LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 
 
 CliapA.?___ Copyright No. 
 
 Shelf..d'-25r C ^ 
 
 UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 
 
CATHARINE COLE'S BOOK 
 
h - 
 
 CATHARINE COLE'S 
 BOOK 
 
 WITH AN INTRODUCTION 
 bv 
 
 M.E. M. DAVIS 
 
 M 
 
 I ,{^ 
 
 '^^. I 
 
 CHICAGO 
 
 A. C. McCLURG & COMPANY 
 
 1897 
 

 COPYRIGHT 
 BY HORACE FLETCHER j/t^ ' 
 A. D. 1897 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 It is a shady, old-fashioned street — a ''green 
 Cathedral aisle of untrimmed trees" — which leads 
 from the wide city Boulevard to the ''brown 
 shell of a house" where these Letters were writ- 
 ten. The busy world races back and forth along 
 the Boulevard, with an ever-increasing clatter of 
 progress and prosperity, of pride and parade. 
 The Street dozes, tranquil and unchanging, be- 
 neath an over-arching sky which is as blue as the 
 blue of a baby's eyes. The fences that border 
 it are over-hung by tangled masses of climbing 
 roses, and alder, and trumpet-vines — and there 
 the birds sing, year in and year out. Nigger- 
 heads — yellow, rank and saucy — blossom in the 
 ditches ; grass grows along the brown wheel-ruts. 
 The trees, with a fine disdain of man's inven- 
 tions, have thrust out their mossy roots and un- 
 settled the birches of the old sidewalks, so that 
 the passer-by must needs walk warily. 
 
 This is the Street. 
 
 The high-porched house where Catharine Cole 
 5 
 
6 INT ROD UC TION. 
 
 lives, has, for a decade and a half of years, 
 seemed somehow to be the Other End of the 
 street; though in truth the flower-set way wan- 
 ders on until it loses itself in the swamp. So 
 many pilgrims have trod the broken sidewalks, 
 seeking the brave, strong, sympathetic woman 
 whose power to help and to comfort was bound- 
 less! Youth, with elastic step and bounding 
 heart, eager to clasp the Hand of the Magic Pen ; 
 Age, downcast and wretched, longing for the 
 never-withheld word of cheer; hither they came 
 
 — the poor, the rich, the happy, the despairing 
 
 — pilgrims, as to a shrine, travelers, as to a 
 Place of Resto 
 
 In this cosy, time-worn old house Mrs. Field 
 may be said to have really begun her life-work. 
 The young journalist, a widowed mother, and 
 a breadwinner, had indeed gained a foothold else- 
 where, but here were written those earnest and 
 sympathetic letters which have so stirred and 
 encouraged her fellow working-women; here 
 were wrought into shape exquisite sketches, stor- 
 ies, bits of rhyme, quaint silhouettes of life, Vv^on- 
 derful descriptions of places and of people. 
 From this ^'old brown house" she set forth upon 
 her vagabond journeyings about the great world, 
 carrying her readers with her, as Solomon, travel- 
 ing from kingdom to kingdom through the air, 
 
INT ROD UC TION. 7 
 
 carried his vast household upon his bit of a 
 magic carpet. And hither she always returned, 
 drawn by the invisible chords of home-love, as 
 by the magnet of Solomon himself. 
 
 This life-work of Martha Field (Catharine 
 Cole) counted by years, has been comparatively 
 brief. She was born in the picturesque old town 
 of Lexington, Missouri. Her parents removed, 
 in the early part of the sixties, to New Orleans. 
 From her father, W. M. Smallwood, himself a 
 talented journalist, she received her training for 
 the profession which she adopted while still in 
 the school-room. Her first newspaper work was 
 done for the Nczu Orleans Republican. The 
 growing ambition of the young girl led her, later, 
 to California, where she secured a position on 
 one of the SanFrancisco journals. Here she was 
 married, and here, within a short time, she was 
 left a widow with an infant daughter. She quit- 
 ted at once the great city of the west, w^iose 
 vivid warmth and color clung ever after to her 
 pen, and returned to New Orleans to accept a 
 position on 'the editorial staff of the Times, In 
 1 88 1 she began that work for the Nezu Orleans 
 Picayune^ which laid the real foundation for her 
 constantly growing reputation, both as a journ- 
 alist and as a literary worker of a high order. In 
 an article written for the "Round Table of Lou- 
 
