Glass th 3S/3 Rnnk *- c I ^ (* Gopyright^N? o ?/¥ COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT. LOVE, HOME, AND THE INNER LIFE Joy is like a bird in flight, which dips in passing and touches us with its wing. It comes from out of a far country and it tracks its way on high. After brief hovering it will recover its former altitude, its speed, and song. Its throbbing heart passes high over our troubled cities. As we watch its flight of untrammeled wing we wish that somehow we might capture that blitheness and teach it to dwell among men. Why should it pause but never abide? We would have that joy abide so fixedly that it would become peace. [HI LOVE, HOME, AND THE INNER LIFE BY ARTHUR H. GLEASON WITH A FRONTISPIECE IN COLORS BY SPENCER BAIRD NICHOLS NEW YORK FREDERICK A. STOKES COMPANY PUBLISHERS 7*0 3 A I b^ ' - Copyright, IQ14, by Frederick A. Stokes Company All rights reserved September, 1914 SEP 14 1914 ©IA380345 TO THE MOTHER TO THE WIFE AND TO THE HOUSEHOLD HELPER WHO MAKE THE HOME OUT OF THE WORK OF THEIR HANDS AND THE GOOD WILL IN THEIR HEARTS ACKNOWLEDGMENT These tiny craft came safely into haven. For granting anchorage we offer thanks to the harbor-masters, the Editors of Collier s Weekly, the Popular Magazine, the Chris- tian Herald, Harper s Weekly, the Gongrega- tionalist, and Pearson's Magazine. [vi] CONTENTS PAGE Joy ii Dedication v Acknowledgment vi PART I. THE COMING OF LOVE i. The Youngster 3 2. Doubt 5 3. Questioning 6 4. Desire 7 5. Brevity 8 PART II. THE MAKING OF THE HOME 1. Motto for a Home 11 2. Life's Young Adventurers 13 3. The Eternal Surprise 14 4. In the Hills 16 5. The Day's Work 17 6. The Inner Cheer 18 7. The Glow 19 8. A Man's Thought of His Home ... 20 9. A Petition at Evening 22 PART III. FRIENDS OF THE HOME 1. The Bible 27 2. The' Galilean 29 3. The Redeemers at Work 31 4. The Lady and the Cop 32 5. To Our Stenographer 34 6. The Letter Carrier's Whistle ... 37 7. The Clock 38 8. The Elder Brother 40 9. The Things We Seek 42 [vii] CONTENTS PAGE PART IV. THE LIFE WITHIN i. Talk 47 2. Haphazard 49 3. Renewal 50 4. Some Day 52 5. A Wish 53 6. The Shadow 54 7. Release . 55 8. A Meditation 56 9. A Nightcap .58 PART V. ENEMIES OF THE HOME 1. The Spirit of Evil . . 61 2. How Long! 63 3. Unrest 64 4. Poverty and Riches 66 PART VI. THE STERNER PHASE 1. In Praise of Death 71 2. On a Late Train 73 3. Overheard 76 4. The Coming Folk 77 5. Epitaph of a Modern 78 PART VII. IMPRESSIONS 1. Canals 83 2. The Wonder Book 85 3. Immortality 87 4. Forbes-Robertson in Hamlet .... 88 5. Memorial Days 90 6. The Prophet That Failed ..... 91 7. To-day 94 8. The Artist 97 PART VIII. THE LOOK AHEAD 1. Plea of the American People . . . . ioi 2. The Answer 103 [ viii ] THE COMING OF LOVE THE YOUNGSTER HE is so young and girlish that she is dear beyond what words can say. We hope she will never grow up to become tired and sad. We hope she will al- ways overflow into laughter and kisses, and lean down through the dark to bring a love that is full of wonder and freshness, bearing dear gifts that we thought could never be. We did not know that anything half so unspoiled would ever visit us. We pray that nothing will come between her joy and our sad heart, that is glad of her through all the hours of the day, because of all the true love, put into each little act. Not one of the hundred pretty things she does to show love and to make happy the one she loves — not one of those gen- tle services goes unregarded, though it would bring choking and tears to say Thank-you out [3] LOVE, HOME, AND THE INNER LIFE of the heart, each time that Thank-you is felt. We hope that the dear God will spare her and keep her, and that there will never be a mo- ment of pain to her because of us. May we be worthy of her great love, her dear playful- ness. [4] DOUBT O you love in the deep hidden places where your sadness dwells, and where the heart's loneliness is known to itself? Or are you, too, like the other things that come and go, whose only memory is ache and emptiness? Are you like praise and pop- ularity — one more mock in this outer world of broken dreams? One more petty treachery in this inner world of self-mistrust? [si QUESTIONING ILL you be happy in the lack of all life's surface things — success and the good word of men? Will you not desire the warming Gulf Stream of the world's approbation, comforts to surround you and flood your life with ease? Will love remain sweet in the hours of faltering, when high hopes waver, and the goal, once so clearly seen, looks too far-distant ever to be reached? Will love temper inap- peasable longing? When I think how poorly I can crown you with worldly offerings, I am shy to be beseeching you. Will love be crown enough? [6] DESIRE OME at no distant time. You have let loose such longing and desire that they must meet with you, their mate. Sometimes the thought of you is full of pain; and, then again, is gentle and peace-giving. Come, while yet we are fresh, and have not spilled our living waters. Come, before we both grow sterile with hope deferred. Why should I bring you a languid desire, when I could come like a tide inrushing? Why should you answer with quieted pulse, when flame might pass from lip to lip? [7] BREVITY i [HEN the heart opens to a perfect happiness and reaches out through its loneliness to the comforts of an answering love, it knows that the presence is fugitive. Briefly the precious thing is loaned us, and in the vanishing we shall learn of grief. The sensitive being that breathed so close at our side will go, as the color of the sunset passes. Just over the hilltop misfortune is waiting, and some one of the coming days will bear away the light of our eyes. But that brief visitation of peace will leave a memory to overleap the darkness of the days remaining, and the gulf of death. It is good to dwell for the hours, were it only of a single day, with one whom the heart has chosen, and to hear responses to our doubt and loneliness. Such a day would bring us on through the bleakness of our journey, hoping for renewal of the com- panionship that was so dear and all-sufficing. [8] II THE MAKING OF THE HOME MOTTO FOR A HOME \HIS home is dedicated to good will. It grew out of love. The two heads of the household were called to- gether by a power higher than they. To its decree they are obedient. Every tone of the voice, every thought of their being, is subdued to that service. They desire to be worthy of their high calling, as ministers of that grace. They know their peace will go unbroken only for a little time. And often they suspect that the time will be more short even than their anxious hope. They cannot permit so much as one hour of that brief unity to be touched by scorn or malice. The world's judgments have lost their sting inside this door. Those who come seeking to continue the harmony which these two have won are ever welcome. The rich are welcome, so they come simply. The En] LOVE, HOME, AND THE INNER LIFE poor are welcome, for they have already learned friendliness through buffeting. Youth is welcome, for it brings the joy which these two would learn. Age is welcome, for it will teach them tenderness. [12] LIFE'S