PS 3533 U7 E8 1906 Copy 1 Book_(lZ]L^ Goip^htN^ l_li)6_ COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT. / EXTRA MUROS AND OTHER ESSAYS BY EDWARD QUINTARD PRIVATELY PRINTED NEW YORK 1906 UBRARYofCONGflESS ' Two Copies Received JAN 7 190? , r. C3Mri(/ht Entry aUASS /\ XXC, No. ;^- ?5 '? r "^ t> Copyright 1906, by" Edward Quintard. cAU Rights Rjeserved. Published December, 1906. Printed hy CARROLL J. POST, Jr. New York To E. H. Q. X R M U R O EXTRA MUROS HE Metropolitan spirit has crept upon us apace. Immense masses of the genus homo live surrounded by gray walls and brick angularities, which loom up grim and gigantic about them on all sides, and are at once their pride and the concrete expression of their habits and desires. The face of nature has been scarred by iron rails and asphalt pavements ; her bosom riven by clay pipes and electric wires; the green hedges lining her sunny lanes have been converted by some Plutonic power into limitless miles of baked clay and mortar; whilst her meadows and free breathing spaces groan under a stupendous tonnage of iron and steel. With smug and brazen mien quantity as against quality stares us out of countenance and elbows and jostles us on all sides, whilst a blatant commercialism and a vulgar materialism assert, with insufferable insolence, their supreme force and power over the daily and hourly affairs of man's existence. EXTRA MURO Instead of the matutinal pipings of birds to waken us from a quiet and refreshing slumber, our troubled and hard earned rest is abruptly ended by the hoarse and strident shriek of the factory whistle, and we are hurled precipitately into the cares and perplexities of another day. In place of the gentle murmur of the brook to soothe us in our daily peiEgrinations, our auditory senses are tortured and well nigh deafened by the incessant clang of trolleys and the monotonous rumble of jarring wheels. If we gaze upward to seek the unbroken arch of the sky we are awed and subdued by a network of iron and steel complexities. If we attempt to rest our eyes by a glimpse of a free horizon an im- penetrable fastness of brick wall, whose depressing monotony is enhanced by the bold effrontery of glaring advertisements, abruptly arrests our vision; whilst beneath our feet the rumble of steam pipes, and the vibration of subterranean trains reminds us how thin a crust of earth is left to guard man from annihilation through his own machinations. Our very Penates turn their benign faces from us and give a scornful sniff at any incense other than that of choicest Havana, and are deaf to all hymns of adoration, save the rustle of rarest silk or EXTRA MURO costliest brocade. In words, Pan has fled and Plutus reigns supreme. Many, if not the most of us wheresoever we go, or whithersoever we turn bear like poor Christian our burden of urban habits and manners with us — a pack of pretty poor manners and habits at best, with not a few unmentionable abominations sec- reted in its darkest corners. Happy indeed for us if on our benighted way we meet with some hope- ful and honest Evangelist to point us the road to serenity and peace, and whose hand shall lighten our load withal. Magnitude and Pretension ride boldly into the lists these latter days and throw their brazen gauntlet into the very face of Excellence — a lonely and too often unchampioned maiden, in these over bold and thoughtless times, with the air so full of alley-hymns and gutter-paeans, and the atmo- sphere fairly ripping and splitting with the wild cheers of the bog-mob. Indeed, ever since good Father Adam, glitter and show, brag and bluster have gone far to persuade and rule the hearts of men, and today gold and gunpowder are the statesman and high priest of the hour. On all sides is the surging multitude whose "molten images are wind and confusion". The huge vampire of unrest bat- XTRA MURO tens and feeds on the life blood of the race and times; its black and terrible wings forever fanning riot and distress in men's minds and with terrible effect concealing the ensign on the mountain top, and blotting out the vision of God's stars. We have become parasites to depraved am- bitions and unhealthy desires. Conventionalities born of false estimates of right and wrong place our minds and bodies in gyves and fetters and we wear the felon's stripes by choice. For once the ring of conventionality has pierced the nose of the poor human bear, the inanest clown, the silliest acrobat may lead it wheresoever he wills, and growl and paw as he may, when the ring pulls he must dance. All too frequently our very amusements and recreations are vulgarized and degraded by an associated spirit of gamble and gain. To normal, simple and real pleasures we have become irre- sponsive, and our appetites and desires being vitiated and exhausted, we seek to rouse and stimulate them by all manner of perversions, mental and physical. We are rushed through highways and byways, propelled by gasolene ex- plosions, or hurled catapultly along the road by the electric fluid. Time which was formerly measured 8 XTRA MURO by the hour glass and sun dial, is now computed by means of a chronometer with split seconds. We sleep and rise by alarm clocks; our very meals are given us in predigested form; we telephone, telegraph, and dynamite to gain time; in fact, we do everything to save time, and yet in this respect seem always insolvent. We are in the position of those who in seeking the essence have the dregs for their pains. Lost in the dense fog of selfishness and indif- ference, in troops and solitary, humanity struggles and drags itself not knowing whither, following in blind frenzy the will-o'-the-wisp of cant, the ignis fatuus of pseudo- science, or that abomination of all things earthly, pseudo-religion. Well may we hearken to the prophets voice calling from the abyss of centuries to "stop and consider." Not unwise indeed to stop before the altar of our hopes and dreams, and to repeat to our questioning hearts, that "late and soon, getting and spending we lay waste our powers." To our shame be it confessed that we live in a time when too often our duty and our morals are affairs of ciphers and the multiplication table. The idea as to how a public or a private duty should be fulfilled being that one cipher is an EXTRA MURO insult, two a proposition, and three an imperative and divine interpretation. Nor is it an easy thing, for even the honestest and most earnest man to choose the one road which for him eventually shall lead to the golden mile stone of accomplishment and success. For in the midst of the intricate perplexities of modern life "no one field of thought or line of action, or sphere of opportunity can justly claim preeminence, and be in fact, that crucial duty binding upon all men who would die crowned." But there is a quality, mark you well the word, a certain spirit which in up and doing, we all must possess otherwise we shall sink in the human bog surrounding us on all sides, and a cry, lonely as that of a bittern's shall be the requieum of a lost soul. This quality which separates the pedagogue from the master, the artisan from the artist, and mediocrity from greatness can only be acquired by a full knowledge and intimate association with nature. The tranquilizing effect of her mighty harmonies upon our vision, the sense of deep joy which pervades us when in direct contact with her manifold expressions of form and growth, permit us to see with a clearer and truer insight into the cause of things. And in finding our relations to nature there is gradually unfolded to us the true 10 EXTRA MUROS relation to our work, our fellow men and to God. Under her immediate influence we learn to look at life and its manifestations about us in a disinterested way; for a time we get rid of our egoism, we are no longer self-centered, or self-conscious, nor are we bound and trammelled by self-interest, personal emotions or individual temperament We no lon- ger see everything through ourselves, and we ac- quire almost unconsciously health, depth, repose, and pass from the individual into the universal life. This passing from the personal into the larger life is an essential feature of our development. W^e needs must grow, and furthermore feel that we can grow. We need the cool fresh breath of nature to blow over our feverish and pulsing temples; we long for her calm gentle voice to still and hush our aching and throbbing hearts ; our eyes yearn for a glimpse of her quiet beauty; our ears crave her silence— we would live again and rest! In an unbroken ascendency nature has reai-ed man. We are the living memorials upon which she has engraved her conquests and triumphs over time and chaos. From cell to man, there has been a ceaseless, progressive and marvellous evolution. The man of to-day is directly related to the cell of countiess milleneums ago— he, himself, but a com- 11 EXTRA MURO bination of cells, the rudimentary stages of whose functions must be sought for in a remote and unknown age. His impressions may be