PS 3537 .T855 MB 1912 v\^ MY LITTLE BOOK OF LIFE MY LITTLE BOOK OF LIFE BY MURIEL STRODE CHICAGO ACMc CXURG fe'Co. MCMXU Copyright A. C. McCIurg & Co. 1912 Published September, 1912 The Ralph Fletcher Seymour Co. Fine Arts Building, Chicago rtt MY LITTLE BOOK OF LIFE BY Muriel Strode T MUST forget self, and yet, -*• above all things, I must not forget self. Only he is capable of univer- sality who adores his own soul. T O do the thing that counts, and then not count it ! AN angel's wing beats at every window, but only the listen- ing hear and rise. IF I go unloved, I shall not chide Fate, but I shall bemoan that I should be a thing unlov- able. If I go friendless, I shall re- proach none, but I shall lament that I have not the attributes of a friend. If I go uncomforted, the world shall be blameless, but I shall re- gret that it was in no wise in my debt. T CANNOT go so far that God •*• will not go with me. I start- ed on my desolate way, and I found that God had strapped on his knapsack, and taken up his staff. I AM in the firing line, in the front ranks. I have elected to be in the fire and the smoke, in the Battle of Being. THERE is a certain look that is mine wherever I find it over the world, in man or beast, — the look of the understanding eye. •I T F you would pass through, you ■* must pass through alone. The way has ever been a trail, not a highway. I AM the plant, surviving de- spite its all-consuming thirst. I am the bird, singing as it beats with its broken wing. MY only dereliction will be if I let a day pass that does not bear my imprint upon it, that does not carry my royal insignia, my coat of arms. TT were a misfortune to have ■*• friends until I have learned in my loneliness not to be lonely; Or to have wealth, until I am rich without it. THERE are two ecstasies. One is "En route!" The other is ''Arrived!" A ND if you are determined, I ■^^^ will stand aside, for I but delay the day. I will be here waiting for you when you get back from hell. T AM a stone, indifferent to ■*• look upon, dull, and without the fire of life, but one day one will come by who will raise me to an angle in the light. I am a reed, mute and insen- sate, but one day the wind will touch me, and I will sway with vibrant melody. T WILL not ask for succor, but •*" for increased strength. My burden may be great, but I will be greater, T WILL endure the martyrdom •*• of right, but when I am ground down and swept under by a martyrdom to wrong, I will call myself by my right name, "Fool!" MY environment may be mak- ing me what I am, but I am permitting the environment. MY strictly own is coming to me every hour, and if that which I crave does not come, it is because I have never made it mine. I AM the sunlight to the soil of my own soul. I am the warm rains, and the maturing days and nights. I PRAYED that blessings might be bestowed, and then one day I learned that they could only be evolved. I WOULD establish the an- swer, that you might know there is one. I would reclaim the desert of my life, that you might know that barren sands may bloom. MY house and garden may be an alms-house and its en- virons, and my well-filled garner may be a sign, not of my wealth, but of my impoverishment. I MAY be lost in the under- ground of life, but I will trust my soul to know the passages. I WILL not argue my rights. What is mine is incontestable. NOTHING is ever done by twos. It is always, one, one, some one who strikes out alone over the unpromising waste. It is always the whitening bones of some one. T LABORED on my bended -*- knees, but the rags on which I knelt became a prayer rug. TT WENT in a Sorrow, but •*• through the alchemy of Self, it came out a Song. T MAY be blind, and halt, and ■*- lame, but what matter, if the Great Equalizer has given me wings. T CURSED my misfortune, — •*• and it remained one. T AM the unsheltered life. •*• AM the nurture of the storm. I am the enrichment of poverty. I am the all-sufRcience of him who must pass alone. I am the fearlessness of him who has encountered many foes. I am the strength of him who has had much to combat. I am the ruggedness of him who has grown up through rocks. I am the unsheltered life. T AM working the soil. Those •*• who come after will find the points of the plow-shares. I am fighting the fight, — they will find the moldering scabbard. T WOULD open the doors of -*• the temple so God could get in. T WILL not work in rivalry, -■■ but I will labor to transcend myself. TDEAUTIFUL Death! Sweet •*-* transition ! — a wild violet growing on my own grave. rr^O MAKE of one's self a -■- sounding-board of the Di- vine, a harp of life, vibrant, and sweet, and healing. /^NE day I shall come through ^^ Fields of Peace, up past the Hills