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+The Project Gutenberg eBook, Violets and Other Tales, by Alice Ruth Moore
+
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+
+
+
+Title: Violets and Other Tales
+
+
+Author: Alice Ruth Moore
+
+
+
+Release Date: June 29, 2006  [eBook #18713]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+
+***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK VIOLETS AND OTHER TALES***
+
+
+E-text prepared by Suzanne Shell, Janet Blenkinship, and the Project
+Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team (http://www.pgdp.net/)
+
+
+
+VIOLETS AND OTHER TALES
+
+by
+
+ALICE RUTH MOORE
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+Copyright 1895
+by the Monthly Review
+All rights reserved
+
+
+
+
+  To my friend of November 5th, 1892
+
+
+
+
+INTRODUCTION.
+
+
+In this day when the world is fairly teeming with books,--good books,
+books written with a motive, books inculcating morals, books teaching
+lessons,--it seems almost a piece of presumption too great for endurance
+to foist another upon the market. There is scarcely room in the literary
+world for amateurs and maiden efforts; the very worthiest are sometimes
+poorly repaid for their best efforts. Yet, another one is offered the
+public, a maiden effort,--a little thing with absolutely nothing to
+commend it, that seeks to do nothing more than amuse.
+
+Many of these sketches and verses have appeared in print before, in
+newspapers and a magazine or two; many are seeing the light of day for
+the first time. If perchance this collection of idle thoughts may serve
+to while away an hour or two, or lift for a brief space the load of care
+from someone's mind, their purpose has been served--the author is
+satisfied.
+
+                                                          A. R. M.
+
+CONTENTS.
+
+
+  VIOLETS,                                                            13
+
+  THREE THOUGHTS,                                                     18
+
+  THE WOMAN,                                                          21
+
+  TEN MINUTES' MUSING,                                                29
+
+  A PLAINT,                                                           35
+
+  IN UNCONSCIOUSNESS,                                                 36
+
+  TITEE,                                                              44
+
+  ANARCHY ALLEY,                                                      56
+
+  IMPRESSIONS,                                                        63
+
+  SALAMMBO,                                                           65
+
+  LEGEND OF THE NEWSPAPER,                                            72
+
+  A CARNIVAL JANGLE,                                                  76
+
+  PAUL TO VIRGINIA (Fin de Siecle),                                   83
+
+  THE MAIDEN'S DREAM,                                                 85
+
+  IN MEMORIAM,                                                        93
+
+  A STORY OF VENGEANCE,                                               93
+
+  AT BAY ST. LOUIS,                                                  106
+
+  NEW YEAR'S DAY,                                                    108
+
+  UNKNOWN LIFE OF JESUS CHRIST,                                      110
+
+  IN OUR NEIGHBORHOOD,                                               122
+
+  FAREWELL!                                                          138
+
+  LITTLE MISS SOPHIE,                                                140
+
+  IF I HAD KNOWN!                                                    154
+
+  CHALMETTE,                                                         155
+
+  AT EVENTIDE,                                                       159
+
+  THE IDLER,                                                         166
+
+  LOVE AND THE BUTTERFLY,                                            168
+
+  THE BEE-MAN,                                                       169
+
+  AMID THE ROSES,                                                    176
+
+
+
+
+PREFACE.
+
+
+These fugitive pieces are launched upon the tide of public opinion to
+sink or swim upon their merit. They will float for a while, but whether
+they will reach the haven of popularity depends upon their enduring
+qualities. Some will surely perish, many will reach some port, but time
+alone will tell if any shall successfully breast the ocean of thought
+and plant its standard upon the summit of fame.
+
+When one enters the domain of authorship, she places herself at the
+mercy of critics. Were she as sure of being commended by the best and
+most intelligent of her readers, as she is sure of being condemned by
+the worst and most ignorant, there would still be a thrill of pleasure
+in all criticism, for the satisfaction of having received the praise of
+the first would compensate for the harshness of the latter. Just
+criticism is wholesome and never wounds the sensibilities of the true
+author, for it saves her from the danger of an excess of pride which is
+the greatest foe to individual progress, while it spurs her on to
+loftier flights and nobler deeds. A poor writer is bad, but a poor
+critic is worse, therefore, unjust criticism should never ruffle the
+temper of its victim. The author of these pages belongs to that type of
+the "brave new woman who scorns to sigh," but feels that she has
+something to say, and says it to the best of her ability, and leaves the
+verdict in the hands of the public. She gives to the reader her best
+thoughts and leaves him to accept or reject as merit may manifest
+itself. No author is under contract to please her readers at all times,
+nor can she hope to control the sentiments of all of them at any time,
+therefore, the obligation is reciprocal, for the fame she receives is
+due to the pleasure she affords.
+
+The author of these fugitive pieces is young, just on the threshold of
+life, and with the daring audacity of youth makes assertions and gives
+decisions which she may reverse as time mellows her opinions, and the
+realities of life force aside the theories of youth, and prosy facts
+obscure the memory of that happy time when the heart overflowing
+with----
+
+                                  "The joy
+  Of young ideas painted on the mind,
+  In the warm glowing colors Fancy spreads
+  On objects, not yet known, when all is new,
+  And all is lovely."
+
+There is much in this book that is good; much that is crude; some that
+is poor: but all give that assurance of something great and noble when
+the bud of promise, now unfolding its petals in the morning glow of
+light, will have matured into that fuller growth of blossoming flower
+ere the noonday sun passes its zenith. May the hope thus engendered by
+this first attempt reach its fruition, and may the energy displayed by
+one so young meet the reward it merits from an approving public.
+
+                                           SYLVANIE F. WILLIAMS.
+
+
+
+
+VIOLETS.
+
+I.
+
+
+"And she tied a bunch of violets with a tress of her pretty brown hair."
+
+She sat in the yellow glow of the lamplight softly humming these words.
+It was Easter evening, and the newly risen spring world was slowly
+sinking to a gentle, rosy, opalescent slumber, sweetly tired of the joy
+which had pervaded it all day. For in the dawn of the perfect morn, it
+had arisen, stretched out its arms in glorious happiness to greet the
+Saviour and said its hallelujahs, merrily trilling out carols of bird,
+and organ and flower-song. But the evening had come, and rest.
+
+There was a letter lying on the table, it read:
+
+"Dear, I send you this little bunch of flowers as my Easter token.
+Perhaps you may not be able to read their meaning, so I'll tell you.
+Violets, you know, are my favorite flowers. Dear, little, human-faced
+things! They seem always as if about to whisper a love-word; and then
+they signify that thought which passes always between you and me. The
+orange blossoms--you know their meaning; the little pinks are the
+flowers you love; the evergreen leaf is the symbol of the endurance of
+our affection; the tube-roses I put in, because once when you kissed and
+pressed me close in your arms, I had a bunch of tube-roses on my bosom,
+and the heavy fragrance of their crushed loveliness has always lived in
+my memory. The violets and pinks are from a bunch I wore to-day, and
+when kneeling at the altar, during communion, did I sin, dear, when I
+thought of you? The tube-roses and orange-blossoms I wore Friday night;
+you always wished for a lock of my hair, so I'll tie these flowers with
+them--but there, it is not stable enough; let me wrap them with a bit of
+ribbon, pale blue, from that little dress I wore last winter to the
+dance, when we had such a long, sweet talk in that forgotten nook. You
+always loved that dress, it fell in such soft ruffles away from the
+throat and bosom,--you called me your little forget-me-not, that night.
+I laid the flowers away for awhile in our favorite book,--Byron--just at
+the poem we loved best, and now I send them to you. Keep them always in
+remembrance of me, and if aught should occur to separate us, press these
+flowers to your lips, and I will be with you in spirit, permeating your
+heart with unutterable love and happiness."
+
+
+II.
+
+It is Easter again. As of old, the joyous bells clang out the glad news
+of the resurrection. The giddy, dancing sunbeams laugh riotously in
+field and street; birds carol their sweet twitterings everywhere, and
+the heavy perfume of flowers scents the golden atmosphere with inspiring
+fragrance. One long, golden sunbeam steals silently into the
+white-curtained window of a quiet room, and lay athwart a sleeping face.
+Cold, pale, still, its fair, young face pressed against the satin-lined
+casket. Slender, white fingers, idle now, they that had never known
+rest; locked softly over a bunch of violets; violets and tube-roses in
+her soft, brown hair, violets in the bosom of her long, white gown;
+violets and tube-roses and orange-blossoms banked everywhere, until the
+air was filled with the ascending souls of the human flowers. Some
+whispered that a broken heart had ceased to flutter in that still, young
+form, and that it was a mercy for the soul to ascend on the slender
+sunbeam. To-day she kneels at the throne of heaven, where one year ago
+she had communed at an earthly altar.
+
+
+III.
+
+Far away in a distant city, a man, carelessly looking among some
+papers, turned over a faded bunch of flowers tied with a blue ribbon
+and a lock of hair. He paused meditatively awhile, then turning to the
+regal-looking woman lounging before the fire, he asked:
+
+"Wife, did you ever send me these?"
+
+She raised her great, black eyes to his with a gesture of ineffable
+disdain, and replied languidly:
+
+"You know very well I can't bear flowers. How could I ever send such
+sentimental trash to any one? Throw them into the fire."
+
+And the Easter bells chimed a solemn requiem as the flames slowly licked
+up the faded violets. Was it merely fancy on the wife's part, or did the
+husband really sigh,--a long, quivering breath of remembrance?
+
+
+
+
+THREE THOUGHTS.
+
+
+  FIRST.
+
+    How few of us
+  In all the world's great, ceaseless struggling strife,
+  Go to our work with gladsome, buoyant step,
+  And love it for its sake, whate'er it be.
+  Because it is a labor, or, mayhap,
+  Some sweet, peculiar art of God's own gift;
+  And not the promise of the world's slow smile
+  of recognition, or of mammon's gilded grasp.
+  Alas, how few, in inspiration's dazzling flash,
+  Or spiritual sense of world's beyond the dome
+  Of circling blue around this weary earth,
+  Can bask, and know the God-given grace
+  Of genius' fire that flows and permeates
+  The virgin mind alone; the soul in which
+  The love of earth hath tainted not.
+  The love of art and art alone.
+
+  SECOND.
+
+  "Who dares stand forth?" the monarch cried,
+    "Amid the throng, and dare to give
+    Their aid, and bid this wretch to live?
+  I pledge my faith and crown beside,
+  A woeful plight, a sorry sight,
+    This outcast from all God-given grace.
+
+    What, ho! in all, no friendly face,
+  No helping hand to stay his plight?
+  St. Peter's name be pledged for aye,
+    The man's accursed, that is true;
+    But ho, he suffers. None of you
+  Will mercy show, or pity sigh?"
+
+  Strong men drew back, and lordly train
+    Did slowly file from monarch's look,
+    Whose lips curled scorn. But from a nook
+  A voice cried out, "Though he has slain
+  That which I loved the best on earth,
+    Yet will I tend him till he dies,
+    I can be brave." A woman's eyes
+  Gazed fearlessly into his own.
+
+  THIRD.
+
+  When all the world has grown full cold to thee,
+  And man--proud pygmy--shrugs all scornfully,
+  And bitter, blinding tears flow gushing forth,
+  Because of thine own sorrows and poor plight,
+  Then turn ye swift to nature's page,
+  And read there passions, immeasurably far
+  Greater than thine own in all their littleness.
+  For nature has her sorrows and her joys,
+  As all the piled-up mountains and low vales
+  Will silently attest--and hang thy head
+  In dire confusion, for having dared
+  To moan at thine own miseries
+  When God and nature suffer silently.
+
+
+
+
+THE WOMAN.
+
+
+The literary manager of the club arose, cleared his throat, adjusted his
+cravat, fixed his eyes sternly upon the young man, and in a sonorous
+voice, a little marred by his habitual lisp, asked: "Mr. ----, will you
+please tell us your opinion upon the question, whether woman's chances
+for matrimony are increased or decreased when she becomes man's equal as
+a wage earner?"
+
+The secretary adjusted her eye-glass, and held her pencil alertly poised
+above her book, ready to note which side Mr. ---- took. Mr. ----
+fidgeted, pulled himself together with a violent jerk, and finally spoke
+his mind. Someone else did likewise, also someone else, then the women
+interposed, and jumped on the men, the men retaliated, a wordy war
+ensued, and the whole matter ended by nothing being decided, pro or
+con--generally the case in wordy discussions. _Moi?_ Well, I sawed wood
+and said nothing, but all the while there was forming in my mind, no, I
+won't say forming, it was there already. It was this, _Why should
+well-salaried women marry?_ Take the average working-woman of to-day.
+She works from five to ten hours a day, doing extra night work,
+sometimes, of course. Her work over, she goes home or to her
+boarding-house, as the case may be. Her meals are prepared for her, she
+has no household cares upon her shoulders, no troublesome dinners to
+prepare for a fault-finding husband, no fretful children to try her
+patience, no petty bread and meat economies to adjust. She has her
+cares, her money-troubles, her debts, and her scrimpings, it is true,
+but they only make her independent, instead of reducing her to a dead
+level of despair. Her day's work ends at the office, school, factory or
+store; the rest of the time is hers, undisturbed by the restless going
+to and fro of housewifely cares, and she can employ it in mental or
+social diversions. She does not incessantly rely upon the whims of a
+cross man to take her to such amusements as she desires. In this
+nineteenth century she is free to go where she pleases--provided it be
+in a moral atmosphere--without comment. Theatres, concerts, lectures,
+and the lighter amusements of social affairs among her associates, are
+open to her, and there she can go, see, and be seen, admire and be
+admired, enjoy and be enjoyed, without a single harrowing thought of the
+baby's milk or the husband's coffee.
+
+Her earnings are her own, indisputably, unreservedly, undividedly. She
+knows to a certainty just how much she can spend, how well she can
+dress, how far her earnings will go. If there is a dress, a book, a bit
+of music, a bunch of flowers, or a bit of furniture that she wants, she
+can get it, and there is no need of asking anyone's advice, or gently
+hinting to John that Mrs. So and So has a lovely new hat, and there is
+one ever so much prettier and cheaper down at Thus & Co.'s. To an
+independent spirit there is a certain sense of humiliation and wounded
+pride in asking for money, be it five cents or five hundred dollars. The
+working woman knows no such pang; she has but to question her account
+and all is over. In the summer she takes her savings of the winter,
+packs her trunk and takes a trip more or less extensive, and there is
+none to say her nay,--nothing to bother her save the accumulation of her
+own baggage. There is an independent, happy, free-and-easy swing about
+the motion of her life. Her mind is constantly being broadened by
+contact with the world in its working clothes; in her leisure moments by
+the better thoughts of dead and living men which she meets in her
+applications to books and periodicals; in her vacations, by her studies
+of nature, or it may be other communities than her own. The freedom
+which she enjoys she does not trespass upon, for if she did not learn at
+school she has acquired since habits of strong self-reliance,
+self-support, earnest thinking, deep discriminations, and firmly
+believes that the most perfect liberty is that state in which humanity
+conforms itself to and obeys strictly, without deviation, those laws
+which are best fitted for their mutual self-advancement.
+
+And so your independent working woman of to day comes as near being
+ideal in her equable self poise as can be imagined. So why should she
+hasten to give this liberty up in exchange for a serfdom, sweet
+sometimes, it is true, but which too often becomes galling and
+unendurable.
+
+It is not marriage that I decry, for I don't think any really sane
+person would do this, but it is this wholesale marrying of girls in
+their teens, this rushing into an unknown plane of life to avoid work.
+Avoid work! What housewife dares call a moment her own?
+
+Marriages might be made in Heaven, but too often they are consummated
+right here on earth, based on a desire to possess the physical
+attractions of the woman by the man, pretty much as a child desires a
+toy, and an innate love of man, a wild desire not to be ridiculed by the
+foolish as an "old maid," and a certain delicate shrinking from the work
+of the world--laziness is a good name for it--by the woman. The
+attraction of mind to mind, the ability of one to compliment the lights
+and shadows in the other, the capacity of either to fulfil the duties of
+wife or husband--these do not enter into the contract. That is why we
+have divorce courts.
+
+And so our independent woman in every year of her full, rich,
+well-rounded life, gaining fresh knowledge and experience, learning
+humanity, and particularly that portion of it which is the other gender,
+so well as to avoid clay-footed idols, and finally when she does consent
+to bear the yoke upon her shoulders, does so with perhaps less romance
+and glamor than her younger scoffing sisters, but with an assurance of
+solid and more lasting happiness. Why should she have hastened this;
+was aught lost by the delay?
+
+"They say" that men don't admire this type of woman, that they prefer
+the soft, dainty, winning, mindless creature who cuddles into men's
+arms, agrees to everything they say, and looks upon them as a race of
+gods turned loose upon this earth for the edification of womankind.
+Well, may be so, but there is one thing positive, they certainly respect
+the independent one, and admire her, too, even if it is at a distance,
+and that in itself is something. As to the other part, no matter how
+sensible a woman is on other questions, when she falls in love she is
+fool enough to believe her adored one a veritable Solomon. Cuddling?
+Well, she may preside over conventions, brandish her umbrella at board
+meetings, tramp the streets soliciting subscriptions, wield the blue
+pencil in an editorial sanctum, hammer a type-writer, smear her nose
+with ink from a galley full of pied type, lead infant ideas through the
+tortuous mazes of c-a-t and r-a-t, plead at the bar, or wield the
+scalpel in a dissecting room, yet when the right moment comes, she will
+sink as gracefully into his manly embrace, throw her arms as lovingly
+around his neck, and cuddle as warmly and sweetly to his bosom as her
+little sister who has done nothing else but think, dream, and practice
+for that hour. It comes natural, you see.
+
+
+
+
+TEN MINUTES' MUSING.
+
+
+There was a terrible noise in the school-yard at intermission; peeping
+out the windows the boys could be seen huddled in an immense bunch, in
+the middle of the yard. It looked like a fight, a mob, a
+knock-down,--anything, so we rushed out to the door hastily, fearfully,
+ready to scold, punish, console, frown, bind up broken heads or drag
+wounded forms from the melee as the case might be. Nearly every boy in
+the school was in that seething, swarming mass, and those who weren't
+were standing around on the edges, screaming and throwing up their hats
+in hilarious excitement. It was a mob, a fearful mob, but a mob
+apparently with a vigorous and well-defined purpose. It was a mob that
+screamed and howled, and kicked, and yelled, and shouted, and perspired,
+and squirmed, and wriggled, and pushed, and threatened, and poured
+itself all seemingly upon some central object. It was a mob that had an
+aim, that was determined to accomplish that aim, even though the whole
+azure expanse of sky fell upon them. It was a mob with set muscles,
+straining like whip-cords, eyes on that central object and with heads
+inward and sturdy legs outward, like prairie horses reversed in a
+battle. The cheerers and hat throwers on the outside were mirthful, but
+the mob was not; it howled, but howled without any cachinnation; it
+struggled for mastery. Some fell and were trampled over, some weaker
+ones were even tossed in the air, but the mob never deigned to trouble
+itself about such trivialities. It was an interesting, nervous whole,
+with divers parts of separate vitality.
+
+In alarm I looked about for the principal. He was standing at a safe
+distance with his hands in his pockets watching the seething mass with a
+broad smile. At sight of my perplexed expression some one was about to
+venture an explanation, when there was a wild yell, a sudden vehement
+disintegration of the mass, a mighty rush and clutch at a dark object
+bobbing in the air--and the mist cleared from my intellect--as I
+realized it all--football.
+
+Did you ever stop to see the analogy between a game of football and the
+interesting little game called life which we play every day? There is
+one, far-fetched as it may seem, though, for that matter, life's game,
+being one of desperate chances and strategic moves, is analogous to
+anything.
+
+But, if we could get out of ourselves and soar above the world, far
+enough to view the mass beneath in its daily struggles, and near enough
+the hearts of the people to feel the throbs beneath their boldly
+carried exteriors, the whole would seem naught but such a maddening rush
+and senseless-looking crushing. "We are but children of a larger growth"
+after all, and our ceaseless pursuing after the baubles of this earth
+are but the struggles for precedence in the business play-ground.
+
+The football is money. See how the mass rushes after it! Everyone so
+intent upon his pursuit until all else dwindles into a ridiculous
+nonentity. The weaker ones go down in the mad pursuit, and are
+unmercifully trampled upon, but no matter, what is the difference if the
+foremost win the coveted prize and carry it off. See the big boy in
+front, he with iron grip, and determined, compressed lips? That boy is a
+type of the big, merciless man, the Gradgrind of the latter century. His
+face is set towards the ball, and even though he may crush a dozen small
+boys, he'll make his way through the mob and come out triumphant. And
+he'll be the victor longer than anyone else, in spite of the envy and
+fighting and pushing about him.
+
+To an observer, alike unintelligent about the rules of a football game,
+and the conditions which govern the barter and exchange and fluctuations
+of the world's money market, there is as much difference between the
+sight of a mass of boys on a play-ground losing their equilibrium over a
+spheroid of rubber and a mass of men losing their coolness and temper
+and mental and nervous balance on change as there is between a pine
+sapling and a mighty forest king--merely a difference of age. The
+mighty, seething, intensely concentrated mass in its emphatic tendency
+to one point is the same, in the utter disregard of mental and physical
+welfare. The momentary triumphs of transitory possessions impress a
+casual looker-on with the same fearful idea--that the human race, after
+all, is savage to the core, and cultivates its savagery in an inflated
+happiness at own nearness to perfection.
+
+But the bell clangs sharply, the overheated, nervous, tingling boys
+fall into line, and the sudden transition from massing disorder to
+military precision cuts short the ten minutes' musing.
+
+
+
+
+A PLAINT.
+
+
+  Dear God, 'tis hard, so awful hard to lose
+  The one we love, and see him go afar,
+  With scarce one thought of aching hearts behind,
+  Nor wistful eyes, nor outstretched yearning hands.
+  Chide not, dear God, if surging thoughts arise.
+  And bitter questionings of love and fate,
+  But rather give my weary heart thy rest,
+  And turn the sad, dark memories into sweet.
+  Dear God, I fain my loved one were anear,
+  But since thou will'st that happy thence he'll be,
+  I send him forth, and back I'll choke the grief
+  Rebellious rises in my lonely heart.
+  I pray thee, God, my loved one joy to bring;
+  I dare not hope that joy will be with me,
+  But ah, dear God, one boon I crave of thee,
+  That he shall ne'er forget his hours with me.
+
+
+
+
+IN UNCONSCIOUSNESS.
+
+
+There was a big booming in my ears, great heavy iron bells that swung
+to-and-fro on either side, and sent out deafening reverberations that
+steeped the senses in a musical melody of sonorous sound; to-and-fro,
+backward and forward, yet ever receding in a gradually widening circle,
+monotonous, mournful, weird, suffusing the soul with an unutterable
+sadness, as images of wailing processions, of weeping, empty-armed
+women, and widowed maidens flashed through the mind, and settled on the
+soul with a crushing, o'er-pressing weight of sorrow.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Now I lay floating, arms outstretched, on an illimitable waste of calm
+tranquil waters. Far away as eye could reach, there was naught but the
+pale, white-flecked, green waters of this ocean of eternity, and above
+the tender blue sky arched down in perfect love of its mistress,
+the ocean. Sky and sea, sea and sky, blue, calm, infinite, perfect sea,
+heaving its womanly bosom to the passionate kisses of its ardent
+sun-lover. Away into infinity stretched this perfectibility of love;
+into eternity, I was drifting, alone, silent, yet burdened still with
+the remembrance of the sadness of the bells.
+
+Far away, they tolled out the incessant dirge, grown resignedly sweet
+now; so intense in its infinite peace, that a calm of love, beyond all
+human understanding and above all earthly passions, sank deep into my
+soul, and so permeated my whole being with rest and peace, that my lips
+smiled and my eyes drooped in access of fulsome joy. Into the
+illimitable space of infinity we drifted, my soul and I, borne along
+only by the network of auburn hair that floated about me in the green
+waters.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+But now, a rude grasp from somewhere is laid upon me, pressing upon my
+face. Instantly the air grows gloomy, gray, and the ocean rocks
+menacingly, while the great bells grow harsh and strident, as they hint
+of a dark fate. I clasp my hands appealingly to the heavens; I moan and
+struggle with the unknown grasp; then there is peace and the sweet
+content of the infinite Nirvana.
+
+Then slowly, softly, the net of auburn hair begins to drag me down below
+the surface of the sea. Oh! the skies are so sweet, and now that the
+tender stars are looking upon us, how fair to stay and sway upon the
+breast of eternity! But the net is inexorable, and gently, slowly pulls
+me down. Now we sink straight, now we whirl in slow, eddying circles,
+spiral-like; while at each turn those bells ring out clanging now in
+wild crescendo, then whispering dread secrets of the ocean's depths. Oh,
+ye mighty bells, tell me from your learned lore of the hopes of mankind!
+Tell me what fruit he beareth from his strivings and yearnings; know not
+ye? Why ring ye now so joyful, so hopeful; then toll your dismal
+prophecies of o'er-cast skies?
+
+Years have passed, and now centuries, too, are swallowed in the gulf of
+eternity, yet the auburn net still whirls me in eddying circles, down,
+down to the very womb of time; to the innermost recesses of the mighty
+ocean.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+And now, peace, perfect, unconditioned, sublime peace, and rest, and
+silence. For to the great depths of the mighty ocean the solemn bells
+cannot penetrate, and no sound, not even the beatings of one's own
+heart, is heard. In the heart of eternity there can be nothing to break
+the calm of frozen æons. In the great white hall I lay, silent,
+unexpectant, calm, and smiled in perfect content at the web of auburn
+hair which trailed across my couch. No passionate longing for life or
+love, no doubting question of heaven or hell, no strife for carnal
+needs,--only rest, content, peace--happiness, perfect, whole, complete,
+sublime.
+
+And thus passed ages and ages, æons and æons. The great earth there in
+the dim distance above the ocean has toiled wearily about the sun, until
+its mechanism was failing, and the warm ardor of the lover's eye was
+becoming pale and cold from age, while the air all about the fast
+dwindling sphere was heavy and thick with the sorrows and heartaches and
+woes of the humans upon its face. Heavy with the screams and roar of
+war; with the curses of the deceived of traitors; with the passionate
+sighs of unlawful love; with the crushing unrest of blighted hopes.
+Knowledge and contempt of all these things permeated even to the inmost
+depths of time, as I lay in the halls of rest and smiled at the web
+floating through my white fingers.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+But hark! discord begins. There is a vague fear which springs from an
+unknown source and drifts into the depths of rest; fear, indefinable,
+unaccountable, unknowable, shuddering. Pain begins, for the heart
+springs into life, and fills the silence with the terror of its
+beatings, thick, knifing, frightful in its intense longing. Power of
+mind over soul, power of calm over fear avail nothing; suspense and
+misery, locked arm in arm, pervade æonic stillness, till all things else
+become subordinate, unnoticed.
+
+Centuries drift away, and the giddy, old reprobate--earth, dying a
+hideous, ghastly death, with but one solitary human to shudder in unison
+with its last throes, to bask in the last pale rays of a cold sun, to
+inhale the last breath of a metallic atmosphere; totters, reels, falls
+into space, and is no more. Peal out, ye brazen bells, peal out the
+requiem of the sinner! Roll your mournful tones into the ears of the
+saddened angels, weeping with wing-covered eyes! Toll the requiem of the
+sinner, sinking swiftly, sobbingly into the depths of time's ocean.
+Down, down, until the great groans which arose from the domes and Ionic
+roofs about me told that the sad old earth sought rest in eternity,
+while the universe shrugged its shoulders over the loss of another star.
+
+And now, the great invisible fear became apparent, tangible, for all the
+sins, the woes, the miseries, the dreads, the dismal achings and
+throbbings, the dreariness and gloom of the lost star came together and
+like a huge geni took form and hideous shape--octopus-like--which slowly
+approached me, erstwhile happy--and hovered about my couch in fearful
+menace.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Oh, shining web of hair, burst loose your bonds and bid me move! Oh,
+time, cease not your calculations, but speed me on to deliverance! Oh,
+silence, vast, immense, infuse into your soul some sound other than the
+heavy throbbing of this fast disintegrating heart! Oh, pitiless stone
+arches, let fall your crushing weight upon this Stygian monster!
+
+I pray to time, to eternity, to the frozen æons of the past. Useless. I
+am seized, forced to open my cold lips; there is agony,--supreme, mortal
+agony of nerve tension, and wrenching of vitality. I struggle, scream,
+and clutching the monster with superhuman strength, fling him aside, and
+rise, bleeding, screaming--but triumphant, and keenly mortal in every
+vein, alive and throbbing with consciousness and pain.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+No, it was not opium, nor night-mare, but chloroform, a dentist, three
+obstinate molars, a pair of forceps, and a lively set of nerves.
+
+
+
+
+TITEE.
+
+
+It was cold that day; the great sharp north wind swept out Elysian
+Fields Street in blasts that made men shiver, and bent everything in its
+track. The skies hung lowering and gloomy; the usually quiet street was
+more than deserted, it was dismal.
+
+Titee leaned against one of the brown freight cars for protection
+against the shrill norther, and warmed his little chapped hands at a
+blaze of chips and dry grass. "May be it'll snow," he muttered, casting
+a glance at the sky that would have done credit to a practised seaman.
+"Then _won't_ I have fun! Ugh, but the wind blows!"
+
+It was Saturday, or Titee would have been in school--the big yellow
+school on Marigny Street, where he went every day when its bell boomed
+nine o'clock. Went with a run and a joyous whoop,--presumably to
+imbibe knowledge, ostensibly to make his teacher's life a burden.
+
+Idle, lazy, dirty, troublesome boy, she called him, to herself, as day
+by day wore on, and Titee improved not, but let his whole class pass him
+on its way to a higher grade. A practical joke he relished infinitely
+more than a practical problem, and a good game at pinsticking was far
+more entertaining than a language lesson. Moreover, he was always
+hungry, and _would_ eat in school before the half-past ten intermission,
+thereby losing much good play-time for his voracious appetite.
+
+But there was nothing in natural history that Titee didn't know. He
+could dissect a butterfly or a mosquito-hawk and describe their parts as
+accurately as a spectacled student with a scalpel and microscope could
+talk about a cadaver. The entire Third District, with its swamps and
+canals and commons and railroad sections, and its wondrous, crooked,
+tortuous streets was as an open book to Titee. There was not a nook or
+corner that he did not know or could tell of. There was not a bit of
+gossip among the gamins, little Creole and Spanish fellows, with dark
+skins and lovely eyes like Spaniels, that Titee could not tell of. He
+knew just exactly when it was time for crawfish to be plentiful down in
+the Claiborne and Marigny canals; just when a poor, breadless fellow
+might get a job in the big bone-yard and fertilizing factory out on the
+railroad track; and as for the levee, with its ships and schooners and
+sailors--Oh, how he could revel among them! The wondrous ships, the
+pretty little schooners, where the foreign-looking sailors lay on long
+moon-lit nights, singing gay bar carols to the tinkle of a guitar and
+mandolin. All these things, and more, could Titee tell of. He had been
+down to the Gulf, and out on its treacherous waters through Eads Jetties
+on a fishing smack, with some jolly, brown sailors, and could interest
+the whole school-room in the "talk lessons," if he chose.
+
+Titee shivered as the wind swept round the freight cars. There isn't
+much warmth in a bit of a jersey coat.
+
+"Wish 'twas summer," he murmured, casting another sailor's glance at the
+sky. "Don't believe I like snow, it's too wet and cold." And, with a
+last parting caress at the little fire he had builded for a minute's
+warmth, he plunged his hands in his pockets, shut his teeth, and started
+manfully on his mission out the railroad track towards the swamps.
+
+It was late when Titee came home, to such a home as it was, and he had
+but illy performed his errand, so his mother beat him, and sent him to
+bed supperless. A sharp strap stings in cold weather, and long walks in
+the teeth of a biting wind creates a keen appetite. But if Titee cried
+himself to sleep that night, he was up bright and early next morning,
+and had been to early mass, devoutly kneeling on the cold floor,
+blowing his fingers to keep them warm, and was home almost before the
+rest of the family was awake.
+
+There was evidently some great matter of business in this young man's
+mind, for he scarcely ate his breakfast, and had left the table, eagerly
+cramming the remainder of his meal in his pockets.
+
+"I wonder what he's up to now?" mused his mother as she watched his
+little form sturdily trudging the track in the face of the wind, his
+head, with the rimless cap thrust close on the shock of black hair, bent
+low, his hands thrust deep in the bulging pockets.
+
+"A new snake, perhaps," ventured the father; "he's a queer child."
+
+But the next day Titee was late for school. It was something unusual,
+for he was always the first on hand to fix some plan of mechanism to
+make the teacher miserable. She looked reprovingly at him this morning,
+when he came in during the arithmetic class, his hair all wind-blown,
+cheeks rosy from a hard fight with the sharp blasts. But he made up for
+his tardiness by his extreme goodness all day; just think, Titee didn't
+even eat in school. A something unparalleled in the entire history of
+his school-life.
+
+When the lunch-hour came, and all the yard was a scene of feast and fun,
+one of the boys found him standing by one of the posts, disconsolately
+watching a ham sandwich as it rapidly disappeared down the throat of a
+sturdy, square-headed little fellow.
+
+"Hello, Edgar," he said, "What yer got fer lunch?"
+
+"Nothin'," was the mournful reply.
+
+"Ah, why don't yer stop eatin' in school fer a change? Yer don't ever
+have nothin' to eat."
+
+"I didn't eat to-day," said Titee, blazing up.
+
+"Yer did!"
+
+"I tell you I didn't!" and Titee's hard little fist planted a
+punctuation mark on his comrade's eye.
+
+A fight in the school-yard! Poor Titee in disgrace again. But in spite
+of his battered appearance, a severe scolding from the principal, lines
+to write, and a further punishment from his mother, Titee scarcely
+remained for his dinner, but was off, down the railroad track, with his
+pockets partly stuffed with the remnants of his scanty meal.
+
+And the next day Titee was tardy again, and lunchless, too, and the
+next, and the next, until the teacher in despair sent a nicely printed
+note to his mother about him, which might have done some good, had not
+Titee taken great pains to tear it up on his way home.
+
+But one day it rained, whole bucketfuls of water, that poured in
+torrents from a miserable angry sky. Too wet a day for bits of boys to
+be trudging to school, so Titee's mother thought, so kept him home to
+watch the weather through the window, fretting and fuming, like a
+regular storm-cloud in miniature. As the day wore on, and the storm did
+not abate, his mother had to keep a strong watch upon him, or he would
+have slipped away.
+
+At last dinner came and went, and the gray soddenness of the skies
+deepened into the blackness of coming night. Someone called Titee to go
+to bed--and Titee was nowhere to be found.
+
+Under the beds, in corners and closets, through the yard, and in such
+impossible places as the soap-dish and the water-pitcher even; but he
+had gone as completely as if he had been spirited away. It was of no use
+to call up the neighbors; he had never been near their houses, they
+affirmed, so there was nothing to do but to go to the railroad track,
+where little Titee had been seen so often trudging in the shrill north
+wind.
+
+So with lantern and sticks, and his little yellow dog, the rescuing
+party started out the track. The rain had ceased falling, but the wind
+blew a tremendous gale, scurrying great, gray clouds over a fierce sky.
+It was not exactly dark, though in this part of the city, there was
+neither gas nor electricity, and surely on such a night as this, neither
+moon nor stars dared show their faces in such a grayness of sky; but a
+sort of all-diffused luminosity was in the air, as though the sea of
+atmosphere was charged with an ethereal phosphorescence.
+
+Search as they would, there were no signs of poor little Titee. The soft
+earth between the railroad ties crumbled beneath their feet without
+showing any small tracks or foot-prints.
+
+"Let us return," said the big brother, "he can't be here anyway."
+
+"No, no," urged the mother, "I feel that he is; let's go on."
+
+So on they went, slipping on the wet earth, stumbling over the loose
+rocks, until a sudden wild yelp from Tiger brought them to a standstill.
+He had rushed ahead of them, and his voice could be heard in the
+distance, howling piteously.
+
+With a fresh impetus the little muddy party hurried forward. Tiger's
+yelps could be heard plainer and plainer, mingled now with a muffled
+wail, as of some one in pain.
+
+And then, after awhile they found a pitiful little heap of wet and
+sodden rags, lying at the foot of a mound of earth and stones thrown
+upon the side of the track. It was little Titee with a broken leg, all
+wet and miserable, and moaning.
+
+They picked him up tenderly, and started to carry him home. But he cried
+and clung to his mother, and begged not to go.
+
+"He's got fever," wailed his mother.
+
+"No, no, it's my old man. He's hungry, sobbed Titee, holding out a
+little package. It was the remnants of his dinner, wet and rain washed.
+
+"What old man?" asked the big brother.
+
+"My old man, oh, please, please don't go home until I see him, I'm not
+hurting much, I can go."
+
+So yielding to his whim, they carried him further away, down the sides
+of the track up to an embankment or levee by the sides of the Marigny
+canal. Then Titee's brother, suddenly stopping, exclaimed:
+
+"Why, here's a cave, a regular Robinson Cruso affair."
+
+"It's my old man's cave," cried Titee; "oh, please go in, maybe he's
+dead."
+
+There can't be much ceremony in entering a cave, there is but one thing
+to do, walk in. This they did, and holding high the lantern, beheld a
+strange sight. On a bed of straw and paper in one corner lay a withered,
+wizened, white-bearded old man, with wide eyes staring at the
+unaccustomed sight. In the corner lay a cow.
+
+"It's my old man!" cried Titee, joyfully. "Oh, please, grandpa, I
+couldn't get here to-day, it rained all morning, and when I ran away
+this evening, I slipped down and broke something, and oh, grandpa, I'm
+so tired and hurty, and I'm so afraid you're hungry."
+
+So the secret of Titee's jaunts out the railroad was out. In one of his
+trips around the swamp-land, he had discovered the old man dying from
+cold and hunger in the fields. Together they had found this cave, and
+Titee had gathered the straw and brush that scattered itself over the
+ground and made the bed. A poor old cow turned adrift by an ungrateful
+master, had crept in and shared the damp dwelling. And thither Titee had
+trudged twice a day, carrying his luncheon in the morning, and his
+dinner in the evening, the sole support of a half-dead cripple.
+
+"There's a crown in Heaven for that child," said the officer to whom the
+case was referred.
+
+And so there was, for we scattered winter roses on his little grave down
+in old St. Rocque's cemetery. The cold and rain, and the broken leg had
+told their tale.
+
+
+
+
+ANARCHY ALLEY.
+
+
+To the casual observer, the quaint, narrow, little alley that lies in
+the heart of the city is no more than any other of the numerous
+divisions of streets in which New Orleans delights. But to the idle
+wanderer, or he whose mission down its four squares of much trodden
+stones, is an aimless one,--whose eyes unforced to bend to the ground in
+thought of sordid ways and means, can peer at will into its quaint
+corners. Exchange Alley presents all the phases of a Latinized portion
+of America, a bit of Europe, perhaps, the restless, chafing, anarchistic
+Europe of to-day, in the midst of the quieter democratic institution of
+our republic.
+
+It is Bohemia, pure and simple, Bohemia, in all its stages, from the
+beer saloon and the cheap book-store, to the cheaper cook shop and
+uncertain lodging house. There the great American institution, the
+wondrous monarch whom the country supports--the tramp--basks in superior
+comfort and contented, unmolested indolence. Idleness and labor, poverty
+and opulence, the honest, law-abiding workingman, and the reckless,
+restless anarchist, jostle side by side, and brush each other's elbows
+in terms of equality as they do nowhere else.
+
+On the busiest thoroughfares in the city, just in the busiest part,
+between two of the most crowded and conservative of cross-streets, lies
+this alley of Latinism. One might almost pass it hurriedly, avoiding the
+crowds that cluster at this section of the streets, but upon turning
+into a narrow section, stone-paved, the place is entered, appearing to
+end one square distant, seeming to bar itself from the larger buildings
+by an aimless sort of iron affair, part railing, part posts. There is a
+conservative book-store at the entrance on one side, and an even more
+harmless clothing store on the other; then comes a saloon with many
+blind doors, behind which are vistas of tables, crowded and crowded with
+men drinking beer out of "globes," large, round, moony, common affairs.
+There is a dingy, pension-claim office, with cripples and
+sorrowful-looking women in black, sitting about on rickety chairs.
+Somehow, there is always an impression with me that the mourning dress
+and mournful looks are put on to impress the dispenser and adjuster. It
+is wicked, but what can one do if impressions come?
+
+There are more little cuddies of places, dye-shops, tailors, and
+nondescript corners that seem to have no possible mission on earth and
+are sadly conscious of their aimlessness. Then the railing is reached,
+and the alley instead of ending has merely given itself an angular twist
+to the right, and extends three squares further, to a great, pale green
+dome, and stately entrance.
+
+The calmly-thinking, quietly-laboring, cool and conservative world is
+for the nonce left behind. With the first stepping across Customhouse
+street, the place widens architecturally, and the atmosphere, too, seems
+impregnated with a sort of mental freedom, conducive to dangerous
+theorizing and broody reflections on the inequality of the classes. The
+sun shines in a strip in the centre, yellow and elusive, like gold;
+someone is rattling a gay galop on a piano somewhere; there is a sound
+of mens' voices in a heated discussion, a long whiff of pipe-smoke
+trails through the sunlight from the bar-room; the clink of glasses, the
+chink of silver, and the high treble of a woman's voice scolding a
+refractory child, mingle in incongruous melody.
+
+Two-story houses all along; the first floor divided into cuddies, here a
+paper store, displaying ten-cent novels of detective stories with
+impossible cuts, illustrating impossible situations of the plot;
+dye-shops, jewelers, tailors, tin-smiths, cook-shops, intelligence
+offices--many of these, and some newspaper offices. On the second floor,
+balconies, dingy, iron-railed, with sickly box-plants, and decrepit
+garments airing and being turned and tended by dishevelled, slip-shod
+women. Lodging-houses these, some of them, but one is forced to wonder
+why do the tenants sun their clothes so often? The lines stretched from
+posts to posts seem always filled with airing garments. Is it economy?
+And do the owners of the faded vests and patched coats hide in dusky
+corners while their only garments are receiving the benefit of Old Sol's
+cleansing rays? And are the women with the indiscriminate tresses, near
+relatives, or only the landladies? It would be something worth knowing
+if one could.
+
+Plenty of saloons--great, gorgeous, gaudy places, with pianos and
+swift-footed waiters, tables and cards, and men, men, men. The famous
+Three Brothers' Saloon occupies a position about midway the alley, and
+at its doors, the acme, the culminating point, the superlative degree of
+unquietude and discontent is reached. It is the headquarters of nearly
+all the great labor organizations in the city. Behind its doors,
+swinging as easily between the street and the liquor-fumed halls as the
+soul swings between right and wrong, the disturbed minds of the
+working-men become clouded, heated, and wrothily ready for deeds of
+violence.
+
+Outside on the pavements with hundreds of like-excited men, with angry
+discussions and bitter recitals of complaints, the seeds of discord sown
+some time since, perhaps, sprout afresh, blossom and bear fruits. Is
+there a strike? Then special minions of the law are detailed to this
+place, for violence and hatred of employers, insurrection and socialism
+find here ready followers. Impromptu mass meetings are common, and
+law-breaking schemes find their cradle beneath its glittering lights. It
+is always thronged within and without, a veritable nursery of riot and
+disorder.
+
+And oh, Bohemia, pipes, indolence and beer! The atmosphere is
+impregnated with it, the dust sifts it into your clothes and hair, the
+sunlight filters it through your brain, the stray snatches of music now
+and then beat it rhythmically into your mind. There are some who work,
+yes, and a few places outside of the saloons that seem to be animated
+with a business motive. There are even some who push their way briskly
+through the aimless bodies of men,--but then there must be an
+occasional anomaly to break the monotony, if nothing more.
+
+It is so unlike the ordinary world, this bit of Bohemia, that one feels
+a personal grievance when the marble entrance and great, green dome
+become positive, solid, architectural facts, standing in all the grim
+solemnity of the main entrance of the Hotel Royal on St. Louis Street,
+ending, with a sudden return to aristocracy, this stamping ground for
+anarchy.
+
+
+
+
+IMPRESSIONS.
+
+
+  THOUGHT.
+
+    A swift, successive chain of things,
+    That flash, kaleidoscope-like, now in, now out,
+  Now straight, now eddying in wild rings,
+    No order, neither law, compels their moves,
+    But endless, constant, always swiftly roves.
+
+
+  HOPE.
+
+  Wild seas of tossing, writhing waves,
+  A wreck half-sinking in the tortuous gloom;
+  One man clings desperately, while Boreas raves,
+    And helps to blot the rays of moon and star,
+    Then comes a sudden flash of light, which gleams on shores afar.
+
+
+  LOVE.
+
+  A bed of roses, pleasing to the eye,
+  Flowers of heaven, passionate and pure,
+  Upon this bed the youthful often lie,
+    And pressing hard upon its sweet delight,
+    The cruel thorns pierce soul and heart, and cause a woeful blight.
+
+
+  DEATH.
+
+  A traveller who has always heard
+  That on this journey he some day must go,
+    Yet shudders now, when at the fatal word
+    He starts upon the lonesome, dreary way.
+    The past, a page of joy and woe,--the future, none can say.
+
+
+  FAITH.
+
+  Blind clinging to a stern, stone cross,
+    Or it may be of frailer make;
+  Eyes shut, ears closed to earth's drear dross,
+    Immovable, serene, the world away
+    From thoughts--the mind uncaring for another day.
+
+
+
+
+SALAMMBO.
+
+BY GUSTAVE FLANBERT.
+
+
+Like unto the barbaric splendor, the clashing of arms, the flashing of
+jewels, so is this book, full of brightness that dazzles, yet does not
+weary, of rich mosaic beauty of sensuous softness. Yet, with it all,
+there is a singular lack of elevation of thought and expression;
+everything tends to degrade, to drag the mind to a worse than earthly
+level. The crudity of the warriors, the minute description of the
+battles, the leper, Hann; even the sensual love-scene of Salammbo and
+Matho, and the rites of Taint and Moloch. Possibly this is due to the
+peculiar shortness and crispness of the sentences, and the painstaking
+attention to details. Nothing is left for the imagination to complete.
+The slightest turn of the hand, the smallest bit of tapestry and
+armor,--all, all is described until one's brain becomes weary with the
+scintillating flash of minutia. Such careful attention wearies and
+disappoints, and sometimes, instead of photographing the scenes
+indelibly upon the mental vision, there ensues only a confused mass of
+armor and soldiers, plains and horses.
+
+But the description of action and movement are incomparable, resembling
+somewhat, in the rush and flow of words, the style of Victor Hugo; the
+breathless rush and fire, the restrained passion and fury of a
+master-hand.
+
+Throughout the whole book this peculiarity is noticeable--there are no
+dissertations, no pauses for the author to express his opinions, no
+stoppages to reflect,--we are rushed onward with almost breathless
+haste, and many times are fain to pause and re-read a sentence, a
+paragraph, sometimes a whole page. Like the unceasing motion of a column
+of artillery in battle, like the roar and fury of the Carthaginian's
+elephant, so is the torrent of Flanbert's eloquence--majestic, grand,
+intense, with nobility, sensuous, but never sublime, never elevating,
+never delicate.
+
+As an historian, Flanbert would have ranked high--at least in
+impartiality. Not once in the whole volume does he allow his prejudices,
+his opinions, his sentiments to crop out. We lose complete sight of the
+author in his work. With marvellous fidelity he explains the movements,
+the vices and the virtues of each party, and with Shakespearean tact, he
+conceals his identity, so that we are troubled with none of that Byronic
+vice of 'dipping one's pen into one's self.'
+
+Still, for all the historian's impartiality, he is just a trifle
+incorrect, here and there--the ancients mention no aqueduct in or near
+Carthage. Hann was not crucified outside of Tunis. The incident of the
+Carthaginian women cutting off their tresses to furnish strings for bows
+and catapults is generally conceded to have occurred during the latter
+portion of the third Punic War. And still another difficulty presents
+itself--Salammbo was supposed to have been the only daughter of
+Hamilcar; according to Flanbert she dies unmarried, or rather on her
+wedding day, and yet historians tell us that after the death of the
+elder Barca, Hannibal was brought up and watched over by Hamilcar's
+son-in-law, Hasdrubal. Can it be possible that the crafty Numidian King,
+Nari Havas, is the intrepid, fearless and whole-souled Hasdrubal? Or is
+it only another deviation from the beaten track of history? In a
+historical novel, however, and one so evidently arranged for dramatic
+effects, such lapses from the truth only heighten the interest and
+kindle the imagination to a brighter flame.
+
+The school of realism of which Zola, Tolstoi, De Maupassant, and others
+of that ilk are followers, claims its descent from the author of
+Salammbo. Perhaps their claim is well-founded, perhaps not; we are
+inclined to believe that it is, for every page in this novel is crowded
+with details, often disgusting, which are generally left out in ordinary
+works. The hideous deformity, the rottenness and repulsiveness of the
+leper Hann is brought out in such vivid detail that we sicken and fain
+would turn aside in disgust. But go where one will, the ghastly,
+quivering, wretched picture is always before us in all its filth and
+splendid misery. The reeking horrors of the battle-fields, the
+disgusting details of the army imprisoned in the defile of the
+battle-axe, the grimness of the sacrifices to the blood-thirsty god,
+Moloch, the wretchedness of Hamilcar's slaves are presented with every
+ghastly detail, with every degrading trick of expression. Picture after
+picture of misery and foulness arises and pursues us as the grim witches
+pursued the hapless Tam O'Shanter, clutching us in ghastly arms,
+clinging to us with grim and ghoulish tenacity.
+
+Viewing the character through the genteel crystal of nineteenth century
+civilization, they are all barbarous, unnatural, intensified; but
+considering the age in which they lived--the tendencies of that age, the
+gods they worshipped, the practices in which they indulged,--they are
+all true to life, perfect in the depiction of their natures. Spendius is
+a true Greek, crafty, lying, deceitful, ungrateful. Hamilcar needs no
+novelist to crystallize his character in words, he always remains the
+same Hamilcar of history, so it is with Hann; but to Flanbert alone are
+we indebted for the hideous realism of his external aspect. Matho is a
+dusky son of Libya,--fierce, passionate, resentful, unbridled in his
+speech and action, swept by the hot breath of furious love as his native
+sands are swept by the burning simoon. Salammbo, cold and strange
+delving deep in the mysticism of the Carthaginian gods, living apart
+from human passions in her intense love for the goddess, Tanit;
+Salammbo, in the earnest excess of her religious fervor, eagerly
+accepting the mission given her by the puzzled Saracharabim; Salammbo,
+twining the gloomy folds of the python about her perfumed limbs;
+Salammbo, resisting, then yielding to the fierce love of Matho;
+Salammbo, dying when her erstwhile lover expires; Salammbo, in all her
+many phases reminds us of some early Christian martyr or saint, though
+the sweet spirit of the Great Teacher is hidden in the punctual devotion
+to the mysterious rites of Tanit. She is an inexplicable mixture of the
+tropical exotic and the frigid snow-flower,--a rich and rare growth that
+attracts and repulses, that interests and absorbs, that we
+admire--without loving, detest--without hating.
+
+
+
+
+LEGEND OF THE NEWSPAPER.
+
+
+  Poets sing and fables tell us,
+  Or old folk lore whispers low,
+  Of the origin of all things,
+  Of the spring from whence they came,
+  Kalevala, old and hoary,
+  Æneid, Iliad, Æsop, too,
+  All are filled with strange quaint legends,
+  All replete with ancient tales,--
+
+  How love came, and how old earth,
+  Freed from chaos, grew for us,
+  To a green and wondrous spheroid,
+  To a home for things alive;
+  How fierce fire and iron cold,
+  How the snow and how the frost,--
+  All these things the old rhymes ring,
+  All these things the old tales tell.