8 IXTRODUCTIOX. 
 
 isiana Authors," ^Ir. Bernard Shields sa^'s of 
 her: "In literary vrork Catharine Cole is some- 
 thing of a dilletante; and whether the subject be 
 of home, of art, of social life, of travel, or of 
 politics, her pen is equally facile. Searching 
 only for the truth, lauding what is good and de- 
 nouncing wrong without fear or favor, her judg- 
 ment is considered trustv.'orthy and reliable. 
 Perhaps one of the best things that can be said 
 of her writings is that by them and in them she 
 has always upheld women. Her pen is always 
 busy in their behalf. . . . The remarkable 
 progress of the cause of womanhood in the past 
 ten years has astonished the world and made it 
 better. Its advancement, particularly in Lou- 
 isiana, is due in no small degree to the work of 
 Catharine Cole. . . . She has never lost an 
 opportunity to wield her pen in behalf of her 
 state; and no southern writer has done more to 
 make known its resources and to advance the in- 
 terests of its people. . . . To the influence 
 of her pen and brain New Orleans owes its 
 Training School for Nurses, its Woman's Ex- 
 change, and its Kindergartens. She is said to 
 know as much about the material resources of 
 Louisiana as any one in the state. On foot, in 
 a buggy, or by canoe, she has traveled over 
 every inch of its territorial limits, sending back 
 
INTRODUCTION. 9 
 
 to the journal she represents the most truthful 
 and realistic reports of her travels. . . . She 
 knows Europe by heart. . . . Her extensive 
 travels, both abroad and in this country, have 
 added largely to her rich fund of information, 
 and her ramblings into the remotest corners 
 of the world, . . . have given her a 
 knowledge of men and things that strengthens 
 her writings with assurance and masculine 
 boldness; while her sensitive tenderness and 
 sympathy with human suffering lend the 
 charm of woman's pen that appeals to the 
 heart." 
 
 The same writer describes ]\Irs. Field person- 
 ally as a ''rather slightly built woman with light 
 brown hair, grayish blue eyes, topping a large 
 nose and mouth, a soft, pleasant voice, and an 
 unassuming quiet demeanor." 
 
 In 1894 Catharine Cole became a member of 
 the editorial staff of the New Orleans Times- 
 Democrat. Her letters to that journal — from 
 Switzerland, from England, from aboard ship in 
 tropical seas — have sustained her brilliant repu- 
 tation. 
 
 But a singular pathos now attaches to the 
 sketches written from the ''brown shell of a 
 house" at the Other End of the Street. For the 
 hand that has "knitted into the russet-colored 
 
1 I NT ROD UC TION. 
 
 fabric" of so many lives, the ''golden threads of 
 love and hope" has become well-nigh help- 
 less. The spirit which has so faithfully wrought 
 for the good of others is strong and ardent still ; 
 the brain is clear and keen, but the flesh, in the 
 grasp of pain, is weak, and the heart flutters 
 wearily in a panting breast. 
 
 Several years have passed since Catharine 
 Cole was first stricken by a mortal, malady which 
 has gradually sapped her abundant strength and 
 left her a hopeless invalid. Bravely, calmly, 
 quietly, staring death in the face, she has con- 
 tinued to write ; those who know her know also 
 that not until the pen drops forever from her 
 nerveless fingers will she cease to speak her mes- 
 sage of hope and cheer to the world. 
 
 This volume made up from her work, has been 
 prepared in the hope and v/ith the desire that it 
 may aid in lifting the burden — a burden, alas, of 
 poverty — which lies upon this brave and tender 
 soul. 
 
 It is sent forth confidently to the many who 
 have known her face to face ; and to the many 
 more who have never seen her, but who have 
 been strengthened and helped by her wide-reach- 
 ing influence. 
 
 M. E. M. Davis. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 •PAGE 
 
 OVER THE HILLTOPS, -----.. 13 
 QUEEN ANNE FRONTS AND MARY ANN BACKS, - 
 
 A LITTLE GOOD-BY TO ARCADY, 
 
 SPRING FEVER, ----- r - - 
 
 THE MODERN TURK, - - 
 
 THOUGHTS OF HAPPIER DAYS, - - - - . 
 
 "CHARGE IT," 
 
 OLD THINGS, . 
 
 BABETTE, 
 
 ON THE INSTALLMENT PLAN, 
 
 ROSES OR REGRETS, 
 
 PERFUMES OF PLACES, ----.. 
 