of Joy. I DO not want to be reconciled to life ; I want to be glad of it. I do not want the word that comforts, for life is young. I want the word that thrills. I WILL not look at the man who has lost both feet, and then console myself that I still have one on which to hobble, but I will look at the man who has both feet and wings, and then look at myself and weep. IF I shall have an existence there, is too remote. That I have one here, is all-important. That I may have an immortal soul, is irrelevant. That I have a mortal one, is vital. I DO not ask for faith in a God, but give me faith in myself, and then if there is a God I shall do him credit. I do not ask for faith in a here- after, but let me believe in today, and no hereafter can present that I shall not be well prepared. T HAVE sharpened the shares, -*• and harnessed an increased force, for I have determined to plow the furrows deeper, and turn up new layers of life. OU did not teach me life. You taught me its business and tricks. You taught me the piece of white glass, while I sought the blue-white diamond of being. Y T WILL give and give, to your ■*• deep need, but not to your selfishness. •I TO SAIL on wings of un- restraint, there where there is no chart of the skies ! WE WORK and wait and pray that our own shall know our face, but we shall have often to subdue the heart's lone cry, else our own shall find us with a foundling in its place. TT IS that one crying in the •*- wilderness that gives life its poignancy. Who would not for- sake all the stars in the firmament and go in search of the lost Pleiad? THE promise of heaven is no solace to him who hungers for life. If I were proffered it, I could only say, '1 still have the Want. Heaven is not what I seek." J IMPORTUNED the gods, -*• and got a beggar's desserts. T AM the well-born, — I tran- -*• scend my pedigree. I am that one saved from him- self to posterity. I, myself, am the nucleus of a new race. I have overcome the distortions of the womb. I have established myself, re- gardless of a thousand years. ALL that abides is made wel- come. That cannot be gain- said. Fate may cast the foundling at my door, but it is I who give it to suckle at my breast. n I FED myself, body, mind, and soul, into the maw of my sur- roundings, and I thought I was a great martyr. The only thing great about it was the great mis- take. T AM the slave, else how could ■*• I sing of freedom"? I am the oppressed, else how could I sing of deliverance*? I am that that is, looking away to the hills to that that ought to be. T WILL call the Devil Friend -^ and Brother. It is in him and he doesn't know it. nr<0 UNCOVER new stratas ^ of myself. To drill down to unknown levels. To uncover beds, and veins, and pockets down in the untried depths. T IFE consigned us all to the '^^ pit, and she knew that there were those who would weep, and go, and those who would laugh at her, and stay. •I WHEN I moan in agony of body, you may heal me, but when I moan in agony of soul, I must heal myself. TTOW sweet the Hurt would ■*--■- be if one could but spread the mantle of his healing over all the world! ZONE'S "Peace, be still!" will ^^ not comfort until it has first been spoken to the turbulence of his own soul. 'TnO GO wrong is sometimes -■- the surest way to go right. It is not always down to depths : it is down, sometimes, to heights. I got my first perspec- tive of heaven from hell. 'THHE hindrance may be colos- -■- sal, but so am I. It will be a match of Goliaths. I AM myself, and you are you. Blessed be the day that we accept that. I may be a bird, and you may be a bird, but with all your pray- ing, you may not be as I, — with scarlet wings. And you may be a reed, and I may be a reed, but, though I die, I may not be as you, — a lute. T AM the seer coming into his ■'■ vision. I am the dreamer on the edge of his dream. I am the prophet nearing his promised land. TF I would be queen tomorrow -*■ when I sit upon a throne, I must be not less a queen today in my hand-maiden sphere. Every step must be as an heir- apparent walking toward her crown. H WHATEVER I pledged for myself in my wildest ex- travagant moments shall be the truth for me. Talk not to me of sober estimate, — I set a daring limit when drunk with expect- ancy. T WILL leave some sign that I -*• came by, — my initials carved upon the bark of the tree of life. To BE that life that has known its Tidal Wave, the sweeping rush of waters ; That has known its Conflagra- tion, and has been burned clean. LIFE does not coerce. The voice that calls is still and small, and the hand that beckons is as a shadow hand. Ti^AY not the elusive quick- •"-^ silver long to be the beaten gold of life? T NO longer ask the approval "* of the