+
+  Yet they ne'er sang of the beginning,
+  Of that great unbreathing angel,
+  Of that soul without a haven,
+  Of that gracious Lady Bountiful,
+  Yet they ne'er told how it came here;
+  Ne'er said why we read it daily,
+  Nor did they even let us guess why
+  We were left to tell the tale.
+
+  Came one day into the wood-land,
+  Muckintosh, the great and mighty,
+  Muckintosh, the famous thinker,
+  He whose brain was all his weapons,
+  As against his rival's soarings,
+  High unto the vaulted heavens,
+  Low adown the swarded earth,
+  Rolled he round his gaze all steely,
+  And his voice like music prayed:
+  "Oh, Creator, wondrous Spirit,
+  Thou who hast for us descended
+  In the guise of knowledge mighty,
+  And our brains with truth o'er-flooded;
+  In the greatness of thy wisdom,
+  Knowest not our limitations?
+  Wondrous thoughts have we, thy servants,
+  Wondrous things we see each day,
+  Yet we cannot tell our brethren,
+  Yet we cannot let them know,
+  Of our doings and our happenings,
+  Should they parted be from us?
+  Help us, oh, Thou Wise Creator,
+  From the fulness of thy wisdom,
+  Show us how to spread our knowledge,
+  And disseminate our actions,
+  Such as we find worthy, truly."
+
+  Quick the answer came from heaven;
+  Muckintosh, the famous thinker,
+  Muckintosh, the great and mighty,
+  Felt a trembling, felt a quaking,
+  Saw the earth about him open,
+  Saw the iron from the mountains
+  Form a quaint and queer machine,
+  Saw the lead from out the lead mines
+  Roll into small lettered forms,
+  Saw the fibres from the flax-plant,
+  Spread into great sheets of paper,
+  Saw the ink galls from the green trees
+  Crushed upon the leaden forms;
+  Muckintosh, the famous thinker,
+  Muckintosh, the great and mighty,
+  Felt a trembling, felt a quaking,
+  Saw the earth about him open,
+  Saw the flame and sulphur smoking,
+  Came the printer's little devil,
+  Far from distant lands the printer,
+  Man of unions, man of cuss-words,
+  From the depths of sooty blackness;
+  Came the towel of the printer;
+  Many things that Muckintosh saw,--
+  Galleys, type, and leads and rules,
+  Presses, press-men, quoins and spaces,
+  Quads and caps and lower cases.
+
+  But to Muckintosh bewildered,
+  All this passed as in a dream,
+  Till within his nervous hand,
+  Hand with joy and fear a-quaking,
+  Muckintosh, the great and mighty,
+  Muckintosh, the famous thinker,
+  Held the first of our newspapers.
+
+
+
+
+A CARNIVAL JANGLE.
+
+
+There is a merry jangle of bells in the air, an all-pervading sense of
+jester's noise, and the flaunting vividness of royal colors; the streets
+swarm with humanity,--humanity in all shapes, manners, forms,--laughing,
+pushing, jostling, crowding, a mass of men and women and children, as
+varied and as assorted in their several individual peculiarities as ever
+a crowd that gathered in one locality since the days of Babel.
+
+It is Carnival in New Orleans; a brilliant Tuesday in February, when the
+very air effervesces an ozone intensely exhilarating--of a nature half
+spring, half winter--to make one long to cut capers. The buildings are a
+blazing mass of royal purple and golden yellow, and national flags,
+bunting and decorations that laugh in the glint of the Midas sun. The
+streets a crush of jesters and maskers, Jim Crows and clowns, ballet
+girls and Mephistos, Indians and monkeys; of wild and sudden flashes of
+music, of glittering pageants and comic ones, of befeathered and belled
+horses. A madding dream of color and melody and fantasy gone wild in an
+effervescent bubble of beauty that shifts and changes and passes
+kaleidoscope-like before the bewildered eye.
+
+A bevy of bright-eyed girls and boys of that uncertainty of age that
+hovers between childhood and maturity, were moving down Canal Street
+when there was a sudden jostle with another crowd meeting them. For a
+minute there was a deafening clamor of laughter, cracking of whips,
+which all maskers carry, jingle and clatter of carnival bells, and the
+masked and unmasked extricated themselves and moved from each other's
+paths. But in the confusion a tall Prince of Darkness had whispered to
+one of the girls in the unmasked crowd: "You'd better come with us, Flo,
+you're wasting time in that tame gang. Slip off, they'll never miss
+you; we'll get you a rig, and show you what life is."
+
+And so it happened that when a half hour passed, and the bright-eyed
+bevy missed Flo and couldn't find her, wisely giving up the search at
+last, that she, the quietest and most bashful of the lot, was being
+initiated into the mysteries of "what life is."
+
+Down Bourbon Street and on Toulouse and St. Peter Streets there are
+quaint little old-world places, where one may be disguised effectually
+for a tiny consideration. Thither guided by the shapely Mephisto, and
+guarded by the team of jockeys and ballet girls, tripped Flo. Into one
+of the lowest-ceiled, dingiest and most ancient-looking of these
+disguise shops they stopped.
+
+"A disguise for this demoiselle," announced Mephisto to the woman who
+met them. She was small and wizened and old, with yellow, flabby jaws
+and neck like the throat of an alligator, and straight, white hair that
+stood from her head uncannily stiff.
+
+"But the demoiselle wishes to appear a boy, _un petit garcon_?" she
+inquired, gazing eagerly at Flo's long, slender frame. Her voice was old
+and thin, like the high quavering of an imperfect tuning fork, and her
+eyes were sharp as talons in their grasping glance.
+
+"Mademoiselle does not wish such a costume," gruffly responded Mephisto.
+
+"_Ma foi_, there is no other," said the ancient, shrugging her
+shoulders. "But one is left now, mademoiselle would make a fine
+troubadour."
+
+"Flo," said Mephisto, "it's a dare-devil scheme, try it; no one will
+ever know it but us, and we'll die before we tell. Besides, we must;
+it's late, and you couldn't find your crowd."
+
+And that was why you might have seen a Mephisto and a slender troubadour
+of lovely form, with mandolin flung across his shoulder, followed by a
+bevy of jockeys and ballet girls, laughing and singing as they swept
+down Rampart Street.
+
+When the flash and glare and brilliancy of Canal Street have palled upon
+the tired eye, and it is yet too soon to go home, and to such a prosaic
+thing as dinner, and one still wishes for novelty, then it is wise to go
+in the lower districts. Fantasy and fancy and grotesqueness in the
+costuming and behavior of the maskers run wild. Such dances and whoops
+and leaps as these hideous Indians and devils do indulge in; such wild
+curvetings and great walks. And in the open squares, where whole groups
+do congregate, it is wonderfully amusing. Then, too, there is a ball in
+every available hall, a delirious ball, where one may dance all day for
+ten cents; dance and grow mad for joy, and never know who were your
+companions, and be yourself unknown. And in the exhilaration of the day,
+one walks miles and miles, and dances and curvets, and the fatigue is
+never felt.
+
+In Washington Square, away down where Royal Street empties its stream
+of children and men into the broad channel of Elysian Fields Avenue,
+there was a perfect Indian dance. With a little imagination one might
+have willed away the vision of the surrounding houses and fancied one's
+self again in the forest, where the natives were holding a sacred riot.
+The square was filled with spectators, masked and unmasked. It was
+amusing to watch these mimic Red-men, they seemed so fierce and earnest.
+
+Suddenly one chief touched another on the elbow. "See that Mephisto and
+troubadour over there?" he whispered huskily.
+
+"Yes, who are they?"
+
+"I don't know the devil," responded the other quietly, "but I'd know
+that other form anywhere. It's Leon, see? I know those white hands like
+a woman's and that restless head. Ha!
+
+"But there may be a mistake."
+
+"No. I'd know that one anywhere; I feel it's him. I'll pay him now. Ah,
+sweetheart, you've waited long, but you shall feast now!" He was
+caressing something long, and lithe, and glittering beneath his blanket.
+
+In a masked dance it is easy to give a death-blow between the shoulders.
+Two crowds meet and laugh and shout and mingle almost inextricably, and
+if a shriek of pain should arise, it is not noticed in the din, and when
+they part, if one should stagger and fall bleeding to the ground, who
+can tell who has given the blow? There is naught but an unknown stiletto
+on the ground, the crowd has dispersed, and masks tell no tales anyway.
+There is murder, but by whom? for what? _Quien sabe?_
+
+And that is how it happened on Carnival night, in the last mad moments
+of Rex's reign, a broken-hearted woman sat gazing wide-eyed and mute at
+a horrible something that lay across the bed. Outside the long sweet
+march music of many bands floated in in mockery, and the flash of
+rockets and Bengal lights illumined the dead, white face of the girl
+troubadour.
+
+
+
+
+PAUL TO VIRGINIA.
+
+FIN DE SIECLE.
+
+
+  I really must confess, my dear,
+    I cannot help but love you,
+  For of all girls I ever knew,
+    There's none I place above you;
+  But then you know it's rather hard,
+    To dangle aimless at your skirt,
+  And watch your every movement so,
+    _For I am jealous, and you're a flirt_.
+
+  There's half a score of fellows round,
+    You smile at every one,
+  And as I think to pride myself for basking in the sun
+  Of your sweet smiles, you laugh at me,
+    And treat me like a lump of dirt,
+  Until I wish that I were dead,
+    _For I am jealous, and you're a flirt_.
+
+  I'm sorry that I've ever known
+    Your loveliness entrancing,
+  Or ever saw your laughing eyes,
+    With girlish mischief dancing;
+  'Tis agony supreme and rare
+  To see your slender waist a-girt
+  With other fellows' arms, you see,
+    _For I am jealous, and you're a flirt_.
+
+  Now, girlie, if you'll promise me,
+    To never, never treat me mean,
+  I'll show you in a little while,
+    The best sweetheart you've ever seen;
+  You do not seem to know or care,
+    How often you've my feelings hurt,
+  While flying round with other boys,
+    _For I am jealous, and you're a flirt_.
+
+
+
+
+THE MAIDEN'S DREAM.
+
+
+The maid had been reading love-poetry, where the world lay bathed in
+moon-light, fragrant with dew-wet roses and jasmine, harmonious with the
+clear tinkle of mandolin and guitar. Then a lethargy, like unto that
+which steeps the senses, and benumbs the faculties of the lotus-eaters,
+enveloped her brain, and she lay as one in a trance,--awake, yet
+sleeping; conscious, yet unburdened with care.
+
+And there stole into her consciousness, words, thoughts, not of her own,
+yet she read them not, nor heard them spoken; they fell deep into her
+heart and soul, softer and more caressing than the over-shadowing wing
+of a mother-dove, sweeter and more thrilling than the last high notes of
+a violin, and they were these:--
+
+Love, most potent, most tyrannical, and most gentle of the passions
+which sway the human mind, thou art the invisible agency which rules
+mens' souls, which governs mens' kingdoms, which controls the universe.
+By thy mighty will do the silent, eternal hosts of Heaven sweep in
+sublime procession across the unmeasured blue. The perfect harmony of
+the spheres is attuned for thee, and by thee; the perfect coloring of
+the clouds, than which no mortal pigment can dare equal, are thy
+handiwork. Most ancient of the heathen deities, Eros; powerful God of
+the Christians, Jehovah, all hail! For a brief possession of thy divine
+fire have kingdoms waxed and waned; men in all the bitterness of hatred
+fought, bled, died by millions, their grosser selves to be swept into
+the bosom of their ancient mother, an immense holocaust to thee. For
+thee and thee alone does the world prosper, for thee do men strive to
+become better than their fellow-men; for thee, and through thee have
+they sunk to such depths of degradation as causes a blush to be painted
+upon the faces of those that see. All things are subservient to thee.
+All the delicate intricate workings of that marvellous machine, the
+human brain; all the passions and desires of the human heart,--ambition,
+desire, greed, hatred, envy, jealousy, all others. Thou breedst them
+all, O love, thou art all-potent, all-wise, infinite, eternal! Thy power
+is felt by mortals in all ages, all climes, all conditions. Behold!
+
+A picture came into the maiden's eye: a broad and fertile plain, tender
+verdure, soft blue sky overhead, with white billowy clouds nearing the
+horizon like great airy, snow-capped mountains. The soft warm breeze
+from the south whispered faintly through the tall, slender palms and
+sent a thrill of joy through the frisky lambkins, who capered by the
+sides of their graver dams. And there among the riches of the flock
+stood Laban, haughty, stern, yet withal a kindly gleam in the glance
+which rested upon the group about him. Hoary the beard that rested upon
+his breast, but steady the hand that stretched in blessing. Leah, the
+tender-eyed, the slighted, is there; and Rachel, young and beautiful and
+blushing beneath the ardent gaze of her handsome lover. "And Jacob loved
+Rachel, and said, I will serve thee seven years for Rachel, thy younger
+daughter."
+
+How different the next scene! Heaven's wrath burst loose upon a single
+community. Fire, the red-winged demon with brazen throat wide opened,
+hangs his brooding wings upon an erstwhile happy city. Hades has climbed
+through the crater of Vesuvius, and leaps in fiendish waves along the
+land. Few the souls escaping, and God have mercy upon those who stumble
+through the blinding darkness, made more torturingly hideous by the
+intermittent flashes of lurid light. And yet there come three, whom the
+darkness seems not to deter, nor obstacles impede. Only a blind person,
+accustomed to constant darkness, and familiarized with these streets
+could walk that way. Nearer they come, a burst of flames thrown into the
+inky firmament by impish hands, reveals Glaucus, supporting the
+half-fainting Ione, following Nydia, frail, blind, flower-loving Nydia,
+sacrificing life for her unloving beloved.
+
+And then the burning southern sun shone bright and golden o'er the
+silken sails of the Nile serpent's ships; glinted on the armor and
+weapons of the famous galley; shone with a warm caressing touch upon her
+beauty, as though it loved this queen, as powerful in her sphere as he
+in his. It is at Actium, and the fate of nations and generations yet
+unborn hang, as the sword of Damocles hung, upon the tiny thread of
+destiny. Egypt herself, her splendid barbaric beauty acting like an
+inspiration upon the craven followers, leads on, foremost in this fierce
+struggle. Then, the tide turns, and overpowered, they fly before
+disgrace and defeat. Antony is there, the traitor, dishonored, false to
+his country, yet true to his love; Antony, whom ambition could not lure
+from her passionate caresses; Antony, murmuring softly,--
+
+  Egypt, thou knowest too well
+  My heart was to thy rudder tied by the strings,
+  And thou should'st tow me after.
+  Over my spirit
+  Thy full supremacy thou knewest,
+  And that thy beck might from the bidding of the gods
+  Command me.
+
+Picture after picture flashed through the maiden's mind. Agnes, the
+gentle, sacrificing, burrowing like some frantic animal through the
+ruins of Lisbon, saving her lover, Franklin, by teeth and bleeding
+hands. Dora, the patient, serving a loveless existence, saving her rival
+from starvation and destitution. The stern, dark, exiled Florentine
+poet, with that one silver ray in his clouded life--Beatrice.
+
+She heard the piping of an elfish voice, "Mother, why does the minister
+keep his hands over his heart?" and the white drawn face of Hester
+Prynne, with her scarlet elf-child, passed slowly across her vision. The
+wretched misery of deluded Lucius and his mysterious Lamia she saw, and
+watched with breathless interest the formation of that "Brotherhood of
+the Rose." There was radiant Armorel, from sea-blown, wave-washed
+Lyonesse, her perfect head poised in loving caress over the magic
+violin. Dark-eyed Corinne, head drooped gently as she improvised those
+Rome-famed world symphonies passed, almost ere Edna and St. Elmo had
+crossed the threshold of the church happy in the love now consecrated
+through her to God. Oh, the pictures, the forms, the love-words which
+crowded her mind! They thrilled her heart, crushed out all else save a
+crushing, over-powering sense of perfect, complete joy. A joy that
+sought to express itself in wondrous melodies and silences, filled with
+thoughts too deep and sacred for words. Overpowered with the
+magnificence of his reign, overwhelmed with the complete subjugation of
+all things unto him, do you wonder that she awoke and placing both hands
+into those of the lover at her side, whispered:--
+
+  Take all of me--I am thine own, heart, soul,
+    Brain, body, all; all that I am or dream
+  Is thine forever; yea, though space should teem
+  With thy conditions, I'd fulfil the whole,
+  Were to fulfil them to be loved by thee.
+
+
+
+
+IN MEMORIAM.
+
+
+  The light streams through the windows arched high,
+    And o'er the stern, stone carvings breaks
+    In warm rich gold and crimson waves,
+  Then steals away in corners dark to die.
+
+  And all the grand cathedral silence falls
+    Into the hearts of those that worship low,
+    Like tender waves of hushed nothingness,
+  Confined nor kept by human earthly walls.
+
+  Deep music in its thundering organ sounds,
+    Grows diffuse through the echoing space,
+    Till hearts grow still in sadness' mighty joy,
+  Or leap aloft in swift ecstatic bounds.
+
+  Mayhap 'twas but a dream that came to me,
+    Or but a vision of the soul's desire,
+    To see the nation in one mighty whole,
+  Do homage on its bended, worshipping knee.
+
+  Through time's heroic actions, the soul of man,
+    Alone proves what that soul without earth's dross
+    Could be, and this, through time's far-searching fire,
+  Hath proved thine white beneath the deepest scan.
+
+  A woman's tribute, 'tis a tiny dot,
+    A merest flower from a frail, small hand,
+    To lay among the many petaled wreaths
+  About thy form,--a tribute soon forgot.
+
+  But if in all the incense to arise
+    In fragrance to the blue empyrean
+    The blended sweetness of the womens' love
+  Goes pouring too, in all their heartfelt sighs.
+
+  And if one woman's sorrow be among them too,
+    One woman's joy for labor past
+    Be reckoned in the mighty teeming whole,
+  It is enough, there is not more to do.
+
+  Within the hearts of heroes small and great
+    There 'bides a tenderness for weakling things
+    Within thy heart, the sorrowing country knows
+  These passions, bravest and the tenderest mate.
+
+  When man is dust, before the gazing eyes
+    Of all the gaping throng, his life lies wide
+    For all to see and whisper low about
+  Or let their thoughts in discord's clatter rise.
+
+  But thine was pure and undefiled,
+    A record of long brilliant, teeming days,
+    Each thought did tend to further things,
+  But pure as the proverbial child.
+
+  Oh, people, that thy grief might find express
+    To gather in some vast cathedral's hall,
+    That then in unity we might kneel and hear
+  Sublimity in sounds, voice our distress.
+
+  Peace, peace, the men of God cry, ye be bold,
+    The world hath known, 'tis Heaven who claims him now,
+    And in our railings we but cast aside
+  The noble traits he bid us hold.
+
+  So though divided through the land, in dreams
+    We see a people kneeling low,
+    Bowed down in heart and soul to see
+  This fearful sorrow, crushing as it seems.
+
+  And all the grand cathedral silence falls
+    Into the hearts of these that worship low,
+    Like tender waves of hushed nothingness,
+  Confined, nor kept by human earthly walls.
+
+
+
+
+A STORY OF VENGEANCE.
+
+
+Yes, Eleanor, I have grown grayer. I am younger than you, you know, but
+then, what have you to age you? A kind husband, lovely children, while
+I--I am nothing but a lonely woman. Time goes slowly, slowly for me now.
+
+Why did I never marry? Move that screen a little to one side, please; my
+eyes can scarcely bear a strong light. Bernard? Oh, that's a long story.
+I'll tell you if you wish; it might pass an hour.
+
+Do you ever think to go over the old school-days? We thought such
+foolish things then, didn't we? There wasn't one of us but imagined we
+would have only to knock ever so faintly on the portals of fame and they
+would fly wide for our entrance into the magic realms. On Commencement
+night we whispered merrily among ourselves on the stage to see our
+favorite planet, Venus, of course, smiling at us through a high, open
+window, "bidding adieu to her astronomy class," we said.
+
+Then you went away to plunge into the most brilliant whirl of society,
+and I stayed in the beautiful old city to work.
+
+Bernard was very much _en evidence_ those days. He liked you a great
+deal, because in school-girl parlance you were my "chum." You
+say,--thanks, no tea, it reminds me that I'm an old maid; you say you
+know what happiness means--maybe, but I don't think any living soul
+could experience the joy I felt in those days; it was absolutely painful
+at times.
+
+Byron and his counterparts are ever dear to the womanly heart, whether
+young or old. Such a man was he, gloomy, misanthropical, tired of the
+world, with a few dozen broken love-affairs among his varied
+experiences. Of course, I worshipped him secretly, what romantic, silly
+girl of my age, would not, being thrown in such constant contact with
+him.
+
+One day he folded me tightly in his arms, and said:
+
+"Little girl, I have nothing to give you in exchange for that priceless
+love of yours but a heart that has already been at another's feet, and a
+wrecked life, but may I ask for it?"
+
+"It is already yours," I answered. I'll draw the veil over the scene
+which followed; you know, you've "been there."
+
+Then began some of the happiest hours that ever the jolly old sun beamed
+upon, or the love-sick moon clothed in her rays of silver. Deceived me?
+No, no. He admitted that the old love for Blanche was still in his
+heart, but that he had lost all faith and respect for her, and could
+nevermore be other than a friend. Well, I was fool enough to be content
+with such crumbs.
+
+We had five months of happiness. I tamed down beautifully in that
+time,--even consented to adopt the peerless Blanche as a model. I gave
+up all my most ambitious plans and cherished schemes, because he
+disliked women whose names were constantly in the mouth of the public.
+In fact, I became quiet, sedate, dignified, renounced too some of my
+best and dearest friends. I lived, breathed, thought, acted only for
+him; for me there was but one soul in the universe--Bernard's. Still,
+for all the suffering I've experienced, I'd be willing to go through it
+all again just to go over those five months. Every day together, at
+nights on the lake-shore listening to the soft lap of the waters as the
+silver sheen of the moon spread over the dainty curled waves; sometimes
+in a hammock swinging among the trees talking of love and reading
+poetry. Talk about Heaven! I just think there can't he a better time
+among the angels.
+
+But there is an end to all things. A violent illness, and his father
+relenting, sent for the wayward son. I will always believe he loved me,
+but he was eager to get home to his mother, and anxious to view Blanche
+in the light of their new relationship. We had a whole series of parting
+scenes,--tears and vows and kisses exchanged. We clung to each other
+after the regulation fashion, and swore never to forget, and to write
+every day. Then there was a final wrench. I went back to my old
+life--he, away home.
+
+For a while I was content, there were daily letters from him to read;
+his constant admonitions to practice; his many little tokens to
+adore--until there came a change,--letters less frequent, more mention
+of Blanche and her love for him, less of his love for me, until the
+truth was forced upon me. Then I grew cold and proud, and with an iron
+will crushed and stamped all love for him out of my tortured heart and
+cried for vengeance.
+
+Yes, quite melo-dramatic, wasn't it? It is a dramatic tale, though.
+
+So I threw off my habits of seclusion and mingled again with men and
+women, and took up all my long-forgotten plans. It's no use telling you
+how I succeeded. It was really wonderful, wasn't it? It seems as though
+that fickle goddess, Fortune, showered every blessing, save one, on my
+path. Success followed success, triumph succeeded triumph. I was
+lionized, feted, petted, caressed by the social and literary world. You
+often used to wonder how I stood it in all those years. God knows; with
+the heart-sick weariness and the fierce loathing that possessed me, I
+don't know myself.
+
+But, mind you, Eleanor, I schemed well. I had everything seemingly that
+humanity craved for, but I suffered, and by all the gods, I swore that
+he should suffer too. Blanche turned against him and married his
+brother. An unfortunate chain of circumstances drove him from his
+father's home branded as a forger. Strange, wasn't it? But money is a
+strong weapon, and its long arm reaches over leagues and leagues of land
+and water.
+
+One day he found me in a distant city, and begged for my love again, and
+for mercy and pity. Blanche was only a mistake, he said, and he loved me
+alone, and so on. I remembered all his thrilling tones and tender
+glances, but they might have moved granite now sooner than me. He knelt
+at my feet and pleaded like a criminal suing for life. I laughed at him
+and sneered at his misery, and told him what he had done for my
+happiness, and what I in turn had done for his.
+
+Eleanor, to my dying day, I shall never forget his face as he rose from
+his knees, and with one awful, indescribable look of hate, anguish and
+scorn, walked from the room. As he neared the door, all the old love
+rose in me like a flood, drowning the sorrows of past years, and
+overwhelming me in a deluge of pity. Strive as I did, I could not
+repress it; a woman's love is too mighty to be put down with little
+reasonings. I called to him in terror, "Bernard, Bernard!" He did not
+turn; gave no sign of having heard.
+
+"Bernard, come back; I didn't mean it!"
+
+He passed slowly away with bent head, out of the house and out of my
+life. I've never seen him since, never heard of him. Somewhere, perhaps
+on God's earth he wanders outcast, forsaken, loveless. I have my
+vengeance, but it is like Dead Sea fruit, all bitter ashes to the taste.
+I am a miserable, heart-weary wreck,--a woman with fame, without love.
+
+"Vengeance is an arrow that often falleth and smiteth the hand of him
+that sent it."
+
+
+
+
+AT BAY ST. LOUIS.
+
+
+  Soft breezes blow and swiftly show
+    Through fragrant orange branches parted,
+  A maiden fair, with sun-flecked hair,
+    Caressed by arrows, golden darted.
+  The vine-clad tree holds forth to me
+    A promise sweet of purple blooms,
+  And chirping bird, scarce seen but heard
+    Sings dreamily, and sweetly croons
+            At Bay St. Louis.
+
+  The hammock swinging, idly singing,
+    Lissome nut-brown maid
+    Swings gaily, freely, to-and-fro;
+  The curling, green-white waters casting cool, clear shade,
+    Rock small, shell boats that go
+  In circles wide, or tug at anchor's chain,
+  As though to skim the sea with cargo vain,
+            At Bay St. Louis.
+
+    The maid swings slower, slower to-and-fro,
+  And sunbeams kiss gray, dreamy half-closed eyes;
+    Fond lover creeping on with foot steps slow,
+  Gives gentle kiss, and smiles at sweet surprise.
+
+         *       *       *       *       *
+
+    The lengthening shadows tell that eve is nigh,
+    And fragrant zephyrs cool and calmer grow,
+  Yet still the lover lingers, and scarce breathed sigh,
+    Bids the swift hours to pause, nor go,
+            At Bay St. Louis.
+
+
+
+
+NEW YEAR'S DAY.
+
+
+  The poor old year died hard; for all the earth lay cold
+    And bare beneath the wintry sky;
+  While grey clouds scurried madly to the west,
+    And hid the chill young moon from mortal sight.
+  Deep, dying groans the aged year breathed forth,
+    In soughing winds that wailed a requiem sad
+  In dull crescendo through the mournful air.
+
+  The new year now is welcomed noisily
+    With din and song and shout and clanging bell,
+  And all the glare and blare of fiery fun.
+  Sing high the welcome to the New Year's morn!
+    _Le roi est mort. Vive, vive le roi!_ cry out,
+  And hail the new-born king of coming days.
+
+  Alas! the day is spent and eve draws nigh;
+  The king's first subject dies--for naught,
+  And wasted moments by the hundred score
+    Of past years rise like spectres grim
+  To warn, that these days may not idly glide away.
+  Oh, New Year, youth of promise fair!
+    What dost thou hold for me? An aching heart?
+  Or eyes burnt blind by unshed tears? Or stabs,
+    More keen because unseen?
+  Nay, nay, dear youth, I've had surfeit
+    Of sorrow's feast. The monarch dead
+  Did rule me with an iron hand. Be thou a friend,
+    A tender, loving king--and let me know
+  The ripe, full sweetness of a happy year.
+
+
+
+
+THE UNKNOWN LIFE OF JESUS CHRIST.
+
+
+A new gem has been added to sacred literature, and this is the
+accidental discovery by Nicolas Notovich of a Buddhist history of a
+phase of Christ's life left blank in the Scriptures.
+
+Notovich, an adventurer, searching amid the ruins of India, delving deep
+in all the ancient Buddhistic lore, accidentally stumbles upon the name
+of Saint Issa, a renowned preacher, ante-dating some 2,000 years. The
+name becomes a wondrous attraction to Notovich, particularly as he
+learns through many Buddhist priests, Issa's name in juxtaposition with
+the Christian faith, and later, has reason to believe that the Jesus
+Christ of our religion and the Saint Issa of their tradition are
+identical.
+
+Through a seemingly unfortunate accident, Notovich sustains an injury
+to his leg, and is cared for most tenderly by the monks of the convent
+of Himis. Despite his severe agonies, he retains consciousness and
+curiosity enough to plead for a glimpse of the wonderful documents
+contained in the archives of the convent, treating of the life of Saint
+Issa and the genealogy of the House of David. This he has translated and
+gives to the public.
+
+Just whether to take the history seriously or not is a subject that
+requires much thought; but whether it be truth or fiction, whether the
+result of patient investigation and careful study of an interested
+scholar, or the wild imaginings of a feeble brain, it opens a wild field
+of speculation to the thoughtful mind.
+
+The first three chapters of this history, contain a brief epitome of the
+Pentatouch of Moses. Though contrary to the teachings of tradition,
+Moses is said not to have written these books himself, but that they
+were transcribed generations after his time. According to this theory,
+then, the seeming imperfections and inconsistencies and tautological
+errors of the Old Testament as compared with the brief, clear, concise,
+logical statement of the Buddhists may readily be explained by the
+frailty of human memory, and the vividness of Oriental imagination.
+
+Prince Mossa of the Buddhists, otherwise Moses of the Jews, was not, as
+is popularly supposed, a foundling of the Jews, or a protege of the
+Egyptian princess, but a full fledged prince, son of Pharaoh the mighty.
+This abrupt over-throw of the tradition of ages is like all
+disillusions, distasteful, but even the most superficial study of
+Egyptian customs and laws of that time will serve to impress us with the
+verity of this opinion. The law of caste was most rigidly and cruelly
+adhered to, and though all the pleadings and threatenings and weepings
+of the starry-eyed favorite of the harem may have been brought to bear
+upon this descendant of Rameses, yet is it probable that a descendant of
+an outcast race should receive the care and learning and advantages of
+a legally born prince? Hardly.
+
+The condition of the ancient Israelites in the Christian Scriptures and
+in the Buddhist parchment are the same, yet there is reason to believe
+that the former was transcribed many centuries after the hieroglyphics
+of the latter became faded with age, hence, perhaps, the difference in
+the parentage of Moses.
+
+"And Mossa was beloved throughout the land of Egypt for the goodness and
+compassion he displayed for them that suffered, pleaded with his father
+to soften the lot of these unhappy people, but Pharaoh became angry with
+him, and only imposed more hardships upon his slaves."
+
+At this period in our Scriptures, the Lord communicates with Moses, and
+inflicts the plagues upon the nation, while in the manuscript of the
+Himis monks, the annual plague brought on by natural causes falls upon
+Egypt, and decimates the community. Here is a strange reversal of the
+order of things. In India, for ages the home of superstition and idol
+worship, that which has always been regarded by the Christians, the
+sworn enemies of the supernatural, as an inexplicable mystery, is
+accounted for by perfectly natural causes.
+
+From that time, the fourth chapter of the chronicle of St. Issa
+corresponds exactly in its condensed form to the most prominent
+chronology of the Old Testament. With the beginning of the next chapter,
+the Divine Infant, through whom the salvation of the world was to come,
+appears upon the scene, as the first born of a poor but highly connected
+family, referring, presumably, to the ancestry of Joseph and Mary.
+
+The remarkable wisdom of the child in earlier years is chronicled in our
+ancient parchment with as much care as in the vellum-bound volume of our
+church scriptures. At the age of twelve, the last glimpse we have of
+Jesus in the New Testament, is as a precocious boy, seated in the
+Temple, expounding the Scriptures to the learned members of the
+Sanhedrin. After that, we have no further sight of him, until sixteen
+years later, he re-appears at the marriage in Cana, a grown and serious
+man, already with well-formulated plans for the furtherance of his
+father's kingdom. This broad lapse in the Scriptures is filled by one
+simple sentence in the gospel of St. Luke. "And he was in the desert
+till the day of his showing into Israel." Where he was, why he had gone,
+and what he was doing are left to the imagination of the scholar and
+commentator.
+
+Many theories have been advanced, and the one most accepted, was that he
+had followed the trade of his terrestrial father, Joseph, and was near
+Jerusalem among the tools of carpentry, helping his parents to feed the
+hungry mouths of his brothers and sisters.
+
+But there appears another plausible theory advanced by the Buddhist
+historians, and sustained by the Buddhist traditions, that as Moses had
+fled into the wilderness to spend forty years in fasting and preparation
+for his life work, so Jesus had fled, not to the wilderness, but to the
+ancient culture and learning and the wisdom of centuries to prepare
+himself, by a knowledge of all religions for the day of the redemption.
+
+Among the Jews of that day, and even among the more conservative
+descendants of Abraham yet, there existed, and exists a law which
+accustoms the marrying of the sons, especially the oldest son, at the
+age of thirteen. It is supposed that Issa, resisting the thraldom and
+carnal temptation of the marital state, fled from the importunities of
+the wise men, who would fain unite their offspring with such a wise and
+serious youth.
+
+"It was then that Issa clandestinely left his father's house, went out
+of Jerusalem, and in company with some merchants, travelled toward
+Sinai."
+
+"That he might perfect himself in the divine word and study the laws of
+the Great Buddha."
+
+For six years he kept all India stirred to its utmost depths as he
+afterward kept all Palestine stirred by the purity of his doctrines, and
+the direct simplicity of his teachings. The white priests of Bramah gave
+him all their law, teaching him the language and religion of the
+dwellers of the five rivers. In Juggernaut, Rajegrilia, Benares, and
+other holy cities he was beloved by all. For true, here, as elsewhere,
+to his theory of the universal brotherhood of man, not only did he move
+among the upper classes, but also with the wretched Vaisyas and Soudras,
+the lowest of low castes who even were forbidden to hear the Vedas read,
+save only on feast days. Just as among the Jews, he was tolerant,
+merciful and kindly disposed towards the Samaritans, the Magdalens, the
+Lazaruses as to the haughty rabbis.
+
+His impress upon the home of Buddha and Brahma was manifested by the
+hitherto unknown theory of monotheism, established by him, but
+gradually permitted to fall into desuetude, and become confounded with
+the polytheistic hierarchy of the confusing religion. Just as the grand
+oneness and simplicity of the Christian religion has been permitted to
+deteriorate into many petty sects, each with its absurd limitations, and
+its particular little method of worshipping the Great Father.
+
+The teachings of Issa in India bear close relation in the general trend
+of thought to the teachings of Jesus among the multitudes about
+Jerusalem. There is the same universal simplicity of man's brotherhood;
+the complete self-abnegation of the flesh to the mind; the charitable
+impulses of a kind heart, and the utter disregard of caste, whether of
+birth, or breeding, or riches.
+
+Of miracles in India, Issa says, "The miracles of our God began when the
+universe was created, they occur each day, each instant; whosoever does
+not see them, is deprived of one of the most beautiful gifts of life."
+
+At last, according to the chronicles of the Buddhists, Issa was recalled
+from his labors in India to the land of Israel, where the people
+oppressed as of old by the Pharaohs, and now by the mighty men from the
+country of the Ramones, otherwise the Romans.
+
+Here Pilate appears in a new light. Heretofore he has always been a
+passive figure in the story of the crucifixion. Indeed he is entirely
+exonerated from all blame by some of our religious bibliographers and
+made to appear in a philanthropic light, but the priests of Egypt,
+undeceived by the treacherous memories and careless chronicling on the
+disciples of old, place Pilate before us as a thorough Roman, greedy,
+crafty, cruel, unscrupulous. According to them he places a spy upon the
+actions of Jesus in the beginning of his three years teachings, who
+follows him in all his journeys, and in the end betrays him to the
+Romans. This person can be no other than Judas, the betrayer. And here
+we are permitted to view his seemingly inexplicable actions in a new
+light, and from being Judas, a sorrowing misanthrope, the erstwhile
+friend of Christ, he becomes merely a common enemy, the tool of the
+Romans.
+
+Then we have the trial and death of Issa, strongly similar to our
+accepted version, and the chronicle briefly ends with the statement of
+the subsequent work of the disciples. The story of the Buddhist was
+written very shortly after the Passion of the Cross; the New Testament
+was transcribed years after the chief actors were dust.
+
+We are so steeped in tradition, and so conservative on any subject that
+touches our religious beliefs that it is somewhat difficult to reconcile
+ourselves to another addition to our Scriptures. But if we should look
+at the matter earnestly, and give deep thought to the relative
+positions, lives, and endings of these two noble men, Issa and Christ,
+we could scarcely doubt that they are one. Without trying, as does the
+author, to break down with one fell swoop, the entire structure of the
+Bible, we cannot but admit the probability of the new theory.
+
+It may be claimed that the remarkable personality of Christ would have
+left more of an impress upon India than it did, and that Christianity
+there and in India would have been synchronous, but we must remember,
+that there among the idols of Bramah and Vishnu, the way was not
+prepared, the people unexpectant of a new prophet, unwarned of him and
+unheeded. There he seems to have had no close personal followers to take
+up the work just where he left it, and continue. The dwellers of India
+were more happy in their entirety and more comfortable than the Jews,
+hence there was no Deliverer to impress them forever with the gigantic
+sacrifice of human frame and Divine soul.
+
+St. Issa, one of the most revered prophets of the Buddhists, Jesus
+Christ, the Man and God of all other men, the divine incarnation of the
+ideal, are they the same? Why not?
+
+
+
+
+IN OUR NEIGHBORHOOD.
+
+
+The Harts were going to give a party. Neither Mrs. Hart, nor the Misses
+Hart, nor the small and busy Harts who amused themselves and the
+neighborhood by continually falling in the gutter on special occasions,
+had mentioned this fact to anyone, but all the interested denizens of
+that particular square could tell by the unusual air of bustle and
+activity which pervaded the Hart domicile. Lillian, the æsthetic, who
+furnished theme for many spirited discussions, leaned airily out of the
+window; her auburn (red) tresses carefully done in curl papers. Martha,
+the practical, flourished the broom and duster with unwonted activity,
+which the small boys of the neighborhood, peering through the green
+shutters of the front door, duly reported to their mammas, busily
+engaged in holding down their respective door-steps by patiently sitting
+thereon.
+
+Pretty soon, the junior Harts,--two in number--began to travel to and
+fro, soliciting the loan of a "few chairs," "some nice dishes," and such
+like things, indispensable to every decent, self-respecting party. But
+to all inquiries as to the use to which these articles were to be put,
+they only vouchsafed one reply, "Ma told us as we wasn't to tell, just
+ask for the things, that's all."
+
+Mrs. Tuckley the dress-maker, brought her sewing out on the front-steps,
+and entered a vigorous protest to her next-door neighbor.
+
+"Humph," she sniffed, "mighty funny they can't say what's up. Must be
+something in it. Couldn't get none o' _my_ things, and not invite
+_me_!"
+
+"Did she ask you for any?" absent-mindedly inquired Mrs. Luke, shielding
+her eyes from the sun.
+
+"No-o--, but she'd better sense, she knows _me_--she ain't--mercy me,
+Stella! Just look at that child tumbling in the mud! You, Stella, come
+here, I say! Look at you now, there--and there--and there?"
+
+The luckless Stella having been soundly cuffed, and sent whimpering in
+the back-yard, Mrs. Tuckley continued,
+
+"Yes as I was saying, 'course, taint none o' my business, but I always
+did wonder how them Harts do keep up. Why, them girls dress just as fine
+as any lady on the Avenue and that there Lillian wears real diamond
+ear-rings. 'Pears mighty, mighty funny to me, and Lord the airs they do
+put on! Holdin' up their heads like nobody's good enough to speak to. I
+don't like to talk about people, you know, yourself, Mrs. Luke I never
+speak about anybody, but mark my word, girls that cut up capers like
+them Hartses' girls never come to any good."
+
+Mrs. Luke heaved a deep sigh of appreciation at the wisdom of her
+neighbor, but before she could reply a re-inforcement in the person of
+little Mrs. Peters, apron over her head, hands shrivelled and soap-sudsy
+from washing, appeared.
+
+"Did you ever see the like?" she asked in her usual, rapid breathless
+way. "Why, my Louis says they're putting canvass cloths on the floor,
+and taking down the bed in the back-room; and putting greenery and such
+like trash about. Some style about them, eh?"
+
+Mrs. Tuckley tossed her head and sniffed contemptuously, Mrs. Luke began
+to rehearse a time worn tale, how once a carriage had driven up to the
+Hart house at nine o'clock at night, and a distinguished looking man
+alighted, went in, stayed about ten minutes and finally drove off with a
+great clatter. Heads that had shaken ominously over this story before
+began to shake again, and tongues that had wagged themselves tired with
+conjectures started now with some brand new ideas and theories. The
+children of the square, tired of fishing for minnows in the ditches, and
+making mud-pies in the street, clustered about their mother's skirts
+receiving occasional slaps, when their attempts at taking part in the
+conversation became too pronounced.
+
+Meanwhile, in the Hart household, all was bustle and preparation. To and
+fro the members of the house flitted, arranging chairs, putting little
+touches here and there, washing saucers and glasses, chasing the Hart
+Juniors about, losing things and calling frantically for each other's
+assistance to find them. Mama Hart, big, plump and perspiring, puffed
+here and there like a large, rosy engine, giving impossible orders, and
+receiving sharp answers to foolish questions. Lillian, the æsthetic,
+practiced her most graceful poses before the large mirror in the
+parlor; Martha rushed about, changing the order of the furniture, and
+Papa Hart, just come in from work, paced the rooms disconsolately,
+asking for dinner.
+
+"Dinner!" screamed Mama Hart, "Dinner, who's got time to fool with
+dinner this evening? Look in the sideboard and you'll see some bread and
+ham; eat that and shut up."
+
+Eight o'clock finally arrived, and with it, the music and some
+straggling guests. When the first faint chee-chee of the violin floated
+out into the murky atmosphere, the smaller portion of the neighborhood
+went straightway into ecstasies. Boys and girls in all stages of
+deshabille clustered about the door-steps and gave vent to audible
+exclamations of approval or disapprobation concerning the state of
+affairs behind the green shutters. It was a warm night and the big round
+moon sailed serenely in a cloudless, blue sky. Mrs. Tuckley had put on a
+clean calico wrapper, and planted herself with the indomitable Stella
+on her steps, "to watch the purceedings."
+
+The party was a grand success. Even the intensely critical small fry
+dancing on the pavement without to the scraping and fiddling of the
+string band, had to admit that. So far as they were concerned it was all
+right, but what shall we say of the guests within? They who glided
+easily over the canvassed floors, bowed, and scraped and simpered, "just
+like the big folks on the Avenue," who ate the ice-cream and cake, and
+drank the sweet, weak Catawba wine amid boisterous healths to Mr. and
+Mrs. Hart and the Misses Hart; who smirked and perspired and cracked
+ancient jokes and heart-rending puns during the intervals of the
+dances, who shall say that they did not enjoy themselves as thoroughly
+and as fully as those who frequented the wealthier entertainments
+up-town.
+
+Lillian and Martha in gossamer gowns of pink and blue flitted to and fro
+attending to the wants of their guests. Mrs. Hart, gorgeous in a black
+satin affair, all folds and lace and drapery, made desperate efforts to
+appear cool and collected--and failed miserably. Papa Hart spent one
+half his time standing in front of the mantle, spreading out his
+coat-tails, and benignly smiling upon the young people, while the other
+half was devoted to initiating the male portion of the guests into the
+mysteries of "snake killing."
+
+Everybody had said that he or she had had a splendid time, and finally,
+when the last kisses had been kissed, the last good-byes been said, the
+whole Hart family sat down in the now deserted and disordered rooms, and
+sighed with relief that the great event was over at last.
+
+"Nice crowd, eh?" remarked Papa Hart. He was brimful of joy and
+second-class whiskey, so no one paid any attention to him.
+
+"But did you see how shamefully Maude flirted with Willie Howard?" said
+Lillian. Martha tossed her head in disdain; Mr. Howard she had always
+considered her especial property, so Lillian's observation had a rather
+disturbing effect.
+
+"I'm so warm and tired," cried Mama Hart, plaintively, "children how are
+we going to sleep to-night?"
+
+Thereupon the whole family arose to devise ways and means for wooing the
+drowsy god. As for the Hart Juniors they had long since solved the
+problem by falling asleep with sticky hands and faces upon a pile of
+bed-clothing behind the kitchen door.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It was late in the next day before the house had begun to resume
+anything like its former appearance. The little Harts were kept busy all
+morning returning chairs and dishes, and distributing the remnants of
+the feast to the vicinity. The ice-cream had melted into a warm custard,
+and the cakes had a rather worse for wear appearance, but they were
+appreciated as much as though just from the confectioner. No one was
+forgotten, even Mrs. Tuckley, busily stitching on a muslin garment on
+the steps, and unctuously rolling the latest morsel of scandal under her
+tongue, was obliged to confess that "them Hartses wasn't such bad people
+after all, just a bit queer at times."
+
+About two o'clock, just as Lillian was re-draping the tidies on the
+stiff, common plush chairs in the parlor, some one pulled the bell
+violently. The visitor, a rather good-looking young fellow, with a
+worried expression smiled somewhat sarcastically as he heard a sound of
+scuffling and running within the house.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Presently Mrs. Hart opened the door wiping her hand, red and smoking
+with dish-water, upon her apron. The worried expression deepened on the
+visitor's face as he addressed the woman with visible embarrassment.
+
+"Er--I--I--suppose you are Mrs. Hart?" he inquired awkwardly.
+
+"That's my name, sir," replied she with pretentious dignity.
+
+"Er--your-er--may I come in madam?
+
+"Certainly," and she opened the door to admit him, and offered a chair.
+
+"Your husband is an employee in the Fisher Oil Mills, is he not?"
+
+Mrs. Hart straightened herself with pride as she replied in the
+affirmative. She had always been proud of Mr. Hart's position as foreman
+of the big oil mills, and was never so happy as when he was expounding
+to some one in her presence, the difficulties and intricacies of
+machine-work.
+
+"Well you see my dear Mrs. Hart," continued the visitor. "Now pray don't
+get excited--there has been an accident, and your husband--has--er--been
+hurt, you know."
+
+But for a painful whitening in her usually rosy face, and a quick
+compression of her lips, the wife made no sign.
+
+"What was the accident?" she queried, leaning her elbows on her knees.
+
+"Well, you see, I don't understand machinery and the like, but there was
+something about a wheel out of gear, and a band bursted, or something,
+anyhow a big wheel flew to pieces, and as he was standing near, he was
+hit."
+
+"Where?"
+
+"Well--well, I may as well tell you the truth, madam; a large piece of
+the wheel struck him on the head--and--he was killed instantly."
+
+She did not faint, nor make any outcry, nor tear her hair as he had
+partly expected, but sat still staring at him, with a sort of helpless,
+dumb horror shining out her eyes, then with a low moan, bowed her head
+on her knees and shuddered, just as Lillian came in, curious to know
+what the handsome stranger had to say to her mother.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The poor mutilated body came home at last, and was laid in a stiff,
+silver-decorated, black coffin in the middle of the sitting-room, which
+had been made to look as uncomfortable and unnatural as mirrors and
+furniture shrouded in sheets and mantel and tables divested of ornaments
+would permit.
+
+There was a wake that night to the unconfined joy of the neighbors, who
+would rather a burial than a wedding. The friends of the family sat
+about the coffin, and through the house with long pulled faces. Mrs.
+Tuckley officiated in the kitchen, making coffee and dispensing cheese
+and crackers to those who were hungry. As the night wore on, and the
+first restraint disappeared, jokes were cracked, and quiet laughter
+indulged in, while the young folks congregated in the kitchen, were
+hilariously happy, until some member of the family would appear, when
+every face would sober down.
+
+The older persons contented themselves with recounting the virtues of
+the deceased, and telling anecdotes wherein he figured largely. It was
+astonishing how many intimate friends of his had suddenly come to
+light. Every other man present had either attended school with him, or
+was a close companion until he died. Proverbs and tales and witty
+sayings were palmed off as having emanated from his lips. In fact, the
+dead man would have been surprised himself, had he suddenly come to life
+and discovered what an important, what a modern solomon he had become.
+
+The long night dragged on, and the people departed in groups of twos and
+threes, until when the gray dawn crept slowly over the blackness of
+night shrouding the electric lights in mists of cloudy blue, and sending
+cold chills of dampness through the house, but a few of the great crowd
+remained.
+
+The day seemed so gray in contrast to the softening influence of the
+night, the grief which could be hidden then, must now come forth and
+parade itself before all eyes. There was the funeral to prepare for; the
+dismal black dresses and bonnets with their long crape veils to don;
+there were the condolences of sorrowing friends to receive; the floral
+offerings to be looked at. The little Harts strutted about resplendent
+in stiff black cravats, and high crape bands about their hats. They were
+divided between two conflicting emotions--joy at belonging to a family
+so noteworthy and important, and sorrow at the death. As the time for
+the funeral approached, and Lillian began to indulge in a series of
+fainting fits, the latter feeling predominated.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"Well it was all over at last, the family had returned, and as on two
+nights previous, sat once more in the deserted and dismantled parlor.
+Mrs. Tuckley and Mrs. Luke, having rendered all assistance possible, had
+repaired to their respective front steps to keep count of the number of
+visitors who returned to condole with the family.
+
+"A real nice funeral," remarked the dress-maker at last, "a nice
+funeral. Everybody took it so hard, and Lillian fainted real beautiful.
+She's a good girl that Lillian. Poor things, I wonder what they'll do
+now."
+
+Stella, the irrepressible, was busily engaged balancing herself on one
+toe, _a la_ ballet.
+
+"Mebbe she's goin' to get married," she volunteered eagerly, "'cos I saw
+that yeller-haired young man what comes there all the time, wif his arms
+around her waist, and a tellin' her not to grieve as he'd take care of
+her. I was a peepin' in the dinin'-room."
+
+"How dare you peep at other folks, and pry into people's affairs? I
+can't imagine where you get your meddlesome ways from. There aint none
+in _my family_. Next time I catch you at it, I'll spank you good." Then,
+after a pause, "Well what else did he say?"
+
+
+
+
+FAREWELL.
+
+
+  Farewell, sweetheart, and again farewell;
+  To day we part, and who can tell
+    If we shall e'er again
+  Meet, and with clasped hands
+  Renew our vows of love, and forget
+    The sad, dull pain.
+
+  Dear heart, 'tis bitter thus to lose thee
+  And think mayhap, you will forget me;
+    And yet, I thrill
+  As I remember long and happy days
+  Fraught with sweet love and pleasant memories
+    That linger still
+
+  You go to loved ones who will smile
+  And clasp you in their arms, and all the while
+    I stay and moan
+  For you, my love, my heart and strive
+  To gather up life's dull, gray thread
+    And walk alone.
+
+  Aye, with you love the red and gold
+  Goes from my life, and leaves it cold
+    And dull and bare,
+  Why should I strive to live and learn
+  And smile and jest, and daily try
+    You from my heart to tare?
+
+  Nay, sweetheart, rather would I lie
+  Me down, and sleep for aye; or fly
+    To regions far
+  Where cruel Fate is not and lovers live
+  Nor feel the grim, cold hand of Destiny
+    Their way to bar.
+
+  I murmur not, dear love, I only say
+  Again farewell. God bless the day
+    On which we met,
+  And bless you too, my love, and be with you
+  In sorrow or in happiness, nor let you
+    E'er me forget.
+
+
+
+
+LITTLE MISS SOPHIE.
+
+
+When Miss Sophie knew consciousness again, the long, faint, swelling
+notes of the organ were dying away in distant echoes through the great
+arches of the silent church, and she was alone, crouching in a little,
+forsaken, black heap at the altar of the Virgin. The twinkling tapers
+seemed to smile pityingly upon her, the beneficent smile of the
+white-robed Madonna seemed to whisper comfort. A long gust of chill air
+swept up the aisles, and Miss Sophie shivered, not from cold, but from
+nervousness.
