and bid me live. I breathed that one, that one alone. Life-breath by angel given,— And heard the words,— "/^ shall a.ione For all tkou'si lost and strhien." The angel spoke blest words to me : I listened, looked, and, lo 1 'twas thee! 70 Imagination paints all portraits, that it loves, miniature fine. TALY has no more shrines at which to pray, no more saints to whom to pray than has a nature which, Italy like, glows in a gflory of ligfht and color in the morning of desires and languishes in a soft radi- ance in the evening of their setting. To such a nature the ideal possesses a charm as potent in the fading radiances as in the glowing ones: and its prayers being not less idealistic at the shrine whose light shines dimly through the gathering mists, its fervor is not less than when it knelt at that one whose every stone was effulgent with the light of the morning sun. 72 F it is with true reverence that we press our fore- heads 'sfainst the earth before the shrines of Na- ture, we will not come short in making respectful obei- sance before the brick and mor- tar altars of the world. 73 ET not Heresy sit beside you in the pleasant places of thoug;ht, for it is a subtle artist, and will as surely set up in forest gflade as in ca- thedral nave that imag-e which is from head to feet of gold and pre- cious metals ; but the feet being: of base material— clay— at a stroke it will fall. Rather look up through the forest leaves to the stars and in them read the everlasting truth. Quarrel with no circumstance of pleasure, be it in the embryo of an anticipation or in a real- ity but half consummating^ the anticipation. 75 LUE skies, bluer seas, a long stretch of African mountains, past the smokeless cone of Etna, sky and sea, and then, in the dis- tance delicately and firmly cut in the yellow and crimson of the Eastern sky,— Egypt, the Nile land, the land of our dreams ! " Look off, deat Love, across the sallow sands And mark yon meeting of the sun and sea— How loi^ they kissi— in sight of all the lands,— Ah, longer, longer we 1 Now in the sea's red vintage melts the sun, As Egypt's pearl dissolved in rosy wine,— And Cleopatra's night drinks all. 'Tis done. Love, lay thy hand in mine." Yes, look,— look off across the sallow sands, and see how these come creeping, creeping- to the very borders of that mys- terious River ! The old Land's life I See how, sphinxlike, "the mighty fallen" are crouching in the deeps of that sallow sand, warming their broken hearts against the old Land's breast, and taking the hot kiss of great Ra and the soft embrace of lovely Isis with a grace not less proud than when they stood in prime of glory on these same sallow sands. It is only solemn Osiris that has grown more solemn and keeps watch with more of silence beside Mer,— beloved,— and Mena's slia^owy figure hovere in deeper shadow over the borderland of history and tradi- tion. These all are here, but where are Thoth, Anubis, Horus, Hathor ? Where Saf and Khem, Hek and Seb? And where, O where, loveliest goddess of the land. Ma, with her scales of Justice and her scepter of Truth ? Gone ? Gone, and not gone,— but kneeling deep in the Deserr s sands, or close to thy mysterious waters, O thou River of life to the land of the Pharaohs! Memphis, Thebes, Karnak, all kneeling,— standing,— in their mighty grandeur while the Nile pulses by them and between the soft green of the pasture lands;- holding in abeyance the shifting sands of the Great Desert. A narrow strip, these pasture lands, with a hungry world feeding on them: a wide stretch, that scorched Desert, with a no less hungry world searching for food. But the Arab loves his desert j loves it none the less because of hunger,- wanders among its silences, slakes his thirst at the well by the palm's roots, stretches himself to rest in the cool green of its oasis,— makes it all his,— this far-reaching Desert, —and leaves it only when he goes to sing under some latticed window, " I love thee, I love bttt thee." But it is the sound of a mighty chorus 77 that we hear. The chorus of the centu- ries ! Hear it, as it comes sweeping down the River past Karnak, past Thebes, past Memphis,— sweeping through the pylons' splendid arches, through the temples' empty chambers, through the tombs' grim silences— sweeping down and around the Pyramids and the Sphinx,— sweeping across the dumb Desert,— sweeping down, ever adown theRiver,— the River 1— until it breaks its mighty volume along the shores of the Sea and we hear the prom- ise,— the promise of the chorus of the centuries,— "Till the sun groTos cold, cAnd the stars are old, c4nd the lea.'oes of the Judgment Book unfold! " Then these shall stand, shall kneel, shall warm their broken hearts against their Mother's breast, shall feel the kiss of the Sun-god and the embrace of Luna's lovely goddess,- shall feel all this " Till the sun grovjs cold,"— shall know all this " Tm the stars are old,"- shall live all this " Till the lea'ves of the Judgment Book unfold! " Such the promise of the chortts of the centuries ! Hear ye, hear ye, O ye gods of Egypt?— " Till the lea.'oes of the Judgment Book unfold! " 79 "The river is lost, if the ocean it miss ; If the sea miss the river, what matter? " What becomes of Philosophy when the eyes mast see othet sights than the dear little delights that so contented them?— for though Time counts for naught when folded Back upon itself, the days stand full revealed 1 And all the coming ones unroll Along the path -we tread : yei halcyon days do have the necromancer's skill to conjure up, at will, these "dear little delights " with a pathos too tender for Philosophy's handling. 