traced to an infinite past, his hope and faith to an infinite future; he, himself is part of eternity. Man is refined rock, sublimated trees, glorified star-dust! This divine co-relation between things and events is never disrupted; beginning and end follow in unbroken sequence, crystal and tree, flower and star, all things are bound together in sublime affi- nity; the Supreme Idea pervades all things— the power and will of God. We have lived through all experience, what to-day is new for the individual, is old for the race. To love nature, to feel her mighty influence stir within our breast is but to feel the effects of these past events and happenings, which have so im- pressed our being as to make us forever responsive to similar conditions and environments. If man at times hungers for the sea, it is perchance be- cause the wonderful phenomenon we call life may first have manifested itself within its depths and mysteries, and this parental link has never been broken. If at times he longs for the forest solitude or the heights of mountain tops, it is a primal instinct born of long forgotten experience, that 12 EXTRA MURO moves and stirs his heart and soul impelling and compelling him to renew the bond of an infinite past. Not a single page of man's eventful history but that shows him to be a nursling of nature, and his sublimest faculty if traced to its rudimen- tary stage reveals the ceaseless and marvellous efforts and effects of her influence over his grad- ually developing powers and possibilities. Through the medium of touch, sight, taste, hearing, she roused his slumbering senses, awakened and nur- tured his primitive intellect, fostered and stimulated his weanling imagination. Through daily contact with her inexorable methods and laws she discip- lined him and developed his physical being and moral character. His eye seeing the spark as the flint struck the rock, fire became his obedi- ent slave, whose power was one day to girdle and bind the earth with products of iron and steel. Observing the apple fall earthward, a sudden light flashed across his ken, and he recognized the law of gravitation. Watching the ships disappear beneath the horizon and pondering on the cause he followed the bent of a new thought, and in so doing discovered another world. Perceiving the similarity between himself and all other creatures, the dawn of a great idea illumined his mind and 13 XTRA MURO understanding, and the law of evolution shed the light of a new reason on his life, his philosophy and his religion. The shallowest skeptic, the most confirmed agnostic, is influenced by nature in spite of himself. Active or passive, he perforce must learn when once within the realms of her power and sway. All nature is full of moral potentialities. A man cannot put his hand to the plow, or sow a field, or throw a stone, or dig a hole ; he cannot behold a sunset or peer into the depths of waters, but that it leaves its lasting effect on his physical, mental and moral being. A man acquires more true wisdom in clearing an acre of ground than he can get in all the newspapers printed in the course of a year. It is because of these things, that the poet or prophet using nature as his interpreter reaches the heart of man more quickly and more surely than any other. Our literature and speech abound with references direct and indirect to her many phases and conditions. Our tenderest similes, our noblest metaphors, our most splendid rhetoric, speak through nature to man. Art at discord with nature is not art at all— nothing but an ephe- meral unnamable eftbrt on the part of the vulgar, 14 EXTRA MURO ignorant or quack mind to attract attention or evoke a miserable applause. The nearer we live to nature, the more thoroughly we comprehend the vastness of her plan and system, the closer we adopt and follow her marvellous methods, thus the more clearly shall we understand the destiny of man, and the in- terpretation of life itself. The further we get from her influence the less apt are we to judge correctly as regards those many phenomena of life which are so constantly passing within our ken, and the less stability, the less surety, and in fact, the less truth will our ideas and words come to possess. It is on account of these things too, that no man is native to the soil, no alien truly naturalized until such time as the nature of the country in which he dwells becomes a part of his very being. What man does for himself makes his home, but what nature does for him makes his country. It is the individuality of mountain and valley, river and meadow, shore and ocean, tree and flower which win and hold the heart of man to his native land and makes her a mighty mother indeed. It is this at once tender and dependent affection for his native soil, which makes him poet and prophet, hero and statesman. 15 EXTRA MURO Nature never ends her instruction, nor does the aptest and wisest scholar of her school ever reach the end of his education. From the first to the latest man, from the simplest to the most pro- found, she has ever a new lesson, ever one whose breadth and significance is but the stepping stone to one yet more comprehensive and marvellous. Now with the winning smile of hope and pleasure, and again with the scourge of adversity and sor- row, she leads and compels him ever onward and upward to sublimer and diviner heights. Let but his heart and mind be open, and they shall be filled with the sweetness and light of her knowledge and wisdom. Unceasingly, insistently she has kept man to his task of acquiring such lessons as she set before hirn; persistently she has compelled him to fight and conquer his way; constantly has she urged him to seek a fuller and more catholic understanding of that relation which exists between them. It is as if nature had to vindicate her wis- dom in conceiving the idea of man ; as if she had to defend against all time her right to claim him as her final expression of power — this being who was to stand as the supreme bond of affiliation between herself and God. . The birth of mind, matter and spirit as a unity 16 EXTRA MUROS in the form of man was the divine event which crowned the marriage of Nature and Time. Yet as Nature's noblest offspring, man is also heir to her mightiest efforts, her supremest tasks: through him she has to conquer; through him com- prehend; through him finally reach God himself. As a mere recipient of her favors she has no use for him; as a parasite or mere dependent to her greatness, she will not tolerate him— rather let him return again to the dust from which she fashioned him. But as a being who could fight with destiny ; as one whose observations, deductions, courage, patience, persistence, self-restraint, self-denial, work, and faith were to vindicate her idea of him, and at the same time win his own salvation, — for such a one both nature and God have use. Only what is noblest in man craves and seeks nature; for her there is no malice, envy or hatred in his heart We seek her as a mighty mother, a kindly nurse, a staunch friend. We need the quickening warmth and light of the sun ; the sol- emn splendor of the stars; the mysterious power of the moon; the breath of fields and meadows; the voice of wind and water ; — we need all these subtle and marvellous influences of hers for the health of our moral and physical being. So important, nay 17 EXTRA MURO vital, are these things for the uplifting of the human race, that it would almost seem as if there should be certain feasts of days and seasons set apart by the State for its citizens, on which days and seasons should be held high and solemn festival under the open sky, in silent contemplation of the immensi- ties and beauties of nature, and of the Creator's beneficence to all mankind. No prating orator should desecrate with an obtrusive personality the sacredness of the occasion; no officious prayer should be voiced to break the solemn stillness of the day or hour— enough the silence of a humble and grateful heart. Thus should we become bet- ter citizens, and a nobler race of men ; there would be less riot and anarchy in our lives, as the kindly influences of nature tempered our minds and understandings. Beyond the walls then everyone of us must go, lest we waste and sicken and finally die ! Back to the great mother out of whose elements we are made; from whose breast the human race in its infancy suckled such potentialities and energies as enabled it to rise and conquer the living world about it, and which have kept it evolving to this day. Back to her at whose lap mankind has ever and shall ever learn his first and last great lesson 18 EXTRA MURO of discipline and life. Back to the eternal voices, the infinite silences; to the ceaseless energies, the everlasting repose of Nature must man turn to finally know himself. 