+
+But darkness was falling, and soon the lights would be lowered, and the
+great, massive doors would be closed, so gathering her thin little cape
+about her frail shoulders, Miss Sophie hurried out, and along the
+brilliant noisy streets home.
+
+It was a wretched, lonely little room, where the cracks let the
+boisterous wind whistle through, and the smoky, grimy walls looked
+cheerless and unhomelike. A miserable little room in a miserable little
+cottage in one of the squalid streets of the Third District that nature
+and the city fathers seemed to have forgotten.
+
+As bare and comfortless the room, so was Miss Sophie's lonely life. She
+rented these four walls from an unkempt little Creole woman, whose
+progeny seemed like the promised offspring of Abraham,--multitudinous.
+The flickering life in the pale little body she scarcely kept there by
+the unceasing toil of a pair of bony hands, stitching, stitching,
+ceaselessly, wearingly on the bands and pockets of pants. It was her
+bread, this monotonous, unending work, and though while days and nights
+constant labor brought but the most meagre recompense, it was her only
+hope of life.
+
+She sat before the little charcoal brazier and warmed her transparent,
+needle-pricked fingers, thinking meanwhile of the strange events of the
+day. She had been up town to carry the great, black bundle of pants and
+vests to the factory and receive her small pittance, and on the way home
+stopped in at the Jesuit Church to say her little prayer at the altar of
+the calm, white Virgin. There had been a wondrous burst of music from
+the great organ as she knelt there, an over-powering perfume of many
+flowers, the glittering dazzle of many lights, and the dainty frou-frou
+of silken skirts of wedding guests filing and tripping. So Miss Sophie
+stayed to the wedding, for what feminine heart, be it ever so old and
+seared, does not delight in one? And why shouldn't a poor little Creole
+old maid be interested too?
+
+When the wedding party had filed in solemnly, to the rolling, swelling,
+pealing tones of the organ. Important-looking groomsmen, dainty, fluffy,
+white-robed maids, stately, satin-robed, illusion-veiled bride, and
+happy groom. She leaned forward to catch a better glimpse of their
+faces. Ah!--
+
+Those near the Virgin's altar who heard a faint sigh and rustle on the
+steps glanced curiously as they saw a slight, black-robed figure clutch
+the railing and lean her head against it. Miss Sophie had fainted.
+
+"I must have been hungry," she mused over the charcoal fire in her
+little room, "I must have been hungry," and she smiled a wan smile, and
+busied herself getting her evening meal of coffee and bread and ham.
+
+If one were given to pity, the first thought that would rush to one's
+lips at sight of Miss Sophie would have been: Poor little Miss Sophie!
+She had come among the bareness and sordidness of this neighborhood five
+years ago, robed in crepe, and crying with great sobs that seemed to
+fairly shake the vitality out of her. Perfectly silent, too, about her
+former life, but for all that, Michel, the quarter grocer at the corner,
+and Mme. Laurent, who kept the rabbe shop opposite, had fixed it all up
+between them, of her sad history and past glories. Not that they knew,
+but then Michel must invent something when the neighbors came to him,
+their fountain head of wisdom.
+
+One morning little Miss Sophie opened wide her dingy windows to catch
+the early freshness of the autumn wind as it whistled through the
+yellow-leafed trees. It was one of those calm, blue-misted, balmy,
+November days that New Orleans can have when all the rest of the country
+is fur-wrapped. Miss Sophie pulled her machine to the window, where the
+sweet, damp wind could whisk among her black locks.
+
+Whirr, whirr, went the machine, ticking fast and lightly over the belts
+of the rough jean pants. Whirr, whirr, yes, and Miss Sophie was actually
+humming a tune! She felt strangely light to-day.
+
+"_Ma foi_," muttered Michel, strolling across the street to where Mme.
+Laurent sat sewing behind the counter on blue and brown-checked aprons,
+"but the little ma'amselle sings. Perhaps she recollects."
+
+"Perhaps," muttered the rabbe woman.
+
+But little Miss Sophie felt restless. A strange impulse seemed drawing
+her up town, and the machine seemed to run slow, slow, before it would
+stitch the endless number of jean belts. Her fingers trembled with
+nervous haste as she pinned up the unwieldy black bundle of the finished
+work, and her feet fairly tripped over each other in their eagerness to
+get to Claiborne Street, where she could board the up-town car. There
+was a feverish desire to go somewhere, a sense of elation,--foolish
+happiness that brought a faint echo of color into her pinched cheeks.
+She wondered why.
+
+No one noticed her in the car. Passengers on the Claiborne line are too
+much accustomed to frail, little black-robed women with big, black
+bundles; it is one of the city's most pitiful sights. She leaned her
+head out of the window to catch a glimpse of the oleanders on Bayou
+Road, when her attention was caught by a conversation in the car.
+
+"Yes, it's too bad for Neale, and lately married too," said the elder
+man, "I can't see what he is to do."
+
+Neale! she pricked up her ears. That was the name of the groom in the
+Jesuit church.
+
+"How did it happen?" languidly inquired the younger. He was a stranger,
+evidently; a stranger with a high regard for the faultlessness of male
+attire, too.
+
+"Well, the firm failed first; he didn't mind that much, he was so sure
+of his uncle's inheritance repairing his lost fortunes, but suddenly
+this difficulty of identification springs up, and he is literally on the
+verge of ruin."
+
+"Won't some of you fellows who've known him all your lives do to
+identify him?"
+
+"Gracious man, we've tried, but the absurd old will expressly stipulates
+that he shall be known only by a certain quaint Roman ring, and unless
+he has it--no identification, no fortune. He has given the ring away and
+that settles it."
+
+"Well, you're all chumps. Why doesn't he get the ring from the owner?"
+
+"Easily said--but--It seems that Neale had some little Creole
+love-affair some years ago and gave this ring to his dusky-eyed fiancee.
+But you know how Neale is with his love-affairs, went off and forgot the
+girl in a month. It seems, however, she took it to heart,--so much so
+until he's ashamed to try to find her or the ring."
+
+Miss Sophie heard no more as she gazed out into the dusty grass. There
+were tears in her eyes, hot blinding ones that wouldn't drop for pride,
+but stayed and scalded. She knew the story with all its embellishments
+of heartaches. The ring, too; she remembered the day she had kissed and
+wept and fondled it, until it seemed her heart must burst under its load
+of grief before she took it to the pawn broker's that another might be
+eased before the end came,--that other, her father. The "little Creole
+love affair" of Neale's had not always been poor and old and
+jaded-looking; but reverses must come, even Neale knew that--so the ring
+was at the _Mont de Piete_.
+
+Still he must have it, it was his; it would save him from disgrace and
+suffering, and from trailing the proud head of the white-gowned bride
+into sorrow. He must have it,--but how?
+
+There it was still at the pawn-broker's, no one would have such a jewel,
+and the ticket was home in the bureau drawer. Well, he must have it; she
+might starve in the attempt. Such a thing as going to him and telling
+him that he might redeem it was an impossibility. That good,
+straight-backed, stiff-necked Creole blood would have risen in all its
+strength and choked her. No; as a present had the quaint Roman circlet
+been placed upon her finger,--as a present should it be returned.
+
+The bumping car rode heavily, and the hot thoughts beat heavily in her
+poor little head. He must have the ring--but how--the ring--the Roman
+ring--the white-robed bride starving--she was going mad--ah yes,--the
+church.
+
+Right in the busiest, most bustling part of the town, its fresco and
+bronze and iron quaintly suggestive of mediæval times. Within, all cool
+and dim and restful, with the faintest whiff of lingering incense rising
+and pervading the gray arches. Yes, the Virgin would know and have pity;
+the sweet, white-robed Virgin at the pretty flower-decked altar, or the
+one away up in the niche, far above the golden dome where the Host was.
+Holy Mary, Mother of God. Poor little Miss Sophie.
+
+Titiche, the busy-body of the house, noticed that Miss Sophie's bundle
+was larger than usual that afternoon. "Ah, poor woman!" sighed Titiche's
+mother, "she would be rich for Christmas."
+
+The bundle grew larger each day, and Miss Sophie grew smaller. The
+damp, cold rain and mist closed the white-curtained window, but always
+there behind the sewing machine drooped and bobbed the little
+black-robed figure. Whirr, whirr went the wheels, and the coarse jean
+pants piled in great heaps at her side. The Claiborne street car saw her
+oftener than before, and the sweet, white Virgin in the flowered niche
+above the gold-domed altar smiled at the little penitent almost every
+day.
+
+"_Ma foi_," said the slatternly landlady to Madame Laurent and Michel one
+day, "I no see how she live! Eat? Nothing, nothing, almost, and las'
+night when it was so cold and foggy, eh? I hav' to mek him build fire.
+She mos' freeze."
+
+Whereupon the rumor spread that Miss Sophie was starving herself to
+death to get some luckless relative out of jail for Christmas,--a rumor
+which enveloped her scraggy little figure with a kind of halo to the
+neighbors when she appeared on the streets.
+
+November had verged into December and the little pile of coins were yet
+far from the sum needed. Dear God! how the money did have to go. The
+rent, and the groceries and the coal,--though, to be sure, she used a
+precious bit of that. All the work and saving and skimping,--maybe, yes,
+maybe by Christmas. What a gift!
+
+Christmas Eve night on Royal Street is no place for a weakling, for the
+shouts and carousals of the roisterers will strike fear into the brave.
+Yet amid the cries and yells, the deafening blow of horns and tin
+whistles and the really dangerous fusillade of fireworks, the little
+figure hurried along, one hand clutching tight the battered hat that the
+rude merry-makers would have torn off, the other grasping under the
+thin, black cape a worn little pocketbook.
+
+Into the _Mont de Piete_, breathless, eager. The ticket? Here, worn,
+crumpled. The ring? It was not gone? No, thank Heaven! It was really a
+joy well worth her toil, she thought, to have it again.
+
+Had Titiche not been shooting crackers on the banquette instead of
+peering into the crack, as was his wont, his big, round, black eyes
+would have grown saucer-wide to see little Miss Sophie kiss and fondle a
+ring, an ugly clumsy band of gold.
+
+"Ah, dear ring," she murmured, once you were his, and you shall be his
+again. You shall be on his finger, and perhaps touch his heart. Dear
+ring, _ma chere petite, de ma coeur, cheri, de ma coeur. Je t'aime, je
+t'aime, oui, oui._ You are his, you were mine once too. To-night, just
+one night, I'll keep you--then--tomorrow, where you can save him.
+
+"Ah, the Virgin--she smiles at me because I did right, did I not sweet
+mother? She smiles--and--I grow--faint--"
+
+The loud whistles and horns of the little ones rose on the balmy air
+next morning. No one would doubt it was Christmas Day, even if doors
+and windows are open wide to let in cool air.
+
+Why, there was Christmas even in the very look of the mules on the poky
+cars; there was Christmas noise in the streets, and Christmas toys and
+Christmas odors, savory ones that made the nose wrinkle approvingly,
+issuing from the kitchen. Michel and Mme. Laurent smiled greetings
+across the street at each other, and the salutation from a passer-by
+recalled the many progenied landlady to herself.
+
+"Miss Sophie, well, poor soul, not very much Christmas for her. _Mais_,
+I'll just call her in to spend the day with me. It'll cheer her a bit."
+
+So clean and orderly within the poor little room. Not a speck of dust or
+a litter of any kind on the quaint little old-time high bureau, unless
+you might except a sheet of paper lying loose with something written on
+it. Titiche had evidently inherited his prying propensities for the
+landlady turned it over and read:
+
+"Louis. Here is the ring. I return it to you. I heard you needed it, I
+hope it comes not too late. Sophie."
+
+"The ring, where?" muttered the landlady. There it was, clasped between
+her fingers on her bosom. A bosom, white and cold, under a cold, happy
+face. Christmas had indeed dawned for Miss Sophie--the eternal
+Christmas.
+
+
+
+
+IF I HAD KNOWN.
+
+
+    If I had known
+  Two years ago how drear this life should be,
+  And crowd upon itself allstrangely sad,
+  Mayhap another song would burst from out my lips,
+  Overflowing with the happiness of future hopes;
+  Mayhap another throb than that of joy.
+  Have stirred my soul into its inmost depths,
+                    If I had known.
+
+  If I had known,
+  Two years ago the impotence of love,
+  The vainness of a kiss, how barren a caress,
+  Mayhap my soul to higher things have soarn,
+  Nor clung to earthly loves and tender dreams,
+  But ever up aloft into the blue empyrean,
+  And there to master all the world of mind,
+                    If I had known.
+
+
+
+
+CHALMETLE.
+
+
+  Wreaths of lilies and immortelles,
+  Scattered upon each silent mound,
+  Voices in loving remembrance swell,
+  Chanting to heaven the solemn sound.
+  Glad skies above, and glad earth beneath;
+  And grateful hearts who silently
+  Gather earth's flowers, and tenderly wreath
+  Woman's sweet token of fragility.
+
+  Ah, the noble forms who fought so well
+  Lie, some unnamed, 'neath the grassy mound;
+  Heroes, brave heroes, the stories tell,
+  Silently too, the unmarked mounds,
+  Tenderly wreath them about with flowers,
+  Joyously pour out your praises loud;
+  For every joy beat in these hearts of ours
+  Is only a drawing us nearer to God.
+
+  Little enough is the song we sing,
+  Little enough is the tale we tell,
+  When we think of the voices who erst did ring
+  Ere their owners in smoke of battle fell.
+  Little enough are the flowers we cull
+  To scatter afar on the grass-grown graves,
+  When we think of bright eyes, now dimmed and dull
+  For the cause they loyally strove to save.
+
+  And they fought right well, did these brave men,
+  For their banner still floats unto the breeze,
+  And the pæans of ages forever shall tell
+  Their glorious tale beyond the seas.
+  Ring out your voices in praises loud,
+  Sing sweet your notes of music gay,
+  Tell me in all you loyal crowd
+  Throbs there a heart unmoved to-day?
+
+  Meeting together again this year,
+  As met we in fealty and love before;
+  Men, maids, and matrons to reverently hear
+  Praises of brave men who fought of yore.
+  Tell to the little ones with wondering eyes,
+  The tale of the flag that floats so free;
+  Till their tiny voices shall merrily rise
+  In hymns of rejoicing and praises to Thee.
+
+  Many a pure and noble heart
+  Lies under the sod, all covered with green;
+  Many a soul that had felt the smart
+  Of life's sad torture, or mayhap had seen
+  The faint hope of love pass afar from the sight,
+  Like swift flight of bird to a rarer clime
+  Many a youth whose death caused the blight
+  Of tender hearts in that long, sad time.
+
+  Nay, but this is no hour for sorrow;
+  They died at their duty, shall we repine?
+  Let us gaze hopefully on to the morrow
+  Praying that our lives thus shall shine.
+  Ring out your bugles, sound out your cheers!
+  Man has been God-like so may we be.
+  Give cheering thanks, there dry up those tears,
+  Widowed and orphaned, the country is free!
+
+  Wreathes of lillies and immortelles,
+  Scattered upon each silent mound,
+  Voices in loving remembrance swell,
+  Chanting to heaven the solemn sound,
+  Glad skies above, and glad earth beneath,
+  And grateful hearts who silently
+  Gather earth's flowers, and tenderly wreath
+  Woman's sweet token of fragility.
+
+
+
+
+AT EVENTIDE.
+
+
+All day had she watched and waited for his coming, and still her
+strained ears caught no sounds of the footsteps she loved and longed to
+hear. All day while the great sun panted on his way around the brazen
+skies; all day while the busy world throbbed its mighty engines of
+labor, nor witted of the breaking hearts in its midst. And now when the
+eve had come, and the sun sank slowly to rest, casting his red rays over
+the earth he loved, and bidding tired nature a gentle radiant
+good-night, she still watched and waited. Waited while the young moon
+shone silvery in the crimson flush of the eastern sky, while the one
+bright star trembled as he strove to near his love; waited while the hum
+of soul-wearing traffic died in the distant streets, and the merry
+voices of happy children floated to her ears.
+
+And still he came not. What kept him from her side? Had he learned the
+cold lesson of self-control, or found one other thing more potent than
+love? Had some cruel chain of circumstances forced him to disobey her
+bidding--or--did he love another? But no, she smiles triumphantly, he
+could not having known and loved her.
+
+Sitting in the deep imbrasure of the window through which the distant
+wave sounds of city life floated to her, the pages of her life seemed to
+turn back, and she read the almost forgotten tale of long ago, the story
+of their love. In those days his wish had been her law; his smile her
+sun; his frown her wretchedness. Within his arms, earth seemed a
+far-away dream of empty nothingness, and when his lips touched and clung
+to hers, sweet with the perfume of the South they floated away into a
+Paradise of enfolding space, where Time and Death and the woes of this
+great earth are naught, only these two--and love, the almighty.
+
+And so their happiness drifted slowly across the sea of Time until it
+struck a cruel rock, whose sharp teeth showed not above the dimpled
+waves; and where once had been a craft of strength and beauty, now was
+only a hideous wreck. For the Tempter had come into this Eden, and soon
+his foul whisper found place in her heart.
+
+And the Tempter's name was Ambition.
+
+Often had the praises and plaudits of men rang in her ears when her
+sweet voice sang to her chosen friends, often had the tears evoked by
+her songs of love and hope and trust, thrilled her breast faintly, as
+the young bird stirs in its nest under the loving mother's wing, but he
+had clasped his arms around her, and that was enough. But one day the
+Tempter whispered, "Why waste such talent; bring that beauty of voice
+before the world and see men bow in homage, and women envy and praise.
+Come forth and follow me."
+
+But she put him fiercely aside, and cried, "I want no homage but his, I
+want no envy from any one."
+
+Still the whisper stayed in her heart, nor would the honeyed words of
+praise be gone, even when he kissed her, and thanked the gods for this
+pearl of great price.
+
+Then as time fled on, the tiny whisper grew into a great roar, and all
+the praise of men, and the sweet words of women, filled her brain, and
+what had once been her aversion became a great desire, and caused her
+brow to grow thoughtful, and her eyes moody.
+
+But when she spoke to him of this new love, he smiled and said, "My wife
+must be mine, and mine alone. I want not a woman whom the world claims,
+and shouts her name abroad. My wife and my home must be inviolate." And
+again as of yore, his wish controlled her--but only for a while.
+
+Then the tiny whisper grown into the great roar urging her on, became a
+mighty wind which drove her before it, nor could she turn aside from the
+path of ambition, but swept on, and conquered.
+
+Ah, sweet, sweet the exultation of the victor! Dear the plaudits of the
+admiring world; wild the joy, when queen of song, admired of men, she
+stood upon the pinnacle of fame! And he? True to his old convictions,
+turned sadly from the woman who placed the admiration of the world
+before his love and the happiness of his home--and went out from her
+life broken-hearted, disappointed, miserable.
+
+All these things, and more, she thought upon in the first flush of
+eventide, as the bold, young star climbed toward his lady-love, the
+moon, all these things, and what had come to pass after the victory.
+
+For there came a day when the world wearied of its toy, and turned with
+shouts of joy, and wreaths of fresh laurels for the new star. Then came
+disappointments and miseries crowding fast upon her; the sorrows which
+a loving heart knows when it finds its idols faithless. Then the love
+for him which she had once repressed arose in all its strength which had
+gained during the long struggle with the world, arose and overwhelmed
+her with its might, and filled her soul with an unutterable longing for
+peace and rest and him.
+
+She wrote to him and told him all her heart, and begged of him to come
+back to her, for Fame was but an empty bubble while love was supreme and
+the only happiness, after all. And now she waited while the crimson and
+gold of the west grew dark, and gray and lowering.
+
+Hark! She hears his loved step. He comes, ah, joy of heaven he comes!
+Soon will he clasp her in his arms, and there on his bosom shall she
+know peace and rest and love.
+
+As he enters the door she hastens to meet him, the love-light shining in
+her tired eyes, her soft rounded arms outstretched to meet him. But he
+folds her not in his embrace, nor yet does he look with love into her
+upturned eyes; the voice she loves, ah so well, breaks upon the dusky
+silence, pitiless, stern.
+
+"Most faithless of faithless women, think you that like the toy of a
+fickle child I can be thrown aside, then picked up again? Think you that
+I can take a soiled lily to my bosom? Think you that I can cherish the
+gaudy sun-flower that ever turns to the broad, brazen glare of the
+uncaring sun, rather than the modest shrinking violet? Nay, be not
+deceived, I loved you once, but that love you killed in its youth and
+beauty leaving me to stand and weep alone over its grave. I came
+to-night, not to kiss you, and to forgive you as you entreat, but to
+tell that you I have wed another."
+
+The pitiless voice ceased, and she was alone in the dusky silence; alone
+in all the shame and agony and grief of unrequited love and worthless
+fame. Alone to writhe and groan in despair while the roseate flush of
+eventide passed into the coldness of midnight.
+
+Oh faithless woman, oh, faithless man! How frail the memory of thy
+binding vows, thy blissful hours of love! Are they forgotten? Only the
+record of broken hearts and loveless lives will show.
+
+
+
+
+THE IDLER.
+
+
+  An idle lingerer on the wayside's road,
+  He gathers up his work and yawns away;
+  A little longer, ere the tiresome load
+  Shall be reduced to ashes or to clay.
+
+  No matter if the world has marched along,
+  And scorned his slowness as it quickly passed;
+  No matter, if amid the busy throng,
+  He greets some face, infantile at the last.
+
+  His mission? Well, there is but one,
+  And if it is a mission he knows it, nay,
+  To be a happy idler, to lounge and sun,
+  And dreaming, pass his long-drawn days away.
+
+  So dreams he on, his happy life to pass
+  Content, without ambitions painful sighs,
+  Until the sands run down into the glass;
+  He smiles--content--unmoved and dies.
+
+  And yet, with all the pity that you feel
+  For this poor mothling of that flame, the world;
+  Are you the better for your desperate deal,
+  When you, like him, into infinitude are hurled?
+
+
+
+
+LOVE AND THE BUTTERFLY.
+
+
+  I heard a merry voice one day
+  And glancing at my side,
+  Fair Love, all breathless, flushed with play,
+  A butterfly did ride.
+  "Whither away, oh sportive boy?"
+  I asked, he tossed his head;
+  Laughing aloud for purest joy,
+  And past me swiftly sped.
+
+  Next day I heard a plaintive cry
+  And Love crept in my arms;
+  Weeping he held the butterfly,
+  Devoid of all its charms.
+  Sweet words of comfort, whispered I
+  Into his dainty ears,
+  But Love still hugged the butterfly,
+  And bathed its wounds with tears.
+
+
+
+
+THE BEE-MAN.
+
+
+We were glancing over the mental photograph album, and commenting on the
+great lack of dissimilarity in tastes. Nearly every one preferred spring
+to any other season, with a very few exceptions in favor of autumn. The
+women loved Mrs. Browning and Longfellow; the men showed decided
+preferences after Emerson and Macauley. Conceit stuck out when the
+majority wanted to be themselves and none other, and only two did not
+want to live in the 19th century. But in one place, in answer to the
+question, "Whom would you rather be, if not yourself?" the answer was,
+
+"A baby!"
+
+"Why would you rather be a baby than any other personage?" queried
+someone glancing at the writer, who blushed as she replied.
+
+"Because then I might be able to live a better life, I might have better
+opportunities and better chances for improving them, and it would bring
+me nearer the 20th century."
+
+"About eight or nine years ago," said the first speaker, "I remember
+reading a story in a magazine for young folks. It was merely a fairy
+story, and perhaps was not intended to point a moral, but only to amuse
+the little ones. It was something on this order:--"
+
+Once upon a time, there lived in an out of the way spot an ancient
+decrepit Bee-man. How old he was no one knew; whence he came, no one
+could tell: to the memory of the oldest inhabitant he had always lived
+in his dirty hut, surrounded by myriads of hives, attended always by a
+swarm of bees. He was good to the bits of children, and always ready
+with a sweet morsel of honeycomb for them. All his ambitions,
+sympathies and hopes were centered in his hives; until one day a fairy
+crept into his hut and whispered:
+
+"You have not always been a common bee-man. Once you were something
+else."
+
+"Tell me what I was," he asked eagerly.
+
+"Nay, that I cannot do," replied the fairy, "our queen sent me to tell
+you this, and if you wished to search for your former self, I am to
+assist you. You must search the entire valley, and the first thing you
+meet to which you become violently attached, that is what you formerly
+were, and I shall give you back your correct form."
+
+So the next morning the Bee-man, strapping his usual hive upon his back,
+and accompanied by the fairy in the form of a queen bee, set out upon
+his search throughout the valley. At first he became violently attached
+to the handsome person and fine castle of the Lord of the Realm, but on
+being kicked out of the lord's domains, his love turned to dislike.
+
+The Bee-man and the fairy travelled far and wide and carefully inspected
+every thing they met. The very Imp, the Languid young man, the
+Hippogriffith, the Thousand Tailed Hippopotamus, and many other types,
+until the Bee-man grew weary and was about to give up the search in
+disgust.
+
+But suddenly amid all the vast halls of the enchanted domains through
+which they were wandering, there sounded shrieks and wails, and the
+inmates were thrown into the greatest confusion by the sight of the
+hideous hippogriffith dashing through, a million sparks emanating from
+his great eyes, his barbed tail waving high in the air, and holding in
+his talons a tiny infant.
+
+Now, as soon as the Bee-man saw this, a great wave of sorrow and pity
+filled his breast, and he hastily followed the monster, arriving at his
+cave just in time to see him preparing to devour his prey. Madly dashing
+his hive of bees into the hippogriffith's face, and seizing the infant
+while the disturbed and angry bees stung and swarmed, the Bee-man rushed
+out followed by the Very Imp, the Languid young man and the fairy, and
+made his way to the child's mother. Just as soon as the baby was safely
+restored, the Bee-man ruminated thoughtfully awhile and finally remarked
+to the fairy:
+
+"Do you know of all the things I have met so far, I liked the baby best
+of all, so I think I must have been a baby once!"
+
+"Right you are," assented the fairy, "I knew it before, but, of course,
+I couldn't tell. Now I shall change you into your former shape, but
+remember, you must try to be something better than a Bee-man."
+
+The Bee-man promised and was instantly changed into a baby. The fairy
+inoculated him from harm with a bee-sting, and gave him to the rescued
+infant's mother.
+
+Nearly a cycle passed by, and one day the fairy having business in the
+valley, thought she would make inquiries concerning her protege. In her
+way she happened to pass a little, low, curious hut, with many bee hives
+about it, and swarms of bees flying in and out. The fairy, tired as
+well as curious, peeped in and discovered an ancient man attending to
+the wants of his pets. Upon a closer inspection, she recognized her
+infant of years ago. He had become a bee-man again!
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"It points a pretty little moral," said the Fatalist, "for it certainly
+proves that do what we will, we cannot get away from our natures. It was
+inherent in that man's nature to tend bees. Bee-ing was the occupation
+chosen for him by Fate, and had the beneficent Fairy changed him a dozen
+times, he would ultimately have gone to bee-ing in some form or other."
+
+The Fatalist was doubtless right, for it seems as though the inherent
+things in our nature must come out. But if we want to dig deep into the
+child's story for metaphysical morals, does it not also uphold the
+theory of re-incarnation? the ancient bee-man, perhaps is but a type of
+humanity growing old, and settled in its mode of living, while the fairy
+is but thought, whispering into our souls things half dread half
+pleasant.
+
+There are moments when the consciousness of a former life comes sharply
+upon us, in swift, lightning flashes, too sudden to be tangible, too
+dazzling to leave an impress, or mayhap, in troubled dreams that
+bewilder and confuse with vague remembrances. If only a burst of memory
+would come upon some mortal, that the tale might be fully told, and
+these theories established as facts. It would unfold great possibilities
+of historical lore; of literary life; of religious speculation.
+
+
+
+
+AMID THE ROSES.
+
+
+  There is tropical warmth and languorous life
+    Where the roses lie
+    In a tempting drift
+  Of pink and red and golden light
+  Untouched as yet by the pruning knife.
+  And the still, warm life of the roses fair
+    That whisper "Come,"
+    With promises
+  Of sweet caresses, close and pure
+  Has a thorny whiff in the perfumed air.
+  There are thorns and love in the roses' bed,
+    And Satan too
+    Must linger there;
+  So Satan's wiles and the conscience stings,
+  Must now abide--the roses are _dead_.
+
+
+
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+<h1>The Project Gutenberg eBook, Violets and Other Tales, by Alice Ruth Moore</h1>
+<pre>
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at <a href = "http://www.gutenberg.org">www.gutenberg.org</a></pre>
+<p>Title: Violets and Other Tales</p>
+<p>Author: Alice Ruth Moore</p>
+<p>Release Date: June 29, 2006  [eBook #18713]</p>
+<p>Language: English</p>
+<p>Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1</p>
+<p>***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK VIOLETS AND OTHER TALES***</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<h3>E-text prepared by Suzanne Shell, Janet Blenkinship,<br />
+    and the Project Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team<br />
+    (http://www.pgdp.net/)</h3>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<hr class="full" />
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter"><img src="images/img002.jpg" alt="Ornamental Front Plate" title="Ornamental Front Plate" /></div>
+
+<h1>VIOLETS AND OTHER TALES</h1>
+<p><br /><br /></p>
+
+<h2>ALICE&middot;RUTH&middot;MOORE</h2>
+<p><br /><br /></p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p class='center'>
+  Copyright 1895<br />
+  BY THE MONTHLY REVIEW<br />
+  All rights reserved
+</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><br /><br /></p>
+<h2>To my friend of November 5th, 1892</h2>
+<p><br /><br /></p>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="INTRODUCTION" id="INTRODUCTION"></a>INTRODUCTION.</h2>
+
+
+<p>In this day when the world is fairly teeming with books,&mdash;good books,
+books written with a motive, books inculcating morals, books teaching
+lessons,&mdash;it seems almost a piece of presumption too great for endurance
+to foist another upon the market. There is scarcely room in the literary
+world for amateurs and maiden efforts; the very worthiest are sometimes
+poorly repaid for their best efforts. Yet, another one is offered the
+public, a maiden effort,&mdash;a little thing with absolutely nothing to
+commend it, that seeks to do nothing more than amuse.</p>
+
+<p>Many of these sketches and verses have appeared in print before, in
+newspapers and a magazine or two; many are seeing the light of day for
+the first time. If perchance this collection of idle thoughts may serve
+to while away an hour or two, or lift for a brief space the load of care
+from someone's mind, their purpose has been served&mdash;the author is
+satisfied.</p>
+
+<p class='author'>A. R. M.</p>
+
+<h3>CONTENTS.</h3>
+
+
+
+<div class='center'>
+<table border="0" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="0" summary="Table of Contents">
+<tr><td align='left'><a href="#INTRODUCTION"><span class="smcap">Introduction.</span></a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'><a href="#PREFACE"><span class="smcap">Preface.</span></a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'><a href="#VIOLETS"><span class="smcap">Violets.</span></a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'><a href="#THREE_THOUGHTS"><span class="smcap">Three Thoughts.</span></a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'><a href="#THE_WOMAN"><span class="smcap">The Woman</span>.</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'><a href="#TEN_MINUTES_MUSING"><span class="smcap">Ten Minutes' Musing.</span></a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'><a href="#A_PLAINT"><span class="smcap">A Plaint</span>.</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'><a href="#IN_UNCONSCIOUSNESS"><span class="smcap">In Unconsciousness</span>.</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'><a href="#TITEE"><span class="smcap">Titee</span>.</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'><a href="#ANARCHY_ALLEY"><span class="smcap">Anarchy Alley.</span></a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'><a href="#IMPRESSIONS"><span class="smcap">Impressions</span>.</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'><a href="#SALAMMBO"><span class="smcap">Salammbo</span>.</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'><a href="#LEGEND_OF_THE_NEWSPAPER"><span class="smcap">Legend of the Newspaper</span>.</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'><a href="#A_CARNIVAL_JANGLE"><span class="smcap">A Carnival Jangle</span>.</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'><a href="#PAUL_TO_VIRGINIA"><span class="smcap">Paul to Virginia</span> (Fin de Siecle).</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'><a href="#THE_MAIDENS_DREAM"><span class="smcap">The Maiden's Dream</span>.</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'><a href="#IN_MEMORIAM"><span class="smcap">In Memoriam</span>.</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'><a href="#A_STORY_OF_VENGEANCE"><span class="smcap">A Story of Vengeance</span>.</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'><a href="#AT_BAY_ST_LOUIS"><span class="smcap">At Bay St. Louis</span>.</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'><a href="#NEW_YEARS_DAY"><span class="smcap">New Year's Day</span>.</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'><a href="#THE_UNKNOWN_LIFE_OF_JESUS_CHRIST"><span class="smcap">Unknown Life of Jesus Christ</span>.</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'><a href="#IN_OUR_NEIGHBORHOOD"><span class="smcap">In Our Neighborhood</span>.</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'><a href="#FAREWELL"><span class="smcap">Little Miss Sophie</span>.</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'><a href="#LITTLE_MISS_SOPHIE"><span class="smcap">Little Miss Sophie</span>.</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'><a href="#IF_I_HAD_KNOWN"><span class="smcap">If I Had Known!</span></a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'><a href="#CHALMETLE"><span class="smcap">Chalmette</span>.</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'><a href="#AT_EVENTIDE"><span class="smcap">At Eventide</span>.</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'><a href="#THE_IDLER"><span class="smcap">The Idler</span>.</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'><a href="#LOVE_AND_THE_BUTTERFLY"><span class="smcap">Love and the Butterfly</span>.</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'><a href="#THE_BEE-MAN"><span class="smcap">The Bee-Man</span>.</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'><a href="#AMID_THE_ROSES"><span class="smcap">Amid the Roses</span>.</a></td></tr>
+</table></div>
+
+
+
+
+
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_9" id="Page_9">[Pg 9]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="PREFACE" id="PREFACE"></a>PREFACE.</h2>
+
+
+<p>These fugitive pieces are launched upon the tide of public opinion to
+sink or swim upon their merit. They will float for a while, but whether
+they will reach the haven of popularity depends upon their enduring
+qualities. Some will surely perish, many will reach some port, but time
+alone will tell if any shall successfully breast the ocean of thought
+and plant its standard upon the summit of fame.</p>
+
+<p>When one enters the domain of authorship, she places herself at the
+mercy of critics. Were she as sure of being commended by the best and
+most intelligent of her readers, as she is sure of being condemned by
+the worst and most ignorant, there would still be a thrill of pleasure
+in all criticism, for the satisfaction of having received the praise of
+the first would compensate for the harshness of the latter. Just
+criticism is wholesome and never wounds the sensibilities of the true
+author, for it saves her from the danger of an excess of pride which is
+the greatest foe to individual progress, while it spurs her on to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_10" id="Page_10">[Pg 10]</a></span>
+loftier flights and nobler deeds. A poor writer is bad, but a poor
+critic is worse, therefore, unjust criticism should never ruffle the
+temper of its victim. The author of these pages belongs to that type of
+the "brave new woman who scorns to sigh," but feels that she has
+something to say, and says it to the best of her ability, and leaves the
+verdict in the hands of the public. She gives to the reader her best
+thoughts and leaves him to accept or reject as merit may manifest
+itself. No author is under contract to please her readers at all times,
+nor can she hope to control the sentiments of all of them at any time,
+therefore, the obligation is reciprocal, for the fame she receives is
+due to the pleasure she affords.</p>
+
+<p>The author of these fugitive pieces is young, just on the threshold of
+life, and with the daring audacity of youth makes assertions and gives
+decisions which she may reverse as time mellows her opinions, and the
+realities of life force aside the theories of youth, and prosy facts
+obscure the memory of that happy time when the heart overflowing
+with&mdash;&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>
+<span style="margin-left: 12em;">"The joy</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Of young ideas painted on the mind,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">In the warm glowing colors Fancy spreads</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">On objects, not yet known, when all is new,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And all is lovely."</span><br />
+</p>
+
+<p>There is much in this book that is good; much<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_11" id="Page_11">[Pg 11]</a></span> that is crude; some that
+is poor: but all give that assurance of something great and noble when
+the bud of promise, now unfolding its petals in the morning glow of
+light, will have matured into that fuller growth of blossoming flower
+ere the noonday sun passes its zenith. May the hope thus engendered by
+this first attempt reach its fruition, and may the energy displayed by
+one so young meet the reward it merits from an approving public.</p>
+
+<p class='author'><span class="smcap">Sylvanie F. Williams.</span></p>
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13">[Pg 13]</a></span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_12" id="Page_12">[Pg 12]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="VIOLETS" id="VIOLETS"></a>VIOLETS.</h2>
+
+<h3>I.</h3>
+
+
+<p>"And she tied a bunch of violets with a tress of her pretty brown hair."</p>
+
+<p>She sat in the yellow glow of the lamplight softly humming these words.
+It was Easter evening, and the newly risen spring world was slowly
+sinking to a gentle, rosy, opalescent slumber, sweetly tired of the joy
+which had pervaded it all day. For in the dawn of the perfect morn, it
+had arisen, stretched out its arms in glorious happiness to greet the
+Saviour and said its hallelujahs, merrily trilling out carols of bird,
+and organ and flower-song. But the evening had come, and rest.</p>
+
+<p>There was a letter lying on the table, it read:</p>
+
+<p>"Dear, I send you this little bunch of flowers as my Easter token.
+Perhaps you may not be able to read their meaning, so I'll tell you.
+Violets, you know,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14">[Pg 14]</a></span> are my favorite flowers. Dear, little, human-faced
+things! They seem always as if about to whisper a love-word; and then
+they signify that thought which passes always between you and me. The
+orange blossoms&mdash;you know their meaning; the little pinks are the
+flowers you love; the evergreen leaf is the symbol of the endurance of
+our affection; the tube-roses I put in, because once when you kissed and
+pressed me close in your arms, I had a bunch of tube-roses on my bosom,
+and the heavy fragrance of their crushed loveliness has always lived in
+my memory. The violets and pinks are from a bunch I wore to-day, and
+when kneeling at the altar, during communion, did I sin, dear, when I
+thought of you? The tube-roses and orange-blossoms I wore Friday night;
+you always wished for a lock of my hair, so I'll tie these flowers with
+them&mdash;but there, it is not stable enough; let me wrap them with a bit of
+ribbon, pale blue, from that little dress I wore last<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15">[Pg 15]</a></span> winter to the
+dance, when we had such a long, sweet talk in that forgotten nook. You
+always loved that dress, it fell in such soft ruffles away from the
+throat and bosom,&mdash;you called me your little forget-me-not, that night.
+I laid the flowers away for awhile in our favorite book,&mdash;Byron&mdash;just at
+the poem we loved best, and now I send them to you. Keep them always in
+remembrance of me, and if aught should occur to separate us, press these
+flowers to your lips, and I will be with you in spirit, permeating your
+heart with unutterable love and happiness."</p>
+
+
+<h3>II.</h3>
+
+<p>It is Easter again. As of old, the joyous bells clang out the glad news
+of the resurrection. The giddy, dancing sunbeams laugh riotously in
+field and street; birds carol their sweet twitterings everywhere, and
+the heavy perfume of flowers scents the golden atmosphere with inspiring
+fragrance. One long,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16">[Pg 16]</a></span> golden sunbeam steals silently into the
+white-curtained window of a quiet room, and lay athwart a sleeping face.
+Cold, pale, still, its fair, young face pressed against the satin-lined
+casket. Slender, white fingers, idle now, they that had never known
+rest; locked softly over a bunch of violets; violets and tube-roses in
+her soft, brown hair, violets in the bosom of her long, white gown;
+violets and tube-roses and orange-blossoms banked everywhere, until the
+air was filled with the ascending souls of the human flowers. Some
+whispered that a broken heart had ceased to flutter in that still, young
+form, and that it was a mercy for the soul to ascend on the slender
+sunbeam. To-day she kneels at the throne of heaven, where one year ago
+she had communed at an earthly altar.</p>
+
+
+<h3>III.</h3>
+
+<p>Far away in a distant city, a man, carelessly looking among some
+papers,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17">[Pg 17]</a></span> turned over a faded bunch of flowers tied with a blue ribbon
+and a lock of hair. He paused meditatively awhile, then turning to the
+regal-looking woman lounging before the fire, he asked:</p>
+
+<p>"Wife, did you ever send me these?"</p>
+
+<p>She raised her great, black eyes to his with a gesture of ineffable
+disdain, and replied languidly:</p>
+
+<p>"You know very well I can't bear flowers. How could I ever send such
+sentimental trash to any one? Throw them into the fire."</p>
+
+<p>And the Easter bells chimed a solemn requiem as the flames slowly licked
+up the faded violets. Was it merely fancy on the wife's part, or did the
+husband really sigh,&mdash;a long, quivering breath of remembrance?<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18">[Pg 18]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="THREE_THOUGHTS" id="THREE_THOUGHTS"></a>THREE THOUGHTS.</h2>
+
+
+<p>
+<span style="margin-left: 4em;"><b>FIRST</b></span><br /><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">How few of us</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">In all the world's great, ceaseless struggling strife,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Go to our work with gladsome, buoyant step,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And love it for its sake, whate'er it be.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Because it is a labor, or, mayhap,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Some sweet, peculiar art of God's own gift;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And not the promise of the world's slow smile</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">of recognition, or of mammon's gilded grasp.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Alas, how few, in inspiration's dazzling flash,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Or spiritual sense of world's beyond the dome</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Of circling blue around this weary earth,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Can bask, and know the God-given grace</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Of genius' fire that flows and permeates</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">The virgin mind alone; the soul in which</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">The love of earth hath tainted not.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">The love of art and art alone.</span><br /><br /><br />
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19">[Pg 19]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>
+<span style="margin-left: 4em;"><b>SECOND</b></span><br /><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"Who dares stand forth?" the monarch cried,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">"Amid the throng, and dare to give</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Their aid, and bid this wretch to live?</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">I pledge my faith and crown beside,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">A woeful plight, a sorry sight,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">This outcast from all God-given grace.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">What, ho! in all, no friendly face,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">No helping hand to stay his plight?</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">St. Peter's name be pledged for aye,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">The man's accursed, that is true;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">But ho, he suffers. None of you</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Will mercy show, or pity sigh?"</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Strong men drew back, and lordly train</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Did slowly file from monarch's look,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Whose lips curled scorn. But from a nook</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">A voice cried out, "Though he has slain</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">That which I loved the best on earth,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Yet will I tend him till he dies,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">I can be brave." A woman's eyes</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Gazed fearlessly into his own.</span><br /><br />
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20">[Pg 20]</a></span></p>
+
+
+<p>
+<span style="margin-left: 4em;"><b>THIRD</b></span><br /><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">When all the world has grown full cold to thee,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And man&mdash;proud pygmy&mdash;shrugs all scornfully,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And bitter, blinding tears flow gushing forth,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Because of thine own sorrows and poor plight,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Then turn ye swift to nature's page,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And read there passions, immeasurably far</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Greater than thine own in all their littleness.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">For nature has her sorrows and her joys,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">As all the piled-up mountains and low vales</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Will silently attest&mdash;and hang thy head</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">In dire confusion, for having dared</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">To moan at thine own miseries</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">When God and nature suffer silently.</span><br />
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21">[Pg 21]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="THE_WOMAN" id="THE_WOMAN"></a>THE WOMAN.</h2>
+
+
+<p>The literary manager of the club arose, cleared his throat, adjusted his
+cravat, fixed his eyes sternly upon the young man, and in a sonorous
+voice, a little marred by his habitual lisp, asked: "Mr. &mdash;&mdash;, will you
+please tell us your opinion upon the question, whether woman's chances
+for matrimony are increased or decreased when she becomes man's equal as
+a wage earner?"</p>
+
+<p>The secretary adjusted her eye-glass, and held her pencil alertly poised
+above her book, ready to note which side Mr. &mdash;&mdash; took. Mr. &mdash;&mdash;
+fidgeted, pulled himself together with a violent jerk, and finally spoke
+his mind. Someone else did likewise, also someone else, then the women
+interposed, and jumped on the men, the men retaliated, a wordy war
+ensued, and the whole matter ended by nothing being decided, pro or
+con&mdash;generally the case in wordy discussions. <i>Moi?</i> Well, I sawed wood
+and said nothing, but all the while there was form<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22">[Pg 22]</a></span>ing in my mind, no, I
+won't say forming, it was there already. It was this, <i>Why should
+well-salaried women marry?</i> Take the average working-woman of to-day.
+She works from five to ten hours a day, doing extra night work,
+sometimes, of course. Her work over, she goes home or to her
+boarding-house, as the case may be. Her meals are prepared for her, she
+has no household cares upon her shoulders, no troublesome dinners to
+prepare for a fault-finding husband, no fretful children to try her
+patience, no petty bread and meat economies to adjust. She has her
+cares, her money-troubles, her debts, and her scrimpings, it is true,
+but they only make her independent, instead of reducing her to a dead
+level of despair. Her day's work ends at the office, school, factory or
+store; the rest of the time is hers, undisturbed by the restless going
+to and fro of housewifely cares, and she can employ it in mental or
+social diversions. She does not incessantly rely upon the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23">[Pg 23]</a></span> whims of a
+cross man to take her to such amusements as she desires. In this
+nineteenth century she is free to go where she pleases&mdash;provided it be
+in a moral atmosphere&mdash;without comment. Theatres, concerts, lectures,
+and the lighter amusements of social affairs among her associates, are
+open to her, and there she can go, see, and be seen, admire and be
+admired, enjoy and be enjoyed, without a single harrowing thought of the
+baby's milk or the husband's coffee.</p>
+
+<p>Her earnings are her own, indisputably, unreservedly, undividedly. She
+knows to a certainty just how much she can spend, how well she can
+dress, how far her earnings will go. If there is a dress, a book, a bit
+of music, a bunch of flowers, or a bit of furniture that she wants, she
+can get it, and there is no need of asking anyone's advice, or gently
+hinting to John that Mrs. So and So has a lovely new hat, and there is
+one ever so much prettier and cheaper down at Thus <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24">[Pg 24]</a></span>&amp; Co.'s. To an
+independent spirit there is a certain sense of humiliation and wounded
+pride in asking for money, be it five cents or five hundred dollars. The
+working woman knows no such pang; she has but to question her account
+and all is over. In the summer she takes her savings of the winter,
+packs her trunk and takes a trip more or less extensive, and there is
+none to say her nay,&mdash;nothing to bother her save the accumulation of her
+own baggage. There is an independent, happy, free-and-easy swing about
+the motion of her life. Her mind is constantly being broadened by
+contact with the world in its working clothes; in her leisure moments by
+the better thoughts of dead and living men which she meets in her
+applications to books and periodicals; in her vacations, by her studies
+of nature, or it may be other communities than her own. The freedom
+which she enjoys she does not trespass upon, for if she did not learn at
+school she has acquired since habits of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25">[Pg 25]</a></span> strong self-reliance,
+self-support, earnest thinking, deep discriminations, and firmly
+believes that the most perfect liberty is that state in which humanity
+conforms itself to and obeys strictly, without deviation, those laws
+which are best fitted for their mutual self-advancement.</p>
+
+<p>And so your independent working woman of to day comes as near being
+ideal in her equable self poise as can be imagined. So why should she
+hasten to give this liberty up in exchange for a serfdom, sweet
+sometimes, it is true, but which too often becomes galling and
+unendurable.</p>
+
+<p>It is not marriage that I decry, for I don't think any really sane
+person would do this, but it is this wholesale marrying of girls in
+their teens, this rushing into an unknown plane of life to avoid work.
+Avoid work! What housewife dares call a moment her own?</p>
+
+<p>Marriages might be made in Heaven, but too often they are consummated
+right here on earth, based on a desire to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_26" id="Page_26">[Pg 26]</a></span> possess the physical
+attractions of the woman by the man, pretty much as a child desires a
+toy, and an innate love of man, a wild desire not to be ridiculed by the
+foolish as an "old maid," and a certain delicate shrinking from the work
+of the world&mdash;laziness is a good name for it&mdash;by the woman. The
+attraction of mind to mind, the ability of one to compliment the lights
+and shadows in the other, the capacity of either to fulfil the duties of
+wife or husband&mdash;these do not enter into the contract. That is why we
+have divorce courts.</p>
+
+<p>And so our independent woman in every year of her full, rich,
+well-rounded life, gaining fresh knowledge and experience, learning
+humanity, and particularly that portion of it which is the other gender,
+so well as to avoid clay-footed idols, and finally when she does consent
+to bear the yoke upon her shoulders, does so with perhaps less romance
+and glamor than her younger scoffing sisters, but with an assurance of
+solid and more last<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27">[Pg 27]</a></span>ing happiness. Why should she have hastened this;
+was aught lost by the delay?</p>
+
+<p>"They say" that men don't admire this type of woman, that they prefer
+the soft, dainty, winning, mindless creature who cuddles into men's
+arms, agrees to everything they say, and looks upon them as a race of
+gods turned loose upon this earth for the edification of womankind.
+Well, may be so, but there is one thing positive, they certainly respect
+the independent one, and admire her, too, even if it is at a distance,
+and that in itself is something. As to the other part, no matter how
+sensible a woman is on other questions, when she falls in love she is
+fool enough to believe her adored one a veritable Solomon. Cuddling?