YOUNG ADVENTURERS PURNING the sheltered haven, they dare wide spaces on untried seas. Eagerly they spread white canvas, blown upon by finer airs than any from the chambers of the East. Riding the dawn- winds, and flushed with the early light, they glide from the happy harbor. Golden days sun them on swift tides. As their adventure widens, they will break into fresh zones, there to be tested in the hur- ricane and thunder, in calm and drought and weary drifting. Pitiless misfortune will fall out of the firmament upon their feeble craft, and under them the deep will plunge and rear. They sail a never-ending voyage, till finally they come where earth's dim margin merges with a deeper blue. [13] THE ETERNAL SURPRISE LEAR the way for the young men. They are entering "the strong, flourishing and beautiful age of man's life." They decree the changes. The map of the world may be rolled up — every acre tramped upon and inhabited. But still they come claiming all the rights of the ad- venturer. Domains must be found for them, if the old earth has gone stale. If the life of danger and discovery is ended, then they will turn their hand against our secure world, and refashion the pleasant places. Unruly and turbulent, they uproot tradition and shatter the institutions. We should like them better if they fitted into our scheme, if they were ruddy and cheery and ended there. But they come ear- nest and critical. They jeer our failures, re- [14] THE ETERNAL SURPRISE ject our compromises, while we stand blinking and sorrowful. It isn't our idea of youth, our peaceful picture of what youth should be. The poets sing it, as if it were a pretty thing, the gentle possession of a golden race of be- ings. But it is lusty with power, and disas- trous to comfort. Men sigh for it as if it had vanished with Old Japan at the hour when it is ramping in their courtyard and challenging their dear beliefs. They are wistful for it in their transfigured memory, and they curse it in their councils. [15] IN THE HILLS |WO hours ago, the sun set for us who live in the hollow of the hills. The dog snores, and lifts a sleepy- paw; the great clock ticks with sober certi- tude; the fire glows and dies away. Some struggle, a bout in the open, the round of house- hold tasks — heaping high the woodbox against the night, and broiling the savory meats — long casual talk, the hearth smoke like in- cense rising toward the roof — and so Good- night. Another day has gone into the meas- ureless tide of days, and we have added to no man's suffering. So may the life of days be meted out. Then well-content, our wages taken, we can be gathered in. [16] THE DAY'S WORK HIS is the task appointed: To hold the vision of a final ar- rival at some fitting destination. To maintain undiminished a sense of per- sonal worthiness. To be defeated in each foolish dream of the younger life And so to be disciplined into a larger vision, made more sure by adversity. To be delayed for most of a lifetime, And then, when the release is at hand, to find the inner impulse dead from long dis- use • And yet to believe in the strength of the human spirit to surmount pain, and defeat malice and envy To believe in the gradual but all-conquer- ing power of good-will To be saddened, but not embittered To be beaten but not conquered. [17] THE INNER CHEEK F would be almost as if we had come back from the dead if we could look into the hearts of any household of common folk; and see with what good cheer they front the present life, so narrowed from the scope of youthful dreams; how loyal they are to the day's work, so shrunken from eager early hopes; with what patience they adapt themselves to imperfect companionships, less gracious than the bright comradery of youth; how invincibly the dreariest of persons face danger and monotony. If we could but see these predestined chil- dren, a world full of people advancing with head high to annihilation. The quietest of country communities, those peacefully plod- ding folk, are like the handful of Greeks, the small Thermopylae band, marching on the spears. [18] THE GLOW OMETIMES you see a starling in a winter landscape, in the bleak twi- light. You think of the tiny pin point of warmth that bird is carrying at its heart. Under the whipped feathers, its breast is glowing. It throbs out heat-rays against the chill and darkness. Here is a hint of the kinship of dumb crea- tures, alike those that burrow and those that fly. It is to see that each winged and swim- ming thing has its own life to lead, its allotted term of joy in motion, its minute area of suf- fering. We groping humans are in life for a little space along with all these warm and liv- ing things — together with them selected to rejoice under the sun and shortly to die. [19] A MAN'S THOUGHT OF HIS HOME ERE, alone in the waste, he is neces- sary. Here it is he, and no other, whose coming is awaited, whose sep- aration is grieved for. Elsewhere it matters little that he comes or goes. Here he can tell his loneliness. Here failure is revealed without shame: — sin confessed, and forgive- ness found. In this deep life of trust there is a sharing in all things with her who carries the precious detailed work of the home. Returning, let him bring to her, who is more attentive than a stranger audience, some of the color of the passing day, some of the motion of life's traffic, back to the stillness of the little home. So that ever his coming will be known by a brightness, making the longest evening tremulous and quick with the busy scene and the tumbling thousands of street and office, [20] A man's thought of his home No gifts of life can weigh against the per- fect gift of brooding tenderness. How guilty the feeling that any foolish word of blame and irritability should be visited on one so sensi- tive and caring. The loveless word can wreck an evening that began happily, light-heart- edly, till the forehead is anxious with worry, and the eyes are troubled with tears. Cleanse the man of the selfishness that fails to safeguard evenings of companionship, eag- erly awaited through weary hours. Make him worthy of that hovering of love. Bring him to the quiet place of fulfillment with a quickening of the breath, a lift of the heart outflowing in affection. Let fair ways of courtesy prevail between them both. Let there be no settling to accustomed things, to a saddened silence. Preserve the faith with which the hours of courtship throbbed. [21] A PETITION AT EVENING FTER the weariest day, the evening comes, full of peace. Just now it is descending upon the earth beneath, to pour out illimitable quiet. Into the stricken streets and sorrowful homes calm will flow, and never a sufferer in all these millions but will feel a little of that soothing. Restless heated life of mortals, alike with the un- troubled life of the forest, bathes in the cool- ness and silence. Such is the gift of peace we ask for the spirit within us that is tired and grieved. With the oncoming of the night, we would have calm for our fret and loneliness. Out of bereavement and manifold failure, we long for some presence into which we may come, as grieving children turn toward the