throng. It is not es- sential. The violet cannot change its hue, though its heart break. I DO not ask to be delivered from the burden of life, — only from its over-burden. Gladly would I toil in the mill, — it is the tread-mill we pray to be delivered from. I would tax my strength to its full, but we tax it to the breaking. TO give the reins to life ! O loosen it from its leash, and know its free and unrestricted movement. To reach out and out, and feel not the tightening of the thong. TT may be I cannot change my -*• environment, but my location may be changed. TT is not life's ultimate that -*• bears us down to the dust. ''Some time!" ''Some where!" is the slogan of every heart that breaks. T ATTRACT what I am. -*• Life will have vasty barren places until I cover my own desert with green. T HAVE picked up the grains -■• that lay outside the door, but, oh! to enter into the garner house, where there is life abundant. T IFE remains so long in the •*-' narrows, until one day — that is the day! — we sail through the straits, out to the open sea. GIVE me but a gleam of the red star that is set upon a hill, and I will ask no favors of Fate. I will ask no guide nor stay, if I may but have the gleam. IT is only the long and patient road that leads to anywhere. ONE passed through and came bearing balm and ointment, and one passed through, and came with a curse. TO BE in the front ranks, marching to the music. To be the glorified pedestrian, with the transcendent look in his face. WHY ask of me the part of piquancy, when I am oval and mobile? Why ask of me the magpie's chatter, or the robin's roundelay, when I am the night-bird, with its single cry? o NCE I set out on my way, I must win my right to go on. 'T^HE tragedy is if I become -*• limited by another's limita- tions, and unfixed and undone because another is unfixed and undone. I am my own ultimate hin- drance, but in the meantime I may have much else to overcome. Do not say, that/' The things which I can do can- not be selected. I HAVE wandered far upon the desert plain, but in my heart a bird keeps singing, and the daffodils beckon and blow, — and one day I shall wander back. TO know the unobstructed life! To tear down the walls that confine me, and have unrestricted movement in unbounded spaces. T AM the cocoon in process, ■*• but one day I will lift up my gorgeous golden wings, and you will have learned of me. IF I may but have the thrill of being, I will make no stipu- lations, whether it be in a fisher- man's hut, with the smell of nets and tar, or in a plainsman's cabin, with the wide expanse for friend, or in the furrow, with the feel of the warm earth on my feet. I will make no conditions, if I may but have the thrill. I AM the strength that was born of my weakness. I am the steadfastness that came out of my wavering. I am the joy of living that was born of my despair. I am the poise that was born of my great unrest. /r^^era^r^^^^^ri^^z^^fcr^^ UP through sin to sainthood is not an uncommon way. TO have been faithful I O be able to say: '1 have done the thing, and I have put all of myself into it. I have done it with all the brawn of my hands, with all the warmth of my heart, and with all the glow of my soul!" YESTERDAY'S weaving is as irrevocable as yesterday. I may not draw out the threads, but I may change my shuttle. T DOUBT my own progress -^ when the time is far removed since I have said of myself, ''O Fool!" IN the hey-day I painted the spirit of the free, unfettered flight, and men passed it by, but later I painted the shadow of the broken pinion, and they came to look. TNTENSITY of desire will •*• always find a way, just as weakness of purpose will always find an excuse. T WEEP, and throw myself •*• against the iron bars of life, imploring to be let in, but life can neither let me in nor keep me out. TF we would live for a cause, -*• we get our chance to die for it. IT is not what I get that bears the significance; it is what I become. TO tear away the verbiage and speak that one word that is truly myself! TO be stripped of all vanity, and stand forth a naked soul! I HAVE wandered far. AM a long, long way from home. It is I back there at the turn of the road, my other self, waiting. It is I who peer away into the distance. It is I waiting for myself to return. T HAVE cried out for succor, ■*• for deliverance, but back of that wail, and back of that prayer, I know that if alone I am not equal to the struggle, fruition, too, will need a stay. YOU see only this endless stretch of water, this un- broken waste of life, and you pity me. But hold! One day the waters will tremble, the earth will quake, and a new world will be heaved up out of the sea. THAT which becomes bound- en becomes a burden, though