19 To M. H. BERRY PICKING BERRY PICKING F ANTIQUITY lends honor and dig- nity to a sport, how beyond most pastimes must that of berry picking hold a place in man's affections. Indeed this gentle pursuit is enliv- ened by something of that spirit of hazard and chance which through all ages and times has held man a devotee to discovery and the chase. The same spirit of sport, but of a milder flavor, accom- panies your blackberry picker as it does your lover of rod and gun; with these his bolder congeners he takes his risks and ventures, and as with them luck enters the lists against his skill and wit. For the blackberry is to your berry-picker what the trout is to your angler, shy and illusive withal. A sharp eye, a skillful hand and a sure foot are requisites to spot your game, to avoid scratch and tear, and not to lose your footing in the at times almost inaccessible places where grows the biggest and finest fruit. For unless you are a mere road- ster and dawdler at the game and content with meagre reward, you soon come to know that the 23 BERRY PICKING best blackberries, like most other prizes sought after in this much bebrambled and thorny world, are only to be had after some toil and not a little risk to your immediate comfort. In other words, the finest variety of your fruit, the long, large and luscious kind is jealous of its woodland preroga- tives and eludes with tantalizing success the hand of eager man. It is an irresistible stimulus which stirs through your berry-picker, these drowsy late sum- mer days, rousing him from his pre-autumnal dreams and bidding him be up and doing. To avoid or check this desire is to suppress one of the healthiest quickenings to which mortal flesh is heir, and thwarts one of nature's finest efforts to vitalize and strengthen man's physical and moral being. Fortunate for us if we still feel these gentle im- pulses stir within our blood. Happy the man whose body and soul have thus far escaped the deadening and atrophying forces of the modern artificial life, so that these timely and invigorating behests of nature may even yet in him awaken a spontaneous and harmonious response. Your genuine blackberry picker will choose his day with as much care and skill as ever the lover of reel and rod selects his. The auspicious 24 BERRY PICKING time is just after a rain, for it is then that the berries ripen and reach, as if by magic, an inexpressible perfection. Given a day say in late August; it has rained during the night, and the host of clouds is still marshalled in the sky; an occasional shower veils the surrounding landscape, and trails of mist drag in soft, fleecy streamers over the hill tops. You start pail in hand for the quest. For several days past during rambles and drives you have watched with an eager and epicurean eye the rich clusters of darkening berries ripening along the road side. You have made a mental note of such places where promise seems to point to ultimate reward. Involuntarily you recall certain bowls of delicious fruit which, together with generous slices of bread and golden pats of ice-cold butter, gave you a feast, the mere memory of which evokes a votary's prayer to ancient Pan ! Visions of mar- vellous pies whose light and flaky crust jealously concealed the rich purple juices beneath, rise to the mind's eye, and last but not least, certain jolly looking boiled puddings and rolypolys which have sanctified past seasons and are about to glorify the days immediately to come, cast a final beatitude over the enchanting vision. 25 BERRY PICKING By such Lucullian memories has your gust- atory sense been whetted and your patience be- guiled so that it might better endure the wait for the season's bounty. As we trudge along what pleasures greet the eye on all sides! The brown thrasher, liveliest and busiest of the choir of feathered minstrels runs along the road enticing you to follow, only to lure you on and on and finally to elude you altogether, as with a sudden and impudent jerk of his tail he disappears in the nearby thicket. Overhead the martins and swallows are ranged in solemn con- clave along the telegraph wire. You remember, how in days gone by when for a young and ardent oologist, the eggs of these birds were a special prize. Their nests were found under the eaves of old barns, and in the cupola on top of the old farm house, the latter being a place of especial enchant- ment it being reached by a long wooden ladder, and having just enough space to walk about in when once inside. The hornets and wasps had made their nests in the corners, and the hot sun beat down upon it so fiercely that one could smell the odor of the pine boards, of which it was made. Besides these perils it had its prohibitions as well, which latter enhanced its charms immeasurably, 26 BERRY PICKING and greatly added to the exhilarating sense of free- dom and independence which the young adventurer felt when, from its four latticed sides he looked out over miles and miles of rolling country beneath. High in the air a king-bird is chasing a hawk, a sight which always rouses ones sense of the ridic- ulous, — this aerial battle betwixt pigmy and giant. Yet here before our very eyes is enacted a scene which has its many counterparts in human life. For after all the minority counts in the long run; the microbe is more dangerous than the elephant, and it is the atom which defies the chemist. The weather has been of the torrid kind; better for the berries than the human species in search of them. But the rain has laid the dust and cooled the air which is redolent with the odor of fresh earth and leaf, and meadow, — in fact, walking is prime. At each stride along the road you feel your pulse quicken and a gentle exhilerating glow courses through your entire system. You are getting free of your mental cobwebs, of your "dry- asdust" inclinations and tendencies. In shaking the dust from your feet, you are performing the same good office for your heart and soul, and letting in to your gradually expanding nature some of the freshness and open air joyousness which surrounds 27 BERRY PICKING you, and bathes you in an ethereal essence on all sides. Your fancy and imagination take sudden splendid flights as you gaze on the wide sky above you, across which slowly drift mighty hosts of vapor giants, huge impalpable shapes whose voice is the thunder, and whose potential energies may at any moment be converted into the lightning and storm. A larger and warmer sympathy pervades your being as you listen to the choral symphonies of unseen woodland singers; and as the wind, that ancient minstrel, plays with subtile touch las soughing chords and harmonies through bending hemlock and pine, you are unconsciously regaining your equilibrium and equanimity. Hereafter, for a time at least, your sensations and emotions will swing with a truer balance, you will think with a finer mind, see with a clearer eye, feel with a nobler heart. You linger by the side of a little brook riotous with the revel of last night's rain and storm. It's waters are swirled in eddies and whirlpools as it hurries impetuously along, tumbling over rocks and boulders, and coming dangerously near over- flowing its banks. You again realize, as you have so many times before, why poet, and sage, states- man and prophet, musician and artist, have rhymed 28 BERRY PICKING and philosophized, metaphorized and parabled, sung and painted, these lesser waters of nature, these rivers in miniature, whose infancy big with great possibilities and future energies so aptly typify human beginnings and ends. The growth along the roadside is every moment becoming wilder and more riotous. Tall clumps of spotted alder hedge the way on either side forming an almost impenetrable thicket through which the sun glints and glimmers. Great bushes of gnarled and twisted laurel whose glorious clusters of pink blossoms have long since turned to dust, but whose dark green and glossy leaves, if anything, outrival the beauty of the former more ephemeral flowers, encircle the rugged trunks of hemlock and pine rendering the gloom and shade even more dark and mysterious. Although this laurel of the new world never circled the head of a victorious Alexander or Caeser, it can boast a far greater conquerer for its votary. For each year it crowns the giant brow of grim and imperial winter, whose mighty line of conquests began ages before the voice of man broke the inarticulate silence of this ancient world. On alder and pine, broken fence and crumbling stone wall climbs the clam- bering clematis, its delicate spray-like bloom and 29 BERRY PICKING clinging tendrils adding to the green confusion of things. The yarrow, that ubiquitous and dusty faced little tramp of summer highways and by- ways, asserts its right of association with its betters the tall pink Joe-Pye weed and purple spired vervain. Mingling with these and seen through the fenestrated spaces and vistas of vines and trees is the glory of field and meadow, the golden rod, its bold plumes waving and tossing a defiant chal- lenge to the approaching powers of Autumn. And on all sides, here wantoning in the shade and shadow, there revelling and basking in the sun- shine are the blackberries! My fair