81 Give to a chance 1>eg:mningf the breeze of fortunate circum- stance^ and you are possessed of that hiessed thing called Provi- dence. 82 HEN two lives are mixed by the same force they do not readily resolve apart agfain; and if that force has taken a hand in mix- ing the wishes, desires, affections, and purposes of these lives, it will take more than the separa- tion of body from body to re- solve them apart. S3 HE trouble and pain of dis- tance is that the fine splin- ters of lives wrenched apart stretch out and feel contin- ually the numbness and chill of separation ; but the pleasure and joy of it is to "See how I come, tmclianged> unworn! — Feel wbete my life broke off from tliine, How fresh the splinters keep and fine,— Only a touch and we combine 1 " 84 Such a starved bank of moss Till, that May mom Blae ran the flash across : Violets were bom I Sky— wliat a scowl of cloud Till, near and far, Ray on ray split the shroud : Splendic^ a star I World —how it walled about Life with disgrace Till God's own smile came out ; That was thy face 1 Robert 'Browning, HEN Robert Browning; died, this world shrunk to a commoner evenness. In his life was the flame of the "old and dear," and heat enough to fuse soul and flesh into a being worthy to be called a man ! . . . And when some hand wrote (and left it on his grave), "Yes, I give thee highest praise when I say, through thee I am nearer to God," that hand wrote for many. Balance, measure^ rhythm! Listen when these come togfeth- e.t to play in the orchestra of a single life, and you will hear a symphony. 87 HE history of a woman made famous on the sacred page by the fulfillment of a mission that was laid upon her tells also of how she was possessed of that beauty which equipped her for any call within a woman's sphere and, in this special mission, out of it. The story reads, " She clothed herself with the garments of her gladness and put sandals on her feet, and took her bracelets and corslets and rings and adorned herself with all her ornaments: and the Lord also eave her more ieaa/y/" — "exceedingly beautiful" is the epithet on the sacred page. She added to native beauty rich and varied ornament, and together the natural and the superficial equipped her for her mission. The story is as old as the page on which it is recorded ; and the idea holds that beauty and such orna- mentation as may enhance it, are a wo- man's natural right, nor are they, when kept under a rule of a sweet decorum, the helpers or cause of the untrue— that untruth which springs from the corrupt nature of man when fostered by the most delusive of senses, sight. Mere plastic beauty, with its more or less of added ornament, has in itself no distinct power over minds that recognize soul in its classic outline. To such, ornamentation 88 holds that relative value which the dra- peries that an artist uses have to the statue. It is the statue^ pure and simple in its classic lines, that holds the charm : the draperies are accessory. The intel- ligence, the tact, the gfrace to subordinate aU accessories to the real, to the true beauty of the mind and heart, to give to each its classic finish, to make all coa- lesce and harmonize, is a gift,— is God's beauty,— the rarest of gms, and is a beauty not to be concealed by those dra- peries which a woman in her love of the beautiful employs. It is not the material form nor any adornment of it that works the charm all-powerful, but the mind, the soul. These seem to touch the body, as it were, with their grace, and it becomes a beautiful expression of God's beauty. This is the beauty that is a glory to the awakened mind, an enigma to the un- awakened. Busy as the world is in dis- cerning and comparing the beauty of women, few recognize the source of its power and fewer appreciate the real power there is in the harmonious blending of the two forces, the within and the without. It is when this blending is absolutely har- monious that we have the type, perfect, beauty in classic outline. The possessor of this sequence of beauty must be content with the epithets ** handsome," " refined," "cultivated,** mindful that it is not given to every social astronomer, however per- severinof in research, to see how " one star differeth from another star in gloty/^ 90 oil woman ! Lovely woman 1 Nature made thee To temper man : we had been brutes without you ; Ai^els are painted fair> to look like you : There's in you all that we believe of heaven, Amasing brightness, purity, and truth. Eternal joy and everlasting love. Thomas Otiua.y. 1682. 91 O petv ancient or modern, has given so delicate a delineation of love's experiences as that of Aristophanes, the Greek satir- ist, Aristophanes meets Pe- trarch in Elysium and questions him about Dante and himself. Petrarch answers, " I had now for a long time been furnishing my mind with much impor- tant knowledge, some of which I had al- ready given to the world in books, when that Laura (quella Laura), of whom I have spoken, came into my view. I do not know how it was that now all these thoughts of mine, scattered before in many directions, came suddenly together, into one mass, and turned themselves upon this one woman, so that she became the master of my intellect more than I myself. No other object was before my eyes : I saw Laura only. One glance of hers, a sigh, a smile, her pose, began to be to me things of moment, so that I gave myself up to portraying them in verse. Nor can I ac- count for it how everything I had ever gained by study was forthwith turned into use to ornament the pictures I made. These were seen by men, and they were pleased with them; and so to the stimulus of love was joined that of fame. From thenceforth I felt myself ever more