+Well, she may preside over conventions, brandish her umbrella at board
+meetings, tramp the streets soliciting subscriptions, wield the blue
+pencil in an editorial sanctum, hammer a type-writer, smear her nose
+with ink from a galley full of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28">[Pg 28]</a></span> pied type, lead infant ideas through the
+tortuous mazes of c-a-t and r-a-t, plead at the bar, or wield the
+scalpel in a dissecting room, yet when the right moment comes, she will
+sink as gracefully into his manly embrace, throw her arms as lovingly
+around his neck, and cuddle as warmly and sweetly to his bosom as her
+little sister who has done nothing else but think, dream, and practice
+for that hour. It comes natural, you see.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29">[Pg 29]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="TEN_MINUTES_MUSING" id="TEN_MINUTES_MUSING"></a>TEN MINUTES' MUSING.</h2>
+
+
+<p>There was a terrible noise in the school-yard at intermission; peeping
+out the windows the boys could be seen huddled in an immense bunch, in
+the middle of the yard. It looked like a fight, a mob, a
+knock-down,&mdash;anything, so we rushed out to the door hastily, fearfully,
+ready to scold, punish, console, frown, bind up broken heads or drag
+wounded forms from the melee as the case might be. Nearly every boy in
+the school was in that seething, swarming mass, and those who weren't
+were standing around on the edges, screaming and throwing up their hats
+in hilarious excitement. It was a mob, a fearful mob, but a mob
+apparently with a vigorous and well-<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30">[Pg 30]</a></span>defined purpose. It was a mob that
+screamed and howled, and kicked, and yelled, and shouted, and perspired,
+and squirmed, and wriggled, and pushed, and threatened, and poured
+itself all seemingly upon some central object. It was a mob that had an
+aim, that was determined to accomplish that aim, even though the whole
+azure expanse of sky fell upon them. It was a mob with set muscles,
+straining like whip-cords, eyes on that central object and with heads
+inward and sturdy legs outward, like prairie horses reversed in a
+battle. The cheerers and hat throwers on the outside were mirthful, but
+the mob was not; it howled, but howled without any cachinnation; it
+struggled for mastery. Some fell and were trampled over, some weaker
+ones were even tossed in the air, but the mob never deigned to trouble
+itself about such trivialities. It was an interesting, nervous whole,
+with divers parts of separate vitality.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31">[Pg 31]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>In alarm I looked about for the principal. He was standing at a safe
+distance with his hands in his pockets watching the seething mass with a
+broad smile. At sight of my perplexed expression some one was about to
+venture an explanation, when there was a wild yell, a sudden vehement
+disintegration of the mass, a mighty rush and clutch at a dark object
+bobbing in the air&mdash;and the mist cleared from my intellect&mdash;as I
+realized it all&mdash;football.</p>
+
+<p>Did you ever stop to see the analogy between a game of football and the
+interesting little game called life which we play every day? There is
+one, far-fetched as it may seem, though, for that matter, life's game,
+being one of desperate chances and strategic moves, is analogous to
+anything.</p>
+
+<p>But, if we could get out of ourselves and soar above the world, far
+enough to view the mass beneath in its daily struggles, and near enough
+the hearts of the people to feel the throbs beneath<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32">[Pg 32]</a></span> their boldly
+carried exteriors, the whole would seem naught but such a maddening rush
+and senseless-looking crushing. "We are but children of a larger growth"
+after all, and our ceaseless pursuing after the baubles of this earth
+are but the struggles for precedence in the business play-ground.</p>
+
+<p>The football is money. See how the mass rushes after it! Everyone so
+intent upon his pursuit until all else dwindles into a ridiculous
+nonentity. The weaker ones go down in the mad pursuit, and are
+unmercifully trampled upon, but no matter, what is the difference if the
+foremost win the coveted prize and carry it off. See the big boy in
+front, he with iron grip, and determined, compressed lips? That boy is a
+type of the big, merciless man, the Gradgrind of the latter century. His
+face is set towards the ball, and even though he may crush a dozen small
+boys, he'll make his way through the mob and come out triumphant. And
+he'll be the victor<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_33" id="Page_33">[Pg 33]</a></span> longer than anyone else, in spite of the envy and
+fighting and pushing about him.</p>
+
+<p>To an observer, alike unintelligent about the rules of a football game,
+and the conditions which govern the barter and exchange and fluctuations
+of the world's money market, there is as much difference between the
+sight of a mass of boys on a play-ground losing their equilibrium over a
+spheroid of rubber and a mass of men losing their coolness and temper
+and mental and nervous balance on change as there is between a pine
+sapling and a mighty forest king&mdash;merely a difference of age. The
+mighty, seething, intensely concentrated mass in its emphatic tendency
+to one point is the same, in the utter disregard of mental and physical
+welfare. The momentary triumphs of transitory possessions impress a
+casual looker-on with the same fearful idea&mdash;that the human race, after
+all, is savage to the core, and cultivates its savagery in an inflated
+happiness at<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_34" id="Page_34">[Pg 34]</a></span> own nearness to perfection.</p>
+
+<p>But the bell clangs sharply, the overheated, nervous, tingling boys
+fall into line, and the sudden transition from massing disorder to
+military precision cuts short the ten minutes' musing.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_35" id="Page_35">[Pg 35]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="A_PLAINT" id="A_PLAINT"></a>A PLAINT.</h2>
+
+
+<p>
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Dear God, 'tis hard, so awful hard to lose</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">The one we love, and see him go afar,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">With scarce one thought of aching hearts behind,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Nor wistful eyes, nor outstretched yearning hands.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Chide not, dear God, if surging thoughts arise.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And bitter questionings of love and fate,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">But rather give my weary heart thy rest,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And turn the sad, dark memories into sweet.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Dear God, I fain my loved one were anear,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">But since thou will'st that happy thence he'll be,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">I send him forth, and back I'll choke the grief</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Rebellious rises in my lonely heart.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">I pray thee, God, my loved one joy to bring;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">I dare not hope that joy will be with me,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">But ah, dear God, one boon I crave of thee,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">That he shall ne'er forget his hours with me.</span><br />
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_36" id="Page_36">[Pg 36]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="IN_UNCONSCIOUSNESS" id="IN_UNCONSCIOUSNESS"></a>IN UNCONSCIOUSNESS.</h2>
+
+
+<p>There was a big booming in my ears, great heavy iron bells that swung
+to-and-fro on either side, and sent out deafening reverberations that
+steeped the senses in a musical melody of sonorous sound; to-and-fro,
+backward and forward, yet ever receding in a gradually widening circle,
+monotonous, mournful, weird, suffusing the soul with an unutterable
+sadness, as images of wailing processions, of weeping, empty-armed
+women, and widowed maidens flashed through the mind, and settled on the
+soul with a crushing, o'er-pressing weight of sorrow.</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 45%;" />
+
+<p>Now I lay floating, arms outstretched, on an illimitable waste of calm
+tranquil waters. Far away as eye could reach, there was naught but the
+pale, white-flecked, green waters of this ocean of eternity, and above
+the tender blue sky arched down in perfect love of its mis<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_37" id="Page_37">[Pg 37]</a></span>tress,
+the ocean. Sky and sea, sea and sky, blue, calm, infinite, perfect sea,
+heaving its womanly bosom to the passionate kisses of its ardent
+sun-lover. Away into infinity stretched this perfectibility of love;
+into eternity, I was drifting, alone, silent, yet burdened still with
+the remembrance of the sadness of the bells.</p>
+
+<p>Far away, they tolled out the incessant dirge, grown resignedly sweet
+now; so intense in its infinite peace, that a calm of love, beyond all
+human understanding and above all earthly passions, sank deep into my
+soul, and so permeated my whole being with rest and peace, that my lips
+smiled and my eyes drooped in access of fulsome joy. Into the
+illimitable space of infinity we drifted, my soul and I, borne along
+only by the network of auburn hair that floated about me in the green
+waters.</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 45%;" />
+
+<p>But now, a rude grasp from somewhere is laid upon me, pressing upon<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_38" id="Page_38">[Pg 38]</a></span> my
+face. Instantly the air grows gloomy, gray, and the ocean rocks
+menacingly, while the great bells grow harsh and strident, as they hint
+of a dark fate. I clasp my hands appealingly to the heavens; I moan and
+struggle with the unknown grasp; then there is peace and the sweet
+content of the infinite Nirvana.</p>
+
+<p>Then slowly, softly, the net of auburn hair begins to drag me down below
+the surface of the sea. Oh! the skies are so sweet, and now that the
+tender stars are looking upon us, how fair to stay and sway upon the
+breast of eternity! But the net is inexorable, and gently, slowly pulls
+me down. Now we sink straight, now we whirl in slow, eddying circles,
+spiral-like; while at each turn those bells ring out clanging now in
+wild crescendo, then whispering dread secrets of the ocean's depths. Oh,
+ye mighty bells, tell me from your learned lore of the hopes of mankind!
+Tell me what fruit he beareth from his strivings and yearnings; know not
+ye? Why ring ye now<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_39" id="Page_39">[Pg 39]</a></span> so joyful, so hopeful; then toll your dismal
+prophecies of o'er-cast skies?</p>
+
+<p>Years have passed, and now centuries, too, are swallowed in the gulf of
+eternity, yet the auburn net still whirls me in eddying circles, down,
+down to the very womb of time; to the innermost recesses of the mighty
+ocean.</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 45%;" />
+
+<p>And now, peace, perfect, unconditioned, sublime peace, and rest, and
+silence. For to the great depths of the mighty ocean the solemn bells
+cannot penetrate, and no sound, not even the beatings of one's own
+heart, is heard. In the heart of eternity there can be nothing to break
+the calm of frozen &aelig;ons. In the great white hall I lay, silent,
+unexpectant, calm, and smiled in perfect content at the web of auburn
+hair which trailed across my couch. No passionate longing for life or
+love, no doubting question of heaven or hell, no strife for carnal
+needs,&mdash;only rest, content, peace&mdash;happiness, perfect, whole, complete,
+sublime.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40">[Pg 40]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>And thus passed ages and ages, &aelig;ons and &aelig;ons. The great earth there in
+the dim distance above the ocean has toiled wearily about the sun, until
+its mechanism was failing, and the warm ardor of the lover's eye was
+becoming pale and cold from age, while the air all about the fast
+dwindling sphere was heavy and thick with the sorrows and heartaches and
+woes of the humans upon its face. Heavy with the screams and roar of
+war; with the curses of the deceived of traitors; with the passionate
+sighs of unlawful love; with the crushing unrest of blighted hopes.
+Knowledge and contempt of all these things permeated even to the inmost
+depths of time, as I lay in the halls of rest and smiled at the web
+floating through my white fingers.</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 45%;" />
+
+<p>But hark! discord begins. There is a vague fear which springs from an
+unknown source and drifts into the depths of rest; fear, indefinable,
+unaccountable,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_41" id="Page_41">[Pg 41]</a></span> unknowable, shuddering. Pain begins, for the heart
+springs into life, and fills the silence with the terror of its
+beatings, thick, knifing, frightful in its intense longing. Power of
+mind over soul, power of calm over fear avail nothing; suspense and
+misery, locked arm in arm, pervade &aelig;onic stillness, till all things else
+become subordinate, unnoticed.</p>
+
+<p>Centuries drift away, and the giddy, old reprobate&mdash;earth, dying a
+hideous, ghastly death, with but one solitary human to shudder in unison
+with its last throes, to bask in the last pale rays of a cold sun, to
+inhale the last breath of a metallic atmosphere; totters, reels, falls
+into space, and is no more. Peal out, ye brazen bells, peal out the
+requiem of the sinner! Roll your mournful tones into the ears of the
+saddened angels, weeping with wing-covered eyes! Toll the requiem of the
+sinner, sinking swiftly, sobbingly into the depths of time's ocean.
+Down, down, until the great groans which arose from the domes and Ionic
+roofs<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_42" id="Page_42">[Pg 42]</a></span> about me told that the sad old earth sought rest in eternity,
+while the universe shrugged its shoulders over the loss of another star.</p>
+
+<p>And now, the great invisible fear became apparent, tangible, for all the
+sins, the woes, the miseries, the dreads, the dismal achings and
+throbbings, the dreariness and gloom of the lost star came together and
+like a huge geni took form and hideous shape&mdash;octopus-like&mdash;which slowly
+approached me, erstwhile happy&mdash;and hovered about my couch in fearful
+menace.</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 45%;" />
+
+<p>Oh, shining web of hair, burst loose your bonds and bid me move! Oh,
+time, cease not your calculations, but speed me on to deliverance! Oh,
+silence, vast, immense, infuse into your soul some sound other than the
+heavy throbbing of this fast disintegrating heart! Oh, pitiless stone
+arches, let fall your crushing weight upon this Stygian monster!<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43">[Pg 43]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>I pray to time, to eternity, to the frozen &aelig;ons of the past. Useless. I
+am seized, forced to open my cold lips; there is agony,&mdash;supreme, mortal
+agony of nerve tension, and wrenching of vitality. I struggle, scream,
+and clutching the monster with superhuman strength, fling him aside, and
+rise, bleeding, screaming&mdash;but triumphant, and keenly mortal in every
+vein, alive and throbbing with consciousness and pain.</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 45%;" />
+
+<p>No, it was not opium, nor night-mare, but chloroform, a dentist, three
+obstinate molars, a pair of forceps, and a lively set of nerves.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_44" id="Page_44">[Pg 44]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="TITEE" id="TITEE"></a>TITEE.</h2>
+
+
+<p>It was cold that day; the great sharp north wind swept out Elysian
+Fields Street in blasts that made men shiver, and bent everything in its
+track. The skies hung lowering and gloomy; the usually quiet street was
+more than deserted, it was dismal.</p>
+
+<p>Titee leaned against one of the brown freight cars for protection
+against the shrill norther, and warmed his little chapped hands at a
+blaze of chips and dry grass. "May be it'll snow," he muttered, casting
+a glance at the sky that would have done credit to a practised seaman.
+"Then <i>won't</i> I have fun! Ugh, but the wind blows!"</p>
+
+<p>It was Saturday, or Titee would have been in school&mdash;the big yellow
+school on Marigny Street, where he went every day when its bell boomed
+nine o'clock. Went with a run and a joyous whoop,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_45" id="Page_45">[Pg 45]</a></span>&mdash;presumably to
+imbibe knowledge, ostensibly to make his teacher's life a burden.</p>
+
+<p>Idle, lazy, dirty, troublesome boy, she called him, to herself, as day
+by day wore on, and Titee improved not, but let his whole class pass him
+on its way to a higher grade. A practical joke he relished infinitely
+more than a practical problem, and a good game at pinsticking was far
+more entertaining than a language lesson. Moreover, he was always
+hungry, and <i>would</i> eat in school before the half-past ten intermission,
+thereby losing much good play-time for his voracious appetite.</p>
+
+<p>But there was nothing in natural history that Titee didn't know. He
+could dissect a butterfly or a mosquito-hawk and describe their parts as
+accurately as a spectacled student with a scalpel and microscope could
+talk about a cadaver. The entire Third District, with its swamps and
+canals and commons and railroad sections, and its wondrous,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_46" id="Page_46">[Pg 46]</a></span> crooked,
+tortuous streets was as an open book to Titee. There was not a nook or
+corner that he did not know or could tell of. There was not a bit of
+gossip among the gamins, little Creole and Spanish fellows, with dark
+skins and lovely eyes like Spaniels, that Titee could not tell of. He
+knew just exactly when it was time for crawfish to be plentiful down in
+the Claiborne and Marigny canals; just when a poor, breadless fellow
+might get a job in the big bone-yard and fertilizing factory out on the
+railroad track; and as for the levee, with its ships and schooners and
+sailors&mdash;Oh, how he could revel among them! The wondrous ships, the
+pretty little schooners, where the foreign-looking sailors lay on long
+moon-lit nights, singing gay bar carols to the tinkle of a guitar and
+mandolin. All these things, and more, could Titee tell of. He had been
+down to the Gulf, and out on its treacherous waters through Eads Jetties
+on a fishing smack, with some jolly,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_47" id="Page_47">[Pg 47]</a></span> brown sailors, and could interest
+the whole school-room in the "talk lessons," if he chose.</p>
+
+<p>Titee shivered as the wind swept round the freight cars. There isn't
+much warmth in a bit of a jersey coat.</p>
+
+<p>"Wish 'twas summer," he murmured, casting another sailor's glance at the
+sky. "Don't believe I like snow, it's too wet and cold." And, with a
+last parting caress at the little fire he had builded for a minute's
+warmth, he plunged his hands in his pockets, shut his teeth, and started
+manfully on his mission out the railroad track towards the swamps.</p>
+
+<p>It was late when Titee came home, to such a home as it was, and he had
+but illy performed his errand, so his mother beat him, and sent him to
+bed supperless. A sharp strap stings in cold weather, and long walks in
+the teeth of a biting wind creates a keen appetite. But if Titee cried
+himself to sleep that night, he was up bright and early next morning,
+and had been to early mass,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_48" id="Page_48">[Pg 48]</a></span> devoutly kneeling on the cold floor,
+blowing his fingers to keep them warm, and was home almost before the
+rest of the family was awake.</p>
+
+<p>There was evidently some great matter of business in this young man's
+mind, for he scarcely ate his breakfast, and had left the table, eagerly
+cramming the remainder of his meal in his pockets.</p>
+
+<p>"I wonder what he's up to now?" mused his mother as she watched his
+little form sturdily trudging the track in the face of the wind, his
+head, with the rimless cap thrust close on the shock of black hair, bent
+low, his hands thrust deep in the bulging pockets.</p>
+
+<p>"A new snake, perhaps," ventured the father; "he's a queer child."</p>
+
+<p>But the next day Titee was late for school. It was something unusual,
+for he was always the first on hand to fix some plan of mechanism to
+make the teacher miserable. She looked reprovingly at him this morning,
+when he came in during the arithmetic class, his hair<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_49" id="Page_49">[Pg 49]</a></span> all wind-blown,
+cheeks rosy from a hard fight with the sharp blasts. But he made up for
+his tardiness by his extreme goodness all day; just think, Titee didn't
+even eat in school. A something unparalleled in the entire history of
+his school-life.</p>
+
+<p>When the lunch-hour came, and all the yard was a scene of feast and fun,
+one of the boys found him standing by one of the posts, disconsolately
+watching a ham sandwich as it rapidly disappeared down the throat of a
+sturdy, square-headed little fellow.</p>
+
+<p>"Hello, Edgar," he said, "What yer got fer lunch?"</p>
+
+<p>"Nothin'," was the mournful reply.</p>
+
+<p>"Ah, why don't yer stop eatin' in school fer a change? Yer don't ever
+have nothin' to eat."</p>
+
+<p>"I didn't eat to-day," said Titee, blazing up.</p>
+
+<p>"Yer did!"</p>
+
+<p>"I tell you I didn't!" and Titee's hard little fist planted a
+punctuation mark on his comrade's eye.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_50" id="Page_50">[Pg 50]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>A fight in the school-yard! Poor Titee in disgrace again. But in spite
+of his battered appearance, a severe scolding from the principal, lines
+to write, and a further punishment from his mother, Titee scarcely
+remained for his dinner, but was off, down the railroad track, with his
+pockets partly stuffed with the remnants of his scanty meal.</p>
+
+<p>And the next day Titee was tardy again, and lunchless, too, and the
+next, and the next, until the teacher in despair sent a nicely printed
+note to his mother about him, which might have done some good, had not
+Titee taken great pains to tear it up on his way home.</p>
+
+<p>But one day it rained, whole bucketfuls of water, that poured in
+torrents from a miserable angry sky. Too wet a day for bits of boys to
+be trudging to school, so Titee's mother thought, so kept him home to
+watch the weather through the window, fretting and fuming, like a
+regular storm-cloud in miniature. As the day wore on, and the storm did<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_51" id="Page_51">[Pg 51]</a></span>
+not abate, his mother had to keep a strong watch upon him, or he would
+have slipped away.</p>
+
+<p>At last dinner came and went, and the gray soddenness of the skies
+deepened into the blackness of coming night. Someone called Titee to go
+to bed&mdash;and Titee was nowhere to be found.</p>
+
+<p>Under the beds, in corners and closets, through the yard, and in such
+impossible places as the soap-dish and the water-pitcher even; but he
+had gone as completely as if he had been spirited away. It was of no use
+to call up the neighbors; he had never been near their houses, they
+affirmed, so there was nothing to do but to go to the railroad track,
+where little Titee had been seen so often trudging in the shrill north
+wind.</p>
+
+<p>So with lantern and sticks, and his little yellow dog, the rescuing
+party started out the track. The rain had ceased falling, but the wind
+blew a tremendous gale, scurrying great, gray clouds over a fierce sky.
+It was not ex<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_52" id="Page_52">[Pg 52]</a></span>actly dark, though in this part of the city, there was
+neither gas nor electricity, and surely on such a night as this, neither
+moon nor stars dared show their faces in such a grayness of sky; but a
+sort of all-diffused luminosity was in the air, as though the sea of
+atmosphere was charged with an ethereal phosphorescence.</p>
+
+<p>Search as they would, there were no signs of poor little Titee. The soft
+earth between the railroad ties crumbled beneath their feet without
+showing any small tracks or foot-prints.</p>
+
+<p>"Let us return," said the big brother, "he can't be here anyway."</p>
+
+<p>"No, no," urged the mother, "I feel that he is; let's go on."</p>
+
+<p>So on they went, slipping on the wet earth, stumbling over the loose
+rocks, until a sudden wild yelp from Tiger brought them to a standstill.
+He had rushed ahead of them, and his voice could be heard in the
+distance, howling piteously.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_53" id="Page_53">[Pg 53]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>With a fresh impetus the little muddy party hurried forward. Tiger's
+yelps could be heard plainer and plainer, mingled now with a muffled
+wail, as of some one in pain.</p>
+
+<p>And then, after awhile they found a pitiful little heap of wet and
+sodden rags, lying at the foot of a mound of earth and stones thrown
+upon the side of the track. It was little Titee with a broken leg, all
+wet and miserable, and moaning.</p>
+
+<p>They picked him up tenderly, and started to carry him home. But he cried
+and clung to his mother, and begged not to go.</p>
+
+<p>"He's got fever," wailed his mother.</p>
+
+<p>"No, no, it's my old man. He's hungry, sobbed Titee, holding out a
+little package. It was the remnants of his dinner, wet and rain washed.</p>
+
+<p>"What old man?" asked the big brother.</p>
+
+<p>"My old man, oh, please, please don't go home until I see him, I'm not
+hurting much, I can go."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_54" id="Page_54">[Pg 54]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>So yielding to his whim, they carried him further away, down the sides
+of the track up to an embankment or levee by the sides of the Marigny
+canal. Then Titee's brother, suddenly stopping, exclaimed:</p>
+
+<p>"Why, here's a cave, a regular Robinson Cruso affair."</p>
+
+<p>"It's my old man's cave," cried Titee; "oh, please go in, maybe he's
+dead."</p>
+
+<p>There can't be much ceremony in entering a cave, there is but one thing
+to do, walk in. This they did, and holding high the lantern, beheld a
+strange sight. On a bed of straw and paper in one corner lay a withered,
+wizened, white-bearded old man, with wide eyes staring at the
+unaccustomed sight. In the corner lay a cow.</p>
+
+<p>"It's my old man!" cried Titee, joyfully. "Oh, please, grandpa, I
+couldn't get here to-day, it rained all morning, and when I ran away
+this evening, I slipped down and broke something, and oh, grandpa, I'm
+so tired and hurty, and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_55" id="Page_55">[Pg 55]</a></span> I'm so afraid you're hungry."</p>
+
+<p>So the secret of Titee's jaunts out the railroad was out. In one of his
+trips around the swamp-land, he had discovered the old man dying from
+cold and hunger in the fields. Together they had found this cave, and
+Titee had gathered the straw and brush that scattered itself over the
+ground and made the bed. A poor old cow turned adrift by an ungrateful
+master, had crept in and shared the damp dwelling. And thither Titee had
+trudged twice a day, carrying his luncheon in the morning, and his
+dinner in the evening, the sole support of a half-dead cripple.</p>
+
+<p>"There's a crown in Heaven for that child," said the officer to whom the
+case was referred.</p>
+
+<p>And so there was, for we scattered winter roses on his little grave down
+in old St. Rocque's cemetery. The cold and rain, and the broken leg had
+told their tale.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_56" id="Page_56">[Pg 56]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="ANARCHY_ALLEY" id="ANARCHY_ALLEY"></a>ANARCHY ALLEY.</h2>
+
+
+<p>To the casual observer, the quaint, narrow, little alley that lies in
+the heart of the city is no more than any other of the numerous
+divisions of streets in which New Orleans delights. But to the idle
+wanderer, or he whose mission down its four squares of much trodden
+stones, is an aimless one,&mdash;whose eyes unforced to bend to the ground in
+thought of sordid ways and means, can peer at will into its quaint
+corners. Exchange Alley presents all the phases of a Latinized portion
+of America, a bit of Europe, perhaps, the restless, chafing, anarchistic
+Europe of to-day, in the midst of the quieter democratic institution of
+our republic.</p>
+
+<p>It is Bohemia, pure and simple, Bohemia, in all its stages, from the
+beer saloon and the cheap book-store, to the cheaper cook shop and
+uncertain lodging house. There the great American in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_57" id="Page_57">[Pg 57]</a></span>stitution, the
+wondrous monarch whom the country supports&mdash;the tramp&mdash;basks in superior
+comfort and contented, unmolested indolence. Idleness and labor, poverty
+and opulence, the honest, law-abiding workingman, and the reckless,
+restless anarchist, jostle side by side, and brush each other's elbows
+in terms of equality as they do nowhere else.</p>
+
+<p>On the busiest thoroughfares in the city, just in the busiest part,
+between two of the most crowded and conservative of cross-streets, lies
+this alley of Latinism. One might almost pass it hurriedly, avoiding the
+crowds that cluster at this section of the streets, but upon turning
+into a narrow section, stone-paved, the place is entered, appearing to
+end one square distant, seeming to bar itself from the larger buildings
+by an aimless sort of iron affair, part railing, part posts. There is a
+conservative book-store at the entrance on one side, and an even more
+harmless clothing<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_58" id="Page_58">[Pg 58]</a></span> store on the other; then comes a saloon with many
+blind doors, behind which are vistas of tables, crowded and crowded with
+men drinking beer out of "globes," large, round, moony, common affairs.
+There is a dingy, pension-claim office, with cripples and
+sorrowful-looking women in black, sitting about on rickety chairs.
+Somehow, there is always an impression with me that the mourning dress
+and mournful looks are put on to impress the dispenser and adjuster. It
+is wicked, but what can one do if impressions come?</p>
+
+<p>There are more little cuddies of places, dye-shops, tailors, and
+nondescript corners that seem to have no possible mission on earth and
+are sadly conscious of their aimlessness. Then the railing is reached,
+and the alley instead of ending has merely given itself an angular twist
+to the right, and extends three squares further, to a great, pale green
+dome, and stately entrance.</p>
+
+<p>The calmly-thinking, quietly-laboring, cool and conservative world is
+for the nonce left behind. With the first step<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_59" id="Page_59">[Pg 59]</a></span>ping across Customhouse
+street, the place widens architecturally, and the atmosphere, too, seems
+impregnated with a sort of mental freedom, conducive to dangerous
+theorizing and broody reflections on the inequality of the classes. The
+sun shines in a strip in the centre, yellow and elusive, like gold;
+someone is rattling a gay galop on a piano somewhere; there is a sound
+of mens' voices in a heated discussion, a long whiff of pipe-smoke
+trails through the sunlight from the bar-room; the clink of glasses, the
+chink of silver, and the high treble of a woman's voice scolding a
+refractory child, mingle in incongruous melody.</p>
+
+<p>Two-story houses all along; the first floor divided into cuddies, here a
+paper store, displaying ten-cent novels of detective stories with
+impossible cuts, illustrating impossible situations of the plot;
+dye-shops, jewelers, tailors, tin-smiths, cook-shops, intelligence
+offices&mdash;many of these, and some newspaper offices. On the second floor,
+balconies, dingy, iron-railed, with sickly box-plants, and decrepit
+garments airing and being turned and tended by dishevelled, slip-shod
+women. Lodging-houses these,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_60" id="Page_60">[Pg 60]</a></span> some of them, but one is forced to wonder
+why do the tenants sun their clothes so often? The lines stretched from
+posts to posts seem always filled with airing garments. Is it economy?
+And do the owners of the faded vests and patched coats hide in dusky
+corners while their only garments are receiving the benefit of Old Sol's
+cleansing rays? And are the women with the indiscriminate tresses, near
+relatives, or only the landladies? It would be something worth knowing
+if one could.</p>
+
+<p>Plenty of saloons&mdash;great, gorgeous, gaudy places, with pianos and
+swift-footed waiters, tables and cards, and men, men, men. The famous
+Three Brothers' Saloon occupies a position about midway the alley, and
+at its doors, the acme, the culminating point, the superlative degree of
+unquietude and discontent is reached. It is the headquarters of nearly
+all the great labor organizations in the city. Behind its doors,
+swinging as easily between the street and the liquor-fumed halls as the
+soul swings between right and wrong, the disturbed minds of the
+working-men become clouded, heated, and wrothily<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_61" id="Page_61">[Pg 61]</a></span> ready for deeds of
+violence.</p>
+
+<p>Outside on the pavements with hundreds of like-excited men, with angry
+discussions and bitter recitals of complaints, the seeds of discord sown
+some time since, perhaps, sprout afresh, blossom and bear fruits. Is
+there a strike? Then special minions of the law are detailed to this
+place, for violence and hatred of employers, insurrection and socialism
+find here ready followers. Impromptu mass meetings are common, and
+law-breaking schemes find their cradle beneath its glittering lights. It
+is always thronged within and without, a veritable nursery of riot and
+disorder.</p>
+
+<p>And oh, Bohemia, pipes, indolence and beer! The atmosphere is
+impregnated with it, the dust sifts it into your clothes and hair, the
+sunlight filters it through your brain, the stray snatches of music now
+and then beat it rhythmically into your mind. There are some who work,
+yes, and a few places outside of the saloons that seem to be animated
+with a business motive. There are even some who push their way briskly
+through the aimless bodies of men,&mdash;but then there must be an
+occa<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_62" id="Page_62">[Pg 62]</a></span>sional anomaly to break the monotony, if nothing more.</p>
+
+<p>It is so unlike the ordinary world, this bit of Bohemia, that one feels
+a personal grievance when the marble entrance and great, green dome
+become positive, solid, architectural facts, standing in all the grim
+solemnity of the main entrance of the Hotel Royal on St. Louis Street,
+ending, with a sudden return to aristocracy, this stamping ground for
+anarchy.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_63" id="Page_63">[Pg 63]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="IMPRESSIONS" id="IMPRESSIONS"></a>IMPRESSIONS.</h2>
+
+
+<p>
+<span style="margin-left: 3em;"><b>THOUGHT.</b></span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">A swift, successive chain of things,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">That flash, kaleidoscope-like, now in, now out,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Now straight, now eddying in wild rings,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">No order, neither law, compels their moves,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">But endless, constant, always swiftly roves.</span><br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 3em;"><b>HOPE.</b></span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Wild seas of tossing, writhing waves,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">A wreck half-sinking in the tortuous gloom;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">One man clings desperately, while Boreas raves,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">And helps to blot the rays of moon and star,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Then comes a sudden flash of light, which gleams on shores afar.</span><br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 3em;"><b>LOVE.</b></span><br />
+<br />
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_64" id="Page_64">[Pg 64]</a></span><span style="margin-left: 1em;">A bed of roses, pleasing to the eye,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Flowers of heaven, passionate and pure,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Upon this bed the youthful often lie,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">And pressing hard upon its sweet delight,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">The cruel thorns pierce soul and heart, and cause a woeful blight.</span><br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 3em;"><b>DEATH.</b></span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">A traveller who has always heard</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">That on this journey he some day must go,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Yet shudders now, when at the fatal word</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">He starts upon the lonesome, dreary way.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">The past, a page of joy and woe,&mdash;the future, none can say.</span><br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 3em;"><b>FAITH.</b></span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Blind clinging to a stern, stone cross,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Or it may be of frailer make;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Eyes shut, ears closed to earth's drear dross,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Immovable, serene, the world away</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">From thoughts&mdash;the mind uncaring for another day.</span><br />
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_65" id="Page_65">[Pg 65]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="SALAMMBO" id="SALAMMBO"></a>SALAMMBO.</h2>
+
+<h3>BY GUSTAVE FLANBERT.</h3>
+
+
+<p>Like unto the barbaric splendor, the clashing of arms, the flashing of
+jewels, so is this book, full of brightness that dazzles, yet does not
+weary, of rich mosaic beauty of sensuous softness. Yet, with it all,
+there is a singular lack of elevation of thought and expression;
+everything tends to degrade, to drag the mind to a worse than earthly
+level. The crudity of the warriors, the minute description of the
+battles, the leper, Hann; even the sensual love-scene of Salammbo and
+Matho, and the rites of Taint and Moloch. Possibly this is due to the
+peculiar shortness and crispness of the sentences, and the painstaking
+attention to details. Nothing is left for the imagination to complete.
+The slightest turn of the hand, the smallest bit of tapestry and
+armor,&mdash;all, all is described until<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_66" id="Page_66">[Pg 66]</a></span> one's brain becomes weary with the
+scintillating flash of minutia. Such careful attention wearies and
+disappoints, and sometimes, instead of photographing the scenes
+indelibly upon the mental vision, there ensues only a confused mass of
+armor and soldiers, plains and horses.</p>
+
+<p>But the description of action and movement are incomparable, resembling
+somewhat, in the rush and flow of words, the style of Victor Hugo; the
+breathless rush and fire, the restrained passion and fury of a
+master-hand.</p>
+
+<p>Throughout the whole book this peculiarity is noticeable&mdash;there are no
+dissertations, no pauses for the author to express his opinions, no
+stoppages to reflect,&mdash;we are rushed onward with almost breathless
+haste, and many times are fain to pause and re-read a sentence, a
+paragraph, sometimes a whole page. Like the unceasing motion of a column
+of artillery in battle, like the roar and fury of the Carthaginian's
+elephant, so<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_67" id="Page_67">[Pg 67]</a></span> is the torrent of Flanbert's eloquence&mdash;majestic, grand,
+intense, with nobility, sensuous, but never sublime, never elevating,
+never delicate.</p>
+
+<p>As an historian, Flanbert would have ranked high&mdash;at least in
+impartiality. Not once in the whole volume does he allow his prejudices,
+his opinions, his sentiments to crop out. We lose complete sight of the
+author in his work. With marvellous fidelity he explains the movements,
+the vices and the virtues of each party, and with Shakespearean tact, he
+conceals his identity, so that we are troubled with none of that Byronic
+vice of 'dipping one's pen into one's self.'</p>
+
+<p>Still, for all the historian's impartiality, he is just a trifle
+incorrect, here and there&mdash;the ancients mention no aqueduct in or near
+Carthage. Hann was not crucified outside of Tunis. The incident of the
+Carthaginian women cutting off their tresses to furnish strings for bows
+and catapults is generally conceded to have occurred during the latter<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_68" id="Page_68">[Pg 68]</a></span>
+portion of the third Punic War. And still another difficulty presents
+itself&mdash;Salammbo was supposed to have been the only daughter of
+Hamilcar; according to Flanbert she dies unmarried, or rather on her
+wedding day, and yet historians tell us that after the death of the
+elder Barca, Hannibal was brought up and watched over by Hamilcar's
+son-in-law, Hasdrubal. Can it be possible that the crafty Numidian King,
+Nari Havas, is the intrepid, fearless and whole-souled Hasdrubal? Or is
+it only another deviation from the beaten track of history? In a
+historical novel, however, and one so evidently arranged for dramatic
+effects, such lapses from the truth only heighten the interest and
+kindle the imagination to a brighter flame.</p>
+
+<p>The school of realism of which Zola, Tolstoi, De Maupassant, and others
+of that ilk are followers, claims its descent from the author of
+Salammbo. Perhaps their claim is well-founded, perhaps not; we are
+inclined to believe that it is, for<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_69" id="Page_69">[Pg 69]</a></span> every page in this novel is crowded
+with details, often disgusting, which are generally left out in ordinary
+works. The hideous deformity, the rottenness and repulsiveness of the
+leper Hann is brought out in such vivid detail that we sicken and fain
+would turn aside in disgust. But go where one will, the ghastly,
+quivering, wretched picture is always before us in all its filth and
+splendid misery. The reeking horrors of the battle-fields, the
+disgusting details of the army imprisoned in the defile of the
+battle-axe, the grimness of the sacrifices to the blood-thirsty god,
+Moloch, the wretchedness of Hamilcar's slaves are presented with every
+ghastly detail, with every degrading trick of expression. Picture after
+picture of misery and foulness arises and pursues us as the grim witches
+pursued the hapless Tam O'Shanter, clutching us in ghastly arms,
+clinging to us with grim and ghoulish tenacity.</p>
+
+<p>Viewing the character through the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_70" id="Page_70">[Pg 70]</a></span> genteel crystal of nineteenth century
+civilization, they are all barbarous, unnatural, intensified; but
+considering the age in which they lived&mdash;the tendencies of that age, the
+gods they worshipped, the practices in which they indulged,&mdash;they are
+all true to life, perfect in the depiction of their natures. Spendius is
+a true Greek, crafty, lying, deceitful, ungrateful. Hamilcar needs no
+novelist to crystallize his character in words, he always remains the
+same Hamilcar of history, so it is with Hann; but to Flanbert alone are
+we indebted for the hideous realism of his external aspect. Matho is a
+dusky son of Libya,&mdash;fierce, passionate, resentful, unbridled in his
+speech and action, swept by the hot breath of furious love as his native
+sands are swept by the burning simoon. Salammbo, cold and strange
+delving deep in the mysticism of the Carthaginian gods, living apart
+from human passions in her intense love for the goddess, Tanit;
+Salammbo, in the earnest excess of her<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_71" id="Page_71">[Pg 71]</a></span> religious fervor, eagerly
+accepting the mission given her by the puzzled Saracharabim; Salammbo,
+twining the gloomy folds of the python about her perfumed limbs;
+Salammbo, resisting, then yielding to the fierce love of Matho;
+Salammbo, dying when her erstwhile lover expires; Salammbo, in all her
+many phases reminds us of some early Christian martyr or saint, though
+the sweet spirit of the Great Teacher is hidden in the punctual devotion
+to the mysterious rites of Tanit. She is an inexplicable mixture of the
+tropical exotic and the frigid snow-flower,&mdash;a rich and rare growth that
+attracts and repulses, that interests and absorbs, that we
+admire&mdash;without loving, detest&mdash;without hating.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_72" id="Page_72">[Pg 72]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="LEGEND_OF_THE_NEWSPAPER" id="LEGEND_OF_THE_NEWSPAPER"></a>LEGEND OF THE NEWSPAPER.</h2>
+
+
+<p>
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Poets sing and fables tell us,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Or old folk lore whispers low,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Of the origin of all things,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Of the spring from whence they came,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Kalevala, old and hoary,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">&AElig;neid, Iliad, &AElig;sop, too,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">All are filled with strange quaint legends,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">All replete with ancient tales,&mdash;</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">How love came, and how old earth,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Freed from chaos, grew for us,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">To a green and wondrous spheroid,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">To a home for things alive;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">How fierce fire and iron cold,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">How the snow and how the frost,&mdash;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">All these things the old rhymes ring,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">All these things the old tales tell.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Yet they ne'er sang of the beginning,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Of that great unbreathing angel,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Of that soul without a haven,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Of that gracious Lady Bountiful,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Yet they ne'er told how it came here;</span><br />
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_73" id="Page_73">[Pg 73]</a></span><span style="margin-left: 1em;">Ne'er said why we read it daily,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Nor did they even let us guess why</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">We were left to tell the tale.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Came one day into the wood-land,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Muckintosh, the great and mighty,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Muckintosh, the famous thinker,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">He whose brain was all his weapons,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">As against his rival's soarings,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">High unto the vaulted heavens,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Low adown the swarded earth,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Rolled he round his gaze all steely,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And his voice like music prayed:</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"Oh, Creator, wondrous Spirit,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Thou who hast for us descended</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">In the guise of knowledge mighty,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And our brains with truth o'er-flooded;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">In the greatness of thy wisdom,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Knowest not our limitations?</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Wondrous thoughts have we, thy servants,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Wondrous things we see each day,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Yet we cannot tell our brethren,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Yet we cannot let them know,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Of our doings and our happenings,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Should they parted be from us?</span><br />
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_74" id="Page_74">[Pg 74]</a></span><span style="margin-left: 1em;">Help us, oh, Thou Wise Creator,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">From the fulness of thy wisdom,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Show us how to spread our knowledge,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And disseminate our actions,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Such as we find worthy, truly."</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Quick the answer came from heaven;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Muckintosh, the famous thinker,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Muckintosh, the great and mighty,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Felt a trembling, felt a quaking,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Saw the earth about him open,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Saw the iron from the mountains</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Form a quaint and queer machine,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Saw the lead from out the lead mines</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Roll into small lettered forms,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Saw the fibres from the flax-plant,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Spread into great sheets of paper,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Saw the ink galls from the green trees</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Crushed upon the leaden forms;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Muckintosh, the famous thinker,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Muckintosh, the great and mighty,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Felt a trembling, felt a quaking,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Saw the earth about him open,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Saw the flame and sulphur smoking,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Came the printer's little devil,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Far from distant lands the printer,</span><br />
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_75" id="Page_75">[Pg 75]</a></span><span style="margin-left: 1em;">Man of unions, man of cuss-words,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">From the depths of sooty blackness;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Came the towel of the printer;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Many things that Muckintosh saw,&mdash;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Galleys, type, and leads and rules,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Presses, press-men, quoins and spaces,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Quads and caps and lower cases.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">But to Muckintosh bewildered,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">All this passed as in a dream,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Till within his nervous hand,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Hand with joy and fear a-quaking,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Muckintosh, the great and mighty,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Muckintosh, the famous thinker,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Held the first of our newspapers.</span><br />
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_76" id="Page_76">[Pg 76]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="A_CARNIVAL_JANGLE" id="A_CARNIVAL_JANGLE"></a>A CARNIVAL JANGLE.</h2>
+
+
+<p>There is a merry jangle of bells in the air, an all-pervading sense of
+jester's noise, and the flaunting vividness of royal colors; the streets
+swarm with humanity,&mdash;humanity in all shapes, manners, forms,&mdash;laughing,
+pushing, jostling, crowding, a mass of men and women and children, as
+varied and as assorted in their several individual peculiarities as ever
+a crowd that gathered in one locality since the days of Babel.</p>
+
+<p>It is Carnival in New Orleans; a brilliant Tuesday in February, when the
+very air effervesces an ozone intensely exhilarating&mdash;of a nature half
+spring, half winter&mdash;to make one long to cut capers. The buildings are a
+blazing mass of royal purple and golden yellow, and national flags,
+bunting and decorations that laugh in the glint of the Midas sun. The
+streets a crush of jesters and maskers, Jim Crows and clowns, ballet<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_77" id="Page_77">[Pg 77]</a></span>
+girls and Mephistos, Indians and monkeys; of wild and sudden flashes of
+music, of glittering pageants and comic ones, of befeathered and belled
+horses. A madding dream of color and melody and fantasy gone wild in an
+effervescent bubble of beauty that shifts and changes and passes
+kaleidoscope-like before the bewildered eye.</p>
+
+<p>A bevy of bright-eyed girls and boys of that uncertainty of age that
+hovers between childhood and maturity, were moving down Canal Street
+when there was a sudden jostle with another crowd meeting them. For a
+minute there was a deafening clamor of laughter, cracking of whips,
+which all maskers carry, jingle and clatter of carnival bells, and the
+masked and unmasked extricated themselves and moved from each other's
+paths. But in the confusion a tall Prince of Darkness had whispered to
+one of the girls in the unmasked crowd: "You'd better come with us, Flo,
+you're wasting time in that tame gang. Slip off, they'll<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_78" id="Page_78">[Pg 78]</a></span> never miss
+you; we'll get you a rig, and show you what life is."</p>
+
+<p>And so it happened that when a half hour passed, and the bright-eyed
+bevy missed Flo and couldn't find her, wisely giving up the search at
+last, that she, the quietest and most bashful of the lot, was being
+initiated into the mysteries of "what life is."</p>
+
+<p>Down Bourbon Street and on Toulouse and St. Peter Streets there are
+quaint little old-world places, where one may be disguised effectually
+for a tiny consideration. Thither guided by the shapely Mephisto, and
+guarded by the team of jockeys and ballet girls, tripped Flo. Into one
+of the lowest-ceiled, dingiest and most ancient-looking of these
+disguise shops they stopped.</p>
+
+<p>"A disguise for this demoiselle," announced Mephisto to the woman who
+met them. She was small and wizened and old, with yellow, flabby jaws
+and neck like the throat of an alligator, and straight, white hair that
+stood from her head uncannily stiff.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_79" id="Page_79">[Pg 79]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"But the demoiselle wishes to appear a boy, <i>un petit garcon</i>?" she
+inquired, gazing eagerly at Flo's long, slender frame. Her voice was old
+and thin, like the high quavering of an imperfect tuning fork, and her
+eyes were sharp as talons in their grasping glance.</p>
+
+<p>"Mademoiselle does not wish such a costume," gruffly responded Mephisto.</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Ma foi</i>, there is no other," said the ancient, shrugging her
+shoulders. "But one is left now, mademoiselle would make a fine
+troubadour."</p>
+
+<p>"Flo," said Mephisto, "it's a dare-devil scheme, try it; no one will
+ever know it but us, and we'll die before we tell. Besides, we must;
+it's late, and you couldn't find your crowd."</p>
+
+<p>And that was why you might have seen a Mephisto and a slender troubadour
+of lovely form, with mandolin flung across his shoulder, followed by a
+bevy of jockeys and ballet girls, laughing and singing as they swept
+down Rampart Street.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_80" id="Page_80">[Pg 80]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>When the flash and glare and brilliancy of Canal Street have palled upon
+the tired eye, and it is yet too soon to go home, and to such a prosaic
+thing as dinner, and one still wishes for novelty, then it is wise to go
+in the lower districts. Fantasy and fancy and grotesqueness in the
+costuming and behavior of the maskers run wild. Such dances and whoops
+and leaps as these hideous Indians and devils do indulge in; such wild
+curvetings and great walks. And in the open squares, where whole groups
+do congregate, it is wonderfully amusing. Then, too, there is a ball in
+every available hall, a delirious ball, where one may dance all day for
+ten cents; dance and grow mad for joy, and never know who were your
+companions, and be yourself unknown. And in the exhilaration of the day,
+one walks miles and miles, and dances and curvets, and the fatigue is
+never felt.</p>
+
+<p>In Washington Square, away down where Royal Street empties its stream<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_81" id="Page_81">[Pg 81]</a></span>
+of children and men into the broad channel of Elysian Fields Avenue,
+there was a perfect Indian dance. With a little imagination one might
+have willed away the vision of the surrounding houses and fancied one's
+self again in the forest, where the natives were holding a sacred riot.
+The square was filled with spectators, masked and unmasked. It was
+amusing to watch these mimic Red-men, they seemed so fierce and earnest.</p>
+
+<p>Suddenly one chief touched another on the elbow. "See that Mephisto and
+troubadour over there?" he whispered huskily.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, who are they?"</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know the devil," responded the other quietly, "but I'd know
+that other form anywhere. It's Leon, see? I know those white hands like
+a woman's and that restless head. Ha!</p>
+
+<p>"But there may be a mistake."</p>
+
+<p>"No. I'd know that one anywhere; I feel it's him. I'll pay him now. Ah,
+sweetheart, you've waited long, but you<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_82" id="Page_82">[Pg 82]</a></span> shall feast now!" He was
+caressing something long, and lithe, and glittering beneath his blanket.</p>
+
+<p>In a masked dance it is easy to give a death-blow between the shoulders.
+Two crowds meet and laugh and shout and mingle almost inextricably, and
+if a shriek of pain should arise, it is not noticed in the din, and when
+they part, if one should stagger and fall bleeding to the ground, who
+can tell who has given the blow? There is naught but an unknown stiletto
+on the ground, the crowd has dispersed, and masks tell no tales anyway.
+There is murder, but by whom? for what? <i>Quien sabe?</i></p>
+
+<p>And that is how it happened on Carnival night, in the last mad moments
+of Rex's reign, a broken-hearted woman sat gazing wide-eyed and mute at
+a horrible something that lay across the bed. Outside the long sweet
+march music of many bands floated in in mockery, and the flash of
+rockets and Bengal lights illumined the dead, white face of the girl
+troubadour.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_83" id="Page_83">[Pg 83]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="PAUL_TO_VIRGINIA" id="PAUL_TO_VIRGINIA"></a>PAUL TO VIRGINIA.</h2>
+
+<h3>FIN DE SIECLE.</h3>
+
+
+<p>
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">I really must confess, my dear,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">I cannot help but love you,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">For of all girls I ever knew,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">There's none I place above you;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">But then you know it's rather hard,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">To dangle aimless at your skirt,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And watch your every movement so,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;"><i>For I am jealous, and you're a flirt</i>.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">There's half a score of fellows round,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">You smile at every one,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And as I think to pride myself for basking in the sun</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Of your sweet smiles, you laugh at me,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">And treat me like a lump of dirt,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Until I wish that I were dead,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;"><i>For I am jealous, and you're a flirt</i>.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">I'm sorry that I've ever known</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Your loveliness entrancing,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Or ever saw your laughing eyes,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">With girlish mischief dancing;</span><br />
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_84" id="Page_84">[Pg 84]</a></span><span style="margin-left: 1em;">'Tis agony supreme and rare</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">To see your slender waist a-girt</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">With other fellows' arms, you see,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;"><i>For I am jealous, and you're a flirt</i>.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Now, girlie, if you'll promise me,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">To never, never treat me mean,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">I'll show you in a little while,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">The best sweetheart you've ever seen;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">You do not seem to know or care,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">How often you've my feelings hurt,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">While flying round with other boys,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;"><i>For I am jealous, and you're a flirt</i>.</span><br />
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_85" id="Page_85">[Pg 85]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="THE_MAIDENS_DREAM" id="THE_MAIDENS_DREAM"></a>THE MAIDEN'S DREAM.</h2>
+
+
+<p>The maid had been reading love-poetry, where the world lay bathed in
+moon-light, fragrant with dew-wet roses and jasmine, harmonious with the
+clear tinkle of mandolin and guitar. Then a lethargy, like unto that
+which steeps the senses, and benumbs the faculties of the lotus-eaters,
+enveloped her brain, and she lay as one in a trance,&mdash;awake, yet
+sleeping; conscious, yet unburdened with care.</p>
+
+<p>And there stole into her consciousness, words, thoughts, not of her own,
+yet she read them not, nor heard them spoken; they fell deep into her
+heart and soul, softer and more caressing than the over-shadowing wing
+of a mother-dove, sweeter and more thrilling than the last high notes of
+a violin, and they were these:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>Love, most potent, most tyrannical, and most gentle of the passions
+which<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_86" id="Page_86">[Pg 86]</a></span> sway the human mind, thou art the invisible agency which rules
+mens' souls, which governs mens' kingdoms, which controls the universe.
+By thy mighty will do the silent, eternal hosts of Heaven sweep in
+sublime procession across the unmeasured blue. The perfect harmony of
+the spheres is attuned for thee, and by thee; the perfect coloring of
+the clouds, than which no mortal pigment can dare equal, are thy
+handiwork. Most ancient of the heathen deities, Eros; powerful God of
+the Christians, Jehovah, all hail! For a brief possession of thy divine
+fire have kingdoms waxed and waned; men in all the bitterness of hatred
+fought, bled, died by millions, their grosser selves to be swept into
+the bosom of their ancient mother, an immense holocaust to thee. For
+thee and thee alone does the world prosper, for thee do men strive to
+become better than their fellow-men; for thee, and through thee have
+they sunk to such depths of degradation as causes a blush<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_87" id="Page_87">[Pg 87]</a></span> to be painted
+upon the faces of those that see. All things are subservient to thee.