proselyte to berry picking, has it ever been your palates pleasure, has the gustatory ecstacy ever been yours to taste a wild blackberry with the cool limpid dew still bathing its dusky sides? If not, prepare now, to enjoy fulfillment of a blessed expectation! Yet gently, and cautiously withal, too rash a hand, too quick a step may bring its own sad judgment in the loss of the choicest fruit, or that more painful experience, a sprained ankle. For your finest berry like your biggest trout haunts the shades and shadows; the heat of the sun saps and shrivels the lifeblood of the reck- less berry that in wanton joy has sought its 30 BERRY PICKING seductive light. Here stands a bush seemingly void of fruit— be not deceived, yet proceed with caution. The alertness required to escape the prick of thorn and scratch of bramble adds zest to the sport; nor are these natural protectors of the fruit its sole defenders, for the warrior wasps with poisoned lances are ever ready to attack all discov- erers of their sylvan larder, and wary indeed must be the intruders who would avoid a battle with these active and vigilant woodland sentinals. Follow where the vine trails and loses itself in the dense cool foliage of that arbor of wild grape; gently separate the guardian leaves, and then for a moment let the eye be regaled by the feast which is so soon to entertain your palate. The plump, round, drupelet of each berry is a tiny globule of rare and delicious juice, ready to yield its contents at the slightest pressure of mortal lips. No cellarer ever tapped a cask of so fine a vintage; no rarer nectar ever touched the eager tongue of Olympic God ; no Tynan purple ever stained with finer hue the ruthless hand of man; no urn of Araby ever spilled so seductive a fragrance on the desert air. But the shadows are ever lengthening; a sudden silence steals over all things, and a chill creeps on apace from the surrounding hills. You 31 BERRY PICKING turn your face towards home. Heavenward, in the Walhalla of the sky, the Cloud Gods are gathering for their twilight march. In majestic train they pass solemnly westward in robes of flaming purple and crimson, their crowns of burning gold flashing shafts of radiant light across the horizon. In the distance is heard the muffled rumble of their char- iot wheels as they drive along their fiery way. In defiance they hurl a spear of fire against the pale planet of evening, it strikes the zenith and shatters into a thousand glowing and glittering fragments whose light slowly dies out, quenched in the ocean of night, into whose mysterious depths all nature shall presently sink in forgetfulness and sleep. 32 To P. J. F. O N H E R O D ON THE ROAD UMANITY "on the road" is, so far as its greater part is concerned, in- sensible to the finer sensations. A journey by rail, in the heat and dust of a summer's day results, at least for most of us, in the subjugation of our entire be- ing to the idea of "getting there," wherever "there" may be, and until the desired haven is reached, individual nature seems susceptible to distractions and annoyances only. Your genuine traveler is born, not made. A man may be a globe-trotter all his life; he may journey from Dan to Beersheba, or from one pole to the other and back again and yet be no traveler at all ; your peregrlnator per naturam possessing certain qualities which set him apart from the commonalty, and which serve to distinguish him as readily as those which discriminate between poet and philosopher. Indeed, your "born traveler" is a felicitous combination of both poet and philosopher, having the warm sympathy and nice perception of the former, and the singularly happy faculty pos- 35 ON THE ROAD sessed by the latter of adjusting himself to varying exigences and circumstances without deranging his moral or mental being. To such a one all seasons and all places have their own peculiar charm and delight. He may travel as an emperor or as the merest vagabond, it matters not which; in the best and fullest sense of the word he is a citizen of the world, and an imperial vision and enjoyment are his. Moreover, that healthy and vigorous interest in man and nature which comes from individual action and contemplation stands as a constant and genial host at the ever open door of his fancy, for his imagination has become a species of Prosperonian cloak in which, wrapped at will and freed from vexations and discomforts of time and environment, visions of depths and heights illimitable may be his for the mere wish- ing. No Goswell Street bounds him on every side, as it did the redoubtable Mr. Pickwick on that memorable morning when he first started on his classic journey of research. The Goswellian walls no longer darken or limit his views. The glimpses of waving fields and winding rivers will recall to him the Elysian days of youth, or, if he be, as we hope he is even now, young in spirit, there will rise before him visions of delightful and happy days to 36 ON THE ROAD come; while wooded hills and rolling meadows will bring to mind days when, with rod or gun or butterfly net in hand, he learned from nature those first great lessons of truth and beauty which have never ceased to exert their refining and up- lifting influence on the man. Again, your traveling epicure takes to the road as a duckling to water. The old parish hen may fluff her feathers and cluck the eyes out of her head, but just beyond is the pond with the cool waters lapping its shore, and a bottom of inex- pressibly delicious and unexplored mud; and the little one with the peculiar feet is a duck, "Mam," nor does he have to be informed of the fact, for the tiny duck-heart within him told him this long ago, and presently the waters will tickle his queer little toes, when, presto ! and our duckling is a world traveler and free, let the commotion and disturbance on the home bank be what it may. And surely it is natural and fortunate that the larger moiety of mankind should desire to see and judge for themselves of that greater world, with its denizens, which looms up and surrounds them on all sides. Traveling may be "a fool's paradise," but it is also the wise man's most de- lightful school. The parochial pew is narrow at 37 ON THE ROAD best, and its progeny is the little mind, and those two most insufferable species of all mankind — the egotist and the bigot — the man who cannot see beyond his own nose and the man who will not. We must be done at times with our "luxuriating in books;" we must flee our "dryasdusts," our immediate environment and, above all else, our- selves, for otherwise our natures will smack too much of provincialism, insularity, and, in all prob- ability, insolence as well. It is only by the fre- quent contact with the world at large that a man finally acquires that cumulative force and poten- tiality known as character, and that serenity and equanimity which permits him to adjust himself to all conditions and surroundings without disturb- ing his harmonious poise of body and soul. A well known writer, in speaking of youth, has wisely said, "Let him look well at the stars before he bends to his task; he will need to re- member them when the days of toil come, as they must to every man. Let him see the world with his own eyes before he gives to fortune those host- ages which hold him henceforth bound in one place." Yet, apart from all social or ethnic desires or speculations which may arise in the heart or mind 38 O N THE ROAD of man, there is enough of that milder curiosity in his composition to make him wish to know who his neighbors are, and what they are about, and to lead him to gentle deductions on the subject It is for this reason that a journey by rail offers so lively and absorbing an entertainment to your trav- eler; the train being a constantly moving theatre, the ever shifting scenes and changing background of which are formed by the country through which the journey is made. It is an auditorium and a stage all in one, in and on which the traveler may be at once the interested spectator and uncons- cious actor. The curtain is never down, and the prompter's bell is the individual inclination. It is the genuineness of the scene and the knowledge that you are dealing with actualities that hold your interest and attention. If you are a wise traveler you will have no companion who would disturb these reposeful sen- sations by irrelevant or untimely remarks. The presence of a friend may, if he be in accord with the occasion and discreet withal, enhance the pleasure of the journey, but a mere chance ac- quaintance will, depend upon it, prove to be a fly in the honey. All idle chatter and talk is but acid and ferment to the sweetness and repose of your 39 ON THE ROAD thoughts at such times. "Hope and memory" should be your two good companions on the road, so that your thoughts, untrammelled by forced or unwilling effort at conversation may "alight as the humor moves them at unfrequented stations," or glide gently into the repose and quiet of the season's spirit as