and more animated and transported both by impulse and effort, so that I devoted my- self entirely to painting; her and me. Then I studied my own heart as people study books, only with much more dili- gence; and by this self -study and self- acquaintance, I discovered in my heart, in its every slightest movement, whether of hope, of fear, of grief —of every feeling, in fine— an infinity of circumstances with which to embellish and increase my in- ward affections, and with which I quickly colored them and put them into words, thus giving outward form to my inward feelings and making a picture of them. Thus it came to pass that every man who saw the representation of what he felt within himself stopped to look, finding in my pictures the similitude of his own feelings; and in his wonder that every inmost impulse could be thus clothed in palpable substance {potesse severe iatdo corpo) he exclaimed, in recognizing the portrait, 'How true!'" Aristophanes here tells Petrarch that the great success he met in the popularity of his work was because he had handled a subject that was not only universal but a '* common vice " —{it'oizio comune) at which Petrarch ex- claims, " No, no, Aristophanes ! not vice. I would have you know that in regard to the passion of love I depict naught else than that which is noble, courteous. gffaceful. In nature there are many aspects— infinite beauty, gfreat ugliness: but he who would copy her should select the beautiful in her j and he who does not cannot be called a g:ood artist, but is one of those painters who make a likeness from defects, lends his brush to dispropor- tions, and produces ugliness,— nature car- icatured. From such work, as from fire, I keep clear." Having thus defended himself and his art against the charge of vice, Petrarch proceeds to question why it was and how it was that Laura had spoiled his appreciation of objects attrac- tive, his eyes seeing one object only,— " Sul una. donna, veggio, e'l suo bet 'visa." With Petrarch it was personal beauty that touched the soul's chord; with many another man, mien, manner, sense, senti- ment. Soul-traits of inborn nobleness have been as all-inspiring and as potent to make a man cry " Sul una donna 'oeggio, e'l suo bet visa!" for, from whatever its conccption,Platonic love— an innocent name for a very com- plicated misery— is easily nurtured. It is only needful that a beauty pleasing to the mind of a lover pass before his real or mental vision, and the elevation to the 94 throne of tlie senses or of tlie soul begins. In gentle^ courteous speech, mind gets an index of mind ; and if the gifts of that mind are rare enough, gentle speech will make them, as it were, translucent not only in words but in every accompanying attitude. However patrician these gifts may be, courtesy and modesty will play noble parts, and sentiment will throw its multicolored light upon the scene and call the two, " bom the ■wiiole wide world apart," to recognize, and to " read life's meaning in each other's eyes." Then comes the suffusion of delicate feel- ings, partly harmonious, partly sympa- thetic, and the mind is in a glow. So far all may have been spontaneous, natural, but it is here that a battle is to be fought if the affections are not to be allowed further advance. Will now takes "a hand " and the mind concurs and acts so that what was spontaneous becomes pur- pose. The affections are stimulated to an infinite degree just as a flame will as- cend if the hot coals, smoldering under ashes, are fanned by a wind. And this is precisely what Petrarch did: he stirred the ashes and, as his sonnets show. kept fanningf them until the delicious agitation became all-powerful, and will and reason powerless, at the helm of a life driven before such a tempest. Such the life of Petrarch and such that of Heloise —deepest souled woman ! Petrarch took to poetry, Heloise to piety ; but they had, like Hercules, wrapped about them the flaming vesture— no relief— the story of its pain and its pleasure alike, in three words, "Sul una. donna. I " Un sol uotno I 96 ET poets pierce Nature's g^Ioom and flood her beauty with the transcendent lie;ht of their poetic imaginations; out go not to them for the moral law, nor for that sublime truth which underlies law. They are not lawgivers unless it be on Love, and then they write law for that phase of love which is oftener traced on the sands of earth than that which is written on the vault of heaven ; and, besides, they have special genius for introducing pret- tily phrased heresies which come to per- vade belief like the pure white mists that rise among the mountains and settle over the lower heights. Such mists do not stop life or its duties, but they do prevent thosein them from an all-embracing view, and, above all, prevent a view of that sunlight which does so glorify the upper air,— above the mists,— and in which the true poet, living ever in the sunlight of his own high endowments, must rejoice. These heresies are more often the result of poetic license than of intent to dim that spiritual vision which needs, in com- ing from oblivion into light, to see the full glory of the Throne of Love. g^^JHILOSOPHY finds the «Iti- §^ mate meaning of the uni- vei^e under the notion of the ego J poetiy looks through the worlds of time and space as through a sublime symbol to the eternal beauty ; morality, as the vic- torious struggle of the personal soul after righteousness, discovers God through life. We need philosophy with its notion, and poetry with its symbol, and morality with its life. These three great expressions of the human spirit must ever remain." 