it were erstwhile coveted. Only in free action is there joy. IT is my unending privilege to be my most eccentric self, but it is not my privilege to inflict my eccentricities upon my neigh- bor. When I am my neighbor's guest, I will leave my cats and my parrots behind in my own domain. SO long I dwelt in discord that I became attuned to strife. So long I played life out of tune, that my perverted ear was keyed to dissonance. I AM the eleventh hour. AM the foam-flecked horse. I am the reprieve. I am the glint of light through the cleft in the wall. I PRAYED to God for strength to keep a promise, when strength to break it was my great need. w HO goes far will go with- out guide or map. ONE is stultified and stupe- fied with over -abundance, with too much, — and has not end or aim of being. And another starves, — while his zealot's soul leads him madly on. THE lambs of my own fold are bleating in the deep wood. That is how I know the call of desolate mother ewes. WHO can abandon the thing but abandons a foundling. He has never known his own. le T AM the mourner, and I am •*• the dead in life, but I am the comforter, and I am the resurrec- tion. I will not let myself forget that. m WHEN yesterday is dead, I shall bury it. My onward march is over new- made graves. TO CARRY the burdens of strength, and not the bur- dens that are imposed, or that gravitate, because of lack of it! A S deep as my desire be it •^^^ unto me, and as broad as my own estimate. •I ONE day I will look back in retrospect, and I will say, either, "I have done," or, '1 might have done." The world is of these two kinds. n CONDITIONS may make some men, but some men can make conditions. •I I SHALL not fear want of ac- tion, but if want of inspira- tion should be my lack! To lose the urge, the desire, — that is the fatality. 1HAVE seen a bird, with its broken wing, fluttering along in the dust, when it should have been sailing the blue of the sky. And that is life. But one day the Wonder-worker touches it, and makes it whole, and it sails up to the very heart of the sun. WE pray for fruition, when, if our prayer were an- swered, our all-too-soon-ripened fruit would be worm-mellowed and wind-blown. Ti^ Y endurance may be born •*"^-*- of courage, but I will not forget that it may also be born of that most pitiable of human things, — weakness. To become reconciled to, may be to become like unto. I will have a care. I may be the tree -toad taking on the color of the tree. TT is not what I make of my •*■ house, or my garden, but what I make of me. My house may collapse, and my garden may sink into the sea, but between myself and me no accident can intervene. T MAY withstand the test of ■*• going without, but will I withstand the test of having? 16 TO be big! big! To have an all-inclusive growth. T SHALL go on when my -■• friends, for me, have said it is impossible. I shall be buoyant and hopeful when my friends, for me, are in despair. I shall fight on and conquer when my friends, for me, have lain down and died. •ft T T cannot possibly be to my dis- •*• credit that I believed in you, but it may be to your shame. WHEN I yield and am ground under, I am not yielding to your strength, but to your weakness, which is destroy- ing both you and me. YOUR life may lie in the digging of the furrows, but, pray God, let me go out with my seines. You may dig your soul up with the soil, but mine I must lift up in my net with the fishes. MY prayer need not be deeper for strength to bear adver- sity than for capacity to with- stand success. I prayed to be kept sweet in poverty, but I would go down on my knees and pray to God to keep me sweet in wealth. •I LIFE could have withheld her lash, but she did not wish me to die in my sleep. I WOULD dredge the chan- nel, that it may be wide and deep, and unobstructed, on that day that my ship comes in. LIFE knows the price we must pay for the things worth while, and in her long-sightedness she lets us pay. T T is written in the stars — when -■• I myself shall write it there with lofty hand. I WILL loosen my clutch upon those things which are not mine, which I hold fast by grip of will. My own will abide. nr^HE moment I make an ex- -■- cuse, I confess to many things. I SAW a log pushed down un- der the water, and it came up, and I saw it pushed down again, and it came up again, — and again, — and again. But there came a time when it was water- logged, and it went down to the bottom to stay. And I thought of life, and I tried to pray. T WOULD follow the trail •*• with the faith and abandon of a child who believes that a pot of gold lies at the rainbow's end. I PRAYED to have my own in life, when I was the only one that could circumvent it. I WILL keep the promise I have