 THE LADIES OF ROSEMARY, 
 
 FOR rent: a THREE-ROOMED COTTAGE, - 
 
 A LITTLE CHRISTMAS SERMON, 
 
 THE SONG OF THE NEW YEAR, - • - - . 
 
 TWO OLD BROWNIES, 
 
 GIFTS OF ROSES, - - 
 
 BY THE WINDOW, -----... 
 
 HAVE WE GOOD MANNERS ? 
 
 FOR COMMON-PLACE WOMEN, - - - . - 
 
 DOUDOUCE'S MOTHERS, 
 
 SIMPLE LIVING, ------., 
 
 HOW TO SUCCEED AS A SOCIETY WOMAN, - 
 
 NARROW LIVES, ----.... 
 
 THAT KISS, - 
 
 CIC'LY'S STORY, - 
 
 OLD HOME LONGINGS, ...... 
 
OVER THE HILLTOPS. 
 
 It is an epoch in life wherein we discover, as 
 by an inspiration, the beauty or the grandeur or 
 the goodness of any work or any thing. These 
 flashHght revelations tearing across the sky of our 
 night are our divine moments — our winged mo- 
 ments. They come to us in successive stages and 
 leave us finer, larger, wiser, better. They are the 
 milestones along our real life — the indicators, 
 pointing heartward, of our real growth. To have 
 at any time this sudden sense of knowledge, to be 
 Columbus to something of God's or man's creat- 
 ing, is everything. A door once opened, giving 
 us a look into another room hitherto locked 
 against us, giving us a look into a garden where 
 undreamed-of roses bloom, can never be truly 
 closed for us again. We have seen into the be- 
 yond, and we know. We can never unknow a 
 thing. 
 
 A little child sits in the sun playing, the 
 winds blow sweet about her, and their Juney 
 breath caresses her fair aureoled head. Her 
 vibrant little voice thrills and buzzes somno- 
 lently like the pleasant whirr of a humming bird's 
 wings. Suddenly there floats in at the open 
 window, riding a sunbeam down as if it were a 
 
14 OVER THE HILLTOPS. 
 
 summer wave, a little silken, silvery-masted craft 
 put afloat by some tethered plant. It is a this- 
 tle-down swinging on the wind, silver-sheathed, 
 stealthy, with a touch too fine to be tangible on 
 the ruder fabric of our flesh. As it floats airily 
 through space it falls across the wonder of the 
 child's eyes. She gazes at it, with a mysterious 
 rush of recognition and intuition fluttering her 
 leashed and leaping soul. To her this is no com- 
 mon thistle-down, but a fairy, a very Princess 
 Fairy, dumb, roaming, and beautiful. Its coming 
 was the needed but natural confirmation of the 
 faith that is orthodox in Lilliput. Now all her 
 beautiful angels of belief become real. All Won- 
 derland is her empire, and sitting in the radiance 
 of the day and of her joy, she reigns a queen 
 with the shaft of a sunbeam for her scepter. 
 
 And thus her growth begins. A door has been 
 opened and she has seen the blooming roses in 
 the garden beyond ; a hillock has been mounted 
 and she has glimpsed the wondrous peaks of the 
 far-off hills. It will still be growth for her when 
 she realizes the beautiful fact that the floating 
 thistle-down, new to her, is the old age of a lovely 
 plant, and again she will feel the upHft that 
 comes of acquirement, the joy of conquest, the 
 sweetness of comprehending things and of being 
 in sympathy with something that is beautiful. 
 
 There are some of us, learning to spell out the 
 language of nature, who may remember the ab- 
 solute joy that possessed us when first we sensed 
 the majesty and the growing of trees, the patient 
 
OVER THE HILLTOPS. 1 5 
 
 unfurling of the young leaf banners, the putting 
 forth of new twigs, the renewal of life, the 
 mighty effort to attain symmetry and the far-off 
 beckoning skies, the fine adjustment within the 
 environment of earth and sky. No one forgets 
 the first conception of an idea. Then is a mighty 
 moment that contains for us the annunciation of 
 some great fact in nature or in life. 
 