98 Romance,— would it diffe* so materially today from yesterday did the press and the telegfraph not deny to hero and heroine the wearingf of the impersonal domino ? 99 I would have five mottoes: so, I totn to you, Who are ever in touch with the old and the new, And you answer, taking my hand : "First, a command,— ' Ma.rk the hoars thai shine. And choose yoct in iheir tight a. friendship, fine/ Second, a prayer,— And feel you how it fills the air 1— ' Let me dream my dream !' — Fills the air, and holds you hea'oen and earth betiueen ! Third, a promise (That sounds like a bliss I ), 'All things come to those 'who 'wait! ' And this leads straightway to the Fourth,— /Ae gate At tvhich I linger,— to -whisper in your ear, 'My happiest moments center here.' Now, prithee, you the Fifth on me bestow. Hearl?- For warmth and shelter w^here to go / knoi=oi ! I knofw ! " SAINT GEORGE'S DAY. Some wind blew a ikrwet (Aye, kno-w I itom where I ). It fell at my feet, on the still evening air. I caught tL and whispered : Bright one, thou must go On a journey this night, and bestow A joy —pure as thyself ! - Harkl— No footsteps draw near?— Then, sweet one, thl] token! . . That's alL Hell know - At eve, morn, or noontide. In cloister or hall, Who's there by his side," 101 HIS MADONNA. What thought the mastef 'When he fixed this angel face In sky of gold?— here, in holy place,— The cIou£ soft, filmy, as her falling lace. Thought he that men would come With reverence, her royal state to sefe ? And seeing, turn in prayer— as she— Their eyes,— beyond the plac^— and fall on bended knee? 'Tis true. That so the master thought :— And thus the inspiration, cat^ht Fire to brush,— and lo, he painted as God taught. 102 HIS CROWN. See, ho'w it glows (Fail mercy God bestows) Glows w^ith heaven's imprisoned light, Now finished is the earthly fight,— And pinioned full, his soul above Floats ever, in God's light and love. 103 It is said that if we do but live longf enough we will find in the memories of a welded friendship the only point at which thought comes in joyous touch with human life. 104 Memory glows along ttie sky line, Dyes the clouds of me like wine, Leads us tbrough bet sacred temples, Stays our feet by every shrine. Catches quickly each lo'^ heart moan. Clasps us in her arms, alone, Whispers softly of a future That would surely all atone. Thus in tenderest pity does she Call, or w^oo a hope for us. Mindful ever, gentle spirit. That all hope is one ^th trust. N a disappointment that is att disappointment a pure bitter remains that no after sweet will take away, which leaves the taste unimpaired,— no mixed flavor of half pleasure, but pure and fine, without taint of com- mon sweets. And yet to determine to save one's self the pure bitter of a disappointment by denying one's self the sweet sipping at an anticipation is to lose, " most like," all pleasure. UT satisfaction to a cra- cial test, and it will be found to consist of but little more than that a swallow feels in dippingf its beak, or sweeping the surface of the lake with its wing; and yet, there are deep satisfactions. 107 "What the ligfht of day fails to discover is, in some night, by the altar's lamp, reveakd. 108 THE VOICE OF IMPATIENCE. Say Y/heOf—iot tbe year is 'wearing on, And the days are gray, and all time is long, And the leaves that reddened in Autumn's glow Are fallen and sere on the earth below. THE VOICE OF PROMISE. Hist ! under these leaves are the reds of life, Waiting and 'watching, aglow and rife For the chance to burst, 'with Love's first kiss, The bands of 'winter, and drink spring's bliss I F what use is wisliingf, earnest wJshingf ? Endless good. What else so sets the soul athroh and pushes the clay of existence into Pisgah heights ?— those glorious heights ffom which pathways lead to left and right and the zigzag roadways lead on to the to-be-revealed ! These heights attained, wishing takes on the dignity of purpose, the mind takes large range, and the will gives free rein,— the mists lift or fall away into the swamp lands far be- low, while the clear waters of the upland lake reflect a face made fair by bathing its dust's seamed lines. Nature, on these heights, has no cals-de-sac, all open and free,— and all day long from crest of rock and lap of dell edelweiss and rose send greetings on the lips of the breeze, and the paradise bird sings to its mate, I love thee, yes, love thee. My sweetest mate dear 1 And love thee, and love thee For singing so clear,— For singing thy song, Love, Alone to my ear I EART-WISHES, say the Italians, are senza. misura,— not measured, not to be measured. Such wishes hav- ing: the impulse of their own native vitality dilating spontaneous- ly, no people ought to know better the senza. misttra of them than the children of a soil in which Nature dilates with a beauty and spontane- ity that is without measure. WHERE ART THOU? I listen— listen— lifting up my heart,— I look and see tliee near and yet apart,— Feel thee close and ever near to me— Afar, yet near,— and, looi^ng, looking, see My love alone :- the world unseen— My own! -though hundreds stand between. IIS HE Seufzen Attee is to te closed. Qosed— beautiful vista that it is ! From an acorn, so to say, grew the branching; oaks that shade it, far-reachingf these, deep-rooted, festooned, too, and garlanded to topmost twig with, ah ! so delicate a vine. Poetry has graced this path, and will again, but till she comes again Philosophy,— stalwart guard to all virtues and one who helps them to blend in due and proper propor- tion,— shall walk the Allee alone. There, arm in arm with this sage, Memory will search out Poetry's steps, and Memory too shall take her sun bath in the light that filters throurfi the branches. And