mother and the home. From the cares of this world, the [22] A PETITION AT EVENING blight of failure, the unrest of our inner lives, we implore release and healing. To that presence, we would bring all the sadness for friends dead or far-distant or neglectful, all the hurt of love unrequited. [23] Ill FRIENDS OF THE HOME THE BIBLE ERTAIN of our wise men of to-day have shaded away sin till it becomes an expression of temperament. They tell us that we sin because our grandfather sinned, and because our home is situated in the wrong block. These are clever words of clever comforters, and surely they ought to wipe away forever the tears from our eyes. But we do not ask that our sin shall be ex- plained. We wish forgiveness and a fresh start. In the Book which we no longer read, there are no soft words about sin. But the way out is shown. And here, too, is comfort in plenty for man broken by his toil and his grief. When again will any company of writers say the things they know in such telling words — the boy far from the faces of his home and [27] LOVE, HOME, AND THE INNER LIFE far gone in shame. Much is swept away be- tween us and them, but not one accent of Naomi's voice is lost to us, and still the "Turn again, my daughters," is as wistful as when it breathed through the alien corn. What richer consolation are we hungry for that we turn from Judea? Is our science so acute that it has banished failure from man's life? Have our ships sailed so far that they have revealed to us a braver continent than the fields where pain once reigned? Has the human heart changed under the wear of the centuries, so that sin no longer seeks forgiveness, and grief has no need of a comforter? [28] THE GALILEAN ^|gyfO his lovely spirit we bring our sad- ness and our frailty. His gentle thought knows no alien races, no outcast men nor women. He gathers us all, Jew and Gentile, toil worn and disinherited, within the healing of His love. We need His homely ways, who had no scorn for unsuccess. We need His simple speech, whose words could touch the heart of grief. He told us whither we go. He told us that we go to a place like a father's house, a place with room enough for all. Many years ago, with a ten- der ministration, He took away the hurt from troubled hearts, and still the thought of Him brings comfort for what is bruised with striv- ing and comradeship for what has never been at home in life. The journey is sweeter with [29] LOVE, HOME, AND THE INNER LIFE Him in company. His care for us is more understanding than the heart of all other friends, for in the hour of need they are some- times very far away. His love is so sure that we take it for granted, so forgiving that we are careless of it, trusting it as we trust the sun continuing in the heavens. It sends out its gentle rays into the immense emptiness of life. It would wait, sorrowful and full of remem- brance, through a lifetime of years. Inside its golden circumference it includes all the wide areas of the human spirit, rising through the radiance of youth to manhood's term of power, and falling away to the final dissolu- tion. [30] THE REDEEMERS AT WORK S one watches them, so eager in their quest, there are times when the mind leaps clear of the years, and remem- bers the old straggler of Athens wrestling with truth, just outside the city wall by the brink of the flowing river. For a moment can be seen all the long line of the patient, who have scanned the stars, and studied the slums, fought disease, sung songs, gone dauntless into peril: — dreamers all, who have mapped out the life of the spirit and given earth a braver destiny. [31] THE LADY AND THE COP HE policeman, Garrigan, was walk- ing his beat on a side street in the largest of our cities. Soon he came upon a group of children scattering before a dog which was frothing at the mouth and sink- ing its teeth in the calf of a young girl's leg. Garrigan had put on his big yellow mitts that morning because the day was cold. He plunged his right hand down the throat of the dog and broke its jaw. The dog's teeth tore through the glove and bit to the bone the po- liceman's hand in three places — on the back of the hand and on two fingers. The little girl ran home to her mother. The children returned to their play. The policeman gath- ered up the dog and put it in a canvas bag, and started for the station-house. Meanwhile there had been a silent witness to the incident [32] THE LADY AND THE COP — a kindly faced, middle-aged woman. She had seen a crowd of children in terror and one in danger. She had seen a pretty rescue. And in the making of the rescue she had seen a man hurt. Swiftly and surely she chose that ele- ment of the situation which appealed to her. She chose the dog. "Officer," she said, "what are you going to do with that dog? He is suffering." "I am taking him home as a pet for the chil- dren," replied Garrigan. "You don't need to be uncivil to me," said the woman, showing her credentials as a mem- ber of the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. "You see who I am. Are you going to shoot the dog?" Garrigan swore at her, and hastened to re- port to the captain. In the rear of the station- house Garrigan shot the dog. Then he got time off and went over to the hospital, where they cauterized his three wounds. The next day he was on his beat again. [33] TO OUR STENOGRAPHER HO else knows us half so well? She has heard all that we have said, and then made notes of it, and her fing- ers have glided over our thoughts for years. She has read our incoming letters. She knows who pleads with us for help, and what we do about it. She scans the sharp things said by- anonymous enemies who stab us through the mail. She wards off undesirable citizens, and flatters the self-importance of persons who will speed our career. Do we write frankly or eva- sively — she follows the straight-hewed line, or the curve of our deviousness. Are we cour- teous only to the powerful, or is our treatment even to all who come seeking? The woman at our elbow, hammering out our paragraphs, is a clear-eyed witness. Over the telephone [34] TO OUR STENOGRAPHER voices drift in from the world of pleasure, and the tone of each is caught and judged by the receiving ear, before our presence is ac- knowledged. She knows whether our friends are worthy. Is the home happy? — She knows it. She notes our tricks of person — the em- phatic way in which we bite our fingernails. Our good temper, our clean breath, fly further than we guess. She is familiar with the stale phrases we scatter over the thousand routine letters, and she is gladdened when we light up the languid page with an unspoiled turn. Without a moan, she listens to our struggle with a retarded thought, though she could have rescued the sentence when we began to splash. She is aware when we have tumbled out from a laden desk to a World's Series ball game. She, too, would enjoy Mr. Baker's versatility, but she wades through our debris till twilight. She could keep our tardy cor- [35] LOVE, HOME, AND THE INNER LIFE respondence up to the minute, but she has to time her efficiency to our limitations. Never outpacing us, she is as loyal in the