made to myself. I will keep the faith and the covenants. I will not betray myself into unfulfillment. I WOULD not wish to arrive if I should forget the way I came. I may sing my song trium- phant, but it is the memory-note of pain that establishes it as truth. SORROW is one of the long line of guests whom Life has assured of my hospitality. I will accord her gracious treat- ment, and the deference that is her due. She is not an interloper, nor an enemy within my gates. She is my sad-meined guest, and I will walk softly in the majesty of her gray presence, and she will smile upon me with the benign smile of a mother fostering the soul of her child. IS SAID I could have done the thing, had the obstacles been removed, but after all else had been cleared away, there would still have been myself. I T TOILED for my body, and •*• starved. That day that I labor for my soul, the birds from heaven will feed me. GLADNESS sings its songs, but the words that live are crushed out. HAD I done the thing that was indicated, the bolts would have been withdrawn, and the doors would have opened. I would not have wandered, as now, an alien, without a homing hearth. TF I make my of life, it will be •*• I, alone, who make of it. What another does, or leaves undone, can have no vital mean- ing to me. I SAID I did not have time, but to what did I give the time, and was it a fair exchange? SHALL I be the pack-horse, dragged and dead, without mettle or life, the tired animal, young, yet faded and blighted and old? Have I not right to freshness, and buoyance and grace? Am I the slaughter of the shamble, or am I a temple of the living God? To get back to the few things and the truth of things; From the orchestration of life to the beauty of a single trumpet call. THE opportunity to live my life was always present, but the courage was not. I bemoaned conditions, when I should have bemoaned merely the faint heart within me. T WILL hasten the day to cut •*- the thongs that bind a mis- shapen life, lest, too long con- fined, it never regains its sym- metry. H 'Tp O but once taste the bowl of -*" the overflowing life ! T WALKED in the conscious- -^ ness of divinity. It may have been only myself, but I walked in the consciousness. YOU tell me you could do this, or that, but I do not be- lieve you. Great power to do has great impelling force. T SAW a cross on the mountain- •*• side, white and holy in its re- pose, and on approach I found that it was a fissure in the earth, a scar, a nature-wound, which had been healed and anointed. T AM the ointment. •*- AM the healing to my own life. LIFE sent the blight and the drought to my fields, that one day I might grow, not only my fields abundant, but my fields triumphant, as well. ONE day life will be culled, and all that is irrelevant and without meaning will be cast out. TO be open to the kindness of life. To be open to the softness of it. To be open to its great friendli- ness. I AM not the sacrifice. TOO am a god to be ap- peased. MY religion, too, must have a practical usage. Am I less than the bird that builds its nest in the steeple? I know not your decree to keep the Sabbath day holy. Go tell it to the brook. It will chortle at your implied desecration of the other six. WRITE me as an herb- gatherer, and say the soil I dug was my soul. WHEN will I leave off dancing the Dance of the Manikins and dance the Dance of Me? WHEN my soul goes march- ing on, that it might march to the music of fife and drum, that it might march with the soldiers. When taps are sounded, that it might be that a soldier's soul is passing. IT went in brackish and un- clean, but it came out the filtration of life. n TRULY, life is by the sweat of the soul ! T SIGHED for a kingdom to -*• rule, when I could not put on my own coat and hat with mastery. To slake the thirst of being. O drink the draught, deep, and cool, and satisfying. HAD life been more abun- dant, I could not know the deep craving that comes from the sparsity of it. Had it been more verdant, I could not know the desert's pain. •I I MAY grow flowers in my garden which you do not like, but the pity is if I allow you to trample them out. 'TpHERE is a time when the -■- voice says, ''Come away! Come away!" and we heed it not, and all the years we wonder what is the matter with life. WHO sentenced my life to the rock-pile, and shackled its ankle with ball and chain? T WOULD have the things ■* that I desire, to prove my power, and then I would have the capacity to forego them, to prove my greatness. I would achieve all things, and yet I would be so rich and suffi- cient within myself, that I could forego the fruits of my achieve- ment. 