then Memory and Philosophy shall laugh with the neighboring brook because there is one thing on earth too choice to have a counterpart ! The beginning was chance and incident,— and Philosophy and Mem- ory know how to make the most of these, —and walking arm in arm through the now closed Alfee shall determine whether this whole which has eventuated so per- fectly is the fortune come from chance or from Providence. S ideal loveliness is to tlie sculptor, faith is to the heart, —faith rightly understood extends over all the works of the Creator, whom we can know but through belief;— it embraces a calm confidence in our- selves, and a serene repose as to our future,— it is the moonlight that sways the tides of the human sea." 114 THE SONG OF FAITH. Athwart the sky to farthest reach Clouds, full of storm, pile each on each, But, close along the horizon's line A light flames upward,— all divine 1 — A light from altar, thine and mine. Speak gently, ca.ro, soft and tow, Ucaro, ca.ro mio! No'wr, hand in hand, -we watch the sky And see its storm clouds passing by. Dispelled by rays of heavenly 5ght That makes a day of darkest night. And drapes Love's couch all gold and bright. Breathe softly, caro, soft and Iw), E caro, caro mio ! O rapturous night I — O glorious day I - What ransom is too dear to pay For joy and freedom such as this I A joy that's life,— no dream of bliss,— A freedom God-^sealed with a kiss. Sing sm)eetly, caro, siveet and Ufa), E caro, caro mio! 115 FATE. FAITH. OMEWHERE in eyei-y experi- ence these higfhways intersect, and it is of the titmost interest to note what effect the experiences that have led «p to this point of inter- section is to have upon the choice made. If they have hardened— made unbeautiful the outlook into life— and are naturally pessimistic, temperament will throw its weight of influence into the choice, and then will the eyes of Fate see " Only a driving wreck, And the pale master on his spar-stre'^n deck With anguished face and flying hair Grasping the rudder hard. Still bent to make some port he knows not where, Still standing for some false, impossible shore. And sterner comes the roar Of sea and wind, and throt^hthe deepening gloom Fjiinter and fainter wreck and helmsman loom, And he too disappears, and comes no more." But if these experiences, whatever their nature, have made the soul cry out, " Though he slay me, yet will I trust in him," the eyes of Faith will see the rainbow of promise in any sky and the voice proclaim. " I go to prove my soul 1 I see my way as birds their trackless way. I shall arrive 1— \^hat time, 'what circuit, I ask not ; In some time. His good time, I shall arrive : He gmdes me and the bird. In His good time I " "Be sure that God Ne'er dooms to waste the strength He deigns im- part." 117 A FATE, It ploughed throagli her life With a furrow so deep, That venture she dare not, Except in her sleep,— When in holy somnambulance God leads her unharmed To where, in His goodness, She weakens rearmed. AKE from the Infinite reality this show under which it appears in time and space, pierce back- ward to the Eternal un- der this phenomenal pageant, and then our conceptions at their best answer to, are but the thought-side of, the uhimatc and everlasting truth." 119 The la.tge.t the deposit of sadness Jn a nature, the eas- ier is that natttre stiired by pathetic thought. 120 Let time and cliance combine, combine, Let time and chance combine : The fairest love, from Heaven above, That love of yours w^as mine, My dear, That love of yours was mine. The past is fled and gone, and gone, The past is fled and gone : If naught but pain to me remain 111 fare in memory on. My dear, III fare in memory on. Thomas Cartyle. If sorrow In the nobler sort. Bears semblance to despair. And every thought from out the heart Is worded like a prayer. And every wish is carried swift To Him who reigns above. It is because, through time and chance, I've kept unliarmed thy love. OWEVER delight- fully meffy a mem- ory of yesterday, we laogh heartiest when our feet are racing- over the beach of life made smooth and fine by the tide of the happy today. 122 ''If life he not tliat wfiicli witdottt us we fin^— Chance, accident merely— but rather the mind. And the soul -whicli, within us, surviveth these things, If our re^ existence have truly its springs Less in that 'which we do than in that which we feel," then " Time is a fiction, and limits not fate. Thought alone is eternal. Time thralls it in vain. For the thought that springs upward and yearns to regain The pure source of spirit, there is no TCX) LATE." CHE SERA, SERA. A shadow in morning comes not from above, But creeps to our feet from below^, my love, — And, that one, enmeshed us in dark, misty air, Was because we forgot— in a moment of care — That time is a fiction and limits not fate"— That in love eternal there is no « TOO LATE.' O amount of reflection lessens the annoyance of a contretemps come to a cause that is of no interest to any but one's self; on the contrary, increases it, since in reflection the mind runs a wild gamut over the pos- sibilities ano the impossibilities until it falls back desole,—desole ! 