background as our shadow. [36] THE LETTER CARRIER'S WHISTLE ERHAPS the sweetest sound in the city is the liquid whistle of the post- man. Like the trill of a bird, it calls us first to expectation, then to contemplation. It heralds news and the advent of a friendly visitant. Its throaty music is laden with sur- prise. As it comes up the street, faint and far, then clear and arresting, it trails distant dear ones who are throwing out their greeting from over seas, and across a continent. [37] THE CLOCK IGH in a court-house tower in the greatest of our cities, a clock has given the time to several generations of men. By day, black hands on a white face are visible down the streets and avenues that radiate from the triangular court-house which uplifts the tower and its time-keeper. That bland face in the sky sends a busy neighbor- hood out to their duties. It starts the news- boy on his rounds with his sheaf of penny papers. It keeps tab on the loiterer leaning against the railing far below, or half-slumber- ing on the steps. Girls of the department stores, scurrying to work, glance up at the early morning face and slacken as they see that the day still gives them a portion of grace. Motormen, clanging their way through choked traffic, speed up their laden compart* [38] THE CLOCK ments, under the threat of those ongoing hands. By night the tower is a pillar of light, and time to a fractional minute can be read for half a mile. With a fire in its belly, the clock throws its beams into the naughty world of midnight, speeding the tardy lover, rebuking the roisterer who staggers past its base as it circles toward the new day. And one hour later it instructs the corner tavern that the pleasant evening is ended, and time is for turning out of doors the befuddled customer, mumbling in his cups. It seems to those who have lived in sight of this sure-footed and lofty witness, that it will conduct their jour- ney to the end. [39] THE ELDER BROTHER HERE was love in the heart of Mary, the Mother. A love so pure and intense that it nourished the lit- tle heart throbbing close to hers, till its own power of loving reached across all races of men and divers tongues. All other loves of incompleteness lag under distance. They are partial, lacking that large self-sacrifice which can daily die to its own. More than many in- ventions and tunneled rivers, the people crave a comforter. And still the Christ comes. He answers our longing for one to forgive our waywardness, and be kindly to our hurt, as restlessness grows into calm when the shadows of the hills lie broodingly on the path of tired feet. He takes this world of emptiness and gives it back to us full of friendly meanings. [40] THE ELDER BROTHER Sadness and failure were the familiar com- panions of his earthly days, so his words are tender and moving. Those who hear them say: Here is one more who knows, who has gone the road of sorrow. [41] THE THINGS WE SEEK \E seek a social order where men of good will are in the leadership, and youth shall continue its hardy enter- prise through long and plenteous years. We desire a society that is orderly and in- nocent, and touched with a blitheness that now rarely visits these sad stretches of mor- tality. Afar from this place of our failure, already we each of us cherish a retreat, some sun-warmed spot, where there is a fulfillment. We would extend that hidden place of dreams till its peace is spread abroad, and all peoples are sheltered where once we brooded alone. We would fashion a world of beauty where we take our joy of the fresh morning lifting the grassest The earth grows stale with our [42] THE THINGS WE SEEK baser uses: the face of it tarnished with our gain and mastery. We would recover the hillsides and forests to their former greenness, and lead back that charm of the ancient world, till the land is again as beautiful as the unchangeable sea. [43] IV THE LIFE WITHIN TALK EN with a glee-club voice, folks with the friendly temperament, prodigal sons with personal charm, these and such as these need no first aid to genial hours. But for many persons every- where, leading their surface life, there comes a loneliness stabbing through. In the vast- ness of New York the single life can merge its suffering. It is hidden in hotel lobbies and on the restless streets. It is not self-conscious and conspicuous as in the village. But the Ferris wheels, the cafe lights, the smells, and noise of revelry offer us no final escape from loneliness. We need real talk to set us free. By ceaseless experiment in establishing com- munication with the spirits of the living we lay open approaches to our inner life, and permit ourselves to be stimulated by new- [47] LOVE, HOME, AND THE INNER LIFE comers, and loved by well-established friends. Expression cleanses. If we fail to get it on a dark matter — a hate, a jealousy, a fear — we are led to obsession and despair. That furtive look in the eye of the unbalanced declares one who has concealed some piece of slyness. If Othello had spoken instead of choking at the throat, there would have been less tragedy. By such daring in our intimacies we leap over the shyness that hinders, and gain rare hours of revealing talk, and win a friend or two. The best and most various man is he who has brought the larger number of these wayward yearnings and unrealized bits through the tis- sue of obstruction. [48] HAPHAZARD HERE is a wayward element in life which makes the turning of a street corner an adventure. There is some- thing amazing in the squandering of power and charm, at random. We all have glimpses of rare women in sordid places. Once we saw a barmaid in an English inn whose face was lovely in its young beauty. And there she went answering drunken orders and spending that early bloom among heavy-footed louts. In any community there are several women of grace and fine ability burning up a fragile strength on rough tasks. Those unobserved and vagrant perfections touch the sober jour- ney with flashes of color. They mean that life refuses to be organized, has no bureau of reg- istration for beauty, no central clearing station for its multitudinous wonder. The next inn at the forks of the road may be reserving for us a loyal friend or a fresh encounter. [49] RENEWAL N the heart of the child lies the pic- ture of a perfect world. His love is unwounded, and he thinks that all about him is a friendly place. Life is at pains to set up that image of perfection and innocence in each new generation, and then is careful to smear it over with the reality of what follows. It is as if an artist should paint his canvas only to wipe off his colors in endless rotation. Why the labor, if there is no permanence? Why that first trust in man, that faith in vir- tue's victory? Why is the father able to trans- mit to the child what is more joyous than any dream or experience of his own mature life? Why does no taint of the toil and sin of the adult earth ever reach through the seed of [50] RENEWAL the parent to the infant life, and touch it to apprehension? Does the heart, then, generate its own va- pors, which rise to veil the steady shining of the early days? Or are we but the echo