'TpO have life while one can -*■ make it sing merrily, not quaveringly. I WOULD establish a great world brotherhood amongst those who had known the unf ul- fillment of a great human crav- ing, who had known the Great Want. I AM the song of the bird whose nest is robbed. I am the flight of the eagle with the broken wing. I am the body washed ashore, that went out to its brother at sea. I am the thief on the cross. I am the plaint of the pain. I am the sacrificial altar. I am life at its best and worst. T PRAYED for endowment, •*• but I wrongly prayed. It was the awakening that I sought. I AM not the spawn, maturing in a night, and perishing as quickly, — I am the plant with its single blossom of a hundred years. I am not the hours between the sun's rising and its setting, — ■ I am an epoch, marking the open- ing and closing of a cycle of time. TODAY I live between nar- row hills, but tomorrow I am the plainswoman, a habitat of vasty places. NOT a Magdalen but has the composite face of a Ma- donna, and not a scarlet woman but has the breasts and milk- glands of a mother. ONE will not need to know how to be glad, when the day has arrived. The need is to know how when the day is long deferred. TO beat them over the heads with clubs, may get obedi- ence, but to beat them over the hearts with love, will get miracles. I? T GREW fast to a thing in my •*" weakness, not in my strength. What I needed was the sharp edge of a cleaver between. ^ np O feel life, to have the con- -■• sciousness of it, as a mother feels the turning of her babe in the womb. TODAY the worm dust, but tomorrow- LET me reel with the wine of living. Let me swoon in the poppy- fields of life. Let me be overcome by the heavy, narcotic presence of the days. T^TOT those who have life -^^ know its tragic meaning, but those who have missed it, afar, afar. T HAVE stayed too long with -*• a task that fed an alien hun- ger, and starved my own soul. T IFE may be somewhat with- •■-^ out faith in a God in heaven, but it will not be much without faith in a god in me. T DO not ask you to help me, ■*" but I would appreciate it if you did not hinder me. 'TnHAT day that I am cruci- -*- fied and buried in the tomb, I shall try to remember the day that the stone rolls away. TTAVE I made of life a tread- -*"-*■ mill, forever stepping but never getting on? Have I made of it a wheel flying round and round, but un- belted and without end or aim? IF life is harmony, I am that harmony. If it is discord, I am that clang- ing note. HE is truly exalted who can say, "There is not one be- neath me." WITH the same zeal that I seek freedom will I avoid trespassing. LIFE never lost its savor. It was I who lost my taste. TODAY I lie in the dust, and every heel is upon me, but tomorrow I shall look down from shafts of light. To come up through peasant- ry to the crown and sceptre of life! I ASK not whence nor whither, glad that I may not know, if only here and now I to myself may be revealed. I CRY for the light to break, while all the time the light is shining. Courage to follow it is my great need. T MAY swear by you today, -■- but tomorrow you may have passed from your own recogni- zance. I may plight you my troth, but natui e may forswear the vow. I WILL swear by a thing to- day, but I will have the cour- age to denounce it tomorrow, if needs be. The vows of ignorance are not binding upon enlighten- ment. I DID the thing, and that is how I know how courageous it would have been not to have done it. SHALL I let a worm of the earth destroy my faith in the sun, the moon, and the stars'? I WOULD fulfill my wildest dream of material possessions, that I might hear my soul wailing through marble halls. THERE is so much to do while life is at white heat, but when the thing is in the doing, how little we know its signifi- cance ! We drive life to the black veil, and we do not know it, and to the shamble, unawares. GIVE me that fabric which bears the finger-marks of the weaver, whose thread is the fiber of character, and whose de- sign is the impress of soul. I WOULD be a builder of empires. I would fell the forests, and bridge the chasms, and set a new survey upon the land. 'TpHERE is but one higher -■• privilege than to choose, and that is, to rescind my choice. T WILL make ready for my -*• Day of Fate, and whether in that day my ship comes in, or whether my ship goes down, I will make ready, I will prepare. WHO pursues the vision must go alone and without counsel. Who follows the voice m.ust be his own interpreter. 'TnO be at-one with humanness ! -*• To ebb with its ebb, and flow with its flow. To be attuned. T HAVE worked for attain- -*• ment, and worked well. I have worked for humanity, and was consecrate. But one day I will know the divinity of toil, — in that hour that I labor for my own soul. T AM the magnet, and that -*• that is mine will cleave. I am the waiting earth, and all in its own good time the fruit will ripen and fall. ^ I ^HE truly great and gener- -*• ous man pardons every fault but his own. 