124 WALKED along a pathway that overlooked the highway of a life, —no dusty thoroughfare, bat one with wealth of flora planted, and I marveled at the care with which all this was nurtured into a per- fection of bloom. The many who were graciously permitted to walk that way found turf with intersect of soft white sand, for the feefs comfort ; and of these many who walked, I saw how some were on duty, some on pleasure bent, but some on wantonness. ... I walked again along the overlooking pathway, and, looking, saw all the flowers within a long arm's reach broken, and thrown ruthlessly into the roadway, while the green and tender leaves and frondage were ground as by a heel into the soil. Appalled at such wan- ton devastation of the beauty that had contributed so much to the cheer of Duty's wayfarers, so much to the joy of pleasure seekers, I questioned what kind of enemy could have done this. And then I remem- bered the iv anion. These were the swine before whom pearls had been spread. As I 125 pondered, there came from out a pathway, descendingf the mountain's side through shelter of trees and interlace of vines, a wo- man, tall and sligfht. She stepped into the middle of the roadway and for one short hour walked slowly about, contemplating the enormity of the devastation. Neither wind nor rain wrought this ruin ; no law of nature compelling acquiescence, but that unnatural thing, ruthless wanton- ness. She pondered long how it was, that a domain, which by reason of natural beauty seemed to have been intended for the pleasure of many, and through which, to that end, she had opened up the fairest of highways,— how it was that any way- farer could have been thus lawless. I watched her as she stopped to gather up the broken bloom, and noted how tenderly she lifted the crushed leaves from the mel- low earth ; and then I saw her turn and look away to where the entrance and the egress gates stood open wide : and I knew that from henceforth these ivould he closed. "What loss! what loss!" I cried; and as though my voice had reached her ear she raised her eyes, but they looked far away beyond my pathway^s height, and as the sinking sun turned the clouds that threatened to enshroud the evening's sky into a glory, she closed the gates. " The sky was fair. And a fresh breath of spring stirred everynrhere. . white anemones Starred the cool turf, and clamps of primroses Ran out from the dark underwood behind. No fairer resting place man could find and only, The -wrhite sheep are sometimes seen Cross and recross the strip of moon-blanched green.' 127 O the eye the skin's smoothness about a deep wound may seem as perfect as before the wound was made, but to the touch, —that more sensitive of senses,— will be revealed the spot where the blade en- tered. HE tattets of hap- piness best go with the wind that rent it J kept, they serve no better end than to remind. No feast is pal- atable with a skeleton at the board. HEN all the fires of life gfet stamped low and all the hopes of Ufe un- wingfed, then shut thou thyself in the workshop of thy soul. ilROM the moment in wliicli the door of birth opens and lets a life out upon the stage of livingf, until the moment in which the door of death closes up- on its acting, life is one great tragedy:— comedy is only its by-play. 131 God kept a soul in leash^— Most danger-near the portal of this world,— Wherein, a body made and fashioned in a mold, His own,— Was waiting for the life-throb through its veins. God turned his face,— And straightway slipped the soul from side of Him: And ere he saw^ 'twas opening up to life Each dormant organ of the body there, that else Was sodden clay. The soul had chosen and its march begun. Slow steps at first for one o'er brim with life, — But hope gave promise, fast would grow the pace When once those untaught feet had learned life's stride. And then. Dear soul, •what better couldst thou do ? Go back uou couldst not ; the door was closed. T'was forward thou must go, ho'we'er opposed,— Until thy God-taught feet had learned to run,— To carry thee from whence thine eyes should see The farther portal to God's paradise : to which,— When come, -thy body will have done, and thou, Enfreed, will leave it and slip back to God. HE episocJcs of ever so dear a little animal ex- istence are not enga- gfingly interesting to the readers of fciogfraphy. It is only when the soil of life heaves into unevenness, break- ing; the flat plain of childhood into the picturesque by action, that biogfraphy is engaging. 133 F thy life unrolls pore cloth of gfold, see to it that profane hands slash not into it as into common stuff,— and, in the end, use the remnant for the soles of their feet. 134 HEN no harvest is, gather together the scattered straws from the last, and bunch them together in the sunniest comer of thy dwelling place; then will thy flesh— may- be thy spirit— have comfort. "The ntin said hef prayer, Tlie nun wove ner lace : Still was the air. Lonely the place. Only the convent bell, omy the wild bird's note With the sweet pang of sound the selling silence smote. The nun said her prayer. The nun worked her lace : Her cell w^as bare. None saw her face. Who then could ever think, who then could ever care? Her tears fell on the lace, her smile broke through the prayer. The nun said her prayer. The nun wove her lace : Life sad and fair. Pity's keen grace. Shaped with tlie broider's thread, shaped with the pious plaint. One pattern, lilies white : one pattern, lilies quaint. The nun ceased to pray, The nun dropped her lace : Through dusk of day Veiled mourners pace. What snow-white angels bear, what fevered mortals wear. The lilies of her lace, the lilies of Iier prayer I " 136 HE force of edocation not infre- quently fiolds in severest reserve natures whose beauty could te discovered only by a full, free outflow. Such men walk life's path like sentinels on their one beat, hav- ing enough of the soldier nature to en- dure to the end the dead monotony. But there are men who could not walk such path though from every side gratuities and condescensions pressed upon them. Freedom they must have | — the days must be filled with fresh, cheering glad- ness and allow