to circumstance, to give back the tone and accent which event casts toward us? And if we are so wrought upon by time, then why the unwearied repetition of the fair illusion? Is it the faint memory, soon suc- cumbing, of what the earth once was? Or is it to body forth a pattern of what our world should be? [51] SOME DAY OMETIMES we wonder if the world will one day win a sense of peace and beauty, or if we are to whizz and yell and advertise till the end of time. Will humble pleasures forever seem tame and quiet ways unsuccessful? Or are we mad only for a little term, and shall we dwell with spacious and serene things after this fever cools? Shall we soon turn from the clat- ter of these days, the scorn of what is simple- hearted, the haste and noise that drown out all gentle voices? Some deeper, sweeter tone than the whir of machines and the clamor of the streets will dominate the time to come. We shall recover our knowledge of the silent passage of a summer's day, the swift wind- swept procession of early autumn clouds, the breaking waves that wear away the beach. [52] A WISH |0 work under constant thwarting, but to work without bitterness; to live each day with kindliness when our strength is exhausted and there is little sweetness in our lot; to keep hold of sure val- ues when the individual effort has gone awry; to know that we are misplaced, and yet that the eternal order is undisturbed; to know that justice may be delayed for a century and still arrive in ample time. [53] THE SHADOW HEN life advances with a supreme gift of love, we know it will never be granted for long. We know that something will smite down and intercept the offering, that somehow the gift will be changed into a sacrifice, that loss is in store for the heart that reaches out too anxiously. Some bitterness out of the sky will visit that felicity. We are hungered all too much, so the bread of life is soon withholden. We thirst, but the waters are not released for us. Our eagerness, born of our need and longing, will never dwell with the all-sufficing. Slow death or sudden death, it comes at last, rob- bing us of what is more precious than the sun- light. [54] RELEASE HERE is freedom in a beach day full of sunshine, and overhung by skies of a brilliant blue. The wilt of frenzied streets is forgotten and far-away. Coolness walks up from the wide fields of salt. It is good just to sit and watch the danc- ing of those waters, and the sparkle of light on each mounting wave-peak. It is better yet to swing in the tides, to glide with a free over- arm down the path of the waves, cleaving the water with slow r even stroke. If you are true lover of the sea, you will wait for the night. Under foot, the shoe, as it strikes wet sand, is phosphorescent, and re- ceding waves leave a faintly luminous outline. Overhead, all the stars in their loveliness are drawn across the heavens in patterns of bright gold. And at dawn a wan frost is on the marsh grass. [55] A MEDITATION E have failed to think ever worthily of the men about us, our brothers. We have let our tongue loosen anger and irritability against those with whom we work, sad as we, and, like us, strug- gling. In this cleansing of confession, we know that to-night and now our sin has passed away. Again thy gift of peace is upon us. And we turn from our wrongdoing, healed. There is no power, less high than thee, no an- swer less august, that can free us utterly from the failure of our striving. And, yet more, we ask for peace to our troubled mind. Free us from what will dull our sense of thee. Let no mischance assail the citadel of our inmost life. Let tumult beat vainly against this center of quiet. Banish [56] A MEDITATION our hurry. Restore to us the steadiness of thy will, the hush of thy in-dwelling. Help us to make an end of the sorrow that is in the land, the hurt that each heart carries. Use us in just this place, which may be lowly, at just this time, which seems unworthy. Teach us that the times are in thy hand, that we are to work cheerily, and live undismayed by the vastness of thy task and the slowness of thy method. Reveal to us that justice will at last prevail, and that thou art unworried through all the flurries of war and selfishness. [57] A NIGHTCAP ET our last thought of the evening be one of thanksgiving that, in the few hours of the day now ending, so much good will has been shown to us. There have been well-wishers, ready to further every effort of our hands and respon- sive to each impulse of our friendliness. We have received much kindness within a little time. We cannot doubt the good in all men when those whom we know have helped us to happiness. Let us be glad of the peaceful home — the shelter itself shutting out the night of storm — and the loyalty of the comrades, housed with us, giving of their steady affection. Let us be comforted, knowing that we shall sleep in peace, forgiven for our shortcomings, and that we shall waken to work and the fresh chances of the morning, with failure forgot- ten and the scene newly set for our endeavor. [58] V ENEMIES OF THE HOME THE SPIRIT OF EVIL E see the world without at odds. We see disaster invading the innocent household, humiliation shaming the simplest of men, a furtive malevolence wreak- ing itself upon sweet and lovely things. To behold a noble mind stricken with insanity, to hear those whom we love spoken of with treachery, to know of kindliness and good will betrayed and laid low — these, the experiences of every mortal man, contain elements of in- tolerable injustice. We are driven to think that, hidden somewhere behind the clouds, or in the recesses of the darkest night, there is perhaps one lurking who overlooks the earthly life with a rich and secret scorn. How he must sometimes tumble in mirth, as he devises and aims one more of his petty but effective obstructions, and sees it reach its perfect con- [61] LOVE, HOME, AND THE INNER LIFE summation. More and more one is tempted in certain moods to suspect intention, a clev- erly disguised purpose running through the ages, and tripping the individual life. [62] HOW LONG! INETEEN hundred years ago, He gave His peace to a woman who had J sinned, His censure to the men who hounded her saddened life. But still the broken women are as aliens in our streets, and still the men, who gain their pleasure and their profit of them, go proudly, lifting high their head of power. [63] UNREST OMAN'S restlessness is not the spir- itual state of those marching to a victory. Restlessness is the inner life of those who have temporarily lost their quest and the sight of the goal. They are in Mid-Channel, where choppy seas prevail. Many of to-day are rushing after something less than their own highest. They need a re- turn of belief and a dispensation of authority. They need a religion and a home. They are so scattered by life as not to win an inner peace. Our times must give a better place than the harsh toil-driven home which the daughters dreaded, and a sweeter religion than that which failed to comfort the disin- herited. When woman ceases to express essential womanhood, when she ceases to express the [6 4 ] UNREST mothering instinct, she