one swiftly shifting scene dissolves into another. As the train speeds us along, we see in the distance the rapidly receding and broken outlines of the city's heterogeneous concourse of roofs, spires and towers, as they stand out in bold relief against the overhanging sky; while the wreaths and spirals of smoke, as they curl lazily up from the tall chimney-tops, grow every moment more faint and indistinct until at last they fade away altogether in the general haze and confusion of the distance. As we are borne thus quickly along we catch beauti- ful glimpses of the swiftly passing panorama; "sights seen as a travelling swallow might see them from the wing," and these fleeting visions of ever changing scenery have a vague and dreamful effect on the eye and mind which is peculiarly soothing and restful. We stop for a moment at the borders of a little lake. Its sand is white and hard and, save where 40 ON THE ROAD the brown lake- weeds sway gracefully to and fro beneath its surface, the eye can follow its clear, smooth gravel bed for a long distance from the shore. It is as if the ancient gods of the place had rounded and polished a deep bowl in which to dis- till the cool limpid nectar from the surrounding woods and hills. But now those lesser gods— the children of men — ply and skim over its surface and quench their thirst with long, deep draughts of the rare vintage and they feel something of the spirit of the wild woods, and of the rustling leaf, and of the unstained sky, as the life giving water cools their hot temples and their overheated blood. Presently two young fishermen join the ever changing troop of passengers. They bring a fresh- ness and a life to the scene, a moral and material vi- tality such as is only experienced when we come in contact with that harmonious perfection of physical being known as health. The wind, and the sun, and the rain have tanned their frank and honest faces and imparted a rich brown tint to their bare arms— one of nature's hues which she yields only to those who have courted her in all her varying seasons and changing moods. Their flesh is as firm, and as hard, and as responsive to every stimulus as that of the gamey denizen of the deep cool waters, the 41 ON THE ROAD pursuit and capture of which requires all the skill and patience of their alert and eager natures. Each well rounded action shows the strong beautiful curves of the swelling muscles of neck and arm, and when they smile, their teeth gleam white and even, while their merriment is as infectious and as bracing as a "Nor'Wester." No herdsman of Theocritus ever walked beneath the clear blue of a Grecian sky with firmer or more rhythmic step, or nobler or happier mien than these two sons of New England. Presently each thrusts a hand into his pocket and brings out a luscious apple. As they bite into the firm white flesh of the fruit, the crunch is veritable music. We begin to realize how these two young fishermen came to acquire so fine a health. Theirs is the freedom of sky, and woods, and fields. They have experienced that "glorious open air confusion" which thrills the senses, and starts and quickens into new and fresh vigor the sluggish vitality of our nature ; they have run riot in the "open air drunkenness," for they are the Mowgiis and the wild Aarons of the New England hills. Any one relishing an apple as they do, not only enjoys a good digestion but stands in a fair way to retain it. The tart and aromatic salts of the fruit invigorates their young blood, while the lus- 42 ON THE ROAD cious juice quenches their thirst and gives to their appetite a fine zest and stimulus. I wonder if they ever read honest John Burrough's essay on the apple. Personally, I can never read that disserta- tion without a dish of the fruit— Spitzenburgs and Kings — especial favorites — by my side. I am forced to take a bite between each line or two, so stim- ulating is each word; so seductive to the taste for apples! "When," says good Master Bur- roughs, "your neighbor has apples and you have none, and you make no nocturnal visits to his or- chard; when your lunch basket is without them, and you can pass a winter's night by the fireside with no thought of the fruit at your elbow— then, be assured, you are no longer a boy either in heart or years." And now an old fisherman appears on the scene, and, with a sort of fisherman's instinct, makes for the seat where our two younger fisher- men are sitting. The form of the old man is as strong and sinewy as that of a weather-beaten oak; his wrinkled and seamed old face being grey with the storms and gales of many years — an al- most crag-like face, beneath whose shaggy brows the eyes burn with a deep and lambent fire. He sits down beside the younger men and talks; his 43 ON THE ROAD voice has in it the strong and harsh quality of the storm and gale, while that of the young fishermen is clear and penetrating — the music of the brook and the waterfall. The fresh smell of fish and of the lake still clings to them. The old fisherman pulls a pipe out of his pocket and lights it. He be- gins to talk of days long ago, when the fish were bigger, more gamy, and more plentiful than now, and, if we mistake not, his story dilates in direct proportion as he observes the dilation of his listen- er's pupils. For our fisherman is an old fisherman, and is only practising his recognized prerogatives, having learned, long since, that nature contains species other than the piscatorial that will nibble and swallow a tempting bait, and give you a merry time for the angling. We are rushing along at a prodigous rate and yet with a scarcely perceptible jar. Smiling fields, gray fences, mellowing orchards, inviting hedgerows, "Hardly hedgerows, little lines Of sportive wood run wild : these pastoral farms, Green to the very door ; the wreaths of smoke Sent up, in silence, from among the trees !" All are passed— the vision of an instant— and yet not so quick but that the keen and alert eye con- 44 ON THE ROAD veys its beautiful and masterful picture to the mind of the man within. As we round a curve there comes into view a long row of stately elms forming a vista that leads up to an old manse. We get a glimpse of the old-fashioned garden with its quaint white- gravelled walks, and their carefully trimmed and clipped box-edges. Memory lends us her wonder- ful spectacles for a moment. A boy is walking through the garden kicking up the pebbles as he goes along. This is damaging to the walk, but gives the boy a peculiar satisfaction, exactly what he cannot say; an irresistible activity impels him to do it, as it does many things for which he can give no reason. The hollyhocks, the marigolds and the petun- ias are in fiill bloom. The warm summer air laden with an old-fashioned spicy odor, caresses the face of the boy and is exceedingly grateful as it blows through his unkempt hair. The grapery is over the high hedge; its mullioned glass glistens under the hot sun. The boy loves to press his nose against the lower panes and take a long look at the purple and emerald clusters as they hang half concealed amongst the dark-green and jealous leaves; delicious bunches that tempt 45 ON THE ROAD him to many a secret depredation when the stern old gardener is not in sight. At the end of a pleached walk are the fruit trees. The boy, oddly enough, ignores the fruit, but makes at once for the gum which oozes in amber tears from wounds in the tree. He has made a collection of these gums and chews them on all occasions to the great discomfiture of his nurse, who believes them to be rank poison, and to the genuine distress of his mother, who looks upon it as a deplorable habit. The robins have built a nest high up in an old apple tree ; the rest- less eye of the boy has discovered it, and the spirit of adventure and an irrepressible curiosity seize him. He climbs, regardless of rent or risk, until lying prone on the swaying limb, he can stretch out his hand and feel the tiny eggs as yet warm by the breast of the mother bird. This discovery stirs all the boy's feelings to ecstacy. His adventure has been successful, for he has made an important find. He places an egg in his mouth, and, care- fully shutting his teeth over it, he makes a rapid descent. Nor must you blame the boy for the rob- bery. In his eyes it is not regarded as a robbery at all, in fact, great would be his astonishment were you to apply such an epithet to what he regards as 46 ON THE ROAD a serious pursuit. He has fulfilled an irresistible impulse of his nature, which is to collect everything which appeals to him as being rare or unusual. To satisfy his curiosity and his activity these are the two things for which the boy lives, and the grat- ification of these desires makes life worth living. The boy's discoveries did not always end hap- pily. Once— and he remembers the day as if yes- terday — he went on a butterfly chase. His hunt lead him down a gently sloping hill, at the foot of which was a wild uncultivated field, with here and there stretches