at 
 
 \§ffl0 
 
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 
 
 ^^ 
 
 Chap»jc5- Copyright No.. 
 
 UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 
 
Fancies Framed in Florentine 
 
1LLV5TRBTED BY/ 
 
 *SH<§mm flown Samlet 
 
 CONTINENTAL 
 
 PUBLISHING COMPLY 
 
 NEW YORK & LONfX)N 
 
 1597 
 
 
 //2-7 
 
 

 Copyright, 1897, by 
 CONTINENTAL PUBLISHING CO. 
 
De&fcatiom 
 
 To Martha Rihl Wray, my Wife : 
 
 At Love's feet were strewn the frail dra- 
 peries with which she had been clothed — the 
 cloak of gold of the mercenary ; the brilliant- 
 hued garmenls of the sentimentalist ; the dainty 
 bridal veils of the young, and the pure white 
 cloaks of ignorant faith, as well as the voluptu- 
 ous folds with which brute Nature had clothed 
 its idol. Each believed that Love wore the 
 garment he had woven for her, until Time 
 proved his mistake. 
 
 Then a strange composite being, made up 
 of sentiment, experience, religion, tenderness, 
 and brutality, wove a plain but enduring tex- 
 ture for Love, and, throwing it over her should- 
 ers, called it "good comradeship," and this 
 
 garment Love wears. 
 
 H. R. W. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 Dedication 5 
 
 The Scoffer 11 
 
 Jean du Bois 14 
 
 A. Phantom Ship 18 
 
 Character 20 
 
 Dawn 23 
 
 Vita et Mors 26 
 
 Where the Tale Weeds Grow . 31 
 
 The Ebb and Flow 35 
 
 Check-mate 38 
 
 A Life 43 
 
 Yiolette ..... 46 
 
 Shadows . 48 
 
 One Chapter 51 
 
contents. 
 
 Mother and Son 54 
 
 M. le Ministre 57 
 
 Two Women 60 
 
 Sleeping and Waking 62 
 
 Fan and Gloves 65 
 
 The Other Side of the Picture 70 
 
 Twilight 76 
 
 A Symphony of the Sea .... 79 
 
 Motherhood 82 
 
 Winter Winds 86 
 
 In Harbor 89 
 
 Silver Sands 93 
 
 A Log Fire 96 
 
 The Two Destinies 99 
 
 Dreams 104 
 
 Realization 106 
 
 Searching After Truth . . .110 
 
 Stars 116 
 
 The Four-leaf Clover .... 119 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 The Priest 121 
 
 Wood Nymph 124 
 
 Sins of the Fathers 127 
 
 The Tablet 129 
 
 Inconsistency 131 
 
 The Question -» . . 133 
 
THE SCOFFER. 
 
 It was when all was light and 
 "bright; when things were living and 
 moving; when the earth was slowly 
 passing through what was known as 
 day, — that the Scoffer was so bold, and 
 convinced himself there was no God. 
 
 "What an ignorant superstition!" 
 he said ; "how blind those of my fellow- 
 men, who deem me a scoffer!" Thor- 
 n 
 
12 THE SCOFFER. 
 
 oughly he converted the multitude who 
 followed him, led by his eloquent and 
 able reasoning. And he believed in 
 himself. 
 
 All the while the earth moved slowly 
 on, into the mellowed fields of twilight. 
 
 His cries of defiance were not then so 
 loud, for this phase in the many beau- 
 tiful ones of nature found harmonious 
 response from something within him; 
 and then the life and gayety of the 
 noon-time had disappeared, and even 
 the bright colors of twilight were fast 
 fading. 
 
 Yet he felt he knew himself, as he 
 watched from his high window. A cool 
 breath of air stole along his temples. 
 Earth was entering the border-path of 
 night, and now her people, during the 
 dark journey, were to forget their 
 boldness, their cares and pleasures, in 
 sleep. 
 
THE SCOFFER. 
 
 13 
 
 As he watched, he thought with 
 contempt of the unreasoning sleepers. 
 It grew darker and later; he detected 
 breathing ; it was the earth heaving 
 in slumber. 
 
 Then he thought over again all he 
 believed, and of those he had converted 
 to his thinking. What if he had made 
 a mistake ? For the first time a strange 
 doubt came, but that was perhaps be- 
 cause all was so dark and still. 
 
 When the earth's night 
 journey was ended, they found 
 him dead — at his window. 
 
JEAN DU BOIS. 
 
 In walking through one 
 of the avenues in Pere- 
 Lachaise, where the poorer 
 -- classes are buried, my cu ri- 
 fe osity was aroused by a 
 yij>. * 
 
 ^L headstone on one of 
 the graves, and a stone- 
 cutter, with mallet and 
 chisel, obliterating the inscription, 
 "A ma mere," while under it was 
 marked, in black chalk for corrected 
 cutting, "A une mere" It was odd. A 
 thin, neatly dressed young man, with 
 hat in hand, directed the mason. 
 