'TpHE man of strength knows -*• his own fallibility. T AM not big enough to accom- •*- modate life. That is why the caravan went around. My road is too narrow, my gate is too low. The measure of myself is so meagre, and that is all I can take. LIFE may be ready with her offerings, but she knows by my impatience that I am not pre- pared. She gives her best gifts to those who could get on without them. THOSE who have come out into the open have felled their way out. Those who have struck the vein have drilled down through layer upon layer of shale, and rock, and hopelessness. I HAVE been a pensioner when I had inalienable rights. I have accepted as alms when I was a rightful heir. WHAT matter that I came across the desert with a pack on my back, so that I ar- rived? I AM the vassal of the Divine. I am the Christ, bearing the message to my own life. T IFE lets us do the thing we -■-' are determined to do. If we are strong, she lets us claim the hostage. If we are weak, she does not stay the wheels. IF I am a clown, then all I ask is to find my sawdust ring of expression. T WILL have a care lest my -*• burden rest all too long where my wings might have grown. TO WIN brings its own buoy- ancy, but he is the god-man who can yet be glad, though he stake all and lose. IF living life loses me my phi- losophy and my faith, there is something wrong, not with life, but with my philosophy and me. \ ND if my own should come •^^^ and speak my name, and my craven tongue were dumb. Or if he came by in world-wide search of me, and I, poor fool, dis- guised, were passed. Or if he came by in his coach and six, and a donkey cart were tied at my door. 'THHE rose speaks only its rose -■- language. It emits its rose fragrance, and lives its gracious rose life. And I, the sun-flower by the garden wall, I will learn of the rose. I will lift up my gorgeous sun- shine head and be glad. 3^ TF I answer the stranger at my •*• gate while my own cry with- in, — perhaps my own is at the gate, and the strangers are within. TF I drink the hemlock, it is -»• because I have sat long hours over the fire brewing my own bitterness. T WOULD rather have faith •*• that here and now will be complete, than faith that heaven is the answer. I would rather walk this day w^ith joyous heart, than to believe that in fields Elysian the burden of my life would roll away. ^ . T AM the supplicant, and I am •*• the god that answers prayer. IF I make of myself nothing, I shall expect not more than nothing's proper place and por- tion. T MAY say that this or that ■*• thing came unbidden to my hearth, but it is of the retinue of my invited guest. ONE will forgive the long, parched lanes, and remem- ber them only kindly, once one has arrived at green fields. '\7'0JJ thought you knew life -*• because you sailed its sea tri- umphant, but I knew it because I went down in a wreck. ONLY the weak of purpose falter at the parting of the ways. T MIGHT have made friends •*• with life, for we have come a long ways together. T ET me be lusty and virile, •*-' that the thing that I do may be strong in the mesh. WHILE the black slough mud can send forth lilies to blossom on its breast, I shall not despair. GIVE me that life that is seamed and riven with living. MID-CHANNEL of my life lies the wreck of myself, raising its menacing spars, but I am wiring the wreck to a mine in the harbor. I AM a soul in process. AM life in the making. I am a weaver with shuttle and thread, and back in my loom the design begins to show. ONE day Life will bless the sacrament of the days. She will robe me in her vestry, and anoint me, as one who enters holy orders. TMAY not set you free. It is •■' not a gift, but a growth. BLESSED be the things which cannot be endured. It is when I am deepest down that I lift myself farthest out. I MAY give a thousand rea- sons, but when all is said and done, just write, "va|cillating and weak of will." I I WOULD stand the test of the primitive folk, who know the taste of unsalted food. YOU tell me to do this, or that, or that another thing would better please, but do you not know that I must do the thing I can? T F hindrances could hinder, not one could do his work. T is not how much salt in a tear, but how much grief. O be lifted up and out, into Life's unrestraint and big- ness! TO one day know the taste of that for which, through long years, we have starved. To sit down to the feast of Deferred, Withheld, and Forbid- den things ! LIFE is life, until it is what we make of it. Hemp is hemp, — until it is a