of merrymaking over tlic simplest of their joys. Then is there courage for any buffeting and the grace to turn storm elements into serenest calm. THE WHEEL IS COME FULL CIRCLE FELICITOUS line, which in simple words gathers into one thought an entire drama, and sends the troth of it jingling along the lines of thought! ' ' Theivheet is come futt circle. A circle being theemblemof eternity, what means it when one, with all its limitless boundaries, is drawn around the heart,— a dear name for its center ? What but that such heart wears from henceforth the sym- bols of that happiness and dilates within the circle of it through the years of time ; and will, with God's grace, through eter- nity. In the presence of the beloved, with the heart's movement, the circle may ex- pand, but no new element of happiness will find room within its circumference. Feel- ing, too, will expand, and give growth and amplitude to every germ of joy planted within, and speedily will the hundredfold be brought forth. In this harvest, words of simple truth will show their marvelous power to pro- duce a confidence, spontaneous, and re- freshing as the dew ! One would think 138 such golden grain, like tlie seeiis iound buried for ages in the dark warmth of the pyramids of Egypt, could best con- serve its vitality in the deep recesses where, excluded from the light of day, it drew its life from that other element of growth, warmth,— the warmth of the heart in which it lay so long ; but, the element of growth, light, being missing, the life of the grain was dormant,— yes, dormant,— in the deep recesses of the heart, until in a moment of grace which, in a crisis, comes to the aid of nature— in a moment of in- spired confidence,— a man reaches down into these caverns of silence, and from its hiding place draws forth the torpid germ into the tight !—a,ni. then, "There rises an unspeakable desire A longing to inqtiire Into tne mystery of this tieart wiiicli beats So wild, so deep in us— to know"; and, "A man becomes aware of fiis life's flow And bears its winding murmur, and be sees The meaJo'zus luhere it glides, the sun, the breeze." If, then, greater joy no man hath than to open his heart and let the full light of a. tofve'aAo its warm recesses, what will be tlie new consecration iie will make of him- self? and how will he feel under this apocalypse of the soul— its wondrous rev- elations ? If life were religion he would bow down and adore forever ! Under the influence of tliis strange apocalypse, what more natural than that he should imagine life, —like that of a monarch's of Israel,— gone back on its dial plate,— imagine the world remade in its ordainment,— imagine the will untrammeled and that man could place his love, without reserve, under the rule of that will, no hindrance to its show- ing ever new unfoldings of love's wealth and affluence ; ready to undergo any test of its truth and fidelity ; bent on gather- ing all knowledge and in concentrating every joy ; excluding forever every image but that of the beloved ? What more nat- ural than for him to imagine all this in his new life, and to feel the air perfumed, and redolent of happiness ? Natural, and possible,— for though life is not gone back on its dial plate, but is going forward to its setting, the joy of it is, that unlike the days that had marked by the sun, and measured, perchance, by some rainbow of promise, the new days mark by the meridian of a star, whose light falls full upon the wheel that is come fatt circle. ''AlltliatlknoW Oi a certain star Is, it can throw (Like the angled spar) Now a dart of red, Now a dart of blue ; Till my friends have said They would fain see, too, My star that dartles the red and the blue J Then it stops like a bird; like a flower, hangs furled: They must solace themselves with the Saturn above it. What matter to me if their star is a 'world ? Mine has opened its soul to me ; therefore I love it." There are laws which take more of courage to obey than of foolhardiness to disobey. The will that dares to dan- ger and allows an appetizer without imposing a penalty is a rare one. If you would have thirst obey the law, don't drive de- sire dangfer-close to the spark- ling waters of temptation. 143 Watch those stagnate who neither ma^ an opportunity nor unbrace a chance. 144 jjEGRET suggests a con- f essioiv — penance^— and close in the wake of it "stalks Remorse," that sufly enemy of sleep. Bttt there is no sigh for "the oblivion of sleep," when wake- f uhiess calls up everything to joy over, nothing to regret. " I count life just a stuff To try the soul's strength oa, educe the man : Who keeps one end in view makes all things serve," 146 T was a wild day; the clouds, like mountains piled upon each other, were adrift in the sky; and all the air was filled with certain and un- certain sounds. Through this, and into an uncertainty in harmony with wind and sound, a pilgrim went in search of a spot he had once, as by en- chantment, come upon in a forest where the hand of an Ariadne would alone make sure of safe egress. In that forest retreat he had seen, as in a mirror, the deep life lineaments which, so long held in bonds, he believed to have been effaced : but, he had there seen them and recognized in them his true self, and in going his way he had not ceased to wonder nor ceased to be moved by the mysterious power of the revelation. Never could he be again as if he had not looked into that magic mirror, for, as a shadow with its substance the revelation walked by him. The inward struggle it had evoked was passed, but he woula find the place again and carry away from it some such me- mento as is tenderly plucked from a dear grave, or