becomes a troublesome sex machine, a disturber of the world's work, a slightly exotic deflector of man's efficiency. Only in motherhood woman is able to win her own center of quiet, and man's belief in her. That motherhood is perhaps quite as often spiritual as physical. It is found in the devo- tion of social workers, in patient teachers, in nurses, in nuns. It is found wherever care for others is steadily practiced — that tender- ness and self-sacrifice of care, with its under- standing of sin and weakness, which is most movingly revealed in the mother with the babe, but which is shown in a thousand other relationships of life, by women, married and unmarried. [65] POVERTY AND RICHES T is an uncharted sea to which we are called — but one we all must sail. There are no bell-buoys for the reefs, and the topography of the new continent at the other side of the sunset is altogether guess-work. One thing is sure — we shall every one be immigrants there, some day; whether the coast is rockbound or fertile green. The quest for a more perfect right- eousness is never stayed. In the chemistry of our being something makes us hunt the gleam, under whatever sky, in every age. Cathedral builders and sweat-shop tailors are one with Hector of the glancing helmet in the desire for holiness. In this age in which we live, the light of revelation has, for a little, lighted our goal, has touched it with flame and passed on, hav- [66] POVERTY AND RICHES ing shown us the journey to which we are pledged. And, with each fresh gain, we thrill at the lift, and then sigh with weariness. But the fatigue is only the cry of the flesh, and the thrill is the prophecy of the final height. Two things impede the progress — poverty and riches. Poverty — because it gives a heri- tage of pain and disease, making motherhood sordid, and the birth of the manchild no gift to the future. Riches — because they destroy the spirit. The rich, they, the pilots, are steer- ing with compasses that have lost responsive- ness to the North Magnetic Pole. To an age that demands all the influences of the upper air, they supply a helm unwitting of the final direction. Our little ones are robbed of joy, and our masters are unaware of God. [6 7 ] VI THE STERNER PHASE IN PRAISE OF DEATH E may envy the dead, for we do not injure them in their rest. Our de- sire to be like them will not mar one hour of their quietness. In life we are too weary to be at peace, but with them the sleep is undisturbed and profound. All offending and feverish elements merge in the stillness of an endless night. There can be no grief so piercing but all-merciful death will enfold it. Bitterness itself will lie at rest. In the hope of that ending, we can endure in fortitude the sad passage of the years. It is sufficient to know that we shall inherit that gift of peace. Though sometimes we think that the release will be soon, still there is de- lay and the years go heavily. But in the dark- est hour, we know that it can be no long time till we are permitted to be quiet. No memory [71] LOVE, HOME, AND THE INNER LIFE will reach through to the silence of the place prepared — no memory to sting us, no hope to mislead us. No footfall will beat an echo of brief hope. No voice of betrayal will carry into that infinitude. We shall be let alone. f72] ON A LATE TRAIN HE long train of cars was steadily driving westward through a night of darkness. In the last seat of the last car, which was otherwise empty of people, sat a man and a woman. The light of the overhead cluster of gas jets was not so strong but the dark night poured in upon the two through the car window at the girl's right hand. Her profile was white against the heavy northern sky. They were young enough for that journey to have been the beginning of all good things. But they were silent as those who have reached the end of sweet ex- perience together. Now and again she looked out into the night with its sudden brightness of station lamps and the returning darkness which was behind and around all the little flickering lights of the countryside. Again [73] LOVE, HOME, AND THE INNER LIFE and again the brakeman wearily droned the name of some way station, where the train crunched and groaned on its brakes and then recovered its motion. The beat and rhythm of the wheels, the deserted car, and the all- surrounding presence of the night would have silenced travelers of more buoyant spirit. To those two it was but the setting for their inner mood, which no dance of lights could have quickened. More often than she turned and peered, unseeing, into the outer darkness, he turned toward her and looked intently at the sweetest face life had ever brought near to his. He had often been moved by that clear, firm profile, with the tender droop at the corner of the mouth, where the perfect curve of the lips began. He saw again those eyes of gen- tleness that had learned to live with sorrow till the liquid fullness of their gaze was wistful on the gladdest day. Once he touched her hand — that hand which had often lain soft and throbbing in his, like a captured bird with [74] ON A LATE TRAIN its beating heart. And at the touch her eyes were filled with tears. It had always been so with her that the lightest touch awakened her to swift responses, to ardor and suffusion of color through all her being. As quickly as he had reached out in his longing he withdrew his hand from the contact. Even so he was too late. But soon she returned to her silent brooding and wistfulness of waiting for the journey to be ended. Suddenly, to each of them, the train jerked itself to a halt, the brakeman aroused himself, the man said good-bye. [75] OVERHEARD N the village by the lake a woman was softly playing and singing. Over and over she went with her quiet tune as if she were telling her happiness to herself, a happiness which she was half- fearful might be envied and invaded if over- heard. So she gave her music gently. So she subdued her joy and the melody that it might escape avenging tongues. [76] THE COMING FOLK ILL they find the road to happiness, and is it a broad highway for the tread of a host, or just a narrow trail, smothered in wild roses, hidden from many? Will they devise some new and finer art than sad music and fading paint and limping words — an art by which each man relieves the hid- den pain and stands revealed to his fellows through no intervening veils, no darkling glass? 