 I remember once standing on the sloping 
 sward of a beautiful estate in Ireland and looking 
 at the ripple of a pebbled river and the eternal 
 calm of the blue sky through a network of deli- 
 cately traced marble columns that knit overhead 
 in the multitudinous beauty of arches of solid 
 masonry. It was the ruined, crumbling remem- 
 brance of an old Franciscan abbey. A tangle of 
 purple-fruited brambles filled the shady spaces of 
 the cool cloisters; an Irish ivy twisted itself in the 
 slender columns; the deep brittle blue luminosity 
 of a June sky bending over the fairest country in 
 the world was picked out by the flawless perfec- 
 tion of those beautiful arches. It came on me 
 with the lightning flash that an arch of masonry 
 is the most perfect work of man's hand. It is 
 cathedral and Pantheon, capital and Coliseum. 
 You may look at things half a lifetime and not 
 see them at all; but on the day you realize their 
 beauty, their fitness and proportion, their use, 
 then they become yours. Gape and gawk 
 through a cathedral, wondering at its height and 
 space; when you feel the spirit of its architecture, 
 then it is your sanctuary. When you realize the 
 
1 6 OVER THE HILLTOPS. 
 
 growing trees, then the forest is your temple, 
 with the sky for its dome. Then indeed, West- 
 minster may become an epic, and that old Fran- 
 ciscan abbey a religion. 
 
 Some heathens have had the belief that the sky 
 was the face of a god. This is beautiful enough 
 even for us of to-day, who are still heathens to 
 many of the beauties of God's worlds. You may 
 have gone on for years walking down the May 
 mornings, glad, alert, with the spring-time of 
 health and strength leaping in your heels and 
 heart, and tugging at your muscles, but still giv- 
 ing no real thought to anything of nature about 
 you, until, as in a flash, your soul, like a dove, 
 seemed to put forth white wings and cleave the 
 blue. How was it you had missed being con- 
 scious of it for so long — coming and going and 
 never until nov^^ comprehending with this new, 
 sudden, subtle sympathy the eternal calm and 
 tenderness of the sky? It bends over like the 
 Madonna. You might pray to it ; your loosed 
 soul might swim in it. Its beauty elates you and 
 fills your senses, and you feel to have gained 
 something. The world is suddenly grown fairer 
 — you own more of it. Are you tired? Here 
 is something to rest you. Is earth dull? Look 
 up. Would your eyes grovel on something at 
 your feet? Look up. It is the countenance of 
 God in the infinite glory of the sky that meets 
 your gaze and answers your plaint with a bene- 
 diction. 
 
 A stage of growth is when we discover some 
 
OVER THE HILLTOPS. 1 7 
 
 God-like beauty, some tender human sweetness 
 in the heart of a friend. The negro washer- 
 woman toihng at her tubs may give you this 
 thrill of discovery. You find she has something 
 great in her — something that you may lack — a 
 patient endurance of poverty, say; a fine persist- 
 ence to wash her clothes white as snow. She is 
 a hero at her trade, and when you discover or 
 realize the hero-heart of her it ought to make you 
 better at your trade. Every time you discover 
 or sense some beauty in life, you burst a bond 
 that holds you to earth. You are that much 
 freer to be fine. You rule. When you find 
 something beautiful in your own trade, you are 
 growing. Your trade may be scrubbing, or driv- 
 ing a cart, or studying a school-girl's books, or 
 mending a gown ; but when you take joy in 
 working your best — in seeing some other made 
 happy because you are doing your best — then 
 you may hold up your head and walk the earth 
 like a goddess. 
 
 A girl at home goes on thoughtlessly accept- 
 ing the services of her mother. She sees the 
 mother mending, and tending the home fires, sees 
 her always willing and never wearied, always 
 sinking self, and it seems all right and natural. 
 There is no hint of the missed joys from her pa- 
 tient life, no plaint of the dull evenings at home, 
 no whispered regret for the music and the books, 
 the flowers and the companionship that are de- 
 nied her. But some day, often too late, there 
 comes to the daughter the divine moment of 
 
OVER THE HILLTOPS. 
 
 The pathetic patience, the n^ute 
 endurance, the infinite tenderness, the dumb self- 
 abnegation, the long self-sacrifice, the immolated 
 saint of motherhood, take shape like a figure on 
 the bleak height of Calvary. First Christ, and 
 then a mother! The moment and the passion 
 of a revelation like this hurts, but it leaves you 
 kinder, tenderer, sweeter. 
 