+All the delicate intricate workings of that marvellous machine, the
+human brain; all the passions and desires of the human heart,&mdash;ambition,
+desire, greed, hatred, envy, jealousy, all others. Thou breedst them
+all, O love, thou art all-potent, all-wise, infinite, eternal! Thy power
+is felt by mortals in all ages, all climes, all conditions. Behold!</p>
+
+<p>A picture came into the maiden's eye: a broad and fertile plain, tender
+verdure, soft blue sky overhead, with white billowy clouds nearing the
+horizon like great airy, snow-capped mountains. The soft warm breeze
+from the south whispered faintly through the tall, slender palms and
+sent a thrill of joy through the frisky lambkins, who capered by the
+sides of their graver dams. And there among the riches of the flock
+stood Laban, haughty, stern, yet withal a kindly gleam in the glance
+which rested upon the group about him. Hoary the beard<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_88" id="Page_88">[Pg 88]</a></span> that rested upon
+his breast, but steady the hand that stretched in blessing. Leah, the
+tender-eyed, the slighted, is there; and Rachel, young and beautiful and
+blushing beneath the ardent gaze of her handsome lover. "And Jacob loved
+Rachel, and said, I will serve thee seven years for Rachel, thy younger
+daughter."</p>
+
+<p>How different the next scene! Heaven's wrath burst loose upon a single
+community. Fire, the red-winged demon with brazen throat wide opened,
+hangs his brooding wings upon an erstwhile happy city. Hades has climbed
+through the crater of Vesuvius, and leaps in fiendish waves along the
+land. Few the souls escaping, and God have mercy upon those who stumble
+through the blinding darkness, made more torturingly hideous by the
+intermittent flashes of lurid light. And yet there come three, whom the
+darkness seems not to deter, nor obstacles impede. Only a blind person,
+accustomed to con<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_89" id="Page_89">[Pg 89]</a></span>stant darkness, and familiarized with these streets
+could walk that way. Nearer they come, a burst of flames thrown into the
+inky firmament by impish hands, reveals Glaucus, supporting the
+half-fainting Ione, following Nydia, frail, blind, flower-loving Nydia,
+sacrificing life for her unloving beloved.</p>
+
+<p>And then the burning southern sun shone bright and golden o'er the
+silken sails of the Nile serpent's ships; glinted on the armor and
+weapons of the famous galley; shone with a warm caressing touch upon her
+beauty, as though it loved this queen, as powerful in her sphere as he
+in his. It is at Actium, and the fate of nations and generations yet
+unborn hang, as the sword of Damocles hung, upon the tiny thread of
+destiny. Egypt herself, her splendid barbaric beauty acting like an
+inspiration upon the craven followers, leads on, foremost in this fierce
+struggle. Then, the tide turns, and overpowered, they fly before
+disgrace and defeat. Antony is<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_90" id="Page_90">[Pg 90]</a></span> there, the traitor, dishonored, false to
+his country, yet true to his love; Antony, whom ambition could not lure
+from her passionate caresses; Antony, murmuring softly,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Egypt, thou knowest too well</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">My heart was to thy rudder tied by the strings,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And thou should'st tow me after.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Over my spirit</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Thy full supremacy thou knewest,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And that thy beck might from the bidding of the gods</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Command me.</span><br />
+</p>
+
+<p>Picture after picture flashed through the maiden's mind. Agnes, the
+gentle, sacrificing, burrowing like some frantic animal through the
+ruins of Lisbon, saving her lover, Franklin, by teeth and bleeding
+hands. Dora, the patient, serving a loveless existence, saving her rival
+from starvation and destitution. The stern, dark, exiled Florentine
+poet, with that one silver ray in his clouded life&mdash;Beatrice.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_91" id="Page_91">[Pg 91]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>She heard the piping of an elfish voice, "Mother, why does the minister
+keep his hands over his heart?" and the white drawn face of Hester
+Prynne, with her scarlet elf-child, passed slowly across her vision. The
+wretched misery of deluded Lucius and his mysterious Lamia she saw, and
+watched with breathless interest the formation of that "Brotherhood of
+the Rose." There was radiant Armorel, from sea-blown, wave-washed
+Lyonesse, her perfect head poised in loving caress over the magic
+violin. Dark-eyed Corinne, head drooped gently as she improvised those
+Rome-famed world symphonies passed, almost ere Edna and St. Elmo had
+crossed the threshold of the church happy in the love now consecrated
+through her to God. Oh, the pictures, the forms, the love-words which
+crowded her mind! They thrilled her heart, crushed out all else save a
+crushing, over-powering sense of perfect, complete joy. A joy that
+sought to express<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_92" id="Page_92">[Pg 92]</a></span> itself in wondrous melodies and silences, filled with
+thoughts too deep and sacred for words. Overpowered with the
+magnificence of his reign, overwhelmed with the complete subjugation of
+all things unto him, do you wonder that she awoke and placing both hands
+into those of the lover at her side, whispered:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Take all of me&mdash;I am thine own, heart, soul,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Brain, body, all; all that I am or dream</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Is thine forever; yea, though space should teem</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">With thy conditions, I'd fulfil the whole,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Were to fulfil them to be loved by thee.</span><br />
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_93" id="Page_93">[Pg 93]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="IN_MEMORIAM" id="IN_MEMORIAM"></a>IN MEMORIAM.</h2>
+
+
+<p>
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">The light streams through the windows arched high,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">And o'er the stern, stone carvings breaks</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">In warm rich gold and crimson waves,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Then steals away in corners dark to die.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And all the grand cathedral silence falls</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Into the hearts of those that worship low,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Like tender waves of hushed nothingness,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Confined nor kept by human earthly walls.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Deep music in its thundering organ sounds,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Grows diffuse through the echoing space,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Till hearts grow still in sadness' mighty joy,</span><br />
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_94" id="Page_94">[Pg 94]</a></span><span style="margin-left: 1em;">Or leap aloft in swift ecstatic bounds.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Mayhap 'twas but a dream that came to me,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Or but a vision of the soul's desire,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">To see the nation in one mighty whole,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Do homage on its bended, worshipping knee.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Through time's heroic actions, the soul of man,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Alone proves what that soul without earth's dross</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Could be, and this, through time's far-searching fire,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Hath proved thine white beneath the deepest scan.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">A woman's tribute, 'tis a tiny dot,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">A merest flower from a frail, small hand,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">To lay among the many petaled wreaths</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">About thy form,&mdash;a tribute soon forgot.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">But if in all the incense to arise</span><br />
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_95" id="Page_95">[Pg 95]</a></span><span style="margin-left: 2em;">In fragrance to the blue empyrean</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">The blended sweetness of the womens' love</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Goes pouring too, in all their heartfelt sighs.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And if one woman's sorrow be among them too,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">One woman's joy for labor past</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Be reckoned in the mighty teeming whole,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">It is enough, there is not more to do.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Within the hearts of heroes small and great</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">There 'bides a tenderness for weakling things</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Within thy heart, the sorrowing country knows</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">These passions, bravest and the tenderest mate.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">When man is dust, before the gazing eyes</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Of all the gaping throng, his life lies wide</span><br />
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_96" id="Page_96">[Pg 96]</a></span><span style="margin-left: 2em;">For all to see and whisper low about</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Or let their thoughts in discord's clatter rise.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">But thine was pure and undefiled,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">A record of long brilliant, teeming days,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Each thought did tend to further things,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">But pure as the proverbial child.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Oh, people, that thy grief might find express</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">To gather in some vast cathedral's hall,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">That then in unity we might kneel and hear</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Sublimity in sounds, voice our distress.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Peace, peace, the men of God cry, ye be bold,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">The world hath known, 'tis Heaven who claims him now,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">And in our railings we but cast aside</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">The noble traits he bid us hold.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">So though divided through the land, in dreams</span><br />
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_97" id="Page_97">[Pg 97]</a></span><span style="margin-left: 2em;">We see a people kneeling low,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Bowed down in heart and soul to see</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">This fearful sorrow, crushing as it seems.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And all the grand cathedral silence falls</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Into the hearts of these that worship low,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Like tender waves of hushed nothingness,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Confined, nor kept by human earthly walls.</span><br />
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_98" id="Page_98">[Pg 98]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="A_STORY_OF_VENGEANCE" id="A_STORY_OF_VENGEANCE"></a>A STORY OF VENGEANCE.</h2>
+
+
+<p>Yes, Eleanor, I have grown grayer. I am younger than you, you know, but
+then, what have you to age you? A kind husband, lovely children, while
+I&mdash;I am nothing but a lonely woman. Time goes slowly, slowly for me now.</p>
+
+<p>Why did I never marry? Move that screen a little to one side, please; my
+eyes can scarcely bear a strong light. Bernard? Oh, that's a long story.
+I'll tell you if you wish; it might pass an hour.</p>
+
+<p>Do you ever think to go over the old school-days? We thought such
+foolish things then, didn't we? There wasn't one of us but imagined we
+would have only to knock ever so faintly on the portals of fame and they
+would fly wide for our entrance into the magic realms. On Commencement
+night we whispered merrily among ourselves on the stage to see our
+favorite planet, Venus, of course,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_99" id="Page_99">[Pg 99]</a></span> smiling at us through a high, open
+window, "bidding adieu to her astronomy class," we said.</p>
+
+<p>Then you went away to plunge into the most brilliant whirl of society,
+and I stayed in the beautiful old city to work.</p>
+
+<p>Bernard was very much <i>en evidence</i> those days. He liked you a great
+deal, because in school-girl parlance you were my "chum." You
+say,&mdash;thanks, no tea, it reminds me that I'm an old maid; you say you
+know what happiness means&mdash;maybe, but I don't think any living soul
+could experience the joy I felt in those days; it was absolutely painful
+at times.</p>
+
+<p>Byron and his counterparts are ever dear to the womanly heart, whether
+young or old. Such a man was he, gloomy, misanthropical, tired of the
+world, with a few dozen broken love-affairs among his varied
+experiences. Of course, I worshipped him secretly, what romantic, silly
+girl of my age, would not, being thrown in such con<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_100" id="Page_100">[Pg 100]</a></span>stant contact with
+him.</p>
+
+<p>One day he folded me tightly in his arms, and said:</p>
+
+<p>"Little girl, I have nothing to give you in exchange for that priceless
+love of yours but a heart that has already been at another's feet, and a
+wrecked life, but may I ask for it?"</p>
+
+<p>"It is already yours," I answered. I'll draw the veil over the scene
+which followed; you know, you've "been there."</p>
+
+<p>Then began some of the happiest hours that ever the jolly old sun beamed
+upon, or the love-sick moon clothed in her rays of silver. Deceived me?
+No, no. He admitted that the old love for Blanche was still in his
+heart, but that he had lost all faith and respect for her, and could
+nevermore be other than a friend. Well, I was fool enough to be content
+with such crumbs.</p>
+
+<p>We had five months of happiness. I tamed down beautifully in that
+time,&mdash;even consented to adopt the peerless<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_101" id="Page_101">[Pg 101]</a></span> Blanche as a model. I gave
+up all my most ambitious plans and cherished schemes, because he
+disliked women whose names were constantly in the mouth of the public.
+In fact, I became quiet, sedate, dignified, renounced too some of my
+best and dearest friends. I lived, breathed, thought, acted only for
+him; for me there was but one soul in the universe&mdash;Bernard's. Still,
+for all the suffering I've experienced, I'd be willing to go through it
+all again just to go over those five months. Every day together, at
+nights on the lake-shore listening to the soft lap of the waters as the
+silver sheen of the moon spread over the dainty curled waves; sometimes
+in a hammock swinging among the trees talking of love and reading
+poetry. Talk about Heaven! I just think there can't he a better time
+among the angels.</p>
+
+<p>But there is an end to all things. A violent illness, and his father
+relenting, sent for the wayward son. I will always believe he loved me,
+but he was eager to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_102" id="Page_102">[Pg 102]</a></span> get home to his mother, and anxious to view Blanche
+in the light of their new relationship. We had a whole series of parting
+scenes,&mdash;tears and vows and kisses exchanged. We clung to each other
+after the regulation fashion, and swore never to forget, and to write
+every day. Then there was a final wrench. I went back to my old
+life&mdash;he, away home.</p>
+
+<p>For a while I was content, there were daily letters from him to read;
+his constant admonitions to practice; his many little tokens to
+adore&mdash;until there came a change,&mdash;letters less frequent, more mention
+of Blanche and her love for him, less of his love for me, until the
+truth was forced upon me. Then I grew cold and proud, and with an iron
+will crushed and stamped all love for him out of my tortured heart and
+cried for vengeance.</p>
+
+<p>Yes, quite melo-dramatic, wasn't it? It is a dramatic tale, though.</p>
+
+<p>So I threw off my habits of seclusion and mingled again with men and
+women,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_103" id="Page_103">[Pg 103]</a></span> and took up all my long-forgotten plans. It's no use telling you
+how I succeeded. It was really wonderful, wasn't it? It seems as though
+that fickle goddess, Fortune, showered every blessing, save one, on my
+path. Success followed success, triumph succeeded triumph. I was
+lionized, feted, petted, caressed by the social and literary world. You
+often used to wonder how I stood it in all those years. God knows; with
+the heart-sick weariness and the fierce loathing that possessed me, I
+don't know myself.</p>
+
+<p>But, mind you, Eleanor, I schemed well. I had everything seemingly that
+humanity craved for, but I suffered, and by all the gods, I swore that
+he should suffer too. Blanche turned against him and married his
+brother. An unfortunate chain of circumstances drove him from his
+father's home branded as a forger. Strange, wasn't it? But money is a
+strong weapon, and its long arm reaches over leagues and leagues of land
+and water.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_104" id="Page_104">[Pg 104]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>One day he found me in a distant city, and begged for my love again, and
+for mercy and pity. Blanche was only a mistake, he said, and he loved me
+alone, and so on. I remembered all his thrilling tones and tender
+glances, but they might have moved granite now sooner than me. He knelt
+at my feet and pleaded like a criminal suing for life. I laughed at him
+and sneered at his misery, and told him what he had done for my
+happiness, and what I in turn had done for his.</p>
+
+<p>Eleanor, to my dying day, I shall never forget his face as he rose from
+his knees, and with one awful, indescribable look of hate, anguish and
+scorn, walked from the room. As he neared the door, all the old love
+rose in me like a flood, drowning the sorrows of past years, and
+overwhelming me in a deluge of pity. Strive as I did, I could not
+repress it; a woman's love is too mighty to be put down with little
+reasonings. I called to him in terror, "Bernard, Bernard!" He<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_105" id="Page_105">[Pg 105]</a></span> did not
+turn; gave no sign of having heard.</p>
+
+<p>"Bernard, come back; I didn't mean it!"</p>
+
+<p>He passed slowly away with bent head, out of the house and out of my
+life. I've never seen him since, never heard of him. Somewhere, perhaps
+on God's earth he wanders outcast, forsaken, loveless. I have my
+vengeance, but it is like Dead Sea fruit, all bitter ashes to the taste.
+I am a miserable, heart-weary wreck,&mdash;a woman with fame, without love.</p>
+
+<p>"Vengeance is an arrow that often falleth and smiteth the hand of him
+that sent it."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_106" id="Page_106">[Pg 106]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="AT_BAY_ST_LOUIS" id="AT_BAY_ST_LOUIS"></a>AT BAY ST. LOUIS.</h2>
+
+
+<p>
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Soft breezes blow and swiftly show</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Through fragrant orange branches parted,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">A maiden fair, with sun-flecked hair,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Caressed by arrows, golden darted.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">The vine-clad tree holds forth to me</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">A promise sweet of purple blooms,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And chirping bird, scarce seen but heard</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Sings dreamily, and sweetly croons</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 6em;">At Bay St. Louis.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">The hammock swinging, idly singing,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Lissome nut-brown maid</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Swings gaily, freely, to-and-fro;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">The curling, green-white waters casting cool, clear shade,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Rock small, shell boats that go</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">In circles wide, or tug at anchor's chain,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">As though to skim the sea with cargo vain,</span><br />
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_107" id="Page_107">[Pg 107]</a></span><span style="margin-left: 6em;">At Bay St. Louis.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">The maid swings slower, slower to-and-fro,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And sunbeams kiss gray, dreamy half-closed eyes;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Fond lover creeping on with foot steps slow,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Gives gentle kiss, and smiles at sweet surprise.</span><br />
+</p>
+<hr style="width: 45%; Margin-top: 1.3em; margin-bottom: 1.3em;" />
+<p>
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">The lengthening shadows tell that eve is nigh,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">And fragrant zephyrs cool and calmer grow,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Yet still the lover lingers, and scarce breathed sigh,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Bids the swift hours to pause, nor go,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 6em;">At Bay St. Louis.</span><br />
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_108" id="Page_108">[Pg 108]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="NEW_YEARS_DAY" id="NEW_YEARS_DAY"></a>NEW YEAR'S DAY.</h2>
+
+
+<p>
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">The poor old year died hard; for all the earth lay cold</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">And bare beneath the wintry sky;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">While grey clouds scurried madly to the west,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">And hid the chill young moon from mortal sight.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Deep, dying groans the aged year breathed forth,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">In soughing winds that wailed a requiem sad</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">In dull crescendo through the mournful air.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">The new year now is welcomed noisily</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">With din and song and shout and clanging bell,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And all the glare and blare of fiery fun.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Sing high the welcome to the New Year's morn!</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;"><i>Le roi est mort. Vive, vive le roi!</i> cry out,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And hail the new-born king of coming days.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_109" id="Page_109">[Pg 109]</a></span><span style="margin-left: 1em;">Alas! the day is spent and eve draws nigh;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">The king's first subject dies&mdash;for naught,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And wasted moments by the hundred score</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Of past years rise like spectres grim</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">To warn, that these days may not idly glide away.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Oh, New Year, youth of promise fair!</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">What dost thou hold for me? An aching heart?</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Or eyes burnt blind by unshed tears? Or stabs,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">More keen because unseen?</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Nay, nay, dear youth, I've had surfeit</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Of sorrow's feast. The monarch dead</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Did rule me with an iron hand. Be thou a friend,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">A tender, loving king&mdash;and let me know</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">The ripe, full sweetness of a happy year.</span><br />
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_110" id="Page_110">[Pg 110]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="THE_UNKNOWN_LIFE_OF_JESUS_CHRIST" id="THE_UNKNOWN_LIFE_OF_JESUS_CHRIST"></a>THE UNKNOWN LIFE OF JESUS CHRIST.</h2>
+
+
+<p>A new gem has been added to sacred literature, and this is the
+accidental discovery by Nicolas Notovich of a Buddhist history of a
+phase of Christ's life left blank in the Scriptures.</p>
+
+<p>Notovich, an adventurer, searching amid the ruins of India, delving deep
+in all the ancient Buddhistic lore, accidentally stumbles upon the name
+of Saint Issa, a renowned preacher, ante-dating some 2,000 years. The
+name becomes a wondrous attraction to Notovich, particularly as he
+learns through many Buddhist priests, Issa's name in juxtaposition with
+the Christian faith, and later, has reason to believe that the Jesus
+Christ of our religion and the Saint Issa of their tradition are
+identical.</p>
+
+<p>Through a seemingly unfortunate accident, Notovich sustains an injury
+to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_111" id="Page_111">[Pg 111]</a></span> his leg, and is cared for most tenderly by the monks of the convent
+of Himis. Despite his severe agonies, he retains consciousness and
+curiosity enough to plead for a glimpse of the wonderful documents
+contained in the archives of the convent, treating of the life of Saint
+Issa and the genealogy of the House of David. This he has translated and
+gives to the public.</p>
+
+<p>Just whether to take the history seriously or not is a subject that
+requires much thought; but whether it be truth or fiction, whether the
+result of patient investigation and careful study of an interested
+scholar, or the wild imaginings of a feeble brain, it opens a wild field
+of speculation to the thoughtful mind.</p>
+
+<p>The first three chapters of this history, contain a brief epitome of the
+Pentatouch of Moses. Though contrary to the teachings of tradition,
+Moses is said not to have written these books himself, but that they
+were transcribed generations after his time. According to this theory,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_112" id="Page_112">[Pg 112]</a></span>
+then, the seeming imperfections and inconsistencies and tautological
+errors of the Old Testament as compared with the brief, clear, concise,
+logical statement of the Buddhists may readily be explained by the
+frailty of human memory, and the vividness of Oriental imagination.</p>
+
+<p>Prince Mossa of the Buddhists, otherwise Moses of the Jews, was not, as
+is popularly supposed, a foundling of the Jews, or a protege of the
+Egyptian princess, but a full fledged prince, son of Pharaoh the mighty.
+This abrupt over-throw of the tradition of ages is like all
+disillusions, distasteful, but even the most superficial study of
+Egyptian customs and laws of that time will serve to impress us with the
+verity of this opinion. The law of caste was most rigidly and cruelly
+adhered to, and though all the pleadings and threatenings and weepings
+of the starry-eyed favorite of the harem may have been brought to bear
+upon this descendant of Rameses, yet is it probable that a descendant of
+an out<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_113" id="Page_113">[Pg 113]</a></span>cast race should receive the care and learning and advantages of
+a legally born prince? Hardly.</p>
+
+<p>The condition of the ancient Israelites in the Christian Scriptures and
+in the Buddhist parchment are the same, yet there is reason to believe
+that the former was transcribed many centuries after the hieroglyphics
+of the latter became faded with age, hence, perhaps, the difference in
+the parentage of Moses.</p>
+
+<p>"And Mossa was beloved throughout the land of Egypt for the goodness and
+compassion he displayed for them that suffered, pleaded with his father
+to soften the lot of these unhappy people, but Pharaoh became angry with
+him, and only imposed more hardships upon his slaves."</p>
+
+<p>At this period in our Scriptures, the Lord communicates with Moses, and
+inflicts the plagues upon the nation, while in the manuscript of the
+Himis monks, the annual plague brought on by natural causes falls upon
+Egypt, and decimates<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_114" id="Page_114">[Pg 114]</a></span> the community. Here is a strange reversal of the
+order of things. In India, for ages the home of superstition and idol
+worship, that which has always been regarded by the Christians, the
+sworn enemies of the supernatural, as an inexplicable mystery, is
+accounted for by perfectly natural causes.</p>
+
+<p>From that time, the fourth chapter of the chronicle of St. Issa
+corresponds exactly in its condensed form to the most prominent
+chronology of the Old Testament. With the beginning of the next chapter,
+the Divine Infant, through whom the salvation of the world was to come,
+appears upon the scene, as the first born of a poor but highly connected
+family, referring, presumably, to the ancestry of Joseph and Mary.</p>
+
+<p>The remarkable wisdom of the child in earlier years is chronicled in our
+ancient parchment with as much care as in the vellum-bound volume of our
+church scriptures. At the age of twelve, the last glimpse we have of
+Jesus in the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_115" id="Page_115">[Pg 115]</a></span> New Testament, is as a precocious boy, seated in the
+Temple, expounding the Scriptures to the learned members of the
+Sanhedrin. After that, we have no further sight of him, until sixteen
+years later, he re-appears at the marriage in Cana, a grown and serious
+man, already with well-formulated plans for the furtherance of his
+father's kingdom. This broad lapse in the Scriptures is filled by one
+simple sentence in the gospel of St. Luke. "And he was in the desert
+till the day of his showing into Israel." Where he was, why he had gone,
+and what he was doing are left to the imagination of the scholar and
+commentator.</p>
+
+<p>Many theories have been advanced, and the one most accepted, was that he
+had followed the trade of his terrestrial father, Joseph, and was near
+Jerusalem among the tools of carpentry, helping his parents to feed the
+hungry mouths of his brothers and sisters.</p>
+
+<p>But there appears another plausible theory advanced by the Buddhist
+histo<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_116" id="Page_116">[Pg 116]</a></span>rians, and sustained by the Buddhist traditions, that as Moses had
+fled into the wilderness to spend forty years in fasting and preparation
+for his life work, so Jesus had fled, not to the wilderness, but to the
+ancient culture and learning and the wisdom of centuries to prepare
+himself, by a knowledge of all religions for the day of the redemption.</p>
+
+<p>Among the Jews of that day, and even among the more conservative
+descendants of Abraham yet, there existed, and exists a law which
+accustoms the marrying of the sons, especially the oldest son, at the
+age of thirteen. It is supposed that Issa, resisting the thraldom and
+carnal temptation of the marital state, fled from the importunities of
+the wise men, who would fain unite their offspring with such a wise and
+serious youth.</p>
+
+<p>"It was then that Issa clandestinely left his father's house, went out
+of Jerusalem, and in company with some merchants, travelled toward
+Sinai."</p>
+
+<p>"That he might perfect himself in the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_117" id="Page_117">[Pg 117]</a></span> divine word and study the laws of
+the Great Buddha."</p>
+
+<p>For six years he kept all India stirred to its utmost depths as he
+afterward kept all Palestine stirred by the purity of his doctrines, and
+the direct simplicity of his teachings. The white priests of Bramah gave
+him all their law, teaching him the language and religion of the
+dwellers of the five rivers. In Juggernaut, Rajegrilia, Benares, and
+other holy cities he was beloved by all. For true, here, as elsewhere,
+to his theory of the universal brotherhood of man, not only did he move
+among the upper classes, but also with the wretched Vaisyas and Soudras,
+the lowest of low castes who even were forbidden to hear the Vedas read,
+save only on feast days. Just as among the Jews, he was tolerant,
+merciful and kindly disposed towards the Samaritans, the Magdalens, the
+Lazaruses as to the haughty rabbis.</p>
+
+<p>His impress upon the home of Buddha and Brahma was manifested by the
+hith<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_118" id="Page_118">[Pg 118]</a></span>erto unknown theory of monotheism, established by him, but
+gradually permitted to fall into desuetude, and become confounded with
+the polytheistic hierarchy of the confusing religion. Just as the grand
+oneness and simplicity of the Christian religion has been permitted to
+deteriorate into many petty sects, each with its absurd limitations, and
+its particular little method of worshipping the Great Father.</p>
+
+<p>The teachings of Issa in India bear close relation in the general trend
+of thought to the teachings of Jesus among the multitudes about
+Jerusalem. There is the same universal simplicity of man's brotherhood;
+the complete self-abnegation of the flesh to the mind; the charitable
+impulses of a kind heart, and the utter disregard of caste, whether of
+birth, or breeding, or riches.</p>
+
+<p>Of miracles in India, Issa says, "The miracles of our God began when the
+universe was created, they occur each day, each instant; whosoever does
+not see<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_119" id="Page_119">[Pg 119]</a></span> them, is deprived of one of the most beautiful gifts of life."</p>
+
+<p>At last, according to the chronicles of the Buddhists, Issa was recalled
+from his labors in India to the land of Israel, where the people
+oppressed as of old by the Pharaohs, and now by the mighty men from the
+country of the Ramones, otherwise the Romans.</p>
+
+<p>Here Pilate appears in a new light. Heretofore he has always been a
+passive figure in the story of the crucifixion. Indeed he is entirely
+exonerated from all blame by some of our religious bibliographers and
+made to appear in a philanthropic light, but the priests of Egypt,
+undeceived by the treacherous memories and careless chronicling on the
+disciples of old, place Pilate before us as a thorough Roman, greedy,
+crafty, cruel, unscrupulous. According to them he places a spy upon the
+actions of Jesus in the beginning of his three years teachings, who
+follows him in all his journeys, and in the end betrays him to the
+Romans. This<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_120" id="Page_120">[Pg 120]</a></span> person can be no other than Judas, the betrayer. And here
+we are permitted to view his seemingly inexplicable actions in a new
+light, and from being Judas, a sorrowing misanthrope, the erstwhile
+friend of Christ, he becomes merely a common enemy, the tool of the
+Romans.</p>
+
+<p>Then we have the trial and death of Issa, strongly similar to our
+accepted version, and the chronicle briefly ends with the statement of
+the subsequent work of the disciples. The story of the Buddhist was
+written very shortly after the Passion of the Cross; the New Testament
+was transcribed years after the chief actors were dust.</p>
+
+<p>We are so steeped in tradition, and so conservative on any subject that
+touches our religious beliefs that it is somewhat difficult to reconcile
+ourselves to another addition to our Scriptures. But if we should look
+at the matter earnestly, and give deep thought to the relative
+positions, lives, and endings of these two noble men, Issa and Christ,
+we could<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_121" id="Page_121">[Pg 121]</a></span> scarcely doubt that they are one. Without trying, as does the
+author, to break down with one fell swoop, the entire structure of the
+Bible, we cannot but admit the probability of the new theory.</p>
+
+<p>It may be claimed that the remarkable personality of Christ would have
+left more of an impress upon India than it did, and that Christianity
+there and in India would have been synchronous, but we must remember,
+that there among the idols of Bramah and Vishnu, the way was not
+prepared, the people unexpectant of a new prophet, unwarned of him and
+unheeded. There he seems to have had no close personal followers to take
+up the work just where he left it, and continue. The dwellers of India
+were more happy in their entirety and more comfortable than the Jews,
+hence there was no Deliverer to impress them forever with the gigantic
+sacrifice of human frame and Divine soul.</p>
+
+<p>St. Issa, one of the most revered prophets of the Buddhists, Jesus
+Christ,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_122" id="Page_122">[Pg 122]</a></span> the Man and God of all other men, the divine incarnation of the
+ideal, are they the same? Why not?</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="IN_OUR_NEIGHBORHOOD" id="IN_OUR_NEIGHBORHOOD"></a>IN OUR NEIGHBORHOOD.</h2>
+
+
+<p>The Harts were going to give a party. Neither Mrs. Hart, nor the Misses
+Hart, nor the small and busy Harts who amused themselves and the
+neighborhood by continually falling in the gutter on special occasions,
+had mentioned this fact to anyone, but all the interested denizens of
+that particular square could tell by the unusual air of bustle and
+activity which pervaded the Hart domicile. Lillian, the &aelig;sthetic, who
+furnished theme for many spirited discussions, leaned airily out of the
+window; her auburn (red)<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_123" id="Page_123">[Pg 123]</a></span> tresses carefully done in curl papers. Martha,
+the practical, flourished the broom and duster with unwonted activity,
+which the small boys of the neighborhood, peering through the green
+shutters of the front door, duly reported to their mammas, busily
+engaged in holding down their respective door-steps by patiently sitting
+thereon.</p>
+
+<p>Pretty soon, the junior Harts,&mdash;two in number&mdash;began to travel to and
+fro, soliciting the loan of a "few chairs," "some nice dishes," and such
+like things, indispensable to every decent, self-respecting party. But
+to all inquiries as to the use to which these articles were to be put,
+they only vouchsafed one reply, "Ma told us as we wasn't to tell, just
+ask for the things, that's all."</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Tuckley the dress-maker, brought her sewing out on the front-steps,
+and entered a vigorous protest to her next-door neighbor.</p>
+
+<p>"Humph," she sniffed, "mighty funny they can't say what's up. Must be
+some<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_124" id="Page_124">[Pg 124]</a></span>thing in it. Couldn't get none o' <i>my</i> things, and not invite
+<i>me</i>!"</p>
+
+<p>"Did she ask you for any?" absent-mindedly inquired Mrs. Luke, shielding
+her eyes from the sun.</p>
+
+<p>"No-o&mdash;, but she'd better sense, she knows <i>me</i>&mdash;she ain't&mdash;mercy me,
+Stella! Just look at that child tumbling in the mud! You, Stella, come
+here, I say! Look at you now, there&mdash;and there&mdash;and there?"</p>
+
+<p>The luckless Stella having been soundly cuffed, and sent whimpering in
+the back-yard, Mrs. Tuckley continued,</p>
+
+<p>"Yes as I was saying, 'course, taint none o' my business, but I always
+did wonder how them Harts do keep up. Why, them girls dress just as fine
+as any lady on the Avenue and that there Lillian wears real diamond
+ear-rings. 'Pears mighty, mighty funny to me, and Lord the airs they do
+put on! Holdin' up their heads like nobody's good enough to speak to. I
+don't like to talk about people, you know, yourself, Mrs. Luke I never<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_125" id="Page_125">[Pg 125]</a></span>
+speak about anybody, but mark my word, girls that cut up capers like
+them Hartses' girls never come to any good."</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Luke heaved a deep sigh of appreciation at the wisdom of her
+neighbor, but before she could reply a re-inforcement in the person of
+little Mrs. Peters, apron over her head, hands shrivelled and soap-sudsy
+from washing, appeared.</p>
+
+<p>"Did you ever see the like?" she asked in her usual, rapid breathless
+way. "Why, my Louis says they're putting canvass cloths on the floor,
+and taking down the bed in the back-room; and putting greenery and such
+like trash about. Some style about them, eh?"</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Tuckley tossed her head and sniffed contemptuously, Mrs. Luke began
+to rehearse a time worn tale, how once a carriage had driven up to the
+Hart house at nine o'clock at night, and a distinguished looking man
+alighted, went in, stayed about ten minutes and finally drove off with a
+great clatter. Heads<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_126" id="Page_126">[Pg 126]</a></span> that had shaken ominously over this story before
+began to shake again, and tongues that had wagged themselves tired with
+conjectures started now with some brand new ideas and theories. The
+children of the square, tired of fishing for minnows in the ditches, and
+making mud-pies in the street, clustered about their mother's skirts
+receiving occasional slaps, when their attempts at taking part in the
+conversation became too pronounced.</p>
+
+<p>Meanwhile, in the Hart household, all was bustle and preparation. To and
+fro the members of the house flitted, arranging chairs, putting little
+touches here and there, washing saucers and glasses, chasing the Hart
+Juniors about, losing things and calling frantically for each other's
+assistance to find them. Mama Hart, big, plump and perspiring, puffed
+here and there like a large, rosy engine, giving impossible orders, and
+receiving sharp answers to foolish questions. Lillian, the &aelig;sthetic,
+practiced her most graceful poses before the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_127" id="Page_127">[Pg 127]</a></span> large mirror in the
+parlor; Martha rushed about, changing the order of the furniture, and
+Papa Hart, just come in from work, paced the rooms disconsolately,
+asking for dinner.</p>
+
+<p>"Dinner!" screamed Mama Hart, "Dinner, who's got time to fool with
+dinner this evening? Look in the sideboard and you'll see some bread and
+ham; eat that and shut up."</p>
+
+<p>Eight o'clock finally arrived, and with it, the music and some
+straggling guests. When the first faint chee-chee of the violin floated
+out into the murky atmosphere, the smaller portion of the neighborhood
+went straightway into ecstasies. Boys and girls in all stages of
+deshabille clustered about the door-steps and gave vent to audible
+exclamations of approval or disapprobation concerning the state of
+affairs behind the green shutters. It was a warm night and the big round
+moon sailed serenely in a cloudless, blue sky. Mrs. Tuckley had put on a
+clean calico wrapper, and planted herself with the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_128" id="Page_128">[Pg 128]</a></span> indomitable Stella
+on her steps, "to watch the purceedings."</p>
+
+<p>The party was a grand success. Even the intensely critical small fry
+dancing on the pavement without to the scraping and fiddling of the
+string band, had to admit that. So far as they were concerned it was all
+right, but what shall we say of the guests within? They who glided
+easily over the canvassed floors, bowed, and scraped and simpered, "just
+like the big folks on the Avenue," who ate the ice-cream and cake, and
+drank the sweet, weak Catawba wine amid boisterous healths to Mr. and
+Mrs. Hart and the Misses Hart; who smirked and perspired and cracked
+ancient jokes and heart-rending puns during the intervals of the
+dances, who shall say that they did not enjoy themselves as thoroughly
+and as fully as those who frequented the wealthier entertainments
+up-town.</p>
+
+<p>Lillian and Martha in gossamer gowns of pink and blue flitted to and fro
+attending to the wants of their guests. Mrs.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_129" id="Page_129">[Pg 129]</a></span> Hart, gorgeous in a black
+satin affair, all folds and lace and drapery, made desperate efforts to
+appear cool and collected&mdash;and failed miserably. Papa Hart spent one
+half his time standing in front of the mantle, spreading out his
+coat-tails, and benignly smiling upon the young people, while the other
+half was devoted to initiating the male portion of the guests into the
+mysteries of "snake killing."</p>
+
+<p>Everybody had said that he or she had had a splendid time, and finally,
+when the last kisses had been kissed, the last good-byes been said, the
+whole Hart family sat down in the now deserted and disordered rooms, and
+sighed with relief that the great event was over at last.</p>
+
+<p>"Nice crowd, eh?" remarked Papa Hart. He was brimful of joy and
+second-class whiskey, so no one paid any attention to him.</p>
+
+<p>"But did you see how shamefully Maude flirted with Willie Howard?" said
+Lillian. Martha tossed her head in dis<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_130" id="Page_130">[Pg 130]</a></span>dain; Mr. Howard she had always
+considered her especial property, so Lillian's observation had a rather
+disturbing effect.</p>
+
+<p>"I'm so warm and tired," cried Mama Hart, plaintively, "children how are
+we going to sleep to-night?"</p>
+
+<p>Thereupon the whole family arose to devise ways and means for wooing the
+drowsy god. As for the Hart Juniors they had long since solved the
+problem by falling asleep with sticky hands and faces upon a pile of
+bed-clothing behind the kitchen door.</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 45%;" />
+
+<p>It was late in the next day before the house had begun to resume
+anything like its former appearance. The little Harts were kept busy all
+morning returning chairs and dishes, and distributing the remnants of
+the feast to the vicinity. The ice-cream had melted into a warm custard,
+and the cakes had a rather worse for wear appearance, but they were
+ap<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_131" id="Page_131">[Pg 131]</a></span>preciated as much as though just from the confectioner. No one was
+forgotten, even Mrs. Tuckley, busily stitching on a muslin garment on
+the steps, and unctuously rolling the latest morsel of scandal under her
+tongue, was obliged to confess that "them Hartses wasn't such bad people
+after all, just a bit queer at times."</p>
+
+<p>About two o'clock, just as Lillian was re-draping the tidies on the
+stiff, common plush chairs in the parlor, some one pulled the bell
+violently. The visitor, a rather good-looking young fellow, with a
+worried expression smiled somewhat sarcastically as he heard a sound of
+scuffling and running within the house.</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 45%;" />
+
+<p>Presently Mrs. Hart opened the door wiping her hand, red and smoking
+with dish-water, upon her apron. The worried expression deepened on the
+visitor's face as he addressed the woman with visible embarrassment.</p>
+
+<p>"Er&mdash;I&mdash;I&mdash;suppose you are Mrs. Hart?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_132" id="Page_132">[Pg 132]</a></span> he inquired awkwardly.</p>
+
+<p>"That's my name, sir," replied she with pretentious dignity.</p>
+
+<p>"Er&mdash;your-er&mdash;may I come in madam?</p>
+
+<p>"Certainly," and she opened the door to admit him, and offered a chair.</p>
+
+<p>"Your husband is an employee in the Fisher Oil Mills, is he not?"</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Hart straightened herself with pride as she replied in the
+affirmative. She had always been proud of Mr. Hart's position as foreman
+of the big oil mills, and was never so happy as when he was expounding
+to some one in her presence, the difficulties and intricacies of
+machine-work.</p>
+
+<p>"Well you see my dear Mrs. Hart," continued the visitor. "Now pray don't
+get excited&mdash;there has been an accident, and your husband&mdash;has&mdash;er&mdash;been
+hurt, you know."</p>
+
+<p>But for a painful whitening in her usually rosy face, and a quick
+compression of her lips, the wife made no sign.</p>
+
+<p>"What was the accident?" she queried,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_133" id="Page_133">[Pg 133]</a></span> leaning her elbows on her knees.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, you see, I don't understand machinery and the like, but there was
+something about a wheel out of gear, and a band bursted, or something,
+anyhow a big wheel flew to pieces, and as he was standing near, he was
+hit."</p>
+
+<p>"Where?"</p>
+
+<p>"Well&mdash;well, I may as well tell you the truth, madam; a large piece of
+the wheel struck him on the head&mdash;and&mdash;he was killed instantly."</p>
+
+<p>She did not faint, nor make any outcry, nor tear her hair as he had
+partly expected, but sat still staring at him, with a sort of helpless,
+dumb horror shining out her eyes, then with a low moan, bowed her head
+on her knees and shuddered, just as Lillian came in, curious to know
+what the handsome stranger had to say to her mother.</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 45%;" />
+
+<p>The poor mutilated body came home at last, and was laid in a stiff,
+silver-decorated, black coffin in the middle of the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_134" id="Page_134">[Pg 134]</a></span> sitting-room, which
+had been made to look as uncomfortable and unnatural as mirrors and
+furniture shrouded in sheets and mantel and tables divested of ornaments
+would permit.</p>
+
+<p>There was a wake that night to the unconfined joy of the neighbors, who
+would rather a burial than a wedding. The friends of the family sat
+about the coffin, and through the house with long pulled faces. Mrs.
+Tuckley officiated in the kitchen, making coffee and dispensing cheese
+and crackers to those who were hungry. As the night wore on, and the
+first restraint disappeared, jokes were cracked, and quiet laughter
+indulged in, while the young folks congregated in the kitchen, were
+hilariously happy, until some member of the family would appear, when
+every face would sober down.</p>
+
+<p>The older persons contented themselves with recounting the virtues of
+the deceased, and telling anecdotes wherein he figured largely. It was
+astonishing<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_135" id="Page_135">[Pg 135]</a></span> how many intimate friends of his had suddenly come to
+light. Every other man present had either attended school with him, or
+was a close companion until he died. Proverbs and tales and witty
+sayings were palmed off as having emanated from his lips. In fact, the
+dead man would have been surprised himself, had he suddenly come to life
+and discovered what an important, what a modern solomon he had become.</p>
+
+<p>The long night dragged on, and the people departed in groups of twos and
+threes, until when the gray dawn crept slowly over the blackness of
+night shrouding the electric lights in mists of cloudy blue, and sending
+cold chills of dampness through the house, but a few of the great crowd
+remained.</p>
+
+<p>The day seemed so gray in contrast to the softening influence of the
+night, the grief which could be hidden then, must now come forth and
+parade itself before all eyes. There was the funeral to prepare for; the
+dismal black dresses<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_136" id="Page_136">[Pg 136]</a></span> and bonnets with their long crape veils to don;
+there were the condolences of sorrowing friends to receive; the floral
+offerings to be looked at. The little Harts strutted about resplendent
+in stiff black cravats, and high crape bands about their hats. They were
+divided between two conflicting emotions&mdash;joy at belonging to a family
+so noteworthy and important, and sorrow at the death. As the time for
+the funeral approached, and Lillian began to indulge in a series of
+fainting fits, the latter feeling predominated.</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 45%;" />
+
+<p>"Well it was all over at last, the family had returned, and as on two
+nights previous, sat once more in the deserted and dismantled parlor.
+Mrs. Tuckley and Mrs. Luke, having rendered all assistance possible, had
+repaired to their respective front steps to keep count of the number of
+visitors who returned to condole with the family.</p>
+
+<p>"A real nice funeral," remarked the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_137" id="Page_137">[Pg 137]</a></span> dress-maker at last, "a nice
+funeral. Everybody took it so hard, and Lillian fainted real beautiful.
+She's a good girl that Lillian. Poor things, I wonder what they'll do
+now."</p>
+
+<p>Stella, the irrepressible, was busily engaged balancing herself on one
+toe, <i>a la</i> ballet.</p>
+
+<p>"Mebbe she's goin' to get married," she volunteered eagerly, "'cos I saw
+that yeller-haired young man what comes there all the time, wif his arms
+around her waist, and a tellin' her not to grieve as he'd take care of
+her. I was a peepin' in the dinin'-room."</p>
+
+<p>"How dare you peep at other folks, and pry into people's affairs? I
+can't imagine where you get your meddlesome ways from. There aint none
+in <i>my family</i>. Next time I catch you at it, I'll spank you good." Then,
+after a pause, "Well what else did he say?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_138" id="Page_138">[Pg 138]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="FAREWELL" id="FAREWELL"></a>FAREWELL.</h2>
+
+
+<p>
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Farewell, sweetheart, and again farewell;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">To day we part, and who can tell</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">If we shall e'er again</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Meet, and with clasped hands</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Renew our vows of love, and forget</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">The sad, dull pain.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Dear heart, 'tis bitter thus to lose thee</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And think mayhap, you will forget me;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">And yet, I thrill</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">As I remember long and happy days</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Fraught with sweet love and pleasant memories</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">That linger still</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">You go to loved ones who will smile</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And clasp you in their arms, and all the while</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">I stay and moan</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">For you, my love, my heart and strive</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">To gather up life's dull, gray thread</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">And walk alone.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_139" id="Page_139">[Pg 139]</a></span><span style="margin-left: 1em;">Aye, with you love the red and gold</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Goes from my life, and leaves it cold</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">And dull and bare,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Why should I strive to live and learn</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And smile and jest, and daily try</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">You from my heart to tare?</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Nay, sweetheart, rather would I lie</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Me down, and sleep for aye; or fly</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">To regions far</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Where cruel Fate is not and lovers live</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Nor feel the grim, cold hand of Destiny</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Their way to bar.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">I murmur not, dear love, I only say</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Again farewell. God bless the day</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">On which we met,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And bless you too, my love, and be with you</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">In sorrow or in happiness, nor let you</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">E'er me forget.</span><br />
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_140" id="Page_140">[Pg 140]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="LITTLE_MISS_SOPHIE" id="LITTLE_MISS_SOPHIE"></a>LITTLE MISS SOPHIE.</h2>
+
+
+<p>When Miss Sophie knew consciousness again, the long, faint, swelling
+notes of the organ were dying away in distant echoes through the great
+arches of the silent church, and she was alone, crouching in a little,
+forsaken, black heap at the altar of the Virgin. The twinkling tapers
+seemed to smile pityingly upon her, the beneficent smile of the
+white-robed Madonna seemed to whisper comfort. A long gust of chill air
+swept up the aisles, and Miss Sophie shivered, not from cold, but from
+nervousness.</p>
+
+<p>But darkness was falling, and soon the lights would be lowered, and the
+great, massive doors would be closed, so gathering her thin little cape
+about her frail shoulders, Miss Sophie hurried out, and along the
+brilliant noisy streets home.</p>
+
+<p>It was a wretched, lonely little room, where the cracks let the
+boisterous wind<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_141" id="Page_141">[Pg 141]</a></span> whistle through, and the smoky, grimy walls looked
+cheerless and unhomelike. A miserable little room in a miserable little
+cottage in one of the squalid streets of the Third District that nature
+and the city fathers seemed to have forgotten.</p>
+
+<p>As bare and comfortless the room, so was Miss Sophie's lonely life. She
+rented these four walls from an unkempt little Creole woman, whose
+progeny seemed like the promised offspring of Abraham,&mdash;multitudinous.
+The flickering life in the pale little body she scarcely kept there by
+the unceasing toil of a pair of bony hands, stitching, stitching,
+ceaselessly, wearingly on the bands and pockets of pants. It was her
+bread, this monotonous, unending work, and though while days and nights
+constant labor brought but the most meagre recompense, it was her only
+hope of life.</p>
+
+<p>She sat before the little charcoal brazier and warmed her transparent,
+needle-pricked fingers, thinking meanwhile of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_142" id="Page_142">[Pg 142]</a></span> the strange events of the
+day. She had been up town to carry the great, black bundle of pants and
+vests to the factory and receive her small pittance, and on the way home
+stopped in at the Jesuit Church to say her little prayer at the altar of
+the calm, white Virgin. There had been a wondrous burst of music from
+the great organ as she knelt there, an over-powering perfume of many
+flowers, the glittering dazzle of many lights, and the dainty frou-frou
+of silken skirts of wedding guests filing and tripping. So Miss Sophie
+stayed to the wedding, for what feminine heart, be it ever so old and
+seared, does not delight in one? And why shouldn't a poor little Creole
+old maid be interested too?</p>
+
+<p>When the wedding party had filed in solemnly, to the rolling, swelling,
+pealing tones of the organ. Important-looking groomsmen, dainty, fluffy,
+white-robed maids, stately, satin-robed, illusion-veiled bride, and
+happy groom. She leaned forward to catch a better glimpse<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_143" id="Page_143">[Pg 143]</a></span> of their
+faces. Ah!&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>Those near the Virgin's altar who heard a faint sigh and rustle on the
+steps glanced curiously as they saw a slight, black-robed figure clutch
+the railing and lean her head against it. Miss Sophie had fainted.</p>
+
+<p>"I must have been hungry," she mused over the charcoal fire in her
+little room, "I must have been hungry," and she smiled a wan smile, and
+busied herself getting her evening meal of coffee and bread and ham.</p>
+
+<p>If one were given to pity, the first thought that would rush to one's
+lips at sight of Miss Sophie would have been: Poor little Miss Sophie!
+She had come among the bareness and sordidness of this neighborhood five
+years ago, robed in crepe, and crying with great sobs that seemed to
+fairly shake the vitality out of her. Perfectly silent, too, about her
+former life, but for all that, Michel, the quarter grocer at the corner,
+and Mme. Laurent, who kept the rabbe shop oppo<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_144" id="Page_144">[Pg 144]</a></span>site, had fixed it all up
+between them, of her sad history and past glories. Not that they knew,
+but then Michel must invent something when the neighbors came to him,
+their fountain head of wisdom.</p>
+
+<p>One morning little Miss Sophie opened wide her dingy windows to catch
+the early freshness of the autumn wind as it whistled through the
+yellow-leafed trees. It was one of those calm, blue-misted, balmy,
+November days that New Orleans can have when all the rest of the country
+is fur-wrapped. Miss Sophie pulled her machine to the window, where the
+sweet, damp wind could whisk among her black locks.</p>
+
+<p>Whirr, whirr, went the machine, ticking fast and lightly over the belts
+of the rough jean pants. Whirr, whirr, yes, and Miss Sophie was actually
+humming a tune! She felt strangely light to-day.</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Ma foi</i>," muttered Michel, strolling across the street to where Mme.
+Laurent sat sewing behind the counter on blue<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_145" id="Page_145">[Pg 145]</a></span> and brown-checked aprons,
+"but the little ma'amselle sings. Perhaps she recollects."</p>
+
+<p>"Perhaps," muttered the rabbe woman.</p>
+
+<p>But little Miss Sophie felt restless. A strange impulse seemed drawing
+her up town, and the machine seemed to run slow, slow, before it would
+stitch the endless number of jean belts. Her fingers trembled with
+nervous haste as she pinned up the unwieldy black bundle of the finished
+work, and her feet fairly tripped over each other in their eagerness to
+get to Claiborne Street, where she could board the up-town car. There
+was a feverish desire to go somewhere, a sense of elation,&mdash;foolish
+happiness that brought a faint echo of color into her pinched cheeks.
+She wondered why.</p>
+
+<p>No one noticed her in the car. Passengers on the Claiborne line are too
+much accustomed to frail, little black-robed women with big, black
+bundles; it is one of the city's most pitiful sights.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_146" id="Page_146">[Pg 146]</a></span> She leaned her
+head out of the window to catch a glimpse of the oleanders on Bayou
+Road, when her attention was caught by a conversation in the car.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, it's too bad for Neale, and lately married too," said the elder
+man, "I can't see what he is to do."</p>
+
+<p>Neale! she pricked up her ears. That was the name of the groom in the
+Jesuit church.</p>
+
+<p>"How did it happen?" languidly inquired the younger. He was a stranger,
+evidently; a stranger with a high regard for the faultlessness of male
+attire, too.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, the firm failed first; he didn't mind that much, he was so sure
+of his uncle's inheritance repairing his lost fortunes, but suddenly
+this difficulty of identification springs up, and he is literally on the
+verge of ruin."</p>
+
+<p>"Won't some of you fellows who've known him all your lives do to
+identify him?"</p>
+
+<p>"Gracious man, we've tried, but the absurd old will expressly stipulates
+that<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_147" id="Page_147">[Pg 147]</a></span> he shall be known only by a certain quaint Roman ring, and unless
+he has it&mdash;no identification, no fortune. He has given the ring away and
+that settles it."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, you're all chumps. Why doesn't he get the ring from the owner?"</p>
+
+<p>"Easily said&mdash;but&mdash;It seems that Neale had some little Creole
+love-affair some years ago and gave this ring to his dusky-eyed fiancee.
+But you know how Neale is with his love-affairs, went off and forgot the
+girl in a month. It seems, however, she took it to heart,&mdash;so much so
+until he's ashamed to try to find her or the ring."</p>
+
+<p>Miss Sophie heard no more as she gazed out into the dusty grass. There
+were tears in her eyes, hot blinding ones that wouldn't drop for pride,
+but stayed and scalded. She knew the story with all its embellishments
+of heartaches. The ring, too; she remembered the day she had kissed and
+wept and fondled it, until it seemed her heart must burst under its load
+of grief before she took it to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_148" id="Page_148">[Pg 148]</a></span> the pawn broker's that another might be
+eased before the end came,&mdash;that other, her father. The "little Creole
+love affair" of Neale's had not always been poor and old and
+jaded-looking; but reverses must come, even Neale knew that&mdash;so the ring
+was at the <i>Mont de Piete</i>.</p>
+
+<p>Still he must have it, it was his; it would save him from disgrace and
+suffering, and from trailing the proud head of the white-gowned bride
+into sorrow. He must have it,&mdash;but how?</p>
+
+<p>There it was still at the pawn-broker's, no one would have such a jewel,
+and the ticket was home in the bureau drawer. Well, he must have it; she
+might starve in the attempt. Such a thing as going to him and telling
+him that he might redeem it was an impossibility. That good,
+straight-backed, stiff-necked Creole blood would have risen in all its
+strength and choked her. No; as a present had the quaint Roman circlet
+been placed upon her finger,&mdash;as a present should it be returned.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_149" id="Page_149">[Pg 149]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>The bumping car rode heavily, and the hot thoughts beat heavily in her
+poor little head. He must have the ring&mdash;but how&mdash;the ring&mdash;the Roman
+ring&mdash;the white-robed bride starving&mdash;she was going mad&mdash;ah yes,&mdash;the
+church.</p>
+
+<p>Right in the busiest, most bustling part of the town, its fresco and
+bronze and iron quaintly suggestive of medi&aelig;val times. Within, all cool
+and dim and restful, with the faintest whiff of lingering incense rising
+and pervading the gray arches. Yes, the Virgin would know and have pity;
+the sweet, white-robed Virgin at the pretty flower-decked altar, or the
+one away up in the niche, far above the golden dome where the Host was.