1771 EPITAPH OF A MODERN ERE rests one: — Who preferred worldly failure to inner disquiet, and combat to resig- nation Who did not compromise, not even when the compromise would have brought him praise of men and enrichment for a strait- ened life Who, having learned the terms of the game, and finding them terms to which he could not sign Preferred to play his own game, single- handed. Who learned at last that no one else can make decision for a man, Because the stake is the man's own life Who longed for rest, as the footsore trav- [78] EPITAPH OF A MODERN eler longs for the inn and the friendly wel- come ■ But who endured life without one thought of escape till he received an honorable dis- charge. [79] VII IMPRESSIONS CANALS F you cannot win through to the great woods where trails are green, there is nothing else so good as a towpath for the walker who loves silence. No motor cars tear up a tow- path and drive swirling dust down the nostrils of the panting traveler. Nothing un- seemly invades that quiet bank. What a river used to be, a canal now is. It is the gently winding home of dreams. Untroubled by traffic, unfretted by speed launches, it spreads its calm length along, under the shadows of old willow trees. And yet, with all its pool- like placidity, it is as surely on the march as if it churned with motion. By contenting its soul and abiding, it comes to the hidden source or the bright city as certainly as if it pressed forward in heat and frenzy. The canal rests [83] LOVE, HOME, AND THE INNER LIFE in its own length, ample enough to stretch from its source to its goal. Why should it fume and chatter when, motionless, it spans its origin and destiny? On its bosom are borne the great squat canal boats, laden with coal and with families of peaceful folk, who smoke and knit as their craft goes gliding toward a port Sinewy, clever canoeists go down its gentle course, leaving the silence of air and water unbroken as they found it. Every few miles a lonely fisherman thrusts out his pole and holds it level with the scanty depths. These men never weary of the quietness, touched with that flicker of hope which rests like a star on the tip of their rod. Twice or three times in twenty miles you will come upon groups of boy bathers, who strip as swiftly as a sword slips out of sheath and who dive as neatly as the sword slips back into place. [84] THE WONDER BOOK BOOK of books has recently been on public view; full of pictures in fair colors of miracle workers and Bible characters. It is called "Offices of the Virgin." It was illuminated by Guilio Clovio for Cardinal Farnese. Its loveliness has been enriched by the pressure of hands upon it that lifted it from its hiding-place; eyes that have read it page by page, and rested on the very word where you are now gazing; breath that has blown upon the leaves to turn them; touch of the finger that, marveling at the whiteness of the figures, so tiny and dis- tinct, has searched out their curve and smooth- ness. These memories are an encompassing presence to the book, and give it worth beyond its physical size. It has outlived many lives of men, and still [85] LOVE, HOME, AND THE INNER LIFE continues. The cannonading of several wars has not disturbed it in its archive to rustle one leaf in its folded sleep. Princes have been deposed, and strange governments lifted up. But the line of hobbling custodians has gone on tending it, and always it will have a keeper as long as the pages hold together. Time is its only enemy, and its unsullied parchment has already outlasted three centuries. It will still be telling of the saints, when our noisiest deeds have ceased to rumble. Those figures of the holy ones are so gay and young that they live on as if in an arrested springtime. [86] IMMORTALITY T is becoming increasingly hard to find where death achieves its vic- tory. Man has perfected a hundred devices to perpetuate his mortal acts. His voice is caught on rolling disks, and held im- perishable for the ears of his grandchildren. Gestures of his hands, the pantomime of his face, are recorded on films that can be laid away for a century and then unspun and pro- jected on screens. If the breath of his body and his chance actions are so worthy of long continuing, then his spirit, that is finer than they, may be even more persisting, and im- press itself on what is more durable than wax. If death cannot carry away into oblivion tones of his voice nor the spectacle of his ways, it does not become us to doubt that death does not scatter spirit beyond recall, nor altogether end what was so ardent. [8 7 ] FORBES-ROBERTSON IN HAMLET E comes with manners of fair court- esy, a poise of bearing, the de- meanor, so eager and gentle. And over it all in calm level flight the intelligence, which outsoars matter and plays upon it from an inaccessible height. The speaking voice is the loveliest of instruments for carrying sound to the heart of man. And when again shall we hear a voice like his, all compact of music, flexible in cadence — and that natural organ freighted with the thought of silent years. His voice lifted the verse, bearing it with throbbing wings from troubled regions to the final silence. The greatest work of the greatest man in the span of human conscious- ness was here rendered so that never the ac- cents, laden with pain, stoop under their pre- cious burden. [88] FORBES-ROBERTSON IN HAMLET To enter his theater is to rediscover that great gentleman, Hamlet, gracious, ready to be loved, hemmed in by baser natures, desir- ing to flourish, and nipped by a tainted air. Where for him was there escape in this world? So he is swiftly drawn to his ending, and in that brief earthly interlude before his spirit regained its felicity, he breathed out the sweet- est words of human tongue. [89] MEMORIAL DAYS |HESE are the days when the ancient memories flay us. We are visited by those whom we love with a love that hurts because they are not here, and will not be here ever again. And once more we see those who are far separated by the sad mis- chances of life, the wide spaces of distance and the bitter speech. Those presences are close at hand, and their lightest word of long ago is in our ears. The look that told what the heart was troubled with, some tender ges- ture of their hands which smoothed away care — all little things out of the past, which it was theirs to say and do and give — they fill these days with the aching sense of the loveliness that has perished from our sight and holding. [90] THE PROPHET THAT FAILED E has a frenzied time of possession when the spirit of wrath and J>1 prophecy flames within him. Then the mystical moment passes, leaving a foggy trail. He forgets what he has said. He for- gets that he has worked a change upon his hearers, who are watching with a kindled hope for the establishment of his impassioned program. He passes on, while gradually their hearts turn against him. For he alone of prophets is forgetful. John the Baptist and Cassandra and others of the holy band lacked for earnest hearers. But this man wins hearers, then runs around the corner to an- other audience with another vision discharged from his overwrought temperament. When pulled back to his first platform, he refuses to explain. A crusade appeals to him only so [91] LOVE, HOME, AND THE INNER LIFE long as he is under the emotional glow of its opening performance. He grows sulky under punishment A promise evaporates in the bright beckoning of a fresh sensation. He is not a liar, and he is not dishonest and he is not insincere. He has the temperament of a sen- sitive artist in a business office, and his quiver- ings and his vagaries are of necessity recorded in the ledger. And the inmost reason for this maladjust- ment between prophetic frenzy and executive accomplishment is plain to read. One more modern smokes too much, drinks too much, talks too much. He lets himself go in public and