 It makes no difference where you are placed 
 in life, you are intended to look up and to grow, 
 to widen and radiate. The warrior in you must 
 fight; the hero in you must protect and save. 
 May be there is just a carpenter in you, or a 
 seamstress, or a patient knitter by a home fire, 
 but the beauty is there all the same. You must 
 grow to the sun, to the stars, to the far-off skies. 
 To do and to be, you have no need to concern 
 yourself about others, to take part in your neigh- 
 bor's squabblings. Think of yourself. The in- 
 dividual *'you" is of the first account, and that 
 must be so fine and so strong, so distinct, and in 
 such sharp outline that you will be a cameo cut in 
 the beautiful amber of life. The true man or 
 woman cannot be gnat-bitten by any one's exam- 
 ple or the fear of any one's comment or sneer. It 
 is a puny soul that totters and is afraid to stand 
 alone and send out its own cry. You bare yourself 
 not to the world but to God. You must show 
 him your heart, not its husk. How much truth is 
 there in you? What do you feel when you read 
 Shakespeare? When you meet a hero? When 
 you see anguish or sorrow or pain hurrying to 
 
OVER THE HILLTOPS. I9 
 
 some neighbor of yours? When the poem touches 
 your heart it touches the poet in you ; when the 
 actor makes you spring in the air and cry hurrah, 
 it is because he has touched that genius in you. 
 
 A country boy going to school came crying to 
 me one day that all his books Avere old to him. 
 *'When I read them, I find I know them," he 
 said. It was the meeting of emperors. He was 
 royal to all great truths. Until we meet them so, 
 they are not truths for us. I am dumb for you 
 unless you know you might have said this that 
 I say. I am dead for you unless you might feel 
 the thrill of my sorrow or my passion. 
 
 In a remote country village, who has not been 
 touched by the spectacle of life? You come there 
 from the big city that is an artery of the world, 
 and you find out in the village what little things 
 go to make up life. The people are like invalids 
 who pass life sitting by a window and are con- 
 strained to amuse themselves with little thines. 
 Which woman rode in which buggy ; how this one 
 has made over her perennial gown ; Avho shook 
 hands with the visitor and who did not ; the mak- 
 ing of preserves; the weights of new babies. But 
 this is not the place to sneer; nay, this is the 
 place to learn how large is the world, what room 
 there is to grow, what need there is to set your 
 hopes and aims on the higher things. 
 
 Sometimes in the big city you meet a vv^oman 
 who is bound up in herself. It is not a compact 
 between herself and God. She owns no Jacob's 
 ladder traversed by the beautiful angels of good 
 
20 OVER THE HILLTOPS, 
 
 deeds, but she lives, works, thinks only for her 
 own body, her own vanity, her own comfort. All 
 the world is incidental to her affairs, to the satis- 
 faction of her vanity. When she goes to bed at 
 night she has not done one single act for the hap- 
 piness of another. She has no plans to sweeten 
 life for others. She would not pass the fare of 
 an old man in the street car, nor think of denying 
 herself a plume on her bonnet to succor a starv- 
 ing family. What does she live for — pinioned 
 to pride and self-conceit, tethered to the earth, 
 meeting no royal ones, stirred by no fine senti- 
 ments? I would not have you change places 
 with such a one if she dwelt in a castle of Castile. 
 Never be ashamed of shedding a tear; never be 
 ashamed of jumping out of yourself into the 
 armor of a knight ; never be ashamed to be seen 
 lifting a beggar over the street ; never despair of 
 meeting an emperor. 
 
 Some people are good by rule because they 
 cannot get along in decent society otherwise. 
 Some go to church simply because it is Sunday. 
 You can't keep that up. You find yourself out, 
 and you know that God has found you out. But 
 you must go to church or to the temple of the 
 woods to find out if the germ of religion is in 
 you. Do you thrill at the singing, at the dome, 
 at the solemn cry of the litany; does some peace 
 come into you and make tranquil your hour? 
 Then it is in you to grow. You may not grow 
 dogmas, but you will grow starward and skyward. 
 
 Sum up your day. What did you do in it; 
 
OVER THE HILLTOPS. 21 
 
 does it leave ashes in your teeth, or the fragrance 
 of violets? You cannot afford to waste life on its 
 curl papers, to dawdle along talking of puddings 
 and preserves. What is the book I read to me 
 unless it teaches me something — how to feel, 
 how to smile, how to weep? I must be sure a 
 thing holds nothing good for me and then I must 
 cast it aside. I cannot waste time on nothing. I 
 must live, must be amused, must see the world, 
 must be made better. I cannot waste life, love, 
 energy, ambition, on the trivial soul, the barren 
 soil, the soulless form. Life is precious when it 
 makes us laugh, weep, moan, act, cry, hurrah; 
 not when it permits us to dream in a sort of 
 senseless calm. Let me sail, let me be seasick, 
 let me be wrecked, let me have this turmoil of 
 living; how can the rest and security of the Rock 
 of Ages be sweet to me, how shall I clasp it, 
 unless I have come out of the tempest? 
 