of copse and underwood, the latter the unexplored jungles and haunted forests of the boy's imagination. A shallow brook wound its way lazily through the field, and to the eye of the young hunter it appeared a mighty, unnavi- gated river of which he was the De Soto. The boy was dressed in stiffly starched duck breeches that gaped wide at the knee and which annoyed and chafed him when he walked. The banks of the brook were of a rich alluvial deposit over which grew lush and velvety grass. The bank was most inviting to a tired, over-heated boy. He accepted the mute invitation of nature and sat down— but not for long. There were, unfortunately, aborigin- ies who had preoccupied the bank, these being an 47 ON THE ROAD irascible species of hornet. They made their home by burrowing in the rich clay, and the many en- trances and exits to and from their domiciles were marked by a series of little holes that were alto- gether invisible to any save the sharpest eyes. The unsuspecting boy unwittingly sat over a small congregation of these openings. The result was immediate and disastrous. The boy of Winander never awakened the echoes with more startling effect, but though the latter "redoubled and re- doubled," it was not with that "concourse wild of mirth and jocund din," but an "unpremeditated strain" of terrified shrieks and howls, indicative of the mad work of vengeance, which the relentless hornets were perpetrating on certain of the most useful and sensitive parts of the boys anatomy. The way those lithe-bodied little demons got under those stiffly starched breeches was a cruel shame! The boy was undressed and put to bed, and fresh mud was placed on the bad places, thereby adding, as he thought, insult to injury : necessity multiply- ing the affront still further, in that, during a period which tried his very soul, he was compelled to his unspeakable chagrin, to assume a position face downwards and permit himself to be fed from a spoon by one of his maiden aunts. 48 ON THE ROAD We gradually slow down and come to a stop in a wild, open part of the country. With our fel- low travelers we alight to stretch our legs a bit. The reassuring and cheerful sigh of the Westing- house brake ; the shrill chirp of a cricket ; and the sudden whir of a flying grasshopper, seem but to enhance the stillness of the late afternoon. We are near a marshy pool. The dragon-fly, that winged Ariel of the swamp and relentless foe of the pest horde of mosquitoes and gnats, is darting swift as a ray of jewelled light among the water- weeds and tall spires of the cat- tails ; now poising gracefully on the lovely purple iris and again dip- ping down into the upturned face of the water-lily. On the other side of the road is a stream in which the willows cast their fast lengthening shadows. A mild and kindly cow is standing knee deep in the cool and swirling waters, finishing her evening meal in quiet, and gently switching her tail to and fro to keep off a bothersome fly or so. We catch the faint odor of moist earth, and a perceptible yet grateful chill comes to us blown from the distant rolling hills. The parched and thirsty soil is taking a deep and delicious drink of the cool and refreshing draught distilled nightly by Nature under the deep concave bowl of the sky. 49 ON THE ROAD The vesper sun is trailing its glories over hill and vale, and a great peace goes up out of the vast silence and fills all space and the heart of man with deep content 50 To E. J. P. u o N ILLUSIONS NCE there was a little boy who stood on the sand of a long, white beach and looked out over the CaHban Sea. Day after day his tiny, bare feet pattered along the pebbled shore until his nether limbs became brown as the seaweed of the drift. Day after day throughout the long summer months he stood there watching, waiting and hoping for something. Many a ship did his vision follow, as, making her way to port, she disappeared behind the bold headland that jutted out into the sea, only presently to wing her way out again. Everyone wondered what the little boy sought as he stood on the long, white beach, looking seaward. At last the mystery was solved. It was the night of the full moon. The boy stole softly from the house and made his way over the coarse grasses and sharp sand -weeds that ran from the shore-road to the margin of the beach. The biting salt wind blew across his eager, young face and tossed his hair back from his fore- 53 U S I O N head, while the calm, mysterious night looked down into his wistful, wondering eyes. The boy stood in the vast silence and gazed out over the waste of waters ; and while he waited and watched, up from the dim horizon, out of the darkling sea rose the tall masts of a goodly ship. Soon its headlight gleamed like a star, and its port and starboard lights burned with the steadfast and un- quenchable fire of planets. Despite the chill breath of the night air, a warm flush thrilled the scanti- ly clad form of the boy, and his heart throbbed tumultuously with inexpressible desire. The ship sped ever nearer and nearer over the shimmering sea towards the boy; its dark prow wreathed in a spray of living fire, and its sails wrapped in a transcendant splendor. But all at once the un- seen pilot, he that held the fate of the ship in his hands, bore down on the helm. Slowly, but surely, the staunch ship changed its course and winged its way towards the dark headland, around which it presently disappeared in a glorified mist, seeking haven in the unseen and unknown port beyond. But the boy, what of him ? They found him on the beach sobbing as if his little heart would break, and between the sobs which shook him as the storm shakes the leaf, they caught the words, 54 U S I O N "My ship, Oh! my ship, it always turns the headland and never conies to me.'* This, then, was the little boy's secret; this the reason of those long unbroken vigils, and this— Oh ! the pity of it — the mighty disillusion ! Chance had whispered the old adage, "when my ship comes in," and to his ears had sounded a prophecy and promise. The good ship for which he had waited and watched during the long weary sum- mer months, was at last coming in, wrapped in glory and freighted with all his young heart's desires. It came bounding over the fathomless deep. Presently he would step on board and real- ize all that was to make life worth living; all that he had watched and waited and hoped for. But now, the illusion was gone! The firm rock of seeming truth had turned to the dust of merest fiction, and beneath his very feet his golden dream had vanished silently and suddenly,— a mere will- o'-the-wisp ! And his illusion, — yes ye sons and daughters of time and chance, his illusion had gone, and with it for the time being went also, hope, belief and faith, and the whole world seemed a cruel pretence to that little boy. Life, in its waking spring, its glorious summer, its mellow autumn, and its mute winter, finds us 55 U S I O N walking on the interminable sands of time, watch- ing, waiting, and hoping for our ship to come in. There, amidst the grey dunes of the days and years we stand keeping lonely vigil, the derelicts of wrecked hopes and shattered illusions strewn wildly about us ; not a little deftly fashioned timber slowly turning to drift-wood, but that reminds us of some disillusion of our own. Yet, oblivious of these re- minders, we still stand gazing out over the shambl- ing waters of existence, ever on the lookout for the brave ship, which with bunting flying, and merry wind whistling through the rigging is speeding its way to us— lone watchers of the shifting dunes of the days and years. From the time when our bowl of bread and milk is an unexplored polar sea, within whose un- known depths swim marvellous leviathans waiting to be caught by the edacious hunter of the silver spoon, until the time when, with mumbled words we expatiate on visions of past and never experi- enced greatness, speaking in trite platitudes of "the good old days," we, that is to say the most of us, live in a world of illusions. From the days of bib and pinafore to those of frock and gown, they are our hearts and minds constant and inevitable companions; for weal or 56 U S I O N woe, joy or sorrow, in protean guises and disguises, in manifold forms and substances, they come and go at all times, at all seasons, at all ages and to all men. We smile condescendingly on the children when playing great dame and gentleman in the nursery, yet, we ourselves, in secret, strut about with bold fronts and mincing mien before our cheval glasses, like so many human grackles, big with the idea of an imaginary greatness. Yet it is only when illusions are born of our pride or egotism, and not of our unselfish hopes and disinterested desires, that they bring their re- tribution of disaster and shame. It is vanity that allures man with some of the most enticing and dangerous illusions. Ah, Mistress Vanity, what a rare costumer art thou ! What a fine and tempt- ing wardrobe do you offer to the sons and daughters