private, just as the gusts of his uncon- trolled nature propel him. He pounds the table and swears action, then subsides into his winning ineffectual talk. The promised ac- tion is forgotten by all but his hearers. He is an Alcibiades in New York, rushing on, just rushing on, with a train of applauding con- vivial youth. But there is no direction to the [92] THE PROPHET THAT FAILED movement: it is merely a swirl, with the fas- cination of its own momentum. With each group he feels himself the prophet. There stirs in him the old yearning to set these men on fire for the city's good. The definite program has slipped from him. But he sees himself again the Plumed Knight, and he makes them see him so. Each week it grows harder in the tobacco haze and through the blur of the beer to recreate the angel. It is still the same man, charming, compelling, but the grace-notes of his musical drawl have too long promised large things unperformed. [93] TO-DAY LONG - DRAWN - OUT attempt to stifle the human spirit has been made through the last hundred years. All that early gladness which had lifted the race over dark times was submerged, till men lost the faith of it, and came to believe that life was as they saw it, a thing of routine, with a brooding sense of failure and insecurity. That spirit of mute acceptance became wide- spread, and a race of clerks arose who ac- cepted their lot as if it were a Hindu caste, without earthly escape. The play of Merry England, creative ca- thedral building of the twelfth century, shep- herd life of still earlier times, the kinship with nature that peopled rivers and groves with imagined troops of light-footed creatures — [94] TO-DAY these lived for us only in books, reflected light of a departed glory. What a change to the machine-made modern world with its pain and decay, its sodden toil and commercialized merriment. How the human spirit was home- sick alike in the market-place, the church and the pleasure resort. At the very moment when man had mastered his environment, torn power out of the void and leashed it to his uses, just then he turned his world into a weariness, and humbled his spirit below the consciousness of the brutes that lead out their life of swiftness. To come so far and then to bog! It seemed time for a hearty tribe of Goths to stride down with their fair-haired phalanxes and scatter the stale civilizations. But, inside the race, the upspringing has come. Man begins to recover festivals of community mirth. The age regains assurance that we are dearer to the heart of being than the roll of the planets and the calm green beauty of the natural world. Men again b§- [95] LOVE, HOME, AND THE INNER LIFE lieve that they are picked for a mission surer than the rise and fall of the life of the field, the fluttering and darting of the winged and swimming things. [96] THE ARTIST E comes to see that he is not called upon to resign himself to a life of barren routine, to bend the will to the arrogance of men in power, nor to accept their insults in patience and flatter their weak- nesses. The process of breaking the human spirit, and remaining sweet under the disci- pline, is not for him. He is not to listen to the swift savage appraisal of alien tongues. If it is a large talent, then he can load it with disease and poverty, and still it will emerge free and flowing. But not when it is feeble and trickling. And yet it may be water of the brook, for all that. So he learns at last to accept risks, to dare all. Underneath the shifting broken surface, he feels one current making for the deeps. That is the binding single purpose of his life, [97] LOVE, HOME, AND THE INNER LIFE dimly recognized, often interrupted. But al- ways its sure direction will return after many days. There is no slackening in that urge to- ward shaping the spectacle of men and things. It is long a dim pain when crushed under routine; briefly, a burst of joy, when called into full expression, with success in sight as a companion. And then comes the patient subdued effort to keep it alive, when less easy times have befallen. Life is a troubled journey for one who would serve beauty — "to be perpetually hers, but she never his." It would be unendurable if the flickering illumination were smothered, and the meager gift slain outright. [98] VIII THE LOOK AHEAD PLEA OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE f|OJF in this season of our test, we, who are many peoples under one sky and flag, desire afresh to dedicate ourselves. May we be mindful of what was strong and pure in the purposes of those who shaped our nation from rude origins, and mindful of the yet vaster purpose that permitted our people to survive tribulation and enter on the larger days. May we share the vision that is in the young men, the hopes that yearn through obscure lives. May we rise clear of the summer's heat, the anger of men, this war of words. In a sweeter air than any that breathes through convention halls, may we seek, and, seeking, find the clarified judgment. May we surmount the littleness of daily [IOI] LOVE, HOME, AND THE INNER LIFE word and deed, the wrangling and the hates of mob and clique. May our thought be for the nation — far from gains, revenge, reprisal. In adversity and the sterner searchings of prosperity, it has weathered the gale and steered right on- ward. In the greatness of an idea it came to birth. Through bitterness it endured. Once again it is gathering strength that it may go on unhindered. We, the common people, were, in former days, source and origin of the strong sad heart of Lincoln. What we created there we would again put forth out of present need. May the man be made manifest, who shall direct our perplexed times. May we, as a people, be wise and patient, that the one large purpose, above our broken purposes, shall persist and conquer. In the calm of a great decision, may we choose, out of the many ways, the one straight way that leads to a distant goal. [102] THE ANSWER E need not let our hearts be troubled, for all that is unavailing sinks into rest. Every road by which men go dips finally into the valley. No climb, how- ever bold, but is touched at its close by the shadow; no quest in undiscovered bourns but ends in a resting place where tired multitudes are harbored. The encompassing peace of the silent earth waits on our fretting. There is nothing so harassing that it cannot be borne in the foreknowledge of its brevity. No dis- turbance nor upheaval can visit mortal mind when once it has been gathered to the brother- hood of dust. Unbearable pain leads to the kingdom of sleep. Suffering reigns but briefly with straitened dominion. Kindly opiates of insensibility are ever waiting close by tortured mind and stricken body. There is no menace [ 103 ] LOVE, HOME, AND THE INNER LIFE in life but recedes even at the moment of touching agony. The most savage disaster is crowned with death, and its victims in their writhing are suddenly released beyond calam- ity. That is the secret withheld from youth and those who go out in fresh strength to be racked. But the revealing years whisper that secret of why there is a smile on the face of the newly dead. [104]