 You must not be afraid of anything save the 
 useless. A useless woman, making no one the 
 finer for her being, giving no ohe a zest for com- 
 panionship of her, sweetening the soul of no 
 one, is like a thing made of ashes. When the true 
 one comes along she will crumble as an old dead 
 body might, feeling for the first time in a thou- 
 sand years the live air. I have often seen a 
 woman crumble under this stress. In the council, 
 in the association, in the home gathering, what 
 she is and why she is there is plain to all eyes. 
 
 Sometimes a woman will have nothing to do 
 with a good work unless she can be president of 
 
22 OVER THE HILLTOPS. 
 
 it. If it makes any difference to you where ^ou 
 sit, be careful; you are turning to ashes, and the 
 draft from the outer world will blow you away. 
 Do n't think about yourself, think about the sky; 
 let all the sweet sap and juices of your deep 
 humanity leap upward to it. When I com.e into 
 the council of women who are talking and work- 
 ing for the good of others, does it make an}^ 
 difference whether my voice is heard? I can keep 
 still and, if I am the finest nature there, I can 
 still dominate that meeting. Do I care who 
 speaks; who is leader? To follow is just as fine; 
 to keep silent is just as grand. Why do you go 
 to your club? Is it to laud yourself; is it to gorge 
 yourself on the fat of leadership ; is it to advertise 
 yourself as good as your neighbor? Then you 
 are no worthy member. The pettiness of you 
 makes you an outlaw. Cleaner, finer souls ought 
 to blackball you. Search yourself and find out 
 why you do a thing, not why your neighbor 
 does it. 
 
 But if you go there for growth, if you forget 
 yourself in the work, then, though you sit on a 
 footstool in the dingiest corner, you are a queen, 
 and the scepter of your influence is all magical 
 and fine. 
 
 Some women never get tired of talking about 
 themselves ; they never get enough praise. This 
 is dangerous and dwarfing. To your child, to 
 your mother, to your husband, you may talk 
 ''I.'* To your God you may talk nothing else. 
 But this is all. To grow finely is to forget self. 
 
OVER THE HILLTOPS. 23 
 
 In the heat and passion of battle the soldier 
 forgets that the enemy's bullet may pierce his 
 heart. He becomes a hero because the bonds 
 that hold him to earth are snapped asunder. 
 He becomes great because he forgets everything 
 in the passion of winning. His arm Is the in- 
 strument. It is only when you are carried out 
 of yourself that you really advance in a path 
 that you cannot retrace. To make some one else 
 content with life, to make the way easier for 
 some one else, to cause a child to smile, to rest 
 an old woman of her burden, to right a wrong, 
 to tell a fine truth, to give a flower, to ease an 
 ailing one, these are the ways of growth. This is 
 the way to make life beautiful. It is not neces- 
 sary to jump a continent or cross an ocean. 
 Often you need not span a gutter. Life and be- 
 ing and doing begin at home. You can't grow 
 from the outward in. You expand like the 
 breath of incense in a cathedral, like the perfume 
 of a flower in a garden. You must unfold petal by 
 petal until your sweetness permeates all space. 
 
 And now let us hurry onward. Surely over 
 this hill-top we shall see the tent of home. Let 
 us climb on, patient hearts. Over this nearer 
 hilltop we see only another higher still, and be- 
 yond that another higher still, white with eternal 
 snows. But going on, we train our lungs to 
 breathe a thinner air, and upon us shines the re- 
 flected whiteness of the snows. Some day, all 
 at once, like a sunrise in the Alps, the beauty of 
 this climbing seizes on us. We are glad to be 
 
24 OVER THE HILLTOPS. 
 
 mountaineers and to shout at each other from the 
 hilltops. And then it is no longer strife. The 
 soul grows like an Easter lily. The heartache is 
 over. The skies only — the far-off skies — are 
 above you. You lift your soul, and on this 
 mountain height of fine endeavor, with rough- 
 ened hands and wearied heart, you still may cry, 
 * ' I have won I ' ' 
 
^ 
 
 X 
 
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