+Holy Mary, Mother of God. Poor little Miss Sophie.</p>
+
+<p>Titiche, the busy-body of the house, noticed that Miss Sophie's bundle
+was larger than usual that afternoon. "Ah, poor woman!" sighed Titiche's
+mother, "she would be rich for Christmas."</p>
+
+<p>The bundle grew larger each day, and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_150" id="Page_150">[Pg 150]</a></span> Miss Sophie grew smaller. The
+damp, cold rain and mist closed the white-curtained window, but always
+there behind the sewing machine drooped and bobbed the little
+black-robed figure. Whirr, whirr went the wheels, and the coarse jean
+pants piled in great heaps at her side. The Claiborne street car saw her
+oftener than before, and the sweet, white Virgin in the flowered niche
+above the gold-domed altar smiled at the little penitent almost every
+day.</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Ma foi</i>," said the slatternly landlady to Madame Laurent and Michel one
+day, "I no see how she live! Eat? Nothing, nothing, almost, and las'
+night when it was so cold and foggy, eh? I hav' to mek him build fire.
+She mos' freeze."</p>
+
+<p>Whereupon the rumor spread that Miss Sophie was starving herself to
+death to get some luckless relative out of jail for Christmas,&mdash;a rumor
+which enveloped her scraggy little figure with a kind of halo to the
+neighbors when she appeared on the streets.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_151" id="Page_151">[Pg 151]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>November had verged into December and the little pile of coins were yet
+far from the sum needed. Dear God! how the money did have to go. The
+rent, and the groceries and the coal,&mdash;though, to be sure, she used a
+precious bit of that. All the work and saving and skimping,&mdash;maybe, yes,
+maybe by Christmas. What a gift!</p>
+
+<p>Christmas Eve night on Royal Street is no place for a weakling, for the
+shouts and carousals of the roisterers will strike fear into the brave.
+Yet amid the cries and yells, the deafening blow of horns and tin
+whistles and the really dangerous fusillade of fireworks, the little
+figure hurried along, one hand clutching tight the battered hat that the
+rude merry-makers would have torn off, the other grasping under the
+thin, black cape a worn little pocketbook.</p>
+
+<p>Into the <i>Mont de Piete</i>, breathless, eager. The ticket? Here, worn,
+crumpled. The ring? It was not gone? No, thank Heaven! It was really a
+joy<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_152" id="Page_152">[Pg 152]</a></span> well worth her toil, she thought, to have it again.</p>
+
+<p>Had Titiche not been shooting crackers on the banquette instead of
+peering into the crack, as was his wont, his big, round, black eyes
+would have grown saucer-wide to see little Miss Sophie kiss and fondle a
+ring, an ugly clumsy band of gold.</p>
+
+<p>"Ah, dear ring," she murmured, once you were his, and you shall be his
+again. You shall be on his finger, and perhaps touch his heart. Dear
+ring, <i>ma chere petite, de ma coeur, cheri, de ma coeur. Je t'aime, je
+t'aime, oui, oui.</i> You are his, you were mine once too. To-night, just
+one night, I'll keep you&mdash;then&mdash;tomorrow, where you can save him.</p>
+
+<p>"Ah, the Virgin&mdash;she smiles at me because I did right, did I not sweet
+mother? She smiles&mdash;and&mdash;I grow&mdash;faint&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>The loud whistles and horns of the little ones rose on the balmy air
+next morning. No one would doubt it was Christmas Day, even if doors
+and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_153" id="Page_153">[Pg 153]</a></span> windows are open wide to let in cool air.</p>
+
+<p>Why, there was Christmas even in the very look of the mules on the poky
+cars; there was Christmas noise in the streets, and Christmas toys and
+Christmas odors, savory ones that made the nose wrinkle approvingly,
+issuing from the kitchen. Michel and Mme. Laurent smiled greetings
+across the street at each other, and the salutation from a passer-by
+recalled the many progenied landlady to herself.</p>
+
+<p>"Miss Sophie, well, poor soul, not very much Christmas for her. <i>Mais</i>,
+I'll just call her in to spend the day with me. It'll cheer her a bit."</p>
+
+<p>So clean and orderly within the poor little room. Not a speck of dust or
+a litter of any kind on the quaint little old-time high bureau, unless
+you might except a sheet of paper lying loose with something written on
+it. Titiche had evidently inherited his prying propensities for the
+landlady turned it over and read:</p>
+
+<p>"Louis. Here is the ring. I return<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_154" id="Page_154">[Pg 154]</a></span> it to you. I heard you needed it, I
+hope it comes not too late. Sophie."</p>
+
+<p>"The ring, where?" muttered the landlady. There it was, clasped between
+her fingers on her bosom. A bosom, white and cold, under a cold, happy
+face. Christmas had indeed dawned for Miss Sophie&mdash;the eternal
+Christmas.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="IF_I_HAD_KNOWN" id="IF_I_HAD_KNOWN"></a>IF I HAD KNOWN.</h2>
+
+
+<p>
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">If I had known</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Two years ago how drear this life should be,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And crowd upon itself allstrangely sad,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Mayhap another song would burst from out my lips,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Overflowing with the happiness of future hopes;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Mayhap another throb than that of joy.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Have stirred my soul into its inmost depths,</span><br />
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_155" id="Page_155">[Pg 155]</a></span><span style="margin-left: 10em;">If I had known.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">If I had known,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Two years ago the impotence of love,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">The vainness of a kiss, how barren a caress,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Mayhap my soul to higher things have soarn,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Nor clung to earthly loves and tender dreams,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">But ever up aloft into the blue empyrean,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And there to master all the world of mind,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 10em;">If I had known.</span><br />
+</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHALMETLE" id="CHALMETLE"></a>CHALMETLE.</h2>
+
+
+<p>
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Wreaths of lilies and immortelles,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Scattered upon each silent mound,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Voices in loving remembrance swell,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Chanting to heaven the solemn sound.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Glad skies above, and glad earth beneath;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And grateful hearts who silently</span><br />
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_156" id="Page_156">[Pg 156]</a></span><span style="margin-left: 1em;">Gather earth's flowers, and tenderly wreath</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Woman's sweet token of fragility.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Ah, the noble forms who fought so well</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Lie, some unnamed, 'neath the grassy mound;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Heroes, brave heroes, the stories tell,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Silently too, the unmarked mounds,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Tenderly wreath them about with flowers,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Joyously pour out your praises loud;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">For every joy beat in these hearts of ours</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Is only a drawing us nearer to God.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Little enough is the song we sing,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Little enough is the tale we tell,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">When we think of the voices who erst did ring</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Ere their owners in smoke of battle fell.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Little enough are the flowers we cull</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">To scatter afar on the grass-grown graves,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">When we think of bright eyes, now dimmed and dull</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">For the cause they loyally strove to save.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_157" id="Page_157">[Pg 157]</a></span><span style="margin-left: 1em;">And they fought right well, did these brave men,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">For their banner still floats unto the breeze,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And the p&aelig;ans of ages forever shall tell</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Their glorious tale beyond the seas.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Ring out your voices in praises loud,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Sing sweet your notes of music gay,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Tell me in all you loyal crowd</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Throbs there a heart unmoved to-day?</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Meeting together again this year,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">As met we in fealty and love before;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Men, maids, and matrons to reverently hear</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Praises of brave men who fought of yore.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Tell to the little ones with wondering eyes,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">The tale of the flag that floats so free;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Till their tiny voices shall merrily rise</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">In hymns of rejoicing and praises to Thee.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Many a pure and noble heart</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Lies under the sod, all covered with green;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Many a soul that had felt the smart</span><br />
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_158" id="Page_158">[Pg 158]</a></span><span style="margin-left: 1em;">Of life's sad torture, or mayhap had seen</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">The faint hope of love pass afar from the sight,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Like swift flight of bird to a rarer clime</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Many a youth whose death caused the blight</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Of tender hearts in that long, sad time.</span><br /><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Nay, but this is no hour for sorrow;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">They died at their duty, shall we repine?</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Let us gaze hopefully on to the morrow</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Praying that our lives thus shall shine.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Ring out your bugles, sound out your cheers!</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Man has been God-like so may we be.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Give cheering thanks, there dry up those tears,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Widowed and orphaned, the country is free!</span><br /><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Wreathes of lillies and immortelles,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Scattered upon each silent mound,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Voices in loving remembrance swell,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Chanting to heaven the solemn sound,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Glad skies above, and glad earth beneath,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And grateful hearts who silently</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Gather earth's flowers, and tenderly wreath</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Woman's sweet token of fragility.</span><br />
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_159" id="Page_159">[Pg 159]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="AT_EVENTIDE" id="AT_EVENTIDE"></a>AT EVENTIDE.</h2>
+
+
+<p>All day had she watched and waited for his coming, and still her
+strained ears caught no sounds of the footsteps she loved and longed to
+hear. All day while the great sun panted on his way around the brazen
+skies; all day while the busy world throbbed its mighty engines of
+labor, nor witted of the breaking hearts in its midst. And now when the
+eve had come, and the sun sank slowly to rest, casting his red rays over
+the earth he loved, and bidding tired nature a gentle radiant
+good-night, she still watched and waited. Waited while the young moon
+shone silvery in the crimson flush of the eastern sky, while the one
+bright star trembled as he strove to near his love; waited while the hum
+of soul-wearing traffic died in the distant streets, and the merry
+voices of happy children floated to her ears.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_160" id="Page_160">[Pg 160]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>And still he came not. What kept him from her side? Had he learned the
+cold lesson of self-control, or found one other thing more potent than
+love? Had some cruel chain of circumstances forced him to disobey her
+bidding&mdash;or&mdash;did he love another? But no, she smiles triumphantly, he
+could not having known and loved her.</p>
+
+<p>Sitting in the deep imbrasure of the window through which the distant
+wave sounds of city life floated to her, the pages of her life seemed to
+turn back, and she read the almost forgotten tale of long ago, the story
+of their love. In those days his wish had been her law; his smile her
+sun; his frown her wretchedness. Within his arms, earth seemed a
+far-away dream of empty nothingness, and when his lips touched and clung
+to hers, sweet with the perfume of the South they floated away into a
+Paradise of enfolding space, where Time and Death and the woes of this
+great earth are naught, only these two&mdash;and love, the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_161" id="Page_161">[Pg 161]</a></span> almighty.</p>
+
+<p>And so their happiness drifted slowly across the sea of Time until it
+struck a cruel rock, whose sharp teeth showed not above the dimpled
+waves; and where once had been a craft of strength and beauty, now was
+only a hideous wreck. For the Tempter had come into this Eden, and soon
+his foul whisper found place in her heart.</p>
+
+<p>And the Tempter's name was Ambition.</p>
+
+<p>Often had the praises and plaudits of men rang in her ears when her
+sweet voice sang to her chosen friends, often had the tears evoked by
+her songs of love and hope and trust, thrilled her breast faintly, as
+the young bird stirs in its nest under the loving mother's wing, but he
+had clasped his arms around her, and that was enough. But one day the
+Tempter whispered, "Why waste such talent; bring that beauty of voice
+before the world and see men bow in homage, and women envy and praise.
+Come<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_162" id="Page_162">[Pg 162]</a></span> forth and follow me."</p>
+
+<p>But she put him fiercely aside, and cried, "I want no homage but his, I
+want no envy from any one."</p>
+
+<p>Still the whisper stayed in her heart, nor would the honeyed words of
+praise be gone, even when he kissed her, and thanked the gods for this
+pearl of great price.</p>
+
+<p>Then as time fled on, the tiny whisper grew into a great roar, and all
+the praise of men, and the sweet words of women, filled her brain, and
+what had once been her aversion became a great desire, and caused her
+brow to grow thoughtful, and her eyes moody.</p>
+
+<p>But when she spoke to him of this new love, he smiled and said, "My wife
+must be mine, and mine alone. I want not a woman whom the world claims,
+and shouts her name abroad. My wife and my home must be inviolate." And
+again as of yore, his wish controlled her&mdash;but only for a while.</p>
+
+<p>Then the tiny whisper grown into the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_163" id="Page_163">[Pg 163]</a></span> great roar urging her on, became a
+mighty wind which drove her before it, nor could she turn aside from the
+path of ambition, but swept on, and conquered.</p>
+
+<p>Ah, sweet, sweet the exultation of the victor! Dear the plaudits of the
+admiring world; wild the joy, when queen of song, admired of men, she
+stood upon the pinnacle of fame! And he? True to his old convictions,
+turned sadly from the woman who placed the admiration of the world
+before his love and the happiness of his home&mdash;and went out from her
+life broken-hearted, disappointed, miserable.</p>
+
+<p>All these things, and more, she thought upon in the first flush of
+eventide, as the bold, young star climbed toward his lady-love, the
+moon, all these things, and what had come to pass after the victory.</p>
+
+<p>For there came a day when the world wearied of its toy, and turned with
+shouts of joy, and wreaths of fresh laurels for the new star. Then came
+disappoint<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_164" id="Page_164">[Pg 164]</a></span>ments and miseries crowding fast upon her; the sorrows which
+a loving heart knows when it finds its idols faithless. Then the love
+for him which she had once repressed arose in all its strength which had
+gained during the long struggle with the world, arose and overwhelmed
+her with its might, and filled her soul with an unutterable longing for
+peace and rest and him.</p>
+
+<p>She wrote to him and told him all her heart, and begged of him to come
+back to her, for Fame was but an empty bubble while love was supreme and
+the only happiness, after all. And now she waited while the crimson and
+gold of the west grew dark, and gray and lowering.</p>
+
+<p>Hark! She hears his loved step. He comes, ah, joy of heaven he comes!
+Soon will he clasp her in his arms, and there on his bosom shall she
+know peace and rest and love.</p>
+
+<p>As he enters the door she hastens to meet him, the love-light shining in
+her tired eyes, her soft rounded arms out<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_165" id="Page_165">[Pg 165]</a></span>stretched to meet him. But he
+folds her not in his embrace, nor yet does he look with love into her
+upturned eyes; the voice she loves, ah so well, breaks upon the dusky
+silence, pitiless, stern.</p>
+
+<p>"Most faithless of faithless women, think you that like the toy of a
+fickle child I can be thrown aside, then picked up again? Think you that
+I can take a soiled lily to my bosom? Think you that I can cherish the
+gaudy sun-flower that ever turns to the broad, brazen glare of the
+uncaring sun, rather than the modest shrinking violet? Nay, be not
+deceived, I loved you once, but that love you killed in its youth and
+beauty leaving me to stand and weep alone over its grave. I came
+to-night, not to kiss you, and to forgive you as you entreat, but to
+tell that you I have wed another."</p>
+
+<p>The pitiless voice ceased, and she was alone in the dusky silence; alone
+in all the shame and agony and grief of unrequited love and worthless
+fame. Alone to writhe and groan in despair while the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_166" id="Page_166">[Pg 166]</a></span> roseate flush of
+eventide passed into the coldness of midnight.</p>
+
+<p>Oh faithless woman, oh, faithless man! How frail the memory of thy
+binding vows, thy blissful hours of love! Are they forgotten? Only the
+record of broken hearts and loveless lives will show.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="THE_IDLER" id="THE_IDLER"></a>THE IDLER.</h2>
+
+
+<p>
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">An idle lingerer on the wayside's road,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">He gathers up his work and yawns away;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">A little longer, ere the tiresome load</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Shall be reduced to ashes or to clay.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">No matter if the world has marched along,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And scorned his slowness as it quickly passed;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">No matter, if amid the busy throng,</span><br />
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_167" id="Page_167">[Pg 167]</a></span><span style="margin-left: 1em;">He greets some face, infantile at the last.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">His mission? Well, there is but one,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And if it is a mission he knows it, nay,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">To be a happy idler, to lounge and sun,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And dreaming, pass his long-drawn days away.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">So dreams he on, his happy life to pass</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Content, without ambitions painful sighs,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Until the sands run down into the glass;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">He smiles&mdash;content&mdash;unmoved and dies.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And yet, with all the pity that you feel</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">For this poor mothling of that flame, the world;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Are you the better for your desperate deal,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">When you, like him, into infinitude are hurled?</span><br />
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_168" id="Page_168">[Pg 168]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="LOVE_AND_THE_BUTTERFLY" id="LOVE_AND_THE_BUTTERFLY"></a>LOVE AND THE BUTTERFLY.</h2>
+
+
+<p>
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">I heard a merry voice one day</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And glancing at my side,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Fair Love, all breathless, flushed with play,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">A butterfly did ride.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"Whither away, oh sportive boy?"</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">I asked, he tossed his head;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Laughing aloud for purest joy,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And past me swiftly sped.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Next day I heard a plaintive cry</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And Love crept in my arms;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Weeping he held the butterfly,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Devoid of all its charms.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Sweet words of comfort, whispered I</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Into his dainty ears,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">But Love still hugged the butterfly,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And bathed its wounds with tears.</span><br />
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_169" id="Page_169">[Pg 169]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="THE_BEE-MAN" id="THE_BEE-MAN"></a>THE BEE-MAN.</h2>
+
+
+<p>We were glancing over the mental photograph album, and commenting on the
+great lack of dissimilarity in tastes. Nearly every one preferred spring
+to any other season, with a very few exceptions in favor of autumn. The
+women loved Mrs. Browning and Longfellow; the men showed decided
+preferences after Emerson and Macauley. Conceit stuck out when the
+majority wanted to be themselves and none other, and only two did not
+want to live in the 19th century. But in one place, in answer to the
+question, "Whom would you rather be, if not yourself?" the answer was,</p>
+
+<p>"A baby!"</p>
+
+<p>"Why would you rather be a baby than any other personage?" queried
+someone glancing at the writer, who blushed as she replied.</p>
+
+<p>"Because then I might be able to live a better life, I might have better
+oppor<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_170" id="Page_170">[Pg 170]</a></span>tunities and better chances for improving them, and it would bring
+me nearer the 20th century."</p>
+
+<p>"About eight or nine years ago," said the first speaker, "I remember
+reading a story in a magazine for young folks. It was merely a fairy
+story, and perhaps was not intended to point a moral, but only to amuse
+the little ones. It was something on this order:&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>Once upon a time, there lived in an out of the way spot an ancient
+decrepit Bee-man. How old he was no one knew; whence he came, no one
+could tell: to the memory of the oldest inhabitant he had always lived
+in his dirty hut, surrounded by myriads of hives, attended always by a
+swarm of bees. He was good to the bits of children, and always ready
+with a sweet morsel of honeycomb for them. All his ambitions,
+sympathies and hopes were centered in his hives; until one day a fairy
+crept into his hut and whispered:</p>
+
+<p>"You have not always been a common<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_171" id="Page_171">[Pg 171]</a></span> bee-man. Once you were something
+else."</p>
+
+<p>"Tell me what I was," he asked eagerly.</p>
+
+<p>"Nay, that I cannot do," replied the fairy, "our queen sent me to tell
+you this, and if you wished to search for your former self, I am to
+assist you. You must search the entire valley, and the first thing you
+meet to which you become violently attached, that is what you formerly
+were, and I shall give you back your correct form."</p>
+
+<p>So the next morning the Bee-man, strapping his usual hive upon his back,
+and accompanied by the fairy in the form of a queen bee, set out upon
+his search throughout the valley. At first he became violently attached
+to the handsome person and fine castle of the Lord of the Realm, but on
+being kicked out of the lord's domains, his love turned to dislike.</p>
+
+<p>The Bee-man and the fairy travelled far and wide and carefully inspected
+every thing they met. The very Imp, the Languid young man, the
+Hippogriffith,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_172" id="Page_172">[Pg 172]</a></span> the Thousand Tailed Hippopotamus, and many other types,
+until the Bee-man grew weary and was about to give up the search in
+disgust.</p>
+
+<p>But suddenly amid all the vast halls of the enchanted domains through
+which they were wandering, there sounded shrieks and wails, and the
+inmates were thrown into the greatest confusion by the sight of the
+hideous hippogriffith dashing through, a million sparks emanating from
+his great eyes, his barbed tail waving high in the air, and holding in
+his talons a tiny infant.</p>
+
+<p>Now, as soon as the Bee-man saw this, a great wave of sorrow and pity
+filled his breast, and he hastily followed the monster, arriving at his
+cave just in time to see him preparing to devour his prey. Madly dashing
+his hive of bees into the hippogriffith's face, and seizing the infant
+while the disturbed and angry bees stung and swarmed, the Bee-man rushed
+out followed by the Very Imp, the Languid young man and the fairy, and
+made<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_173" id="Page_173">[Pg 173]</a></span> his way to the child's mother. Just as soon as the baby was safely
+restored, the Bee-man ruminated thoughtfully awhile and finally remarked
+to the fairy:</p>
+
+<p>"Do you know of all the things I have met so far, I liked the baby best
+of all, so I think I must have been a baby once!"</p>
+
+<p>"Right you are," assented the fairy, "I knew it before, but, of course,
+I couldn't tell. Now I shall change you into your former shape, but
+remember, you must try to be something better than a Bee-man."</p>
+
+<p>The Bee-man promised and was instantly changed into a baby. The fairy
+inoculated him from harm with a bee-sting, and gave him to the rescued
+infant's mother.</p>
+
+<p>Nearly a cycle passed by, and one day the fairy having business in the
+valley, thought she would make inquiries concerning her protege. In her
+way she happened to pass a little, low, curious hut, with many bee hives
+about it, and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_174" id="Page_174">[Pg 174]</a></span> swarms of bees flying in and out. The fairy, tired as
+well as curious, peeped in and discovered an ancient man attending to
+the wants of his pets. Upon a closer inspection, she recognized her
+infant of years ago. He had become a bee-man again!</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 45%;" />
+
+<p>"It points a pretty little moral," said the Fatalist, "for it certainly
+proves that do what we will, we cannot get away from our natures. It was
+inherent in that man's nature to tend bees. Bee-ing was the occupation
+chosen for him by Fate, and had the beneficent Fairy changed him a dozen
+times, he would ultimately have gone to bee-ing in some form or other."</p>
+
+<p>The Fatalist was doubtless right, for it seems as though the inherent
+things in our nature must come out. But if we want to dig deep into the
+child's story for metaphysical morals, does it not also uphold the
+theory of re-incarnation? the ancient bee-man, perhaps is but a type<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_175" id="Page_175">[Pg 175]</a></span> of
+humanity growing old, and settled in its mode of living, while the fairy
+is but thought, whispering into our souls things half dread half
+pleasant.</p>
+
+<p>There are moments when the consciousness of a former life comes sharply
+upon us, in swift, lightning flashes, too sudden to be tangible, too
+dazzling to leave an impress, or mayhap, in troubled dreams that
+bewilder and confuse with vague remembrances. If only a burst of memory
+would come upon some mortal, that the tale might be fully told, and
+these theories established as facts. It would unfold great possibilities
+of historical lore; of literary life; of religious speculation.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_176" id="Page_176">[Pg 176]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="AMID_THE_ROSES" id="AMID_THE_ROSES"></a>AMID THE ROSES.</h2>
+
+
+<p>
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">There is tropical warmth and languorous life</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Where the roses lie</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">In a tempting drift</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Of pink and red and golden light</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Untouched as yet by the pruning knife.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And the still, warm life of the roses fair</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">That whisper "Come,"</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">With promises</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Of sweet caresses, close and pure</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Has a thorny whiff in the perfumed air.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">There are thorns and love in the roses' bed,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">And Satan too</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Must linger there;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">So Satan's wiles and the conscience stings,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Must now abide&mdash;the roses are <i>dead</i>.</span><br />
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_177" id="Page_177">[Pg 177]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<hr class="full" />
+<p>***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK VIOLETS AND OTHER TALES***</p>
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+The Project Gutenberg eBook, Violets and Other Tales, by Alice Ruth Moore
+
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+
+
+
+Title: Violets and Other Tales
+
+
+Author: Alice Ruth Moore
+
+
+
+Release Date: June 29, 2006  [eBook #18713]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII)
+
+
+***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK VIOLETS AND OTHER TALES***
+
+
+E-text prepared by Suzanne Shell, Janet Blenkinship, and the Project
+Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team (http://www.pgdp.net/)
+
+
+
+VIOLETS AND OTHER TALES
+
+by
+
+ALICE RUTH MOORE
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+Copyright 1895
+by the Monthly Review
+All rights reserved
+
+
+
+
+  To my friend of November 5th, 1892
+
+
+
+
+INTRODUCTION.
+
+
+In this day when the world is fairly teeming with books,--good books,
+books written with a motive, books inculcating morals, books teaching
+lessons,--it seems almost a piece of presumption too great for endurance
+to foist another upon the market. There is scarcely room in the literary
+world for amateurs and maiden efforts; the very worthiest are sometimes
+poorly repaid for their best efforts. Yet, another one is offered the
+public, a maiden effort,--a little thing with absolutely nothing to
+commend it, that seeks to do nothing more than amuse.
+
+Many of these sketches and verses have appeared in print before, in
+newspapers and a magazine or two; many are seeing the light of day for
+the first time. If perchance this collection of idle thoughts may serve
+to while away an hour or two, or lift for a brief space the load of care
+from someone's mind, their purpose has been served--the author is
+satisfied.
+
+                                                          A. R. M.
+
+CONTENTS.
+
+
+  VIOLETS,                                                            13
+
+  THREE THOUGHTS,                                                     18
+
+  THE WOMAN,                                                          21
+
+  TEN MINUTES' MUSING,                                                29
+
+  A PLAINT,                                                           35
+
+  IN UNCONSCIOUSNESS,                                                 36
+
+  TITEE,                                                              44
+
+  ANARCHY ALLEY,                                                      56
+
+  IMPRESSIONS,                                                        63
+
+  SALAMMBO,                                                           65
+
+  LEGEND OF THE NEWSPAPER,                                            72
+
+  A CARNIVAL JANGLE,                                                  76
+
+  PAUL TO VIRGINIA (Fin de Siecle),                                   83
+
+  THE MAIDEN'S DREAM,                                                 85
+
+  IN MEMORIAM,                                                        93
+
+  A STORY OF VENGEANCE,                                               93
+
+  AT BAY ST. LOUIS,                                                  106
+
+  NEW YEAR'S DAY,                                                    108
+
+  UNKNOWN LIFE OF JESUS CHRIST,                                      110
+
+  IN OUR NEIGHBORHOOD,                                               122
+
+  FAREWELL!                                                          138
+
+  LITTLE MISS SOPHIE,                                                140
+
+  IF I HAD KNOWN!                                                    154
+
+  CHALMETTE,                                                         155
+
+  AT EVENTIDE,                                                       159
+
+  THE IDLER,                                                         166
+
+  LOVE AND THE BUTTERFLY,                                            168
+
+  THE BEE-MAN,                                                       169
+
+  AMID THE ROSES,                                                    176
+
+
+
+
+PREFACE.
+
+
+These fugitive pieces are launched upon the tide of public opinion to
+sink or swim upon their merit. They will float for a while, but whether
+they will reach the haven of popularity depends upon their enduring
+qualities. Some will surely perish, many will reach some port, but time
+alone will tell if any shall successfully breast the ocean of thought
+and plant its standard upon the summit of fame.
+
+When one enters the domain of authorship, she places herself at the
+mercy of critics. Were she as sure of being commended by the best and
+most intelligent of her readers, as she is sure of being condemned by
+the worst and most ignorant, there would still be a thrill of pleasure
+in all criticism, for the satisfaction of having received the praise of
+the first would compensate for the harshness of the latter. Just
+criticism is wholesome and never wounds the sensibilities of the true
+author, for it saves her from the danger of an excess of pride which is
+the greatest foe to individual progress, while it spurs her on to
+loftier flights and nobler deeds. A poor writer is bad, but a poor
+critic is worse, therefore, unjust criticism should never ruffle the
+temper of its victim. The author of these pages belongs to that type of
+the "brave new woman who scorns to sigh," but feels that she has
+something to say, and says it to the best of her ability, and leaves the
+verdict in the hands of the public. She gives to the reader her best
+thoughts and leaves him to accept or reject as merit may manifest
+itself. No author is under contract to please her readers at all times,
+nor can she hope to control the sentiments of all of them at any time,
+therefore, the obligation is reciprocal, for the fame she receives is
+due to the pleasure she affords.
+
+The author of these fugitive pieces is young, just on the threshold of
+life, and with the daring audacity of youth makes assertions and gives
+decisions which she may reverse as time mellows her opinions, and the
+realities of life force aside the theories of youth, and prosy facts
+obscure the memory of that happy time when the heart overflowing
+with----
+
+                                  "The joy
+  Of young ideas painted on the mind,
+  In the warm glowing colors Fancy spreads
+  On objects, not yet known, when all is new,
+  And all is lovely."
+
+There is much in this book that is good; much that is crude; some that
+is poor: but all give that assurance of something great and noble when
+the bud of promise, now unfolding its petals in the morning glow of
+light, will have matured into that fuller growth of blossoming flower
+ere the noonday sun passes its zenith. May the hope thus engendered by
+this first attempt reach its fruition, and may the energy displayed by
+one so young meet the reward it merits from an approving public.
+
+                                           SYLVANIE F. WILLIAMS.
+
+
+
+
+VIOLETS.
+
+I.
+
+
+"And she tied a bunch of violets with a tress of her pretty brown hair."
+
+She sat in the yellow glow of the lamplight softly humming these words.
+It was Easter evening, and the newly risen spring world was slowly
+sinking to a gentle, rosy, opalescent slumber, sweetly tired of the joy
+which had pervaded it all day. For in the dawn of the perfect morn, it
+had arisen, stretched out its arms in glorious happiness to greet the
+Saviour and said its hallelujahs, merrily trilling out carols of bird,
+and organ and flower-song. But the evening had come, and rest.
+
+There was a letter lying on the table, it read:
+
+"Dear, I send you this little bunch of flowers as my Easter token.
+Perhaps you may not be able to read their meaning, so I'll tell you.
+Violets, you know, are my favorite flowers. Dear, little, human-faced
+things! They seem always as if about to whisper a love-word; and then
+they signify that thought which passes always between you and me. The
+orange blossoms--you know their meaning; the little pinks are the
+flowers you love; the evergreen leaf is the symbol of the endurance of
+our affection; the tube-roses I put in, because once when you kissed and
+pressed me close in your arms, I had a bunch of tube-roses on my bosom,
+and the heavy fragrance of their crushed loveliness has always lived in
+my memory. The violets and pinks are from a bunch I wore to-day, and
+when kneeling at the altar, during communion, did I sin, dear, when I
+thought of you? The tube-roses and orange-blossoms I wore Friday night;
+you always wished for a lock of my hair, so I'll tie these flowers with
+them--but there, it is not stable enough; let me wrap them with a bit of
+ribbon, pale blue, from that little dress I wore last winter to the
+dance, when we had such a long, sweet talk in that forgotten nook. You
+always loved that dress, it fell in such soft ruffles away from the
+throat and bosom,--you called me your little forget-me-not, that night.
+I laid the flowers away for awhile in our favorite book,--Byron--just at
+the poem we loved best, and now I send them to you. Keep them always in
+remembrance of me, and if aught should occur to separate us, press these
+flowers to your lips, and I will be with you in spirit, permeating your
+heart with unutterable love and happiness."
+
+
+II.
+
+It is Easter again. As of old, the joyous bells clang out the glad news
+of the resurrection. The giddy, dancing sunbeams laugh riotously in
+field and street; birds carol their sweet twitterings everywhere, and
+the heavy perfume of flowers scents the golden atmosphere with inspiring
+fragrance. One long, golden sunbeam steals silently into the
+white-curtained window of a quiet room, and lay athwart a sleeping face.
+Cold, pale, still, its fair, young face pressed against the satin-lined
+casket. Slender, white fingers, idle now, they that had never known
+rest; locked softly over a bunch of violets; violets and tube-roses in
+her soft, brown hair, violets in the bosom of her long, white gown;
+violets and tube-roses and orange-blossoms banked everywhere, until the
+air was filled with the ascending souls of the human flowers. Some
+whispered that a broken heart had ceased to flutter in that still, young
+form, and that it was a mercy for the soul to ascend on the slender
+sunbeam. To-day she kneels at the throne of heaven, where one year ago
+she had communed at an earthly altar.
+
+
+III.
+
+Far away in a distant city, a man, carelessly looking among some
+papers, turned over a faded bunch of flowers tied with a blue ribbon
+and a lock of hair. He paused meditatively awhile, then turning to the
+regal-looking woman lounging before the fire, he asked:
+
+"Wife, did you ever send me these?"
+
+She raised her great, black eyes to his with a gesture of ineffable
+disdain, and replied languidly:
+
+"You know very well I can't bear flowers. How could I ever send such
+sentimental trash to any one? Throw them into the fire."
+
+And the Easter bells chimed a solemn requiem as the flames slowly licked
+up the faded violets. Was it merely fancy on the wife's part, or did the
+husband really sigh,--a long, quivering breath of remembrance?
+
+
+
+
+THREE THOUGHTS.
+
+
+  FIRST.
+
+    How few of us
+  In all the world's great, ceaseless struggling strife,
+  Go to our work with gladsome, buoyant step,
+  And love it for its sake, whate'er it be.
+  Because it is a labor, or, mayhap,
+  Some sweet, peculiar art of God's own gift;
+  And not the promise of the world's slow smile
+  of recognition, or of mammon's gilded grasp.
+  Alas, how few, in inspiration's dazzling flash,
+  Or spiritual sense of world's beyond the dome
+  Of circling blue around this weary earth,
+  Can bask, and know the God-given grace
+  Of genius' fire that flows and permeates
+  The virgin mind alone; the soul in which
+  The love of earth hath tainted not.
+  The love of art and art alone.
+
+  SECOND.
+
+  "Who dares stand forth?" the monarch cried,
+    "Amid the throng, and dare to give
+    Their aid, and bid this wretch to live?
+  I pledge my faith and crown beside,
+  A woeful plight, a sorry sight,
+    This outcast from all God-given grace.
+
+    What, ho! in all, no friendly face,
+  No helping hand to stay his plight?
+  St. Peter's name be pledged for aye,
+    The man's accursed, that is true;
+    But ho, he suffers. None of you
+  Will mercy show, or pity sigh?"
+
+  Strong men drew back, and lordly train
+    Did slowly file from monarch's look,
+    Whose lips curled scorn. But from a nook
+  A voice cried out, "Though he has slain
+  That which I loved the best on earth,
+    Yet will I tend him till he dies,
+    I can be brave." A woman's eyes
+  Gazed fearlessly into his own.
+
+  THIRD.
+
+  When all the world has grown full cold to thee,
+  And man--proud pygmy--shrugs all scornfully,
+  And bitter, blinding tears flow gushing forth,
+  Because of thine own sorrows and poor plight,
+  Then turn ye swift to nature's page,
+  And read there passions, immeasurably far
+  Greater than thine own in all their littleness.
+  For nature has her sorrows and her joys,
+  As all the piled-up mountains and low vales
+  Will silently attest--and hang thy head
+  In dire confusion, for having dared
+  To moan at thine own miseries
+  When God and nature suffer silently.
+
+
+
+
+THE WOMAN.
+
+
+The literary manager of the club arose, cleared his throat, adjusted his
+cravat, fixed his eyes sternly upon the young man, and in a sonorous
+voice, a little marred by his habitual lisp, asked: "Mr. ----, will you
+please tell us your opinion upon the question, whether woman's chances
+for matrimony are increased or decreased when she becomes man's equal as
+a wage earner?"
+
+The secretary adjusted her eye-glass, and held her pencil alertly poised
+above her book, ready to note which side Mr. ---- took. Mr. ----
+fidgeted, pulled himself together with a violent jerk, and finally spoke
+his mind. Someone else did likewise, also someone else, then the women
+interposed, and jumped on the men, the men retaliated, a wordy war
+ensued, and the whole matter ended by nothing being decided, pro or
+con--generally the case in wordy discussions. _Moi?_ Well, I sawed wood
+and said nothing, but all the while there was forming in my mind, no, I
+won't say forming, it was there already. It was this, _Why should
+well-salaried women marry?_ Take the average working-woman of to-day.
+She works from five to ten hours a day, doing extra night work,
+sometimes, of course. Her work over, she goes home or to her
+boarding-house, as the case may be. Her meals are prepared for her, she
+has no household cares upon her shoulders, no troublesome dinners to
+prepare for a fault-finding husband, no fretful children to try her
+patience, no petty bread and meat economies to adjust. She has her
+cares, her money-troubles, her debts, and her scrimpings, it is true,
+but they only make her independent, instead of reducing her to a dead
+level of despair. Her day's work ends at the office, school, factory or
+store; the rest of the time is hers, undisturbed by the restless going
+to and fro of housewifely cares, and she can employ it in mental or
+social diversions. She does not incessantly rely upon the whims of a
+cross man to take her to such amusements as she desires. In this
+nineteenth century she is free to go where she pleases--provided it be
+in a moral atmosphere--without comment. Theatres, concerts, lectures,
+and the lighter amusements of social affairs among her associates, are
+open to her, and there she can go, see, and be seen, admire and be
+admired, enjoy and be enjoyed, without a single harrowing thought of the
+baby's milk or the husband's coffee.
+
+Her earnings are her own, indisputably, unreservedly, undividedly. She
+knows to a certainty just how much she can spend, how well she can
+dress, how far her earnings will go. If there is a dress, a book, a bit
+of music, a bunch of flowers, or a bit of furniture that she wants, she
+can get it, and there is no need of asking anyone's advice, or gently
+hinting to John that Mrs. So and So has a lovely new hat, and there is
+one ever so much prettier and cheaper down at Thus & Co.'s. To an
+independent spirit there is a certain sense of humiliation and wounded
+pride in asking for money, be it five cents or five hundred dollars. The
+working woman knows no such pang; she has but to question her account
+and all is over. In the summer she takes her savings of the winter,
+packs her trunk and takes a trip more or less extensive, and there is
+none to say her nay,--nothing to bother her save the accumulation of her
+own baggage. There is an independent, happy, free-and-easy swing about
+the motion of her life. Her mind is constantly being broadened by
+contact with the world in its working clothes; in her leisure moments by
+the better thoughts of dead and living men which she meets in her
+applications to books and periodicals; in her vacations, by her studies
+of nature, or it may be other communities than her own. The freedom
+which she enjoys she does not trespass upon, for if she did not learn at
+school she has acquired since habits of strong self-reliance,
+self-support, earnest thinking, deep discriminations, and firmly
+believes that the most perfect liberty is that state in which humanity
+conforms itself to and obeys strictly, without deviation, those laws
+which are best fitted for their mutual self-advancement.
+
+And so your independent working woman of to day comes as near being
+ideal in her equable self poise as can be imagined. So why should she
+hasten to give this liberty up in exchange for a serfdom, sweet
+sometimes, it is true, but which too often becomes galling and
+unendurable.
+
+It is not marriage that I decry, for I don't think any really sane
+person would do this, but it is this wholesale marrying of girls in
+their teens, this rushing into an unknown plane of life to avoid work.
+Avoid work! What housewife dares call a moment her own?
+
+Marriages might be made in Heaven, but too often they are consummated
+right here on earth, based on a desire to possess the physical
+attractions of the woman by the man, pretty much as a child desires a
+toy, and an innate love of man, a wild desire not to be ridiculed by the
+foolish as an "old maid," and a certain delicate shrinking from the work
+of the world--laziness is a good name for it--by the woman. The
+attraction of mind to mind, the ability of one to compliment the lights
+and shadows in the other, the capacity of either to fulfil the duties of
+wife or husband--these do not enter into the contract. That is why we
+have divorce courts.
+
+And so our independent woman in every year of her full, rich,
+well-rounded life, gaining fresh knowledge and experience, learning
+humanity, and particularly that portion of it which is the other gender,
+so well as to avoid clay-footed idols, and finally when she does consent
+to bear the yoke upon her shoulders, does so with perhaps less romance
+and glamor than her younger scoffing sisters, but with an assurance of
+solid and more lasting happiness. Why should she have hastened this;
+was aught lost by the delay?
+
+"They say" that men don't admire this type of woman, that they prefer
+the soft, dainty, winning, mindless creature who cuddles into men's
+arms, agrees to everything they say, and looks upon them as a race of
+gods turned loose upon this earth for the edification of womankind.
+Well, may be so, but there is one thing positive, they certainly respect
+the independent one, and admire her, too, even if it is at a distance,
+and that in itself is something. As to the other part, no matter how
+sensible a woman is on other questions, when she falls in love she is
+fool enough to believe her adored one a veritable Solomon. Cuddling?
+Well, she may preside over conventions, brandish her umbrella at board
+meetings, tramp the streets soliciting subscriptions, wield the blue
+pencil in an editorial sanctum, hammer a type-writer, smear her nose
+with ink from a galley full of pied type, lead infant ideas through the
+tortuous mazes of c-a-t and r-a-t, plead at the bar, or wield the
+scalpel in a dissecting room, yet when the right moment comes, she will
+sink as gracefully into his manly embrace, throw her arms as lovingly
+around his neck, and cuddle as warmly and sweetly to his bosom as her
+little sister who has done nothing else but think, dream, and practice
+for that hour. It comes natural, you see.
+
+
+
+
+TEN MINUTES' MUSING.
+
+
+There was a terrible noise in the school-yard at intermission; peeping
+out the windows the boys could be seen huddled in an immense bunch, in
+the middle of the yard. It looked like a fight, a mob, a
+knock-down,--anything, so we rushed out to the door hastily, fearfully,
+ready to scold, punish, console, frown, bind up broken heads or drag
+wounded forms from the melee as the case might be. Nearly every boy in
+the school was in that seething, swarming mass, and those who weren't
+were standing around on the edges, screaming and throwing up their hats
+in hilarious excitement. It was a mob, a fearful mob, but a mob
+apparently with a vigorous and well-defined purpose. It was a mob that
+screamed and howled, and kicked, and yelled, and shouted, and perspired,
+and squirmed, and wriggled, and pushed, and threatened, and poured
+itself all seemingly upon some central object. It was a mob that had an
+aim, that was determined to accomplish that aim, even though the whole
+azure expanse of sky fell upon them. It was a mob with set muscles,
+straining like whip-cords, eyes on that central object and with heads
+inward and sturdy legs outward, like prairie horses reversed in a
+battle. The cheerers and hat throwers on the outside were mirthful, but
+the mob was not; it howled, but howled without any cachinnation; it
+struggled for mastery. Some fell and were trampled over, some weaker
+ones were even tossed in the air, but the mob never deigned to trouble
+itself about such trivialities. It was an interesting, nervous whole,
+with divers parts of separate vitality.
+
+In alarm I looked about for the principal. He was standing at a safe
+distance with his hands in his pockets watching the seething mass with a
+broad smile. At sight of my perplexed expression some one was about to
+venture an explanation, when there was a wild yell, a sudden vehement
+disintegration of the mass, a mighty rush and clutch at a dark object
+bobbing in the air--and the mist cleared from my intellect--as I
+realized it all--football.
+
+Did you ever stop to see the analogy between a game of football and the
+interesting little game called life which we play every day? There is
+one, far-fetched as it may seem, though, for that matter, life's game,
+being one of desperate chances and strategic moves, is analogous to
+anything.
+
+But, if we could get out of ourselves and soar above the world, far
+enough to view the mass beneath in its daily struggles, and near enough
+the hearts of the people to feel the throbs beneath their boldly
+carried exteriors, the whole would seem naught but such a maddening rush
+and senseless-looking crushing. "We are but children of a larger growth"
+after all, and our ceaseless pursuing after the baubles of this earth
+are but the struggles for precedence in the business play-ground.
+
+The football is money. See how the mass rushes after it! Everyone so
+intent upon his pursuit until all else dwindles into a ridiculous
+nonentity. The weaker ones go down in the mad pursuit, and are
+unmercifully trampled upon, but no matter, what is the difference if the
+foremost win the coveted prize and carry it off. See the big boy in
+front, he with iron grip, and determined, compressed lips? That boy is a
+type of the big, merciless man, the Gradgrind of the latter century. His
+face is set towards the ball, and even though he may crush a dozen small
+boys, he'll make his way through the mob and come out triumphant. And
+he'll be the victor longer than anyone else, in spite of the envy and
+fighting and pushing about him.
+
+To an observer, alike unintelligent about the rules of a football game,
+and the conditions which govern the barter and exchange and fluctuations
+of the world's money market, there is as much difference between the
+sight of a mass of boys on a play-ground losing their equilibrium over a
+spheroid of rubber and a mass of men losing their coolness and temper
+and mental and nervous balance on change as there is between a pine
+sapling and a mighty forest king--merely a difference of age. The
+mighty, seething, intensely concentrated mass in its emphatic tendency
+to one point is the same, in the utter disregard of mental and physical
+welfare. The momentary triumphs of transitory possessions impress a
+casual looker-on with the same fearful idea--that the human race, after
+all, is savage to the core, and cultivates its savagery in an inflated
+happiness at own nearness to perfection.
+
+But the bell clangs sharply, the overheated, nervous, tingling boys
+fall into line, and the sudden transition from massing disorder to
+military precision cuts short the ten minutes' musing.
+
+
+
+
+A PLAINT.
+
+
+  Dear God, 'tis hard, so awful hard to lose
+  The one we love, and see him go afar,
+  With scarce one thought of aching hearts behind,
+  Nor wistful eyes, nor outstretched yearning hands.
+  Chide not, dear God, if surging thoughts arise.
+  And bitter questionings of love and fate,
+  But rather give my weary heart thy rest,
+  And turn the sad, dark memories into sweet.
+  Dear God, I fain my loved one were anear,
+  But since thou will'st that happy thence he'll be,
+  I send him forth, and back I'll choke the grief
+  Rebellious rises in my lonely heart.
+  I pray thee, God, my loved one joy to bring;
+  I dare not hope that joy will be with me,
+  But ah, dear God, one boon I crave of thee,
+  That he shall ne'er forget his hours with me.
+
+
+
+
+IN UNCONSCIOUSNESS.
+
+
+There was a big booming in my ears, great heavy iron bells that swung
+to-and-fro on either side, and sent out deafening reverberations that
+steeped the senses in a musical melody of sonorous sound; to-and-fro,
+backward and forward, yet ever receding in a gradually widening circle,
+monotonous, mournful, weird, suffusing the soul with an unutterable
+sadness, as images of wailing processions, of weeping, empty-armed
+women, and widowed maidens flashed through the mind, and settled on the
+soul with a crushing, o'er-pressing weight of sorrow.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Now I lay floating, arms outstretched, on an illimitable waste of calm
+tranquil waters. Far away as eye could reach, there was naught but the
+pale, white-flecked, green waters of this ocean of eternity, and above
+the tender blue sky arched down in perfect love of its mistress,
+the ocean. Sky and sea, sea and sky, blue, calm, infinite, perfect sea,
+heaving its womanly bosom to the passionate kisses of its ardent
+sun-lover. Away into infinity stretched this perfectibility of love;
+into eternity, I was drifting, alone, silent, yet burdened still with
+the remembrance of the sadness of the bells.
+
+Far away, they tolled out the incessant dirge, grown resignedly sweet
+now; so intense in its infinite peace, that a calm of love, beyond all
+human understanding and above all earthly passions, sank deep into my
+soul, and so permeated my whole being with rest and peace, that my lips
+smiled and my eyes drooped in access of fulsome joy. Into the
+illimitable space of infinity we drifted, my soul and I, borne along
+only by the network of auburn hair that floated about me in the green
+waters.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+But now, a rude grasp from somewhere is laid upon me, pressing upon my
+face. Instantly the air grows gloomy, gray, and the ocean rocks
+menacingly, while the great bells grow harsh and strident, as they hint
+of a dark fate. I clasp my hands appealingly to the heavens; I moan and
+struggle with the unknown grasp; then there is peace and the sweet
+content of the infinite Nirvana.
+
+Then slowly, softly, the net of auburn hair begins to drag me down below
+the surface of the sea. Oh! the skies are so sweet, and now that the
+tender stars are looking upon us, how fair to stay and sway upon the
+breast of eternity! But the net is inexorable, and gently, slowly pulls
+me down. Now we sink straight, now we whirl in slow, eddying circles,
+spiral-like; while at each turn those bells ring out clanging now in
+wild crescendo, then whispering dread secrets of the ocean's depths. Oh,
+ye mighty bells, tell me from your learned lore of the hopes of mankind!
+Tell me what fruit he beareth from his strivings and yearnings; know not
+ye? Why ring ye now so joyful, so hopeful; then toll your dismal
+prophecies of o'er-cast skies?
+
+Years have passed, and now centuries, too, are swallowed in the gulf of
+eternity, yet the auburn net still whirls me in eddying circles, down,
+down to the very womb of time; to the innermost recesses of the mighty
+ocean.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+And now, peace, perfect, unconditioned, sublime peace, and rest, and
+silence. For to the great depths of the mighty ocean the solemn bells
+cannot penetrate, and no sound, not even the beatings of one's own
+heart, is heard. In the heart of eternity there can be nothing to break
+the calm of frozen aeons. In the great white hall I lay, silent,
+unexpectant, calm, and smiled in perfect content at the web of auburn
+hair which trailed across my couch. No passionate longing for life or
+love, no doubting question of heaven or hell, no strife for carnal
+needs,--only rest, content, peace--happiness, perfect, whole, complete,
+sublime.
+
+And thus passed ages and ages, aeons and aeons. The great earth there in
+the dim distance above the ocean has toiled wearily about the sun, until
+its mechanism was failing, and the warm ardor of the lover's eye was
+becoming pale and cold from age, while the air all about the fast
+dwindling sphere was heavy and thick with the sorrows and heartaches and
+woes of the humans upon its face. Heavy with the screams and roar of
+war; with the curses of the deceived of traitors; with the passionate
+sighs of unlawful love; with the crushing unrest of blighted hopes.
+Knowledge and contempt of all these things permeated even to the inmost
+depths of time, as I lay in the halls of rest and smiled at the web
+floating through my white fingers.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+But hark! discord begins. There is a vague fear which springs from an
+unknown source and drifts into the depths of rest; fear, indefinable,
+unaccountable, unknowable, shuddering. Pain begins, for the heart
+springs into life, and fills the silence with the terror of its
+beatings, thick, knifing, frightful in its intense longing. Power of
+mind over soul, power of calm over fear avail nothing; suspense and
+misery, locked arm in arm, pervade aeonic stillness, till all things else
+become subordinate, unnoticed.
+
+Centuries drift away, and the giddy, old reprobate--earth, dying a
+hideous, ghastly death, with but one solitary human to shudder in unison
+with its last throes, to bask in the last pale rays of a cold sun, to
+inhale the last breath of a metallic atmosphere; totters, reels, falls
+into space, and is no more. Peal out, ye brazen bells, peal out the
+requiem of the sinner! Roll your mournful tones into the ears of the
+saddened angels, weeping with wing-covered eyes! Toll the requiem of the
+sinner, sinking swiftly, sobbingly into the depths of time's ocean.
+Down, down, until the great groans which arose from the domes and Ionic
+roofs about me told that the sad old earth sought rest in eternity,
+while the universe shrugged its shoulders over the loss of another star.
+
+And now, the great invisible fear became apparent, tangible, for all the
+sins, the woes, the miseries, the dreads, the dismal achings and
+throbbings, the dreariness and gloom of the lost star came together and
+like a huge geni took form and hideous shape--octopus-like--which slowly
+approached me, erstwhile happy--and hovered about my couch in fearful
+menace.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Oh, shining web of hair, burst loose your bonds and bid me move! Oh,
+time, cease not your calculations, but speed me on to deliverance! Oh,
+silence, vast, immense, infuse into your soul some sound other than the
+heavy throbbing of this fast disintegrating heart! Oh, pitiless stone
+arches, let fall your crushing weight upon this Stygian monster!