from any spot endeared by a sur- charge of life. His intent was to find the enchanted path at the forest's edge and in it trace out his first footprints;— so he 147 crossed the gfi-assy slope^ edged along the higfhway to where a stfcam skirted past the trees of the great forest and knew that somewhere, close by, was the entrance to the path he sought. He pushed aside the thick ondererowth, peered into the wood- ed hilkide; but no opening revealed itself. The tall trees and thick undergrowth gave no sign, and a nervous, rapid beating of his heart told him that hope and fear were in full conflict. Then he plunged into the thicket where he ran over mounds and into hollows until he believed some pre- ternatural power was blinding him,— then desperately sought the open again, and with that impatience which accompanies a baffled search followed a long sweep of open hillside, but keeping close to the wood in which he had been struggling. Now he loitered about, neither sitting nor standing long at a time ; and, like CSiilde Roland, he carried a slug-horn at his belt, and "dauntless" he raised it to his lips and blew. Back from the deep heart of the forest came a clear echo, and on the right, in the thicket's break, he saw the path. Strange, rapturous memories put the Ariadne thread into his hand, and anon he stood upon the hallowed ground he sought, the very spot where had been enacted the fateful drama of his life. . . . The wind swept the trec- 148 tops in one ztcat symphony of sound; and the soul of the man was responsive to every harmony evoked, for there he held, "Bound up togetiier m one volume, What throu^ the universe in leaves is scattered ; Substance, and accident, and their operations, All interfused together in such wise That what I spea& of is one great light. A flash of li^tning, wherein came its wish. The love which moves the sun and all the stars." 149 ND thy nightingale, when they caogfht and caged it, refused to sing? Softly didst thou unbar the cage,— thou heardest the foliage rustle, and, looking through the moonlight thine eyes saw that it had found its mate. And thou didst feel that the secret of its music was the presence of a thing beloved." 150 Let all else go, I keep - As of a ruin a monolith — Thus mucli, one verse of five words, each a boon :— Arcadia, night, a cloud. Pan, and the moon. Robert J3r(ywning. Lake Como, morning, a. •villa, Cupid and Psyche, a grave. ET all else go,"— thus much, no more, I keep of all the languor- oas beauty that hungf above and around the shores of Italy's fair- est gem— Como— as I drifted into its resting places and wandered through its groves. Qose to the edge of one of these, up at a villa, I came upon that incomparable history oi Love, written by the hand of Canova, along the lines of finest marble. A creation of surpassing loveliness, this history! How came it, O ye gods of Olympus, that not one of you did create such as this, but left the immortal task to mortal hands? And how came it, O ye poets of Love, ye who have sung of Jupiter, Apollo, and the rest, that not one of you has sung of the beauty of these, in this perfectestgrouping of Love's god and goddess ? The language of Greece would alone be equal to a har- monious rendering of the rich^ flexible, ovefflowingf imagfery here conveyed in marble ; and Greek art being a strongf ele- ment in each, Goethe, Shelley, Browning, might have sung fittingly of this master work— Copid and Psyche in the embrace of love eternal. For the love here por- trayed is not an episode of existence bttt the life actual, full and free. And so per- fect is the delineation in this marble- warm with life, and a kiss the symbol of it —that one is made to feel the beauty of the mutual inward inhesion of two souls when under the masterful influence of love. Canova chose that moment in which Psyche,— soul-beauty,— makes convert of vinds had stripped the grove, He still poured forth those w^ords of love— * Sweetheart ! ' And like that bird, my heart, too, sings — 'S\(^eetheart I' When heaven is dark, or bright, or blue, When trees are bare, or leaves are new. It thus sings on— and sings of you— ' Sweetheart P What need of other words than these— 'Sweetheart?" If I should sing a whole year long. My love would not be shown more strong Than by this short and simple song— ' S'weeihearf ! '" And, Sweetheart, while the little bird has been singing;, thy feet have been climb- ing the mountains and fordingf the rivers of life! To these mountains' heights and to these rivers' banks I have called, and thy voice has answered in tones resonant as the trumpet's, aeolian as the harp's. I have heard it in the nig;ht wind and in the noonday breeze, felt it like a breath amongf the odors of the sah sea and among; the perfume of the flowers. No sound so harsh but that thou hast softened it be- fore it reached my ear, no air so overladen that thou hast not unburdened it. And now, in answer to thy call, I come to thee with these gatherings of my hands, and put them into thine ; these visions of my eyes, and hold them close to thine ; these voices in my ears, and breathe them into thine ; these comrades of my heart, and proffer them to thine ; and together make them over to th.ee,— a. gift! yet not a gift, since from the first they were ihine ! " An exquisite toucii Bides in the birtfi of things: no aitertime can much Enhance that fine, that faint, fugitive iiist of aU." So, ''Gjnie back with me to the first of all, Let us learn and love it over again. Let us now forget and no'w recaJQ, Break the rosary in a pearly rain. And gather what we let fall I " G. E. X. f, by , 6, e. X, Che Peter Paul , BooKeompany "*u •■i-'-ntn -■■•''**"!« Jb»'