life-line or a hangman's rope. nr^HAT which comes may not •*- be best, but I can make the best out of it. A holocaust that devours a city may be cruel and unpitying, but the new city may rise, a glory. THAT another does less, or has less, shall bring no solace to me. I shall find no joy in com- parative states. What is lacking in my life is lacking, and the contemplation of another's greater misfortune, or imperfections, shall work no sickening compromise with me. ONE day I will count my possessions, and they will include me. SHALL you care that jackdaws peck at you, and do you not know that vultures fly over the desert where a lone traveller stalks? SOME give their cast-off coats, and some the coats from their back. And some give bread alone, and some give bread and tears. T SEEMED to be doing the ■*• thing for you, but primarily it was my own soul to save. I invited you into the warmth of my hearth, but it was I who must be warmed. I gave you to drink, but it was I who thirsted, and to eat, be- cause I, too, must be fed. I WILL not carry a thing to its culmination simply be- cause I entered in. I may have said I wanted it, but I will have the courage to say, "I have changed my mind." nr^HE route is all the same, •*- only the end is different. We all come down the same long lanes, through the same wildernesses, across the same deserts, up through the same val- leys, and over the same hills. The way is all the same. Only the end is the individual's. WHO does much will relin- quish a great deal. It will bear the virile marks of sacrifice. AND in the end it would be to our great advantage if a God dealt with us, for only a God could forgive us our vacuous lives. WE carry our burden on and on, until one day, sud- denly, we laugh and set it down upon the ground. TT is not outer conditions, but •*• inner impoverishment, that limits me to this meagre supply. WHILE I might find pleas- ure in your approval, your disapproval will not deter me. •I TO comprehend, to accept, and to be glad! NOT one can you set free, but you may inspire the desire. Not one for another, but you may incite to action. HEREDITY is much, en- vironment is much, but 1 am much more. I WILL have the courage to do the thing that I am im- pelled to do. I will not faint, nor falter, nor "by your leave." THE incoming may still my heart's weeping, but only that which I send forth will still the deeper cry of my soul. IT is not the thing you seem to be that I admire. It is the thing there which you have obscured. WHO would not die, and die again, if he might also rise in resurrection? Who would not suffer to be nailed to the cross if he might ascend into his heaven and sit at his Father's right hand? TO be delivered from myself! From my one self, the Enemy, and to my other self, the Friend; From my one self, the Prodi- gal, to my other self, the Return. T PRAYED for strength to ■*• bear my burden, but it was not a burden of strength. Strength would have put an end to it. ONCE I said I would rise up and cast it off, before the forces gathered. I would not forget the giant whom the Lilli- puts destroyed. TO one day read the pages of life, and subscribe to what they contain. To accept what was; To stamp it with the stamp of my approval, and accept it with my sign and seal. THE dead level is not life. Give me the stimulus of the up-grade. DEFEAT shall be victory, if I may live and die an en- thusiast, buoyant to the end. To die in failure, if one may yet die in faith! IF my spontaneity does not fit the code, I will forego the code. •5 T MAY never find the thing I •*• seek, but maybe you will have caught the spirit of my dream. I may never set foot upon my Promised Land, but maybe you will go on. T MAY forget God, for I am ■*• a weak and erring human, but God is God, and he will not forget me. LIFE is a tragedy to those who really live her. She is a levity not even to the clown, — only to the fool. T WILL not take my wares to ■*• the palace door, but outside the gate, where the peasants pass. Mine to supply a want, not to relieve a surfeit. ONE day to collect the scat- tered fragments of myself, and give them symmetry, and wholeness, and use. THERE are no short cuts to destiny. It is the long way around. There is no hastening the day. The long night must pass. 'TpHE gift comes not back to •*- him who surfeits, and gives of what remains, but to him who gives of half the cup that barely was enough to slake his own deep thirst. NO narrow wall shall confine me, and no depressing roof shall mark my poverty. I am rich and limitless, for mine is the depth of worlds, the height of skies, and the width of the far horizon. = , »^ ^ H 70 86 4 O ^^^ "' .^^ .... %."-^^ .<" ... <>. *^ ^ .^, .V s.. 'J;^ ""' ^A'' «> '»