+
+I pray to time, to eternity, to the frozen aeons of the past. Useless. I
+am seized, forced to open my cold lips; there is agony,--supreme, mortal
+agony of nerve tension, and wrenching of vitality. I struggle, scream,
+and clutching the monster with superhuman strength, fling him aside, and
+rise, bleeding, screaming--but triumphant, and keenly mortal in every
+vein, alive and throbbing with consciousness and pain.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+No, it was not opium, nor night-mare, but chloroform, a dentist, three
+obstinate molars, a pair of forceps, and a lively set of nerves.
+
+
+
+
+TITEE.
+
+
+It was cold that day; the great sharp north wind swept out Elysian
+Fields Street in blasts that made men shiver, and bent everything in its
+track. The skies hung lowering and gloomy; the usually quiet street was
+more than deserted, it was dismal.
+
+Titee leaned against one of the brown freight cars for protection
+against the shrill norther, and warmed his little chapped hands at a
+blaze of chips and dry grass. "May be it'll snow," he muttered, casting
+a glance at the sky that would have done credit to a practised seaman.
+"Then _won't_ I have fun! Ugh, but the wind blows!"
+
+It was Saturday, or Titee would have been in school--the big yellow
+school on Marigny Street, where he went every day when its bell boomed
+nine o'clock. Went with a run and a joyous whoop,--presumably to
+imbibe knowledge, ostensibly to make his teacher's life a burden.
+
+Idle, lazy, dirty, troublesome boy, she called him, to herself, as day
+by day wore on, and Titee improved not, but let his whole class pass him
+on its way to a higher grade. A practical joke he relished infinitely
+more than a practical problem, and a good game at pinsticking was far
+more entertaining than a language lesson. Moreover, he was always
+hungry, and _would_ eat in school before the half-past ten intermission,
+thereby losing much good play-time for his voracious appetite.
+
+But there was nothing in natural history that Titee didn't know. He
+could dissect a butterfly or a mosquito-hawk and describe their parts as
+accurately as a spectacled student with a scalpel and microscope could
+talk about a cadaver. The entire Third District, with its swamps and
+canals and commons and railroad sections, and its wondrous, crooked,
+tortuous streets was as an open book to Titee. There was not a nook or
+corner that he did not know or could tell of. There was not a bit of
+gossip among the gamins, little Creole and Spanish fellows, with dark
+skins and lovely eyes like Spaniels, that Titee could not tell of. He
+knew just exactly when it was time for crawfish to be plentiful down in
+the Claiborne and Marigny canals; just when a poor, breadless fellow
+might get a job in the big bone-yard and fertilizing factory out on the
+railroad track; and as for the levee, with its ships and schooners and
+sailors--Oh, how he could revel among them! The wondrous ships, the
+pretty little schooners, where the foreign-looking sailors lay on long
+moon-lit nights, singing gay bar carols to the tinkle of a guitar and
+mandolin. All these things, and more, could Titee tell of. He had been
+down to the Gulf, and out on its treacherous waters through Eads Jetties
+on a fishing smack, with some jolly, brown sailors, and could interest
+the whole school-room in the "talk lessons," if he chose.
+
+Titee shivered as the wind swept round the freight cars. There isn't
+much warmth in a bit of a jersey coat.
+
+"Wish 'twas summer," he murmured, casting another sailor's glance at the
+sky. "Don't believe I like snow, it's too wet and cold." And, with a
+last parting caress at the little fire he had builded for a minute's
+warmth, he plunged his hands in his pockets, shut his teeth, and started
+manfully on his mission out the railroad track towards the swamps.
+
+It was late when Titee came home, to such a home as it was, and he had
+but illy performed his errand, so his mother beat him, and sent him to
+bed supperless. A sharp strap stings in cold weather, and long walks in
+the teeth of a biting wind creates a keen appetite. But if Titee cried
+himself to sleep that night, he was up bright and early next morning,
+and had been to early mass, devoutly kneeling on the cold floor,
+blowing his fingers to keep them warm, and was home almost before the
+rest of the family was awake.
+
+There was evidently some great matter of business in this young man's
+mind, for he scarcely ate his breakfast, and had left the table, eagerly
+cramming the remainder of his meal in his pockets.
+
+"I wonder what he's up to now?" mused his mother as she watched his
+little form sturdily trudging the track in the face of the wind, his
+head, with the rimless cap thrust close on the shock of black hair, bent
+low, his hands thrust deep in the bulging pockets.
+
+"A new snake, perhaps," ventured the father; "he's a queer child."
+
+But the next day Titee was late for school. It was something unusual,
+for he was always the first on hand to fix some plan of mechanism to
+make the teacher miserable. She looked reprovingly at him this morning,
+when he came in during the arithmetic class, his hair all wind-blown,
+cheeks rosy from a hard fight with the sharp blasts. But he made up for
+his tardiness by his extreme goodness all day; just think, Titee didn't
+even eat in school. A something unparalleled in the entire history of
+his school-life.
+
+When the lunch-hour came, and all the yard was a scene of feast and fun,
+one of the boys found him standing by one of the posts, disconsolately
+watching a ham sandwich as it rapidly disappeared down the throat of a
+sturdy, square-headed little fellow.
+
+"Hello, Edgar," he said, "What yer got fer lunch?"
+
+"Nothin'," was the mournful reply.
+
+"Ah, why don't yer stop eatin' in school fer a change? Yer don't ever
+have nothin' to eat."
+
+"I didn't eat to-day," said Titee, blazing up.
+
+"Yer did!"
+
+"I tell you I didn't!" and Titee's hard little fist planted a
+punctuation mark on his comrade's eye.
+
+A fight in the school-yard! Poor Titee in disgrace again. But in spite
+of his battered appearance, a severe scolding from the principal, lines
+to write, and a further punishment from his mother, Titee scarcely
+remained for his dinner, but was off, down the railroad track, with his
+pockets partly stuffed with the remnants of his scanty meal.
+
+And the next day Titee was tardy again, and lunchless, too, and the
+next, and the next, until the teacher in despair sent a nicely printed
+note to his mother about him, which might have done some good, had not
+Titee taken great pains to tear it up on his way home.
+
+But one day it rained, whole bucketfuls of water, that poured in
+torrents from a miserable angry sky. Too wet a day for bits of boys to
+be trudging to school, so Titee's mother thought, so kept him home to
+watch the weather through the window, fretting and fuming, like a
+regular storm-cloud in miniature. As the day wore on, and the storm did
+not abate, his mother had to keep a strong watch upon him, or he would
+have slipped away.
+
+At last dinner came and went, and the gray soddenness of the skies
+deepened into the blackness of coming night. Someone called Titee to go
+to bed--and Titee was nowhere to be found.
+
+Under the beds, in corners and closets, through the yard, and in such
+impossible places as the soap-dish and the water-pitcher even; but he
+had gone as completely as if he had been spirited away. It was of no use
+to call up the neighbors; he had never been near their houses, they
+affirmed, so there was nothing to do but to go to the railroad track,
+where little Titee had been seen so often trudging in the shrill north
+wind.
+
+So with lantern and sticks, and his little yellow dog, the rescuing
+party started out the track. The rain had ceased falling, but the wind
+blew a tremendous gale, scurrying great, gray clouds over a fierce sky.
+It was not exactly dark, though in this part of the city, there was
+neither gas nor electricity, and surely on such a night as this, neither
+moon nor stars dared show their faces in such a grayness of sky; but a
+sort of all-diffused luminosity was in the air, as though the sea of
+atmosphere was charged with an ethereal phosphorescence.
+
+Search as they would, there were no signs of poor little Titee. The soft
+earth between the railroad ties crumbled beneath their feet without
+showing any small tracks or foot-prints.
+
+"Let us return," said the big brother, "he can't be here anyway."
+
+"No, no," urged the mother, "I feel that he is; let's go on."
+
+So on they went, slipping on the wet earth, stumbling over the loose
+rocks, until a sudden wild yelp from Tiger brought them to a standstill.
+He had rushed ahead of them, and his voice could be heard in the
+distance, howling piteously.
+
+With a fresh impetus the little muddy party hurried forward. Tiger's
+yelps could be heard plainer and plainer, mingled now with a muffled
+wail, as of some one in pain.
+
+And then, after awhile they found a pitiful little heap of wet and
+sodden rags, lying at the foot of a mound of earth and stones thrown
+upon the side of the track. It was little Titee with a broken leg, all
+wet and miserable, and moaning.
+
+They picked him up tenderly, and started to carry him home. But he cried
+and clung to his mother, and begged not to go.
+
+"He's got fever," wailed his mother.
+
+"No, no, it's my old man. He's hungry, sobbed Titee, holding out a
+little package. It was the remnants of his dinner, wet and rain washed.
+
+"What old man?" asked the big brother.
+
+"My old man, oh, please, please don't go home until I see him, I'm not
+hurting much, I can go."
+
+So yielding to his whim, they carried him further away, down the sides
+of the track up to an embankment or levee by the sides of the Marigny
+canal. Then Titee's brother, suddenly stopping, exclaimed:
+
+"Why, here's a cave, a regular Robinson Cruso affair."
+
+"It's my old man's cave," cried Titee; "oh, please go in, maybe he's
+dead."
+
+There can't be much ceremony in entering a cave, there is but one thing
+to do, walk in. This they did, and holding high the lantern, beheld a
+strange sight. On a bed of straw and paper in one corner lay a withered,
+wizened, white-bearded old man, with wide eyes staring at the
+unaccustomed sight. In the corner lay a cow.
+
+"It's my old man!" cried Titee, joyfully. "Oh, please, grandpa, I
+couldn't get here to-day, it rained all morning, and when I ran away
+this evening, I slipped down and broke something, and oh, grandpa, I'm
+so tired and hurty, and I'm so afraid you're hungry."
+
+So the secret of Titee's jaunts out the railroad was out. In one of his
+trips around the swamp-land, he had discovered the old man dying from
+cold and hunger in the fields. Together they had found this cave, and
+Titee had gathered the straw and brush that scattered itself over the
+ground and made the bed. A poor old cow turned adrift by an ungrateful
+master, had crept in and shared the damp dwelling. And thither Titee had
+trudged twice a day, carrying his luncheon in the morning, and his
+dinner in the evening, the sole support of a half-dead cripple.
+
+"There's a crown in Heaven for that child," said the officer to whom the
+case was referred.
+
+And so there was, for we scattered winter roses on his little grave down
+in old St. Rocque's cemetery. The cold and rain, and the broken leg had
+told their tale.
+
+
+
+
+ANARCHY ALLEY.
+
+
+To the casual observer, the quaint, narrow, little alley that lies in
+the heart of the city is no more than any other of the numerous
+divisions of streets in which New Orleans delights. But to the idle
+wanderer, or he whose mission down its four squares of much trodden
+stones, is an aimless one,--whose eyes unforced to bend to the ground in
+thought of sordid ways and means, can peer at will into its quaint
+corners. Exchange Alley presents all the phases of a Latinized portion
+of America, a bit of Europe, perhaps, the restless, chafing, anarchistic
+Europe of to-day, in the midst of the quieter democratic institution of
+our republic.
+
+It is Bohemia, pure and simple, Bohemia, in all its stages, from the
+beer saloon and the cheap book-store, to the cheaper cook shop and
+uncertain lodging house. There the great American institution, the
+wondrous monarch whom the country supports--the tramp--basks in superior
+comfort and contented, unmolested indolence. Idleness and labor, poverty
+and opulence, the honest, law-abiding workingman, and the reckless,
+restless anarchist, jostle side by side, and brush each other's elbows
+in terms of equality as they do nowhere else.
+
+On the busiest thoroughfares in the city, just in the busiest part,
+between two of the most crowded and conservative of cross-streets, lies
+this alley of Latinism. One might almost pass it hurriedly, avoiding the
+crowds that cluster at this section of the streets, but upon turning
+into a narrow section, stone-paved, the place is entered, appearing to
+end one square distant, seeming to bar itself from the larger buildings
+by an aimless sort of iron affair, part railing, part posts. There is a
+conservative book-store at the entrance on one side, and an even more
+harmless clothing store on the other; then comes a saloon with many
+blind doors, behind which are vistas of tables, crowded and crowded with
+men drinking beer out of "globes," large, round, moony, common affairs.
+There is a dingy, pension-claim office, with cripples and
+sorrowful-looking women in black, sitting about on rickety chairs.
+Somehow, there is always an impression with me that the mourning dress
+and mournful looks are put on to impress the dispenser and adjuster. It
+is wicked, but what can one do if impressions come?
+
+There are more little cuddies of places, dye-shops, tailors, and
+nondescript corners that seem to have no possible mission on earth and
+are sadly conscious of their aimlessness. Then the railing is reached,
+and the alley instead of ending has merely given itself an angular twist
+to the right, and extends three squares further, to a great, pale green
+dome, and stately entrance.
+
+The calmly-thinking, quietly-laboring, cool and conservative world is
+for the nonce left behind. With the first stepping across Customhouse
+street, the place widens architecturally, and the atmosphere, too, seems
+impregnated with a sort of mental freedom, conducive to dangerous
+theorizing and broody reflections on the inequality of the classes. The
+sun shines in a strip in the centre, yellow and elusive, like gold;
+someone is rattling a gay galop on a piano somewhere; there is a sound
+of mens' voices in a heated discussion, a long whiff of pipe-smoke
+trails through the sunlight from the bar-room; the clink of glasses, the
+chink of silver, and the high treble of a woman's voice scolding a
+refractory child, mingle in incongruous melody.
+
+Two-story houses all along; the first floor divided into cuddies, here a
+paper store, displaying ten-cent novels of detective stories with
+impossible cuts, illustrating impossible situations of the plot;
+dye-shops, jewelers, tailors, tin-smiths, cook-shops, intelligence
+offices--many of these, and some newspaper offices. On the second floor,
+balconies, dingy, iron-railed, with sickly box-plants, and decrepit
+garments airing and being turned and tended by dishevelled, slip-shod
+women. Lodging-houses these, some of them, but one is forced to wonder
+why do the tenants sun their clothes so often? The lines stretched from
+posts to posts seem always filled with airing garments. Is it economy?
+And do the owners of the faded vests and patched coats hide in dusky
+corners while their only garments are receiving the benefit of Old Sol's
+cleansing rays? And are the women with the indiscriminate tresses, near
+relatives, or only the landladies? It would be something worth knowing
+if one could.
+
+Plenty of saloons--great, gorgeous, gaudy places, with pianos and
+swift-footed waiters, tables and cards, and men, men, men. The famous
+Three Brothers' Saloon occupies a position about midway the alley, and
+at its doors, the acme, the culminating point, the superlative degree of
+unquietude and discontent is reached. It is the headquarters of nearly
+all the great labor organizations in the city. Behind its doors,
+swinging as easily between the street and the liquor-fumed halls as the
+soul swings between right and wrong, the disturbed minds of the
+working-men become clouded, heated, and wrothily ready for deeds of
+violence.
+
+Outside on the pavements with hundreds of like-excited men, with angry
+discussions and bitter recitals of complaints, the seeds of discord sown
+some time since, perhaps, sprout afresh, blossom and bear fruits. Is
+there a strike? Then special minions of the law are detailed to this
+place, for violence and hatred of employers, insurrection and socialism
+find here ready followers. Impromptu mass meetings are common, and
+law-breaking schemes find their cradle beneath its glittering lights. It
+is always thronged within and without, a veritable nursery of riot and
+disorder.
+
+And oh, Bohemia, pipes, indolence and beer! The atmosphere is
+impregnated with it, the dust sifts it into your clothes and hair, the
+sunlight filters it through your brain, the stray snatches of music now
+and then beat it rhythmically into your mind. There are some who work,
+yes, and a few places outside of the saloons that seem to be animated
+with a business motive. There are even some who push their way briskly
+through the aimless bodies of men,--but then there must be an
+occasional anomaly to break the monotony, if nothing more.
+
+It is so unlike the ordinary world, this bit of Bohemia, that one feels
+a personal grievance when the marble entrance and great, green dome
+become positive, solid, architectural facts, standing in all the grim
+solemnity of the main entrance of the Hotel Royal on St. Louis Street,
+ending, with a sudden return to aristocracy, this stamping ground for
+anarchy.
+
+
+
+
+IMPRESSIONS.
+
+
+  THOUGHT.
+
+    A swift, successive chain of things,
+    That flash, kaleidoscope-like, now in, now out,
+  Now straight, now eddying in wild rings,
+    No order, neither law, compels their moves,
+    But endless, constant, always swiftly roves.
+
+
+  HOPE.
+
+  Wild seas of tossing, writhing waves,
+  A wreck half-sinking in the tortuous gloom;
+  One man clings desperately, while Boreas raves,
+    And helps to blot the rays of moon and star,
+    Then comes a sudden flash of light, which gleams on shores afar.
+
+
+  LOVE.
+
+  A bed of roses, pleasing to the eye,
+  Flowers of heaven, passionate and pure,
+  Upon this bed the youthful often lie,
+    And pressing hard upon its sweet delight,
+    The cruel thorns pierce soul and heart, and cause a woeful blight.
+
+
+  DEATH.
+
+  A traveller who has always heard
+  That on this journey he some day must go,
+    Yet shudders now, when at the fatal word
+    He starts upon the lonesome, dreary way.
+    The past, a page of joy and woe,--the future, none can say.
+
+
+  FAITH.
+
+  Blind clinging to a stern, stone cross,
+    Or it may be of frailer make;
+  Eyes shut, ears closed to earth's drear dross,
+    Immovable, serene, the world away
+    From thoughts--the mind uncaring for another day.
+
+
+
+
+SALAMMBO.
+
+BY GUSTAVE FLANBERT.
+
+
+Like unto the barbaric splendor, the clashing of arms, the flashing of
+jewels, so is this book, full of brightness that dazzles, yet does not
+weary, of rich mosaic beauty of sensuous softness. Yet, with it all,
+there is a singular lack of elevation of thought and expression;
+everything tends to degrade, to drag the mind to a worse than earthly
+level. The crudity of the warriors, the minute description of the
+battles, the leper, Hann; even the sensual love-scene of Salammbo and
+Matho, and the rites of Taint and Moloch. Possibly this is due to the
+peculiar shortness and crispness of the sentences, and the painstaking
+attention to details. Nothing is left for the imagination to complete.
+The slightest turn of the hand, the smallest bit of tapestry and
+armor,--all, all is described until one's brain becomes weary with the
+scintillating flash of minutia. Such careful attention wearies and
+disappoints, and sometimes, instead of photographing the scenes
+indelibly upon the mental vision, there ensues only a confused mass of
+armor and soldiers, plains and horses.
+
+But the description of action and movement are incomparable, resembling
+somewhat, in the rush and flow of words, the style of Victor Hugo; the
+breathless rush and fire, the restrained passion and fury of a
+master-hand.
+
+Throughout the whole book this peculiarity is noticeable--there are no
+dissertations, no pauses for the author to express his opinions, no
+stoppages to reflect,--we are rushed onward with almost breathless
+haste, and many times are fain to pause and re-read a sentence, a
+paragraph, sometimes a whole page. Like the unceasing motion of a column
+of artillery in battle, like the roar and fury of the Carthaginian's
+elephant, so is the torrent of Flanbert's eloquence--majestic, grand,
+intense, with nobility, sensuous, but never sublime, never elevating,
+never delicate.
+
+As an historian, Flanbert would have ranked high--at least in
+impartiality. Not once in the whole volume does he allow his prejudices,
+his opinions, his sentiments to crop out. We lose complete sight of the
+author in his work. With marvellous fidelity he explains the movements,
+the vices and the virtues of each party, and with Shakespearean tact, he
+conceals his identity, so that we are troubled with none of that Byronic
+vice of 'dipping one's pen into one's self.'
+
+Still, for all the historian's impartiality, he is just a trifle
+incorrect, here and there--the ancients mention no aqueduct in or near
+Carthage. Hann was not crucified outside of Tunis. The incident of the
+Carthaginian women cutting off their tresses to furnish strings for bows
+and catapults is generally conceded to have occurred during the latter
+portion of the third Punic War. And still another difficulty presents
+itself--Salammbo was supposed to have been the only daughter of
+Hamilcar; according to Flanbert she dies unmarried, or rather on her
+wedding day, and yet historians tell us that after the death of the
+elder Barca, Hannibal was brought up and watched over by Hamilcar's
+son-in-law, Hasdrubal. Can it be possible that the crafty Numidian King,
+Nari Havas, is the intrepid, fearless and whole-souled Hasdrubal? Or is
+it only another deviation from the beaten track of history? In a
+historical novel, however, and one so evidently arranged for dramatic
+effects, such lapses from the truth only heighten the interest and
+kindle the imagination to a brighter flame.
+
+The school of realism of which Zola, Tolstoi, De Maupassant, and others
+of that ilk are followers, claims its descent from the author of
+Salammbo. Perhaps their claim is well-founded, perhaps not; we are
+inclined to believe that it is, for every page in this novel is crowded
+with details, often disgusting, which are generally left out in ordinary
+works. The hideous deformity, the rottenness and repulsiveness of the
+leper Hann is brought out in such vivid detail that we sicken and fain
+would turn aside in disgust. But go where one will, the ghastly,
+quivering, wretched picture is always before us in all its filth and
+splendid misery. The reeking horrors of the battle-fields, the
+disgusting details of the army imprisoned in the defile of the
+battle-axe, the grimness of the sacrifices to the blood-thirsty god,
+Moloch, the wretchedness of Hamilcar's slaves are presented with every
+ghastly detail, with every degrading trick of expression. Picture after
+picture of misery and foulness arises and pursues us as the grim witches
+pursued the hapless Tam O'Shanter, clutching us in ghastly arms,
+clinging to us with grim and ghoulish tenacity.
+
+Viewing the character through the genteel crystal of nineteenth century
+civilization, they are all barbarous, unnatural, intensified; but
+considering the age in which they lived--the tendencies of that age, the
+gods they worshipped, the practices in which they indulged,--they are
+all true to life, perfect in the depiction of their natures. Spendius is
+a true Greek, crafty, lying, deceitful, ungrateful. Hamilcar needs no
+novelist to crystallize his character in words, he always remains the
+same Hamilcar of history, so it is with Hann; but to Flanbert alone are
+we indebted for the hideous realism of his external aspect. Matho is a
+dusky son of Libya,--fierce, passionate, resentful, unbridled in his
+speech and action, swept by the hot breath of furious love as his native
+sands are swept by the burning simoon. Salammbo, cold and strange
+delving deep in the mysticism of the Carthaginian gods, living apart
+from human passions in her intense love for the goddess, Tanit;
+Salammbo, in the earnest excess of her religious fervor, eagerly
+accepting the mission given her by the puzzled Saracharabim; Salammbo,
+twining the gloomy folds of the python about her perfumed limbs;
+Salammbo, resisting, then yielding to the fierce love of Matho;
+Salammbo, dying when her erstwhile lover expires; Salammbo, in all her
+many phases reminds us of some early Christian martyr or saint, though
+the sweet spirit of the Great Teacher is hidden in the punctual devotion
+to the mysterious rites of Tanit. She is an inexplicable mixture of the
+tropical exotic and the frigid snow-flower,--a rich and rare growth that
+attracts and repulses, that interests and absorbs, that we
+admire--without loving, detest--without hating.
+
+
+
+
+LEGEND OF THE NEWSPAPER.
+
+
+  Poets sing and fables tell us,
+  Or old folk lore whispers low,
+  Of the origin of all things,
+  Of the spring from whence they came,
+  Kalevala, old and hoary,
+  AEneid, Iliad, AEsop, too,
+  All are filled with strange quaint legends,
+  All replete with ancient tales,--
+
+  How love came, and how old earth,
+  Freed from chaos, grew for us,
+  To a green and wondrous spheroid,
+  To a home for things alive;
+  How fierce fire and iron cold,
+  How the snow and how the frost,--
+  All these things the old rhymes ring,
+  All these things the old tales tell.
+
+  Yet they ne'er sang of the beginning,
+  Of that great unbreathing angel,
+  Of that soul without a haven,
+  Of that gracious Lady Bountiful,
+  Yet they ne'er told how it came here;
+  Ne'er said why we read it daily,
+  Nor did they even let us guess why
+  We were left to tell the tale.
+
+  Came one day into the wood-land,
+  Muckintosh, the great and mighty,
+  Muckintosh, the famous thinker,
+  He whose brain was all his weapons,
+  As against his rival's soarings,
+  High unto the vaulted heavens,
+  Low adown the swarded earth,
+  Rolled he round his gaze all steely,
+  And his voice like music prayed:
+  "Oh, Creator, wondrous Spirit,
+  Thou who hast for us descended
+  In the guise of knowledge mighty,
+  And our brains with truth o'er-flooded;
+  In the greatness of thy wisdom,
+  Knowest not our limitations?
+  Wondrous thoughts have we, thy servants,
+  Wondrous things we see each day,
+  Yet we cannot tell our brethren,
+  Yet we cannot let them know,
+  Of our doings and our happenings,
+  Should they parted be from us?
+  Help us, oh, Thou Wise Creator,
+  From the fulness of thy wisdom,
+  Show us how to spread our knowledge,
+  And disseminate our actions,
+  Such as we find worthy, truly."
+
+  Quick the answer came from heaven;
+  Muckintosh, the famous thinker,
+  Muckintosh, the great and mighty,
+  Felt a trembling, felt a quaking,
+  Saw the earth about him open,
+  Saw the iron from the mountains
+  Form a quaint and queer machine,
+  Saw the lead from out the lead mines
+  Roll into small lettered forms,
+  Saw the fibres from the flax-plant,
+  Spread into great sheets of paper,
+  Saw the ink galls from the green trees
+  Crushed upon the leaden forms;
+  Muckintosh, the famous thinker,
+  Muckintosh, the great and mighty,
+  Felt a trembling, felt a quaking,
+  Saw the earth about him open,
+  Saw the flame and sulphur smoking,
+  Came the printer's little devil,
+  Far from distant lands the printer,
+  Man of unions, man of cuss-words,
+  From the depths of sooty blackness;
+  Came the towel of the printer;
+  Many things that Muckintosh saw,--
+  Galleys, type, and leads and rules,
+  Presses, press-men, quoins and spaces,
+  Quads and caps and lower cases.
+
+  But to Muckintosh bewildered,
+  All this passed as in a dream,
+  Till within his nervous hand,
+  Hand with joy and fear a-quaking,
+  Muckintosh, the great and mighty,
+  Muckintosh, the famous thinker,
+  Held the first of our newspapers.
+
+
+
+
+A CARNIVAL JANGLE.
+
+
+There is a merry jangle of bells in the air, an all-pervading sense of
+jester's noise, and the flaunting vividness of royal colors; the streets
+swarm with humanity,--humanity in all shapes, manners, forms,--laughing,
+pushing, jostling, crowding, a mass of men and women and children, as
+varied and as assorted in their several individual peculiarities as ever
+a crowd that gathered in one locality since the days of Babel.
+
+It is Carnival in New Orleans; a brilliant Tuesday in February, when the
+very air effervesces an ozone intensely exhilarating--of a nature half
+spring, half winter--to make one long to cut capers. The buildings are a
+blazing mass of royal purple and golden yellow, and national flags,
+bunting and decorations that laugh in the glint of the Midas sun. The
+streets a crush of jesters and maskers, Jim Crows and clowns, ballet
+girls and Mephistos, Indians and monkeys; of wild and sudden flashes of
+music, of glittering pageants and comic ones, of befeathered and belled
+horses. A madding dream of color and melody and fantasy gone wild in an
+effervescent bubble of beauty that shifts and changes and passes
+kaleidoscope-like before the bewildered eye.
+
+A bevy of bright-eyed girls and boys of that uncertainty of age that
+hovers between childhood and maturity, were moving down Canal Street
+when there was a sudden jostle with another crowd meeting them. For a
+minute there was a deafening clamor of laughter, cracking of whips,
+which all maskers carry, jingle and clatter of carnival bells, and the
+masked and unmasked extricated themselves and moved from each other's
+paths. But in the confusion a tall Prince of Darkness had whispered to
+one of the girls in the unmasked crowd: "You'd better come with us, Flo,
+you're wasting time in that tame gang. Slip off, they'll never miss
+you; we'll get you a rig, and show you what life is."
+
+And so it happened that when a half hour passed, and the bright-eyed
+bevy missed Flo and couldn't find her, wisely giving up the search at
+last, that she, the quietest and most bashful of the lot, was being
+initiated into the mysteries of "what life is."
+
+Down Bourbon Street and on Toulouse and St. Peter Streets there are
+quaint little old-world places, where one may be disguised effectually
+for a tiny consideration. Thither guided by the shapely Mephisto, and
+guarded by the team of jockeys and ballet girls, tripped Flo. Into one
+of the lowest-ceiled, dingiest and most ancient-looking of these
+disguise shops they stopped.
+
+"A disguise for this demoiselle," announced Mephisto to the woman who
+met them. She was small and wizened and old, with yellow, flabby jaws
+and neck like the throat of an alligator, and straight, white hair that
+stood from her head uncannily stiff.
+
+"But the demoiselle wishes to appear a boy, _un petit garcon_?" she
+inquired, gazing eagerly at Flo's long, slender frame. Her voice was old
+and thin, like the high quavering of an imperfect tuning fork, and her
+eyes were sharp as talons in their grasping glance.
+
+"Mademoiselle does not wish such a costume," gruffly responded Mephisto.
+
+"_Ma foi_, there is no other," said the ancient, shrugging her
+shoulders. "But one is left now, mademoiselle would make a fine
+troubadour."
+
+"Flo," said Mephisto, "it's a dare-devil scheme, try it; no one will
+ever know it but us, and we'll die before we tell. Besides, we must;
+it's late, and you couldn't find your crowd."
+
+And that was why you might have seen a Mephisto and a slender troubadour
+of lovely form, with mandolin flung across his shoulder, followed by a
+bevy of jockeys and ballet girls, laughing and singing as they swept
+down Rampart Street.
+
+When the flash and glare and brilliancy of Canal Street have palled upon
+the tired eye, and it is yet too soon to go home, and to such a prosaic
+thing as dinner, and one still wishes for novelty, then it is wise to go
+in the lower districts. Fantasy and fancy and grotesqueness in the
+costuming and behavior of the maskers run wild. Such dances and whoops
+and leaps as these hideous Indians and devils do indulge in; such wild
+curvetings and great walks. And in the open squares, where whole groups
+do congregate, it is wonderfully amusing. Then, too, there is a ball in
+every available hall, a delirious ball, where one may dance all day for
+ten cents; dance and grow mad for joy, and never know who were your
+companions, and be yourself unknown. And in the exhilaration of the day,
+one walks miles and miles, and dances and curvets, and the fatigue is
+never felt.
+
+In Washington Square, away down where Royal Street empties its stream
+of children and men into the broad channel of Elysian Fields Avenue,
+there was a perfect Indian dance. With a little imagination one might
+have willed away the vision of the surrounding houses and fancied one's
+self again in the forest, where the natives were holding a sacred riot.
+The square was filled with spectators, masked and unmasked. It was
+amusing to watch these mimic Red-men, they seemed so fierce and earnest.
+
+Suddenly one chief touched another on the elbow. "See that Mephisto and
+troubadour over there?" he whispered huskily.
+
+"Yes, who are they?"
+
+"I don't know the devil," responded the other quietly, "but I'd know
+that other form anywhere. It's Leon, see? I know those white hands like
+a woman's and that restless head. Ha!
+
+"But there may be a mistake."
+
+"No. I'd know that one anywhere; I feel it's him. I'll pay him now. Ah,
+sweetheart, you've waited long, but you shall feast now!" He was
+caressing something long, and lithe, and glittering beneath his blanket.
+
+In a masked dance it is easy to give a death-blow between the shoulders.
+Two crowds meet and laugh and shout and mingle almost inextricably, and
+if a shriek of pain should arise, it is not noticed in the din, and when
+they part, if one should stagger and fall bleeding to the ground, who
+can tell who has given the blow? There is naught but an unknown stiletto
+on the ground, the crowd has dispersed, and masks tell no tales anyway.
+There is murder, but by whom? for what? _Quien sabe?_
+
+And that is how it happened on Carnival night, in the last mad moments
+of Rex's reign, a broken-hearted woman sat gazing wide-eyed and mute at
+a horrible something that lay across the bed. Outside the long sweet
+march music of many bands floated in in mockery, and the flash of
+rockets and Bengal lights illumined the dead, white face of the girl
+troubadour.
+
+
+
+
+PAUL TO VIRGINIA.
+
+FIN DE SIECLE.
+
+
+  I really must confess, my dear,
+    I cannot help but love you,
+  For of all girls I ever knew,
+    There's none I place above you;
+  But then you know it's rather hard,
+    To dangle aimless at your skirt,
+  And watch your every movement so,
+    _For I am jealous, and you're a flirt_.
+
+  There's half a score of fellows round,
+    You smile at every one,
+  And as I think to pride myself for basking in the sun
+  Of your sweet smiles, you laugh at me,
+    And treat me like a lump of dirt,
+  Until I wish that I were dead,
+    _For I am jealous, and you're a flirt_.
+
+  I'm sorry that I've ever known
+    Your loveliness entrancing,
+  Or ever saw your laughing eyes,
+    With girlish mischief dancing;
+  'Tis agony supreme and rare
+  To see your slender waist a-girt
+  With other fellows' arms, you see,
+    _For I am jealous, and you're a flirt_.
+
+  Now, girlie, if you'll promise me,
+    To never, never treat me mean,
+  I'll show you in a little while,
+    The best sweetheart you've ever seen;
+  You do not seem to know or care,
+    How often you've my feelings hurt,
+  While flying round with other boys,
+    _For I am jealous, and you're a flirt_.
+
+
+
+
+THE MAIDEN'S DREAM.
+
+
+The maid had been reading love-poetry, where the world lay bathed in
+moon-light, fragrant with dew-wet roses and jasmine, harmonious with the
+clear tinkle of mandolin and guitar. Then a lethargy, like unto that
+which steeps the senses, and benumbs the faculties of the lotus-eaters,
+enveloped her brain, and she lay as one in a trance,--awake, yet
+sleeping; conscious, yet unburdened with care.
+
+And there stole into her consciousness, words, thoughts, not of her own,
+yet she read them not, nor heard them spoken; they fell deep into her
+heart and soul, softer and more caressing than the over-shadowing wing
+of a mother-dove, sweeter and more thrilling than the last high notes of
+a violin, and they were these:--
+
+Love, most potent, most tyrannical, and most gentle of the passions
+which sway the human mind, thou art the invisible agency which rules
+mens' souls, which governs mens' kingdoms, which controls the universe.
+By thy mighty will do the silent, eternal hosts of Heaven sweep in
+sublime procession across the unmeasured blue. The perfect harmony of
+the spheres is attuned for thee, and by thee; the perfect coloring of
+the clouds, than which no mortal pigment can dare equal, are thy
+handiwork. Most ancient of the heathen deities, Eros; powerful God of
+the Christians, Jehovah, all hail! For a brief possession of thy divine
+fire have kingdoms waxed and waned; men in all the bitterness of hatred
+fought, bled, died by millions, their grosser selves to be swept into
+the bosom of their ancient mother, an immense holocaust to thee. For
+thee and thee alone does the world prosper, for thee do men strive to
+become better than their fellow-men; for thee, and through thee have
+they sunk to such depths of degradation as causes a blush to be painted
+upon the faces of those that see. All things are subservient to thee.
+All the delicate intricate workings of that marvellous machine, the
+human brain; all the passions and desires of the human heart,--ambition,
+desire, greed, hatred, envy, jealousy, all others. Thou breedst them
+all, O love, thou art all-potent, all-wise, infinite, eternal! Thy power
+is felt by mortals in all ages, all climes, all conditions. Behold!
+
+A picture came into the maiden's eye: a broad and fertile plain, tender
+verdure, soft blue sky overhead, with white billowy clouds nearing the
+horizon like great airy, snow-capped mountains. The soft warm breeze
+from the south whispered faintly through the tall, slender palms and
+sent a thrill of joy through the frisky lambkins, who capered by the
+sides of their graver dams. And there among the riches of the flock
+stood Laban, haughty, stern, yet withal a kindly gleam in the glance
+which rested upon the group about him. Hoary the beard that rested upon
+his breast, but steady the hand that stretched in blessing. Leah, the
+tender-eyed, the slighted, is there; and Rachel, young and beautiful and
+blushing beneath the ardent gaze of her handsome lover. "And Jacob loved
+Rachel, and said, I will serve thee seven years for Rachel, thy younger
+daughter."
+
+How different the next scene! Heaven's wrath burst loose upon a single
+community. Fire, the red-winged demon with brazen throat wide opened,
+hangs his brooding wings upon an erstwhile happy city. Hades has climbed
+through the crater of Vesuvius, and leaps in fiendish waves along the
+land. Few the souls escaping, and God have mercy upon those who stumble
+through the blinding darkness, made more torturingly hideous by the
+intermittent flashes of lurid light. And yet there come three, whom the
+darkness seems not to deter, nor obstacles impede. Only a blind person,
+accustomed to constant darkness, and familiarized with these streets
+could walk that way. Nearer they come, a burst of flames thrown into the
+inky firmament by impish hands, reveals Glaucus, supporting the
+half-fainting Ione, following Nydia, frail, blind, flower-loving Nydia,
+sacrificing life for her unloving beloved.
+
+And then the burning southern sun shone bright and golden o'er the
+silken sails of the Nile serpent's ships; glinted on the armor and
+weapons of the famous galley; shone with a warm caressing touch upon her
+beauty, as though it loved this queen, as powerful in her sphere as he
+in his. It is at Actium, and the fate of nations and generations yet
+unborn hang, as the sword of Damocles hung, upon the tiny thread of
+destiny. Egypt herself, her splendid barbaric beauty acting like an
+inspiration upon the craven followers, leads on, foremost in this fierce
+struggle. Then, the tide turns, and overpowered, they fly before
+disgrace and defeat. Antony is there, the traitor, dishonored, false to
+his country, yet true to his love; Antony, whom ambition could not lure
+from her passionate caresses; Antony, murmuring softly,--
+
+  Egypt, thou knowest too well
+  My heart was to thy rudder tied by the strings,
+  And thou should'st tow me after.
+  Over my spirit
+  Thy full supremacy thou knewest,
+  And that thy beck might from the bidding of the gods
+  Command me.
+
+Picture after picture flashed through the maiden's mind. Agnes, the
+gentle, sacrificing, burrowing like some frantic animal through the
+ruins of Lisbon, saving her lover, Franklin, by teeth and bleeding
+hands. Dora, the patient, serving a loveless existence, saving her rival
+from starvation and destitution. The stern, dark, exiled Florentine
+poet, with that one silver ray in his clouded life--Beatrice.
+
+She heard the piping of an elfish voice, "Mother, why does the minister
+keep his hands over his heart?" and the white drawn face of Hester
+Prynne, with her scarlet elf-child, passed slowly across her vision. The
+wretched misery of deluded Lucius and his mysterious Lamia she saw, and
+watched with breathless interest the formation of that "Brotherhood of
+the Rose." There was radiant Armorel, from sea-blown, wave-washed
+Lyonesse, her perfect head poised in loving caress over the magic
+violin. Dark-eyed Corinne, head drooped gently as she improvised those
+Rome-famed world symphonies passed, almost ere Edna and St. Elmo had
+crossed the threshold of the church happy in the love now consecrated
+through her to God. Oh, the pictures, the forms, the love-words which
+crowded her mind! They thrilled her heart, crushed out all else save a
+crushing, over-powering sense of perfect, complete joy. A joy that
+sought to express itself in wondrous melodies and silences, filled with
+thoughts too deep and sacred for words. Overpowered with the
+magnificence of his reign, overwhelmed with the complete subjugation of
+all things unto him, do you wonder that she awoke and placing both hands
+into those of the lover at her side, whispered:--
+
+  Take all of me--I am thine own, heart, soul,
+    Brain, body, all; all that I am or dream
+  Is thine forever; yea, though space should teem
+  With thy conditions, I'd fulfil the whole,
+  Were to fulfil them to be loved by thee.
+
+
+
+
+IN MEMORIAM.
+
+
+  The light streams through the windows arched high,
+    And o'er the stern, stone carvings breaks
+    In warm rich gold and crimson waves,
+  Then steals away in corners dark to die.
+
+  And all the grand cathedral silence falls
+    Into the hearts of those that worship low,
+    Like tender waves of hushed nothingness,
+  Confined nor kept by human earthly walls.
+
+  Deep music in its thundering organ sounds,
+    Grows diffuse through the echoing space,
+    Till hearts grow still in sadness' mighty joy,
+  Or leap aloft in swift ecstatic bounds.
+
+  Mayhap 'twas but a dream that came to me,
+    Or but a vision of the soul's desire,
+    To see the nation in one mighty whole,
+  Do homage on its bended, worshipping knee.
+
+  Through time's heroic actions, the soul of man,
+    Alone proves what that soul without earth's dross
+    Could be, and this, through time's far-searching fire,
+  Hath proved thine white beneath the deepest scan.
+
+  A woman's tribute, 'tis a tiny dot,
+    A merest flower from a frail, small hand,
+    To lay among the many petaled wreaths
+  About thy form,--a tribute soon forgot.
+
+  But if in all the incense to arise
+    In fragrance to the blue empyrean
+    The blended sweetness of the womens' love
+  Goes pouring too, in all their heartfelt sighs.
+
+  And if one woman's sorrow be among them too,
+    One woman's joy for labor past
+    Be reckoned in the mighty teeming whole,
+  It is enough, there is not more to do.
+
+  Within the hearts of heroes small and great
+    There 'bides a tenderness for weakling things
+    Within thy heart, the sorrowing country knows
+  These passions, bravest and the tenderest mate.
+
+  When man is dust, before the gazing eyes
+    Of all the gaping throng, his life lies wide
+    For all to see and whisper low about
+  Or let their thoughts in discord's clatter rise.
+
+  But thine was pure and undefiled,
+    A record of long brilliant, teeming days,
+    Each thought did tend to further things,
+  But pure as the proverbial child.
+
+  Oh, people, that thy grief might find express
+    To gather in some vast cathedral's hall,
+    That then in unity we might kneel and hear
+  Sublimity in sounds, voice our distress.
+
+  Peace, peace, the men of God cry, ye be bold,
+    The world hath known, 'tis Heaven who claims him now,
+    And in our railings we but cast aside
+  The noble traits he bid us hold.
+
+  So though divided through the land, in dreams
+    We see a people kneeling low,
+    Bowed down in heart and soul to see
+  This fearful sorrow, crushing as it seems.
+
+  And all the grand cathedral silence falls
+    Into the hearts of these that worship low,
+    Like tender waves of hushed nothingness,
+  Confined, nor kept by human earthly walls.
+
+
+
+
+A STORY OF VENGEANCE.
+
+
+Yes, Eleanor, I have grown grayer. I am younger than you, you know, but
+then, what have you to age you? A kind husband, lovely children, while
+I--I am nothing but a lonely woman. Time goes slowly, slowly for me now.
+
+Why did I never marry? Move that screen a little to one side, please; my
+eyes can scarcely bear a strong light. Bernard? Oh, that's a long story.
+I'll tell you if you wish; it might pass an hour.
+
+Do you ever think to go over the old school-days? We thought such
+foolish things then, didn't we? There wasn't one of us but imagined we
+would have only to knock ever so faintly on the portals of fame and they
+would fly wide for our entrance into the magic realms. On Commencement
+night we whispered merrily among ourselves on the stage to see our
+favorite planet, Venus, of course, smiling at us through a high, open
+window, "bidding adieu to her astronomy class," we said.
+
+Then you went away to plunge into the most brilliant whirl of society,
+and I stayed in the beautiful old city to work.
+
+Bernard was very much _en evidence_ those days. He liked you a great
+deal, because in school-girl parlance you were my "chum." You
+say,--thanks, no tea, it reminds me that I'm an old maid; you say you
+know what happiness means--maybe, but I don't think any living soul
+could experience the joy I felt in those days; it was absolutely painful
+at times.
+
+Byron and his counterparts are ever dear to the womanly heart, whether
+young or old. Such a man was he, gloomy, misanthropical, tired of the
+world, with a few dozen broken love-affairs among his varied
+experiences. Of course, I worshipped him secretly, what romantic, silly
+girl of my age, would not, being thrown in such constant contact with
+him.
+
+One day he folded me tightly in his arms, and said:
+
+"Little girl, I have nothing to give you in exchange for that priceless
+love of yours but a heart that has already been at another's feet, and a
+wrecked life, but may I ask for it?"
+
+"It is already yours," I answered. I'll draw the veil over the scene
+which followed; you know, you've "been there."
+
+Then began some of the happiest hours that ever the jolly old sun beamed
+upon, or the love-sick moon clothed in her rays of silver. Deceived me?
+No, no. He admitted that the old love for Blanche was still in his
+heart, but that he had lost all faith and respect for her, and could
+nevermore be other than a friend. Well, I was fool enough to be content
+with such crumbs.
+
+We had five months of happiness. I tamed down beautifully in that
+time,--even consented to adopt the peerless Blanche as a model. I gave
+up all my most ambitious plans and cherished schemes, because he
+disliked women whose names were constantly in the mouth of the public.
+In fact, I became quiet, sedate, dignified, renounced too some of my
+best and dearest friends. I lived, breathed, thought, acted only for
+him; for me there was but one soul in the universe--Bernard's. Still,
+for all the suffering I've experienced, I'd be willing to go through it
+all again just to go over those five months. Every day together, at
+nights on the lake-shore listening to the soft lap of the waters as the
+silver sheen of the moon spread over the dainty curled waves; sometimes
+in a hammock swinging among the trees talking of love and reading
+poetry. Talk about Heaven! I just think there can't he a better time
+among the angels.
+
+But there is an end to all things. A violent illness, and his father
+relenting, sent for the wayward son. I will always believe he loved me,
+but he was eager to get home to his mother, and anxious to view Blanche
+in the light of their new relationship. We had a whole series of parting
+scenes,--tears and vows and kisses exchanged. We clung to each other
+after the regulation fashion, and swore never to forget, and to write
+every day. Then there was a final wrench. I went back to my old
+life--he, away home.
+
+For a while I was content, there were daily letters from him to read;
+his constant admonitions to practice; his many little tokens to
+adore--until there came a change,--letters less frequent, more mention
+of Blanche and her love for him, less of his love for me, until the
+truth was forced upon me. Then I grew cold and proud, and with an iron
+will crushed and stamped all love for him out of my tortured heart and
+cried for vengeance.
+
+Yes, quite melo-dramatic, wasn't it? It is a dramatic tale, though.
+
+So I threw off my habits of seclusion and mingled again with men and
+women, and took up all my long-forgotten plans. It's no use telling you
+how I succeeded. It was really wonderful, wasn't it? It seems as though
+that fickle goddess, Fortune, showered every blessing, save one, on my
+path. Success followed success, triumph succeeded triumph. I was
+lionized, feted, petted, caressed by the social and literary world. You
+often used to wonder how I stood it in all those years. God knows; with
+the heart-sick weariness and the fierce loathing that possessed me, I
+don't know myself.
+
+But, mind you, Eleanor, I schemed well. I had everything seemingly that
+humanity craved for, but I suffered, and by all the gods, I swore that
+he should suffer too. Blanche turned against him and married his
+brother. An unfortunate chain of circumstances drove him from his
+father's home branded as a forger. Strange, wasn't it? But money is a
+strong weapon, and its long arm reaches over leagues and leagues of land
+and water.
+
+One day he found me in a distant city, and begged for my love again, and
+for mercy and pity. Blanche was only a mistake, he said, and he loved me
+alone, and so on. I remembered all his thrilling tones and tender
+glances, but they might have moved granite now sooner than me. He knelt
+at my feet and pleaded like a criminal suing for life. I laughed at him
+and sneered at his misery, and told him what he had done for my
+happiness, and what I in turn had done for his.
+
+Eleanor, to my dying day, I shall never forget his face as he rose from
+his knees, and with one awful, indescribable look of hate, anguish and
+scorn, walked from the room. As he neared the door, all the old love
+rose in me like a flood, drowning the sorrows of past years, and
+overwhelming me in a deluge of pity. Strive as I did, I could not
+repress it; a woman's love is too mighty to be put down with little
+reasonings. I called to him in terror, "Bernard, Bernard!" He did not
+turn; gave no sign of having heard.
+
+"Bernard, come back; I didn't mean it!"
+
+He passed slowly away with bent head, out of the house and out of my
+life. I've never seen him since, never heard of him. Somewhere, perhaps
+on God's earth he wanders outcast, forsaken, loveless. I have my
+vengeance, but it is like Dead Sea fruit, all bitter ashes to the taste.
+I am a miserable, heart-weary wreck,--a woman with fame, without love.
+
+"Vengeance is an arrow that often falleth and smiteth the hand of him
+that sent it."
+
+
+
+
+AT BAY ST. LOUIS.
+
+
+  Soft breezes blow and swiftly show
+    Through fragrant orange branches parted,
+  A maiden fair, with sun-flecked hair,
+    Caressed by arrows, golden darted.
+  The vine-clad tree holds forth to me
+    A promise sweet of purple blooms,
+  And chirping bird, scarce seen but heard
+    Sings dreamily, and sweetly croons
+            At Bay St. Louis.
+
+  The hammock swinging, idly singing,
+    Lissome nut-brown maid
+    Swings gaily, freely, to-and-fro;
+  The curling, green-white waters casting cool, clear shade,
+    Rock small, shell boats that go
+  In circles wide, or tug at anchor's chain,
+  As though to skim the sea with cargo vain,
+            At Bay St. Louis.
+
+    The maid swings slower, slower to-and-fro,
+  And sunbeams kiss gray, dreamy half-closed eyes;
+    Fond lover creeping on with foot steps slow,
+  Gives gentle kiss, and smiles at sweet surprise.
+
+         *       *       *       *       *
+
+    The lengthening shadows tell that eve is nigh,
+    And fragrant zephyrs cool and calmer grow,
+  Yet still the lover lingers, and scarce breathed sigh,
+    Bids the swift hours to pause, nor go,
+            At Bay St. Louis.
+
+
+
+
+NEW YEAR'S DAY.
+
+
+  The poor old year died hard; for all the earth lay cold
+    And bare beneath the wintry sky;
+  While grey clouds scurried madly to the west,
+    And hid the chill young moon from mortal sight.
+  Deep, dying groans the aged year breathed forth,
+    In soughing winds that wailed a requiem sad
+  In dull crescendo through the mournful air.
+
+  The new year now is welcomed noisily
+    With din and song and shout and clanging bell,
+  And all the glare and blare of fiery fun.
+  Sing high the welcome to the New Year's morn!
+    _Le roi est mort. Vive, vive le roi!_ cry out,
+  And hail the new-born king of coming days.
+
+  Alas! the day is spent and eve draws nigh;
+  The king's first subject dies--for naught,
+  And wasted moments by the hundred score
+    Of past years rise like spectres grim
+  To warn, that these days may not idly glide away.
+  Oh, New Year, youth of promise fair!
+    What dost thou hold for me? An aching heart?
+  Or eyes burnt blind by unshed tears? Or stabs,
+    More keen because unseen?
+  Nay, nay, dear youth, I've had surfeit
+    Of sorrow's feast. The monarch dead
+  Did rule me with an iron hand. Be thou a friend,
+    A tender, loving king--and let me know
+  The ripe, full sweetness of a happy year.
+
+
+
+
+THE UNKNOWN LIFE OF JESUS CHRIST.
+
+
+A new gem has been added to sacred literature, and this is the
+accidental discovery by Nicolas Notovich of a Buddhist history of a
+phase of Christ's life left blank in the Scriptures.
+
+Notovich, an adventurer, searching amid the ruins of India, delving deep
+in all the ancient Buddhistic lore, accidentally stumbles upon the name
+of Saint Issa, a renowned preacher, ante-dating some 2,000 years. The
+name becomes a wondrous attraction to Notovich, particularly as he
+learns through many Buddhist priests, Issa's name in juxtaposition with
+the Christian faith, and later, has reason to believe that the Jesus
+Christ of our religion and the Saint Issa of their tradition are
+identical.