of time! Folly, the mad custodian of the robes bedecked with false jewels and yet falser smiles, stands ever at the glittering portals of your en- chanted palace, inviting, beguiling and seducing with alluring gestures and subtle words the hearts of the passing throng. Once within, what an al- luring sight meets the gaze of the truckling, purse- proud, silly aspirant: king or beggar, sage or fool, man or woman, all may feast their eager eyes and 57 U S I O N have their fill for the price. Here on every side can be seen the cast off baubles and corroded tinsel of the past: from Nero's fiddle to the "Great Mon- arch's" periwig; from Cardinal Woolsey's hat to the imperial purple of Napoleon— all are displayed in tawdry splendor, together with big- wigs, coro- nets and dazzling tiaras; in fact, all such empty mockeries and sham glories as arise from man's most selfish and despicable illusions, and which have ever seduced and betrayed and still continue to bewilder and confound his vain and shallow heart and mind. To every pretentious aspirant, to every devotee at the altar of snobbery, to every proselyte of the mean and the base, to all such who pretend to be what they are not, or yearn to be what they cannot. Vanity stands the shame- less panderer to the basest and most despicable illusions of mankind. In all seriousness let us think before we teach monkey-tricks to our faces to our bodies, or to our souls. Surely the situation is bad enough as it is ; the tail of a past generation still clings to us, and even at this late date, it would seem as if, for some of us, it were easier to chatter in the tree tops than to walk like men, upright and on two feet. Carlyle meditating on the disillusion of a cer- 58 U S I O N tain great king, and writing in his best style, was forced to exclaim: "How many times we weave for ourselves glittering threads of the finest diplom- acy, which seem to go beyond the dog-star, and to be radiate and irradiated like paths of the gods, and they are, seem what they might, poor threads of idle gossamer, sunk already to dusty cobweb, unpleas- ant to poor human nature; poor human nature con- cerned only to get them well swept into the fire, the quantities of which sad litter in this universe are very great." Not for a moment doubting the truth of these words which with terse and ironic pen, the great historian and staunch hater of all sham and con- ceit, thus engraved on the tablets of time; yet surely the question may, without offence to his memory, be asked what without these "glittering threads" illuminating the dull texture of existence would we be, or what doing? For, if the truth must be told, so far as concerns a goodly part of human nature at least, these illusions are about the only real things they have. They are the straws in the mad torrent of life at which bedrenched and struggling humanity clutches; the mirage, which gives them heart-courage to drag their tired benumbed limbs across the weary desert of life. 59 U S I O N Faith is a sublime thing and the ideal a com- mendable aspiration. There are those who are wise enough to treasure them, and yes, thank God! brave enough to live up to them too. But between your saint and hero comes your gentle illusionist within whose composition is the germ- inal essence of both, and who, as a rule, has more of the spirit of human brotherhood than either; for, depend upon it, he who has none of the dreamer in his composition is the sorriest sort of companion. Your matter of fact individual is full of angles and sharp lines; an uncomfortable as- sociate and an impossible friend. It is your dreamer who feels the truth which heaven has to give ; it is your star-gazer who reads the riddle of the uni- verse. These are nearer the infinite by incalcu- lable measures than your mere "Dryasdust," from whose vision the light of heaven is blotted out by the clouds and fogs of facts and figures. These illusions of ours illumine the dull human clay and lend a fine nimbus to the actual. No empire, no city, no supreme expression of art but began in a dream or vision — an impalpability of the imagination. First our Utopia and then our real city of brick and mortar. Dreams and visions are the parents of much work and wisdom in this matter of fact 60 U S I O N world of ours, the wise sayings and saws of real- ists and pedagog:ues to the contrary. The danger for us poor dreamers is that in turning our eyes from the Elysian visions to behold again our fellow men, hope and enthusiasm are apt to die out of our hearts as the poverty and wretchedness of the real confronts us in its huge shapes and terrors. Those of us who would live for our fellow men; who would lift them up from the sloughs and quagmires; who would lend them a hand across the burning sands of the desert and send them a cheery call through the storm and stress of the night, must, with a hero's fortitude and a saint's conviction, fight with our vision ever before us, and hold it close to our hearts. It must be remembered, however, that the possession of a great ideal does not mean work accomplished but work revealed. It is here where misfortune is apt to overtake us, for the illusions of most dreamers occupy that same unstable and uncertain existence which Tweedledum informed Alice that she held in reference to her immediate environment, which was to the effect that "if that there King was to wake, you'd go out— bang !— just like a candle!" but sometimes, — and this is the retribution follow- ing illusions born of our vanity and egoism, — the 61 U S I O N vision fades and dies out like the Cheshire cat into a simious grin. Children are the aptest sort of illusionists; they delight in imagining and pretending; their playroom is a wonderland, where marvellous scenes are constantly enacted, and where illusion holds unrivalled sway. For them the space be- tween a lounge and the floor is a cave in the wilderness where bears, robbers and Indians lie waiting to rush out and pounce upon their un- wary prey and victims. The pattern on the carpet maps out vast tracts of country whose valleys and mountains are peopled by hobgoblins, giants, fairies, heroes and royal personages. More than half their young lives, if we matter of fact "grown- ups" could only realize it, are lived under the spell of illusion. Their little hearts love it. To walk through the golden mists of romance and fairy- land is the child's prerogative — it is in this pleasant way that they at last reach the stern actualities. They even go so far as to cast the enchanter's spell over their eatables and meal-times. Thus it adds an indiscribable zest and relish to a bowl of bread and milk if you approach it under the illusion that it is a vast polar sea, in which are swimming mighty whales which must be harpooned and 62 U S I O N landed before they can be stowed away "amid- ships." Again it enhances tremendously the fla- vor of any particular meal, and at the same time hugely increases the appetite of the consumer if, for the time being, he impersonates a renowned hunter or immortal hero; and there are times when "being" a lion or tiger with all the accom- panying guttural sounds and noises will permit one to devour an amount of rare steak which, un- less there had been a sudden conversion from the human into the feline nature, would otherwise have been impossible. Why, there is an entire romance in a piece of bread and butter if eaten as a Robinson Crusoe, or Sinbad the Sailor; and as to a piece of raisin cake, it can translate one to the islands of bliss and rosy Erytheia itself! But for your child, the one place where illu- sion is carried out to perfection is the Toy-Shop! Here the golden visions of some of their happiest moments are realized ; here some of their brightest dreams come true; here the earnest of some of their fondest illusions "make good." We know of one such shop which has been honored by the beliefs and delights of at least four generations of children. The old merchant who was at one time possessor and guardian of its sumless treasures 63 U S I O N was, by all true believers, held to be nothing short of Santa Claus himself. Indeed his appearance bore a close resemblance to that kindly saint: his eyes had a merry frosty twinkle in them, clear and bright as the stars of a polar night, and his round, red little cheeks and his soft, snowy beard happily typified all the childish heart and imagination had dreamed of the blessed personality in question. Those of the faith held firm to the conviction that at night he drove his reindeer over the tall grimy chimney tops, and that some where or other they were waiting near at hand to do their master's bidding. The very atmosphere of the place was redolent with Christmas— an indescribable frag- rance of pine, hemlock, holly and sugar plums! The cheeriness was infectious; everybody about you seemed to be in the best of humor and spirits. Jollity was the monarch whose jovial sovereignty for the time being ruled men's hearts. It may be at once confessed that not a