+
+Through a seemingly unfortunate accident, Notovich sustains an injury
+to his leg, and is cared for most tenderly by the monks of the convent
+of Himis. Despite his severe agonies, he retains consciousness and
+curiosity enough to plead for a glimpse of the wonderful documents
+contained in the archives of the convent, treating of the life of Saint
+Issa and the genealogy of the House of David. This he has translated and
+gives to the public.
+
+Just whether to take the history seriously or not is a subject that
+requires much thought; but whether it be truth or fiction, whether the
+result of patient investigation and careful study of an interested
+scholar, or the wild imaginings of a feeble brain, it opens a wild field
+of speculation to the thoughtful mind.
+
+The first three chapters of this history, contain a brief epitome of the
+Pentatouch of Moses. Though contrary to the teachings of tradition,
+Moses is said not to have written these books himself, but that they
+were transcribed generations after his time. According to this theory,
+then, the seeming imperfections and inconsistencies and tautological
+errors of the Old Testament as compared with the brief, clear, concise,
+logical statement of the Buddhists may readily be explained by the
+frailty of human memory, and the vividness of Oriental imagination.
+
+Prince Mossa of the Buddhists, otherwise Moses of the Jews, was not, as
+is popularly supposed, a foundling of the Jews, or a protege of the
+Egyptian princess, but a full fledged prince, son of Pharaoh the mighty.
+This abrupt over-throw of the tradition of ages is like all
+disillusions, distasteful, but even the most superficial study of
+Egyptian customs and laws of that time will serve to impress us with the
+verity of this opinion. The law of caste was most rigidly and cruelly
+adhered to, and though all the pleadings and threatenings and weepings
+of the starry-eyed favorite of the harem may have been brought to bear
+upon this descendant of Rameses, yet is it probable that a descendant of
+an outcast race should receive the care and learning and advantages of
+a legally born prince? Hardly.
+
+The condition of the ancient Israelites in the Christian Scriptures and
+in the Buddhist parchment are the same, yet there is reason to believe
+that the former was transcribed many centuries after the hieroglyphics
+of the latter became faded with age, hence, perhaps, the difference in
+the parentage of Moses.
+
+"And Mossa was beloved throughout the land of Egypt for the goodness and
+compassion he displayed for them that suffered, pleaded with his father
+to soften the lot of these unhappy people, but Pharaoh became angry with
+him, and only imposed more hardships upon his slaves."
+
+At this period in our Scriptures, the Lord communicates with Moses, and
+inflicts the plagues upon the nation, while in the manuscript of the
+Himis monks, the annual plague brought on by natural causes falls upon
+Egypt, and decimates the community. Here is a strange reversal of the
+order of things. In India, for ages the home of superstition and idol
+worship, that which has always been regarded by the Christians, the
+sworn enemies of the supernatural, as an inexplicable mystery, is
+accounted for by perfectly natural causes.
+
+From that time, the fourth chapter of the chronicle of St. Issa
+corresponds exactly in its condensed form to the most prominent
+chronology of the Old Testament. With the beginning of the next chapter,
+the Divine Infant, through whom the salvation of the world was to come,
+appears upon the scene, as the first born of a poor but highly connected
+family, referring, presumably, to the ancestry of Joseph and Mary.
+
+The remarkable wisdom of the child in earlier years is chronicled in our
+ancient parchment with as much care as in the vellum-bound volume of our
+church scriptures. At the age of twelve, the last glimpse we have of
+Jesus in the New Testament, is as a precocious boy, seated in the
+Temple, expounding the Scriptures to the learned members of the
+Sanhedrin. After that, we have no further sight of him, until sixteen
+years later, he re-appears at the marriage in Cana, a grown and serious
+man, already with well-formulated plans for the furtherance of his
+father's kingdom. This broad lapse in the Scriptures is filled by one
+simple sentence in the gospel of St. Luke. "And he was in the desert
+till the day of his showing into Israel." Where he was, why he had gone,
+and what he was doing are left to the imagination of the scholar and
+commentator.
+
+Many theories have been advanced, and the one most accepted, was that he
+had followed the trade of his terrestrial father, Joseph, and was near
+Jerusalem among the tools of carpentry, helping his parents to feed the
+hungry mouths of his brothers and sisters.
+
+But there appears another plausible theory advanced by the Buddhist
+historians, and sustained by the Buddhist traditions, that as Moses had
+fled into the wilderness to spend forty years in fasting and preparation
+for his life work, so Jesus had fled, not to the wilderness, but to the
+ancient culture and learning and the wisdom of centuries to prepare
+himself, by a knowledge of all religions for the day of the redemption.
+
+Among the Jews of that day, and even among the more conservative
+descendants of Abraham yet, there existed, and exists a law which
+accustoms the marrying of the sons, especially the oldest son, at the
+age of thirteen. It is supposed that Issa, resisting the thraldom and
+carnal temptation of the marital state, fled from the importunities of
+the wise men, who would fain unite their offspring with such a wise and
+serious youth.
+
+"It was then that Issa clandestinely left his father's house, went out
+of Jerusalem, and in company with some merchants, travelled toward
+Sinai."
+
+"That he might perfect himself in the divine word and study the laws of
+the Great Buddha."
+
+For six years he kept all India stirred to its utmost depths as he
+afterward kept all Palestine stirred by the purity of his doctrines, and
+the direct simplicity of his teachings. The white priests of Bramah gave
+him all their law, teaching him the language and religion of the
+dwellers of the five rivers. In Juggernaut, Rajegrilia, Benares, and
+other holy cities he was beloved by all. For true, here, as elsewhere,
+to his theory of the universal brotherhood of man, not only did he move
+among the upper classes, but also with the wretched Vaisyas and Soudras,
+the lowest of low castes who even were forbidden to hear the Vedas read,
+save only on feast days. Just as among the Jews, he was tolerant,
+merciful and kindly disposed towards the Samaritans, the Magdalens, the
+Lazaruses as to the haughty rabbis.
+
+His impress upon the home of Buddha and Brahma was manifested by the
+hitherto unknown theory of monotheism, established by him, but
+gradually permitted to fall into desuetude, and become confounded with
+the polytheistic hierarchy of the confusing religion. Just as the grand
+oneness and simplicity of the Christian religion has been permitted to
+deteriorate into many petty sects, each with its absurd limitations, and
+its particular little method of worshipping the Great Father.
+
+The teachings of Issa in India bear close relation in the general trend
+of thought to the teachings of Jesus among the multitudes about
+Jerusalem. There is the same universal simplicity of man's brotherhood;
+the complete self-abnegation of the flesh to the mind; the charitable
+impulses of a kind heart, and the utter disregard of caste, whether of
+birth, or breeding, or riches.
+
+Of miracles in India, Issa says, "The miracles of our God began when the
+universe was created, they occur each day, each instant; whosoever does
+not see them, is deprived of one of the most beautiful gifts of life."
+
+At last, according to the chronicles of the Buddhists, Issa was recalled
+from his labors in India to the land of Israel, where the people
+oppressed as of old by the Pharaohs, and now by the mighty men from the
+country of the Ramones, otherwise the Romans.
+
+Here Pilate appears in a new light. Heretofore he has always been a
+passive figure in the story of the crucifixion. Indeed he is entirely
+exonerated from all blame by some of our religious bibliographers and
+made to appear in a philanthropic light, but the priests of Egypt,
+undeceived by the treacherous memories and careless chronicling on the
+disciples of old, place Pilate before us as a thorough Roman, greedy,
+crafty, cruel, unscrupulous. According to them he places a spy upon the
+actions of Jesus in the beginning of his three years teachings, who
+follows him in all his journeys, and in the end betrays him to the
+Romans. This person can be no other than Judas, the betrayer. And here
+we are permitted to view his seemingly inexplicable actions in a new
+light, and from being Judas, a sorrowing misanthrope, the erstwhile
+friend of Christ, he becomes merely a common enemy, the tool of the
+Romans.
+
+Then we have the trial and death of Issa, strongly similar to our
+accepted version, and the chronicle briefly ends with the statement of
+the subsequent work of the disciples. The story of the Buddhist was
+written very shortly after the Passion of the Cross; the New Testament
+was transcribed years after the chief actors were dust.
+
+We are so steeped in tradition, and so conservative on any subject that
+touches our religious beliefs that it is somewhat difficult to reconcile
+ourselves to another addition to our Scriptures. But if we should look
+at the matter earnestly, and give deep thought to the relative
+positions, lives, and endings of these two noble men, Issa and Christ,
+we could scarcely doubt that they are one. Without trying, as does the
+author, to break down with one fell swoop, the entire structure of the
+Bible, we cannot but admit the probability of the new theory.
+
+It may be claimed that the remarkable personality of Christ would have
+left more of an impress upon India than it did, and that Christianity
+there and in India would have been synchronous, but we must remember,
+that there among the idols of Bramah and Vishnu, the way was not
+prepared, the people unexpectant of a new prophet, unwarned of him and
+unheeded. There he seems to have had no close personal followers to take
+up the work just where he left it, and continue. The dwellers of India
+were more happy in their entirety and more comfortable than the Jews,
+hence there was no Deliverer to impress them forever with the gigantic
+sacrifice of human frame and Divine soul.
+
+St. Issa, one of the most revered prophets of the Buddhists, Jesus
+Christ, the Man and God of all other men, the divine incarnation of the
+ideal, are they the same? Why not?
+
+
+
+
+IN OUR NEIGHBORHOOD.
+
+
+The Harts were going to give a party. Neither Mrs. Hart, nor the Misses
+Hart, nor the small and busy Harts who amused themselves and the
+neighborhood by continually falling in the gutter on special occasions,
+had mentioned this fact to anyone, but all the interested denizens of
+that particular square could tell by the unusual air of bustle and
+activity which pervaded the Hart domicile. Lillian, the aesthetic, who
+furnished theme for many spirited discussions, leaned airily out of the
+window; her auburn (red) tresses carefully done in curl papers. Martha,
+the practical, flourished the broom and duster with unwonted activity,
+which the small boys of the neighborhood, peering through the green
+shutters of the front door, duly reported to their mammas, busily
+engaged in holding down their respective door-steps by patiently sitting
+thereon.
+
+Pretty soon, the junior Harts,--two in number--began to travel to and
+fro, soliciting the loan of a "few chairs," "some nice dishes," and such
+like things, indispensable to every decent, self-respecting party. But
+to all inquiries as to the use to which these articles were to be put,
+they only vouchsafed one reply, "Ma told us as we wasn't to tell, just
+ask for the things, that's all."
+
+Mrs. Tuckley the dress-maker, brought her sewing out on the front-steps,
+and entered a vigorous protest to her next-door neighbor.
+
+"Humph," she sniffed, "mighty funny they can't say what's up. Must be
+something in it. Couldn't get none o' _my_ things, and not invite
+_me_!"
+
+"Did she ask you for any?" absent-mindedly inquired Mrs. Luke, shielding
+her eyes from the sun.
+
+"No-o--, but she'd better sense, she knows _me_--she ain't--mercy me,
+Stella! Just look at that child tumbling in the mud! You, Stella, come
+here, I say! Look at you now, there--and there--and there?"
+
+The luckless Stella having been soundly cuffed, and sent whimpering in
+the back-yard, Mrs. Tuckley continued,
+
+"Yes as I was saying, 'course, taint none o' my business, but I always
+did wonder how them Harts do keep up. Why, them girls dress just as fine
+as any lady on the Avenue and that there Lillian wears real diamond
+ear-rings. 'Pears mighty, mighty funny to me, and Lord the airs they do
+put on! Holdin' up their heads like nobody's good enough to speak to. I
+don't like to talk about people, you know, yourself, Mrs. Luke I never
+speak about anybody, but mark my word, girls that cut up capers like
+them Hartses' girls never come to any good."
+
+Mrs. Luke heaved a deep sigh of appreciation at the wisdom of her
+neighbor, but before she could reply a re-inforcement in the person of
+little Mrs. Peters, apron over her head, hands shrivelled and soap-sudsy
+from washing, appeared.
+
+"Did you ever see the like?" she asked in her usual, rapid breathless
+way. "Why, my Louis says they're putting canvass cloths on the floor,
+and taking down the bed in the back-room; and putting greenery and such
+like trash about. Some style about them, eh?"
+
+Mrs. Tuckley tossed her head and sniffed contemptuously, Mrs. Luke began
+to rehearse a time worn tale, how once a carriage had driven up to the
+Hart house at nine o'clock at night, and a distinguished looking man
+alighted, went in, stayed about ten minutes and finally drove off with a
+great clatter. Heads that had shaken ominously over this story before
+began to shake again, and tongues that had wagged themselves tired with
+conjectures started now with some brand new ideas and theories. The
+children of the square, tired of fishing for minnows in the ditches, and
+making mud-pies in the street, clustered about their mother's skirts
+receiving occasional slaps, when their attempts at taking part in the
+conversation became too pronounced.
+
+Meanwhile, in the Hart household, all was bustle and preparation. To and
+fro the members of the house flitted, arranging chairs, putting little
+touches here and there, washing saucers and glasses, chasing the Hart
+Juniors about, losing things and calling frantically for each other's
+assistance to find them. Mama Hart, big, plump and perspiring, puffed
+here and there like a large, rosy engine, giving impossible orders, and
+receiving sharp answers to foolish questions. Lillian, the aesthetic,
+practiced her most graceful poses before the large mirror in the
+parlor; Martha rushed about, changing the order of the furniture, and
+Papa Hart, just come in from work, paced the rooms disconsolately,
+asking for dinner.
+
+"Dinner!" screamed Mama Hart, "Dinner, who's got time to fool with
+dinner this evening? Look in the sideboard and you'll see some bread and
+ham; eat that and shut up."
+
+Eight o'clock finally arrived, and with it, the music and some
+straggling guests. When the first faint chee-chee of the violin floated
+out into the murky atmosphere, the smaller portion of the neighborhood
+went straightway into ecstasies. Boys and girls in all stages of
+deshabille clustered about the door-steps and gave vent to audible
+exclamations of approval or disapprobation concerning the state of
+affairs behind the green shutters. It was a warm night and the big round
+moon sailed serenely in a cloudless, blue sky. Mrs. Tuckley had put on a
+clean calico wrapper, and planted herself with the indomitable Stella
+on her steps, "to watch the purceedings."
+
+The party was a grand success. Even the intensely critical small fry
+dancing on the pavement without to the scraping and fiddling of the
+string band, had to admit that. So far as they were concerned it was all
+right, but what shall we say of the guests within? They who glided
+easily over the canvassed floors, bowed, and scraped and simpered, "just
+like the big folks on the Avenue," who ate the ice-cream and cake, and
+drank the sweet, weak Catawba wine amid boisterous healths to Mr. and
+Mrs. Hart and the Misses Hart; who smirked and perspired and cracked
+ancient jokes and heart-rending puns during the intervals of the
+dances, who shall say that they did not enjoy themselves as thoroughly
+and as fully as those who frequented the wealthier entertainments
+up-town.
+
+Lillian and Martha in gossamer gowns of pink and blue flitted to and fro
+attending to the wants of their guests. Mrs. Hart, gorgeous in a black
+satin affair, all folds and lace and drapery, made desperate efforts to
+appear cool and collected--and failed miserably. Papa Hart spent one
+half his time standing in front of the mantle, spreading out his
+coat-tails, and benignly smiling upon the young people, while the other
+half was devoted to initiating the male portion of the guests into the
+mysteries of "snake killing."
+
+Everybody had said that he or she had had a splendid time, and finally,
+when the last kisses had been kissed, the last good-byes been said, the
+whole Hart family sat down in the now deserted and disordered rooms, and
+sighed with relief that the great event was over at last.
+
+"Nice crowd, eh?" remarked Papa Hart. He was brimful of joy and
+second-class whiskey, so no one paid any attention to him.
+
+"But did you see how shamefully Maude flirted with Willie Howard?" said
+Lillian. Martha tossed her head in disdain; Mr. Howard she had always
+considered her especial property, so Lillian's observation had a rather
+disturbing effect.
+
+"I'm so warm and tired," cried Mama Hart, plaintively, "children how are
+we going to sleep to-night?"
+
+Thereupon the whole family arose to devise ways and means for wooing the
+drowsy god. As for the Hart Juniors they had long since solved the
+problem by falling asleep with sticky hands and faces upon a pile of
+bed-clothing behind the kitchen door.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It was late in the next day before the house had begun to resume
+anything like its former appearance. The little Harts were kept busy all
+morning returning chairs and dishes, and distributing the remnants of
+the feast to the vicinity. The ice-cream had melted into a warm custard,
+and the cakes had a rather worse for wear appearance, but they were
+appreciated as much as though just from the confectioner. No one was
+forgotten, even Mrs. Tuckley, busily stitching on a muslin garment on
+the steps, and unctuously rolling the latest morsel of scandal under her
+tongue, was obliged to confess that "them Hartses wasn't such bad people
+after all, just a bit queer at times."
+
+About two o'clock, just as Lillian was re-draping the tidies on the
+stiff, common plush chairs in the parlor, some one pulled the bell
+violently. The visitor, a rather good-looking young fellow, with a
+worried expression smiled somewhat sarcastically as he heard a sound of
+scuffling and running within the house.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Presently Mrs. Hart opened the door wiping her hand, red and smoking
+with dish-water, upon her apron. The worried expression deepened on the
+visitor's face as he addressed the woman with visible embarrassment.
+
+"Er--I--I--suppose you are Mrs. Hart?" he inquired awkwardly.
+
+"That's my name, sir," replied she with pretentious dignity.
+
+"Er--your-er--may I come in madam?
+
+"Certainly," and she opened the door to admit him, and offered a chair.
+
+"Your husband is an employee in the Fisher Oil Mills, is he not?"
+
+Mrs. Hart straightened herself with pride as she replied in the
+affirmative. She had always been proud of Mr. Hart's position as foreman
+of the big oil mills, and was never so happy as when he was expounding
+to some one in her presence, the difficulties and intricacies of
+machine-work.
+
+"Well you see my dear Mrs. Hart," continued the visitor. "Now pray don't
+get excited--there has been an accident, and your husband--has--er--been
+hurt, you know."
+
+But for a painful whitening in her usually rosy face, and a quick
+compression of her lips, the wife made no sign.
+
+"What was the accident?" she queried, leaning her elbows on her knees.
+
+"Well, you see, I don't understand machinery and the like, but there was
+something about a wheel out of gear, and a band bursted, or something,
+anyhow a big wheel flew to pieces, and as he was standing near, he was
+hit."
+
+"Where?"
+
+"Well--well, I may as well tell you the truth, madam; a large piece of
+the wheel struck him on the head--and--he was killed instantly."
+
+She did not faint, nor make any outcry, nor tear her hair as he had
+partly expected, but sat still staring at him, with a sort of helpless,
+dumb horror shining out her eyes, then with a low moan, bowed her head
+on her knees and shuddered, just as Lillian came in, curious to know
+what the handsome stranger had to say to her mother.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The poor mutilated body came home at last, and was laid in a stiff,
+silver-decorated, black coffin in the middle of the sitting-room, which
+had been made to look as uncomfortable and unnatural as mirrors and
+furniture shrouded in sheets and mantel and tables divested of ornaments
+would permit.
+
+There was a wake that night to the unconfined joy of the neighbors, who
+would rather a burial than a wedding. The friends of the family sat
+about the coffin, and through the house with long pulled faces. Mrs.
+Tuckley officiated in the kitchen, making coffee and dispensing cheese
+and crackers to those who were hungry. As the night wore on, and the
+first restraint disappeared, jokes were cracked, and quiet laughter
+indulged in, while the young folks congregated in the kitchen, were
+hilariously happy, until some member of the family would appear, when
+every face would sober down.
+
+The older persons contented themselves with recounting the virtues of
+the deceased, and telling anecdotes wherein he figured largely. It was
+astonishing how many intimate friends of his had suddenly come to
+light. Every other man present had either attended school with him, or
+was a close companion until he died. Proverbs and tales and witty
+sayings were palmed off as having emanated from his lips. In fact, the
+dead man would have been surprised himself, had he suddenly come to life
+and discovered what an important, what a modern solomon he had become.
+
+The long night dragged on, and the people departed in groups of twos and
+threes, until when the gray dawn crept slowly over the blackness of
+night shrouding the electric lights in mists of cloudy blue, and sending
+cold chills of dampness through the house, but a few of the great crowd
+remained.
+
+The day seemed so gray in contrast to the softening influence of the
+night, the grief which could be hidden then, must now come forth and
+parade itself before all eyes. There was the funeral to prepare for; the
+dismal black dresses and bonnets with their long crape veils to don;
+there were the condolences of sorrowing friends to receive; the floral
+offerings to be looked at. The little Harts strutted about resplendent
+in stiff black cravats, and high crape bands about their hats. They were
+divided between two conflicting emotions--joy at belonging to a family
+so noteworthy and important, and sorrow at the death. As the time for
+the funeral approached, and Lillian began to indulge in a series of
+fainting fits, the latter feeling predominated.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"Well it was all over at last, the family had returned, and as on two
+nights previous, sat once more in the deserted and dismantled parlor.
+Mrs. Tuckley and Mrs. Luke, having rendered all assistance possible, had
+repaired to their respective front steps to keep count of the number of
+visitors who returned to condole with the family.
+
+"A real nice funeral," remarked the dress-maker at last, "a nice
+funeral. Everybody took it so hard, and Lillian fainted real beautiful.
+She's a good girl that Lillian. Poor things, I wonder what they'll do
+now."
+
+Stella, the irrepressible, was busily engaged balancing herself on one
+toe, _a la_ ballet.
+
+"Mebbe she's goin' to get married," she volunteered eagerly, "'cos I saw
+that yeller-haired young man what comes there all the time, wif his arms
+around her waist, and a tellin' her not to grieve as he'd take care of
+her. I was a peepin' in the dinin'-room."
+
+"How dare you peep at other folks, and pry into people's affairs? I
+can't imagine where you get your meddlesome ways from. There aint none
+in _my family_. Next time I catch you at it, I'll spank you good." Then,
+after a pause, "Well what else did he say?"
+
+
+
+
+FAREWELL.
+
+
+  Farewell, sweetheart, and again farewell;
+  To day we part, and who can tell
+    If we shall e'er again
+  Meet, and with clasped hands
+  Renew our vows of love, and forget
+    The sad, dull pain.
+
+  Dear heart, 'tis bitter thus to lose thee
+  And think mayhap, you will forget me;
+    And yet, I thrill
+  As I remember long and happy days
+  Fraught with sweet love and pleasant memories
+    That linger still
+
+  You go to loved ones who will smile
+  And clasp you in their arms, and all the while
+    I stay and moan
+  For you, my love, my heart and strive
+  To gather up life's dull, gray thread
+    And walk alone.
+
+  Aye, with you love the red and gold
+  Goes from my life, and leaves it cold
+    And dull and bare,
+  Why should I strive to live and learn
+  And smile and jest, and daily try
+    You from my heart to tare?
+
+  Nay, sweetheart, rather would I lie
+  Me down, and sleep for aye; or fly
+    To regions far
+  Where cruel Fate is not and lovers live
+  Nor feel the grim, cold hand of Destiny
+    Their way to bar.
+
+  I murmur not, dear love, I only say
+  Again farewell. God bless the day
+    On which we met,
+  And bless you too, my love, and be with you
+  In sorrow or in happiness, nor let you
+    E'er me forget.
+
+
+
+
+LITTLE MISS SOPHIE.
+
+
+When Miss Sophie knew consciousness again, the long, faint, swelling
+notes of the organ were dying away in distant echoes through the great
+arches of the silent church, and she was alone, crouching in a little,
+forsaken, black heap at the altar of the Virgin. The twinkling tapers
+seemed to smile pityingly upon her, the beneficent smile of the
+white-robed Madonna seemed to whisper comfort. A long gust of chill air
+swept up the aisles, and Miss Sophie shivered, not from cold, but from
+nervousness.
+
+But darkness was falling, and soon the lights would be lowered, and the
+great, massive doors would be closed, so gathering her thin little cape
+about her frail shoulders, Miss Sophie hurried out, and along the
+brilliant noisy streets home.
+
+It was a wretched, lonely little room, where the cracks let the
+boisterous wind whistle through, and the smoky, grimy walls looked
+cheerless and unhomelike. A miserable little room in a miserable little
+cottage in one of the squalid streets of the Third District that nature
+and the city fathers seemed to have forgotten.
+
+As bare and comfortless the room, so was Miss Sophie's lonely life. She
+rented these four walls from an unkempt little Creole woman, whose
+progeny seemed like the promised offspring of Abraham,--multitudinous.
+The flickering life in the pale little body she scarcely kept there by
+the unceasing toil of a pair of bony hands, stitching, stitching,
+ceaselessly, wearingly on the bands and pockets of pants. It was her
+bread, this monotonous, unending work, and though while days and nights
+constant labor brought but the most meagre recompense, it was her only
+hope of life.
+
+She sat before the little charcoal brazier and warmed her transparent,
+needle-pricked fingers, thinking meanwhile of the strange events of the
+day. She had been up town to carry the great, black bundle of pants and
+vests to the factory and receive her small pittance, and on the way home
+stopped in at the Jesuit Church to say her little prayer at the altar of
+the calm, white Virgin. There had been a wondrous burst of music from
+the great organ as she knelt there, an over-powering perfume of many
+flowers, the glittering dazzle of many lights, and the dainty frou-frou
+of silken skirts of wedding guests filing and tripping. So Miss Sophie
+stayed to the wedding, for what feminine heart, be it ever so old and
+seared, does not delight in one? And why shouldn't a poor little Creole
+old maid be interested too?
+
+When the wedding party had filed in solemnly, to the rolling, swelling,
+pealing tones of the organ. Important-looking groomsmen, dainty, fluffy,
+white-robed maids, stately, satin-robed, illusion-veiled bride, and
+happy groom. She leaned forward to catch a better glimpse of their
+faces. Ah!--
+
+Those near the Virgin's altar who heard a faint sigh and rustle on the
+steps glanced curiously as they saw a slight, black-robed figure clutch
+the railing and lean her head against it. Miss Sophie had fainted.
+
+"I must have been hungry," she mused over the charcoal fire in her
+little room, "I must have been hungry," and she smiled a wan smile, and
+busied herself getting her evening meal of coffee and bread and ham.
+
+If one were given to pity, the first thought that would rush to one's
+lips at sight of Miss Sophie would have been: Poor little Miss Sophie!
+She had come among the bareness and sordidness of this neighborhood five
+years ago, robed in crepe, and crying with great sobs that seemed to
+fairly shake the vitality out of her. Perfectly silent, too, about her
+former life, but for all that, Michel, the quarter grocer at the corner,
+and Mme. Laurent, who kept the rabbe shop opposite, had fixed it all up
+between them, of her sad history and past glories. Not that they knew,
+but then Michel must invent something when the neighbors came to him,
+their fountain head of wisdom.
+
+One morning little Miss Sophie opened wide her dingy windows to catch
+the early freshness of the autumn wind as it whistled through the
+yellow-leafed trees. It was one of those calm, blue-misted, balmy,
+November days that New Orleans can have when all the rest of the country
+is fur-wrapped. Miss Sophie pulled her machine to the window, where the
+sweet, damp wind could whisk among her black locks.
+
+Whirr, whirr, went the machine, ticking fast and lightly over the belts
+of the rough jean pants. Whirr, whirr, yes, and Miss Sophie was actually
+humming a tune! She felt strangely light to-day.
+
+"_Ma foi_," muttered Michel, strolling across the street to where Mme.
+Laurent sat sewing behind the counter on blue and brown-checked aprons,
+"but the little ma'amselle sings. Perhaps she recollects."
+
+"Perhaps," muttered the rabbe woman.
+
+But little Miss Sophie felt restless. A strange impulse seemed drawing
+her up town, and the machine seemed to run slow, slow, before it would
+stitch the endless number of jean belts. Her fingers trembled with
+nervous haste as she pinned up the unwieldy black bundle of the finished
+work, and her feet fairly tripped over each other in their eagerness to
+get to Claiborne Street, where she could board the up-town car. There
+was a feverish desire to go somewhere, a sense of elation,--foolish
+happiness that brought a faint echo of color into her pinched cheeks.
+She wondered why.
+
+No one noticed her in the car. Passengers on the Claiborne line are too
+much accustomed to frail, little black-robed women with big, black
+bundles; it is one of the city's most pitiful sights. She leaned her
+head out of the window to catch a glimpse of the oleanders on Bayou
+Road, when her attention was caught by a conversation in the car.
+
+"Yes, it's too bad for Neale, and lately married too," said the elder
+man, "I can't see what he is to do."
+
+Neale! she pricked up her ears. That was the name of the groom in the
+Jesuit church.
+
+"How did it happen?" languidly inquired the younger. He was a stranger,
+evidently; a stranger with a high regard for the faultlessness of male
+attire, too.
+
+"Well, the firm failed first; he didn't mind that much, he was so sure
+of his uncle's inheritance repairing his lost fortunes, but suddenly
+this difficulty of identification springs up, and he is literally on the
+verge of ruin."
+
+"Won't some of you fellows who've known him all your lives do to
+identify him?"
+
+"Gracious man, we've tried, but the absurd old will expressly stipulates
+that he shall be known only by a certain quaint Roman ring, and unless
+he has it--no identification, no fortune. He has given the ring away and
+that settles it."
+
+"Well, you're all chumps. Why doesn't he get the ring from the owner?"
+
+"Easily said--but--It seems that Neale had some little Creole
+love-affair some years ago and gave this ring to his dusky-eyed fiancee.
+But you know how Neale is with his love-affairs, went off and forgot the
+girl in a month. It seems, however, she took it to heart,--so much so
+until he's ashamed to try to find her or the ring."
+
+Miss Sophie heard no more as she gazed out into the dusty grass. There
+were tears in her eyes, hot blinding ones that wouldn't drop for pride,
+but stayed and scalded. She knew the story with all its embellishments
+of heartaches. The ring, too; she remembered the day she had kissed and
+wept and fondled it, until it seemed her heart must burst under its load
+of grief before she took it to the pawn broker's that another might be
+eased before the end came,--that other, her father. The "little Creole
+love affair" of Neale's had not always been poor and old and
+jaded-looking; but reverses must come, even Neale knew that--so the ring
+was at the _Mont de Piete_.
+
+Still he must have it, it was his; it would save him from disgrace and
+suffering, and from trailing the proud head of the white-gowned bride
+into sorrow. He must have it,--but how?
+
+There it was still at the pawn-broker's, no one would have such a jewel,
+and the ticket was home in the bureau drawer. Well, he must have it; she
+might starve in the attempt. Such a thing as going to him and telling
+him that he might redeem it was an impossibility. That good,
+straight-backed, stiff-necked Creole blood would have risen in all its
+strength and choked her. No; as a present had the quaint Roman circlet
+been placed upon her finger,--as a present should it be returned.
+
+The bumping car rode heavily, and the hot thoughts beat heavily in her
+poor little head. He must have the ring--but how--the ring--the Roman
+ring--the white-robed bride starving--she was going mad--ah yes,--the
+church.
+
+Right in the busiest, most bustling part of the town, its fresco and
+bronze and iron quaintly suggestive of mediaeval times. Within, all cool
+and dim and restful, with the faintest whiff of lingering incense rising
+and pervading the gray arches. Yes, the Virgin would know and have pity;
+the sweet, white-robed Virgin at the pretty flower-decked altar, or the
+one away up in the niche, far above the golden dome where the Host was.
+Holy Mary, Mother of God. Poor little Miss Sophie.
+
+Titiche, the busy-body of the house, noticed that Miss Sophie's bundle
+was larger than usual that afternoon. "Ah, poor woman!" sighed Titiche's
+mother, "she would be rich for Christmas."
+
+The bundle grew larger each day, and Miss Sophie grew smaller. The
+damp, cold rain and mist closed the white-curtained window, but always
+there behind the sewing machine drooped and bobbed the little
+black-robed figure. Whirr, whirr went the wheels, and the coarse jean
+pants piled in great heaps at her side. The Claiborne street car saw her
+oftener than before, and the sweet, white Virgin in the flowered niche
+above the gold-domed altar smiled at the little penitent almost every
+day.
+
+"_Ma foi_," said the slatternly landlady to Madame Laurent and Michel one
+day, "I no see how she live! Eat? Nothing, nothing, almost, and las'
+night when it was so cold and foggy, eh? I hav' to mek him build fire.
+She mos' freeze."
+
+Whereupon the rumor spread that Miss Sophie was starving herself to
+death to get some luckless relative out of jail for Christmas,--a rumor
+which enveloped her scraggy little figure with a kind of halo to the
+neighbors when she appeared on the streets.
+
+November had verged into December and the little pile of coins were yet
+far from the sum needed. Dear God! how the money did have to go. The
+rent, and the groceries and the coal,--though, to be sure, she used a
+precious bit of that. All the work and saving and skimping,--maybe, yes,
+maybe by Christmas. What a gift!
+
+Christmas Eve night on Royal Street is no place for a weakling, for the
+shouts and carousals of the roisterers will strike fear into the brave.
+Yet amid the cries and yells, the deafening blow of horns and tin
+whistles and the really dangerous fusillade of fireworks, the little
+figure hurried along, one hand clutching tight the battered hat that the
+rude merry-makers would have torn off, the other grasping under the
+thin, black cape a worn little pocketbook.
+
+Into the _Mont de Piete_, breathless, eager. The ticket? Here, worn,
+crumpled. The ring? It was not gone? No, thank Heaven! It was really a
+joy well worth her toil, she thought, to have it again.
+
+Had Titiche not been shooting crackers on the banquette instead of
+peering into the crack, as was his wont, his big, round, black eyes
+would have grown saucer-wide to see little Miss Sophie kiss and fondle a
+ring, an ugly clumsy band of gold.
+
+"Ah, dear ring," she murmured, once you were his, and you shall be his
+again. You shall be on his finger, and perhaps touch his heart. Dear
+ring, _ma chere petite, de ma coeur, cheri, de ma coeur. Je t'aime, je
+t'aime, oui, oui._ You are his, you were mine once too. To-night, just
+one night, I'll keep you--then--tomorrow, where you can save him.
+
+"Ah, the Virgin--she smiles at me because I did right, did I not sweet
+mother? She smiles--and--I grow--faint--"
+
+The loud whistles and horns of the little ones rose on the balmy air
+next morning. No one would doubt it was Christmas Day, even if doors
+and windows are open wide to let in cool air.
+
+Why, there was Christmas even in the very look of the mules on the poky
+cars; there was Christmas noise in the streets, and Christmas toys and
+Christmas odors, savory ones that made the nose wrinkle approvingly,
+issuing from the kitchen. Michel and Mme. Laurent smiled greetings
+across the street at each other, and the salutation from a passer-by
+recalled the many progenied landlady to herself.
+
+"Miss Sophie, well, poor soul, not very much Christmas for her. _Mais_,
+I'll just call her in to spend the day with me. It'll cheer her a bit."
+
+So clean and orderly within the poor little room. Not a speck of dust or
+a litter of any kind on the quaint little old-time high bureau, unless
+you might except a sheet of paper lying loose with something written on
+it. Titiche had evidently inherited his prying propensities for the
+landlady turned it over and read:
+
+"Louis. Here is the ring. I return it to you. I heard you needed it, I
+hope it comes not too late. Sophie."
+
+"The ring, where?" muttered the landlady. There it was, clasped between
+her fingers on her bosom. A bosom, white and cold, under a cold, happy
+face. Christmas had indeed dawned for Miss Sophie--the eternal
+Christmas.
+
+
+
+
+IF I HAD KNOWN.
+
+
+    If I had known
+  Two years ago how drear this life should be,
+  And crowd upon itself allstrangely sad,
+  Mayhap another song would burst from out my lips,
+  Overflowing with the happiness of future hopes;
+  Mayhap another throb than that of joy.
+  Have stirred my soul into its inmost depths,
+                    If I had known.
+
+  If I had known,
+  Two years ago the impotence of love,
+  The vainness of a kiss, how barren a caress,
+  Mayhap my soul to higher things have soarn,
+  Nor clung to earthly loves and tender dreams,
+  But ever up aloft into the blue empyrean,
+  And there to master all the world of mind,
+                    If I had known.
+
+
+
+
+CHALMETLE.
+
+
+  Wreaths of lilies and immortelles,
+  Scattered upon each silent mound,
+  Voices in loving remembrance swell,
+  Chanting to heaven the solemn sound.
+  Glad skies above, and glad earth beneath;
+  And grateful hearts who silently
+  Gather earth's flowers, and tenderly wreath
+  Woman's sweet token of fragility.
+
+  Ah, the noble forms who fought so well
+  Lie, some unnamed, 'neath the grassy mound;
+  Heroes, brave heroes, the stories tell,
+  Silently too, the unmarked mounds,
+  Tenderly wreath them about with flowers,
+  Joyously pour out your praises loud;
+  For every joy beat in these hearts of ours
+  Is only a drawing us nearer to God.
+
+  Little enough is the song we sing,
+  Little enough is the tale we tell,
+  When we think of the voices who erst did ring
+  Ere their owners in smoke of battle fell.
+  Little enough are the flowers we cull
+  To scatter afar on the grass-grown graves,
+  When we think of bright eyes, now dimmed and dull
+  For the cause they loyally strove to save.
+
+  And they fought right well, did these brave men,
+  For their banner still floats unto the breeze,
+  And the paeans of ages forever shall tell
+  Their glorious tale beyond the seas.
+  Ring out your voices in praises loud,
+  Sing sweet your notes of music gay,
+  Tell me in all you loyal crowd
+  Throbs there a heart unmoved to-day?
+
+  Meeting together again this year,
+  As met we in fealty and love before;
+  Men, maids, and matrons to reverently hear
+  Praises of brave men who fought of yore.
+  Tell to the little ones with wondering eyes,
+  The tale of the flag that floats so free;
+  Till their tiny voices shall merrily rise
+  In hymns of rejoicing and praises to Thee.
+
+  Many a pure and noble heart
+  Lies under the sod, all covered with green;
+  Many a soul that had felt the smart
+  Of life's sad torture, or mayhap had seen
+  The faint hope of love pass afar from the sight,
+  Like swift flight of bird to a rarer clime
+  Many a youth whose death caused the blight
+  Of tender hearts in that long, sad time.
+
+  Nay, but this is no hour for sorrow;
+  They died at their duty, shall we repine?
+  Let us gaze hopefully on to the morrow
+  Praying that our lives thus shall shine.
+  Ring out your bugles, sound out your cheers!
+  Man has been God-like so may we be.
+  Give cheering thanks, there dry up those tears,
+  Widowed and orphaned, the country is free!
+
+  Wreathes of lillies and immortelles,
+  Scattered upon each silent mound,
+  Voices in loving remembrance swell,
+  Chanting to heaven the solemn sound,
+  Glad skies above, and glad earth beneath,
+  And grateful hearts who silently
+  Gather earth's flowers, and tenderly wreath
+  Woman's sweet token of fragility.
+
+
+
+
+AT EVENTIDE.
+
+
+All day had she watched and waited for his coming, and still her
+strained ears caught no sounds of the footsteps she loved and longed to
+hear. All day while the great sun panted on his way around the brazen
+skies; all day while the busy world throbbed its mighty engines of
+labor, nor witted of the breaking hearts in its midst. And now when the
+eve had come, and the sun sank slowly to rest, casting his red rays over
+the earth he loved, and bidding tired nature a gentle radiant
+good-night, she still watched and waited. Waited while the young moon
+shone silvery in the crimson flush of the eastern sky, while the one
+bright star trembled as he strove to near his love; waited while the hum
+of soul-wearing traffic died in the distant streets, and the merry
+voices of happy children floated to her ears.
+
+And still he came not. What kept him from her side? Had he learned the
+cold lesson of self-control, or found one other thing more potent than
+love? Had some cruel chain of circumstances forced him to disobey her
+bidding--or--did he love another? But no, she smiles triumphantly, he
+could not having known and loved her.
+
+Sitting in the deep imbrasure of the window through which the distant
+wave sounds of city life floated to her, the pages of her life seemed to
+turn back, and she read the almost forgotten tale of long ago, the story
+of their love. In those days his wish had been her law; his smile her
+sun; his frown her wretchedness. Within his arms, earth seemed a
+far-away dream of empty nothingness, and when his lips touched and clung
+to hers, sweet with the perfume of the South they floated away into a
+Paradise of enfolding space, where Time and Death and the woes of this
+great earth are naught, only these two--and love, the almighty.
+
+And so their happiness drifted slowly across the sea of Time until it
+struck a cruel rock, whose sharp teeth showed not above the dimpled
+waves; and where once had been a craft of strength and beauty, now was
+only a hideous wreck. For the Tempter had come into this Eden, and soon
+his foul whisper found place in her heart.
+
+And the Tempter's name was Ambition.
+
+Often had the praises and plaudits of men rang in her ears when her
+sweet voice sang to her chosen friends, often had the tears evoked by
+her songs of love and hope and trust, thrilled her breast faintly, as
+the young bird stirs in its nest under the loving mother's wing, but he
+had clasped his arms around her, and that was enough. But one day the
+Tempter whispered, "Why waste such talent; bring that beauty of voice
+before the world and see men bow in homage, and women envy and praise.
+Come forth and follow me."
+
+But she put him fiercely aside, and cried, "I want no homage but his, I
+want no envy from any one."
+
+Still the whisper stayed in her heart, nor would the honeyed words of
+praise be gone, even when he kissed her, and thanked the gods for this
+pearl of great price.
+
+Then as time fled on, the tiny whisper grew into a great roar, and all
+the praise of men, and the sweet words of women, filled her brain, and
+what had once been her aversion became a great desire, and caused her
+brow to grow thoughtful, and her eyes moody.
+
+But when she spoke to him of this new love, he smiled and said, "My wife
+must be mine, and mine alone. I want not a woman whom the world claims,
+and shouts her name abroad. My wife and my home must be inviolate." And
+again as of yore, his wish controlled her--but only for a while.
+
+Then the tiny whisper grown into the great roar urging her on, became a
+mighty wind which drove her before it, nor could she turn aside from the
+path of ambition, but swept on, and conquered.
+
+Ah, sweet, sweet the exultation of the victor! Dear the plaudits of the
+admiring world; wild the joy, when queen of song, admired of men, she
+stood upon the pinnacle of fame! And he? True to his old convictions,
+turned sadly from the woman who placed the admiration of the world
+before his love and the happiness of his home--and went out from her
+life broken-hearted, disappointed, miserable.
+
+All these things, and more, she thought upon in the first flush of
+eventide, as the bold, young star climbed toward his lady-love, the
+moon, all these things, and what had come to pass after the victory.
+
+For there came a day when the world wearied of its toy, and turned with
+shouts of joy, and wreaths of fresh laurels for the new star. Then came
+disappointments and miseries crowding fast upon her; the sorrows which
+a loving heart knows when it finds its idols faithless. Then the love
+for him which she had once repressed arose in all its strength which had
+gained during the long struggle with the world, arose and overwhelmed
+her with its might, and filled her soul with an unutterable longing for
+peace and rest and him.
+
+She wrote to him and told him all her heart, and begged of him to come
+back to her, for Fame was but an empty bubble while love was supreme and
+the only happiness, after all. And now she waited while the crimson and
+gold of the west grew dark, and gray and lowering.
+
+Hark! She hears his loved step. He comes, ah, joy of heaven he comes!
+Soon will he clasp her in his arms, and there on his bosom shall she
+know peace and rest and love.
+
+As he enters the door she hastens to meet him, the love-light shining in
+her tired eyes, her soft rounded arms outstretched to meet him. But he
+folds her not in his embrace, nor yet does he look with love into her
+upturned eyes; the voice she loves, ah so well, breaks upon the dusky
+silence, pitiless, stern.
+
+"Most faithless of faithless women, think you that like the toy of a
+fickle child I can be thrown aside, then picked up again? Think you that
+I can take a soiled lily to my bosom? Think you that I can cherish the
+gaudy sun-flower that ever turns to the broad, brazen glare of the
+uncaring sun, rather than the modest shrinking violet? Nay, be not
+deceived, I loved you once, but that love you killed in its youth and
+beauty leaving me to stand and weep alone over its grave. I came
+to-night, not to kiss you, and to forgive you as you entreat, but to
+tell that you I have wed another."
+
+The pitiless voice ceased, and she was alone in the dusky silence; alone
+in all the shame and agony and grief of unrequited love and worthless
+fame. Alone to writhe and groan in despair while the roseate flush of
+eventide passed into the coldness of midnight.
+
+Oh faithless woman, oh, faithless man! How frail the memory of thy
+binding vows, thy blissful hours of love! Are they forgotten? Only the
+record of broken hearts and loveless lives will show.
+
+
+
+
+THE IDLER.
+
+
+  An idle lingerer on the wayside's road,
+  He gathers up his work and yawns away;
+  A little longer, ere the tiresome load
+  Shall be reduced to ashes or to clay.
+
+  No matter if the world has marched along,
+  And scorned his slowness as it quickly passed;
+  No matter, if amid the busy throng,
+  He greets some face, infantile at the last.
+
+  His mission? Well, there is but one,
+  And if it is a mission he knows it, nay,
+  To be a happy idler, to lounge and sun,
+  And dreaming, pass his long-drawn days away.
+
+  So dreams he on, his happy life to pass
+  Content, without ambitions painful sighs,
+  Until the sands run down into the glass;
+  He smiles--content--unmoved and dies.
+
+  And yet, with all the pity that you feel
+  For this poor mothling of that flame, the world;
+  Are you the better for your desperate deal,
+  When you, like him, into infinitude are hurled?
+
+
+
+
+LOVE AND THE BUTTERFLY.
+
+
+  I heard a merry voice one day
+  And glancing at my side,
+  Fair Love, all breathless, flushed with play,
+  A butterfly did ride.
+  "Whither away, oh sportive boy?"
+  I asked, he tossed his head;
+  Laughing aloud for purest joy,
+  And past me swiftly sped.
+
+  Next day I heard a plaintive cry
+  And Love crept in my arms;
+  Weeping he held the butterfly,
+  Devoid of all its charms.
+  Sweet words of comfort, whispered I
+  Into his dainty ears,
+  But Love still hugged the butterfly,
+  And bathed its wounds with tears.
+
+
+
+
+THE BEE-MAN.
+
+
+We were glancing over the mental photograph album, and commenting on the
+great lack of dissimilarity in tastes. Nearly every one preferred spring
+to any other season, with a very few exceptions in favor of autumn. The
+women loved Mrs. Browning and Longfellow; the men showed decided
+preferences after Emerson and Macauley. Conceit stuck out when the
+majority wanted to be themselves and none other, and only two did not
+want to live in the 19th century. But in one place, in answer to the
+question, "Whom would you rather be, if not yourself?" the answer was,
+
+"A baby!"
+
+"Why would you rather be a baby than any other personage?" queried
+someone glancing at the writer, who blushed as she replied.
+
+"Because then I might be able to live a better life, I might have better
+opportunities and better chances for improving them, and it would bring
+me nearer the 20th century."
+
+"About eight or nine years ago," said the first speaker, "I remember
+reading a story in a magazine for young folks. It was merely a fairy
+story, and perhaps was not intended to point a moral, but only to amuse
+the little ones. It was something on this order:--"
+
+Once upon a time, there lived in an out of the way spot an ancient
+decrepit Bee-man. How old he was no one knew; whence he came, no one
+could tell: to the memory of the oldest inhabitant he had always lived
+in his dirty hut, surrounded by myriads of hives, attended always by a
+swarm of bees. He was good to the bits of children, and always ready
+with a sweet morsel of honeycomb for them. All his ambitions,
+sympathies and hopes were centered in his hives; until one day a fairy
+crept into his hut and whispered:
+
+"You have not always been a common bee-man. Once you were something
+else."
+
+"Tell me what I was," he asked eagerly.
+
+"Nay, that I cannot do," replied the fairy, "our queen sent me to tell
+you this, and if you wished to search for your former self, I am to
+assist you. You must search the entire valley, and the first thing you
+meet to which you become violently attached, that is what you formerly
+were, and I shall give you back your correct form."
+
+So the next morning the Bee-man, strapping his usual hive upon his back,
+and accompanied by the fairy in the form of a queen bee, set out upon
+his search throughout the valley. At first he became violently attached
+to the handsome person and fine castle of the Lord of the Realm, but on
+being kicked out of the lord's domains, his love turned to dislike.
+
+The Bee-man and the fairy travelled far and wide and carefully inspected
+every thing they met. The very Imp, the Languid young man, the
+Hippogriffith, the Thousand Tailed Hippopotamus, and many other types,
+until the Bee-man grew weary and was about to give up the search in
+disgust.
+
+But suddenly amid all the vast halls of the enchanted domains through
+which they were wandering, there sounded shrieks and wails, and the
+inmates were thrown into the greatest confusion by the sight of the
+hideous hippogriffith dashing through, a million sparks emanating from
+his great eyes, his barbed tail waving high in the air, and holding in
+his talons a tiny infant.
+
+Now, as soon as the Bee-man saw this, a great wave of sorrow and pity
+filled his breast, and he hastily followed the monster, arriving at his
+cave just in time to see him preparing to devour his prey. Madly dashing
+his hive of bees into the hippogriffith's face, and seizing the infant
+while the disturbed and angry bees stung and swarmed, the Bee-man rushed
+out followed by the Very Imp, the Languid young man and the fairy, and
+made his way to the child's mother. Just as soon as the baby was safely
+restored, the Bee-man ruminated thoughtfully awhile and finally remarked
+to the fairy:
+
+"Do you know of all the things I have met so far, I liked the baby best
+of all, so I think I must have been a baby once!"
+
+"Right you are," assented the fairy, "I knew it before, but, of course,
+I couldn't tell. Now I shall change you into your former shape, but
+remember, you must try to be something better than a Bee-man."
+
+The Bee-man promised and was instantly changed into a baby. The fairy
+inoculated him from harm with a bee-sting, and gave him to the rescued
+infant's mother.
+
+Nearly a cycle passed by, and one day the fairy having business in the
+valley, thought she would make inquiries concerning her protege. In her
+way she happened to pass a little, low, curious hut, with many bee hives
+about it, and swarms of bees flying in and out. The fairy, tired as
+well as curious, peeped in and discovered an ancient man attending to
+the wants of his pets. Upon a closer inspection, she recognized her
+infant of years ago. He had become a bee-man again!
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"It points a pretty little moral," said the Fatalist, "for it certainly
+proves that do what we will, we cannot get away from our natures. It was
+inherent in that man's nature to tend bees. Bee-ing was the occupation
+chosen for him by Fate, and had the beneficent Fairy changed him a dozen
+times, he would ultimately have gone to bee-ing in some form or other."
+
+The Fatalist was doubtless right, for it seems as though the inherent
+things in our nature must come out. But if we want to dig deep into the
+child's story for metaphysical morals, does it not also uphold the
+theory of re-incarnation? the ancient bee-man, perhaps is but a type of
+humanity growing old, and settled in its mode of living, while the fairy
+is but thought, whispering into our souls things half dread half
+pleasant.
+
+There are moments when the consciousness of a former life comes sharply
+upon us, in swift, lightning flashes, too sudden to be tangible, too
+dazzling to leave an impress, or mayhap, in troubled dreams that
+bewilder and confuse with vague remembrances. If only a burst of memory
+would come upon some mortal, that the tale might be fully told, and
+these theories established as facts. It would unfold great possibilities
+of historical lore; of literary life; of religious speculation.
+
+
+
+
+AMID THE ROSES.
+
+
+  There is tropical warmth and languorous life
+    Where the roses lie
+    In a tempting drift
+  Of pink and red and golden light
+  Untouched as yet by the pruning knife.
+  And the still, warm life of the roses fair
+    That whisper "Come,"
+    With promises
+  Of sweet caresses, close and pure
+  Has a thorny whiff in the perfumed air.
+  There are thorns and love in the roses' bed,
+    And Satan too
+    Must linger there;
+  So Satan's wiles and the conscience stings,
+  Must now abide--the roses are _dead_.
+
+
+
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