few of us whose springs and sources of illusion, under the desiccat- ing processes of time, are supposed to have long since evaporated from our human clay, neverthe- less still find a measurable sensation of pleasure and delight in revisiting this shrine of our early days, and as a consequence of this, each year 64 U S I O N undergo a species of mild rejuvenescence, which permits us to better enter into the season's spirit. Almost breathless with the excitement of expecta- tion and desire we walked through this fairyland, where it seemed that all that the story books told had come true. It was here that many a little girl felt for the first time the maternal longings thrill her tiny heart, as with eager eyes she beheld the golden haired dolls ranged on the shelves and counters on all sides. It was whilst walking about in these enchanted by-ways that many a little boy first felt the sense of awakening chivalry and pa- triotism course through his diminutive being as he gazed on the long rows of bravely arrayed, leaden soldiers ready to do mimic battle. But possibly the one creation of the toy-maker's art which held supreme place in the childish affections, was that ancient vessel of hope and destiny, first immortal- ized by the author of Genesis and whose memory has ever since been kept perpetually green by the hallowed illusions of the countless succeeding gen- erations of children — Noah's Ark! Who may for- get their sensations as for the first time they beheld this sacred vessel, which came so richly freighted with the realization of many a golden dream; or the eagerness with which they thrust their infant 65 U S I O N hands into its mysterious interior in order to draw- forth into the light of day some of nature's most startling creations, whether considered in the light of gradual evolution or of spontaneous generation. For although there was nothing in the anatomy of the ancient navigator himself or of his three sons, which in any way might distinguish them from each other, or from their several wives— an economy in the design of their garments yet fur- ther enhancing this difficulty— yet in their case honors were even, which was something. But when it came to the animal kingdom,— here indeed were forms and shapes which would have put a Proteus to the blush, a goodly number of which remain even to this day unrecorded in the annals of pre-historic zoology. If one might judge from the similarity of stature and feature of the Noah family, it would seem as if nature had used the human species as a mere neutral background or foil to the reckless prodigality with which she molded the fauna of this period. As an instance, that happy biped the goose, was in these times a rara avis indeed, eclipsing both in form and dimen- sions the dodo of yesterday and the ostrich of to- day. Again, if it be true that it had been so ar- ranged that the leopard could not change his spots 66 U S I O N — which in this instance were unusually large and resembled ink-blobs on a piece of yellow blotting paper— still it was equally true that many of the domestic animals of these remote ages had literal- ly to "stand by their colors" many of which were of a hue and brilliancy unknown to either sunset or rainbow. Not the least of the ark's attractions, however, was its smell of fresh paint in which the childish nose revelled, and which tempted the taste of not a few small mouths. Indeed, we have known of several instances where more than one member of the Patriarch's family was sucked to a state of profound anemia ; nor would there be the slightest hesitation at denial of the crime, although the life blood of the victim still dyed the lips and pinafore of the culprit! Your miserable disillusionists who would be- reave Christmas of Santa Claus and expel fairies from the realms of childhood, on the ground that their consciences will not permit them to perpe- trate a falsehood on the young mind, are a pack of meddlesome busybodies who shatter the finest and tenderest germs of budding imagination, and rob childhood of some of its sweetest moments. On the same ground they should exclude all that is allegorical from the Bible, and under the same 67 U S I O N puritanical judgment, Dante, Homer and Shakes- peare should be consigned to perdition and burned together with the rest of the so-called heretics. And who shall be so bold as to say that these illusions of ours are not for our ultimate good? Certainly without them the zest for living would speedily end; the dull monotony of life would at first appall and finally overwhelm us; we should no longer hunger or thirst for anything, but pres- ently become dull clay images, with listless, un- intelligent and unheedful eyes; while history would lose immeasurably in interest and be deprived of much, if not all, of its color and romance. For, within that mighty forest of human events called "History" we can hear the arch-enchanter, "Illu- sion" — ^perpetually enticing and alluring individuals and nations of the human race. Beneath the roof of man's humblest hut; within the courts of his imperial palaces; within the splendid halls of his senates and parliaments, nay, within the domes and spired temples of his very religion itself^illu- sion sways his heart and pursues the path of his destiny. At times, during the lapse of centuries, there may rise before man's amazed and wonder- ing eyes the solemn and awful majesty of some Golgotha, the light of whose blazing cross, planted 68 U S I O N by the hand of eternal truth, dispels the mists and gloom which prevent him from seeing the al- mighty facts which surround and control him on all sides. Or, again, his dull ear catches the por- tentous and awful sound of some bloody revolu- tion, when the very soul of his race in throes and travail reincarnates those everlasting laws and systems which, through long insufferable years, have been ignored and broken, but whose eternity at last asserting itself, grinds to impalpable dust the sham glories and false institutions of those whose willful ignorance and inane insolence now pay the price in anguish. But these sudden reve- lations and assertions of truth are the flashes of lightning in a midnight storm. For a few tried and undaunted hearts they seem to illumine the dark- ness and uncertainty of the way ; but humanity at large stands bewildered and terrified as they hear the deafening thunders of the trumpets of God crashing out their ominous sounds of warning and avenge. All of which merely goes to prove that, for the denizens of this most mutable world the journey towards truth and salvation is fraught with hardships and dangers, and is not without its terrors as well; and that for such perplexed pilgrims as are groping along the fateful path of 69 U S I O N destiny, following the gentle voice and kindly light of illusion would seem to be the happiest and surest means by which to reach their desired goal. Illusion and hope! — these in plenty are ours from the cradle to the grave. We drink them in at the breast, you may see their subtle powers exerted over us at all times and at all ages. "We are such stuff as dreams are made on;" the nobler the stuff, the finer the dreams; the more beautiful the illusion, the more sublime the hope. "Your old men shall dream dreams, and your young men shall see visions." Let us be glad of it ; yes, let us be profoundly grateful that they keep on so doing ; for who knows what nonsense the old men would be committing without a dream or so to beguile the time, or what mischief the younger ones would be getting into without their visions to keep them occupied. For many of us at least, an aspiration seems to be but another term for a species of noble and refined illusion. Does not the poet tell us " Etwas wiinschen und verlangen, Etwas hoffen muss das Herz, Etwas zu verlieren bangen Und um etwas fiihlen Schmerz." And the beloved author of Virginibus Puer- 70 U S I O N isque has said that, "'We live in an ascending scale when we live happily, one thing leading to another in an endless series. There is always a new hori- zon for onward looking men, and although we dwell on a small planet, immersed in petty busi- ness and not enduring beyond a brief period of years, we are so constituted that our hopes are in- accessible, like stars, and the term of hoping is prolonged until the term of life. To be truly happy is a question of how we begin, and not of how we end, of what we want, and not of what we have. An aspiration is a joy forever, a possession as solid as a landed estate, a fortune which we can never exhaust and which gives us year by year a revenue of pleasurable activity. To have many of these is to be spiritually rich." Our delight and our happiness are forever dependent not on ourselves, but on something be- yond and better; be it man, woman, or heaven, that is to us the aspiration or the illusion, let us be grateful that it is ours. 71 JAN 7 lau/ Deaciditied using the Bookkeeper proces Neutralizing Agent: Magnesium Oxide Treatment Date: FPP T:::°'^°^'^^Bss