 Jean du Bois was a solemn boy, 
 with great blue eyes mounted in a 
 
 14 
 
JEAN DU BOIS. 15 
 
 pinched face. His head was large and 
 well modeled; his stature small. He 
 looked delicate and in need of nourish- 
 ment. 
 
 His honest countenance and appear- 
 ance of poverty, though his clothes 
 were clean with the manifestation of 
 the darning-needle's careful network 
 all over them, had influenced the libra- 
 rian of the Bibliotheque Nationale to 
 engage him for odd chores about the 
 building. This was when Jean was but 
 ten years of age — a time in a boy's 
 life when reason is in its infancy. 
 
 Jean lived with his mother, whom he 
 loved dearly. She was called Juliette — 
 a very old woman, who at four o'clock 
 every morning distributed the Figaro 
 and the Temps, and during the day 
 was employed as femme de menage. 
 
 Jean's reason was old for his years 
 His determination was to support his 
 
16 JEAN DU BOIS. 
 
 mother, and that was why he applied 
 for a position, and he chose the library, 
 because he loved to look at books. 
 When he was sixteen years old his 
 v long-cherished wish was grati- 
 fied ; and not too soon, for old 
 Juliette became an incurable 
 cripple from rheumatism. His 
 alary of eighty francs a month 
 not princely, but even from this 
 he found that his mother saved. 
 
 When Juliette died, Jean had been 
 promoted to the position of keeper of 
 the catalogues, receiving two hundred 
 francs a month. His heart was almost 
 broken with the loss of his mother, and 
 he deprived himself of everything except 
 the bare necessities of life to buy the 
 stone slab that marked her grave. 
 
 One night, about five months after 
 the death of old Juliette, he determined 
 to clear up and burn the rubbish in his 
 
JEAN DU BOIS. 17 
 
 room, and commenced by opening an 
 old trunk, covered with dust, which 
 had, as long back as he remembered, 
 reposed under his mother's bed. In it 
 he found notes and papers to Juliette 
 
 du Bois from Mile. , who was even 
 
 then a personage high in social power 
 in Paris, and these papers proved her 
 to be Jean's own mother ; for there was 
 a letter of committal and others inclos- 
 ing money for his support. He counted 
 the shining louis, in all thirty thousand 
 francs. He made these discoveries, and 
 further, that Juliette had been a miser. 
 That was why he stood to-day super- 
 vising the recutting of the tombstone. 
 
A PHANTOM SHIP. 
 
 A phantom ship comes 
 out of the night, 
 noiselessly, blindly, 
 seeking its way. Its 
 great white body 
 and well-filled sails 
 stand out like a pallor 
 on the face of darkness, and its silent 
 gliding leaves a clear scar on the black 
 waters, in which it sinks so low with 
 its weighty cargo. 
 
 Without crew it moves from port 
 to port, while all men sleep, collecting 
 the troubles of the world. 
 
 It enters harbors where it is ladened 
 with those cares which come so sud- 
 denty with their many edges finely 
 
 18 
 
A PHANTOM SHIP. 19 
 
 sharpened with bitterness. Quickly 
 and mysteriously these cares leave the 
 world's people, as in the shadow of 
 the night they are stowed away by 
 unseen hands on this phantom ship. 
 
 The weight of the world's care is 
 great ; — that is why the vessel sinks so 
 low in the water, and why it moves so 
 slowly. 
 
 No helmsman governs the ship; it 
 sails blindly. Its only guides are the 
 thousand little puffs of wind, the 
 breathings of night, which push 
 against its sails and body. 
 
 Troubles come, but troubles go as 
 a phantom ship comes out of the 
 night. 
 
CHARACTER. 
 
 HE whole world is an arch- 
 
 ' ery-field, and its people are 
 
 the targets; for at certain 
 
 ages every man unconsciously 
 
 f.' comes forward in his regular turn 
 
 and serves as a mark for the darts 
 
 from the drawn bows of Joy, Sorrow, 
 
 Jealousy, Disappointment, and Hate. 
 
 Often the aim is false, and the arrows 
 fly wide of their mark, while at other 
 times they come dangerously near; 
 but oftener they pierce him, and this 
 wound influences all his future life, 
 for man is young when he enters the 
 field where the life game is played. 
 Then there is great rivalry for points 
 of score among this band of archers 
 20 
 
CHARACTER. 21 
 
 so widely different; — and how eagerly, 
 with drawn bows, they await each 
 new comer! 
 
 He who rejoices in being the target 
 for Joy and Love finds that they are 
 always joined sooner or later by an- 
 other archer called Sorrow, whose aim 
 is unerring. Jealousy, Disappointment, 
 and Hate score many points ; for when 
 the coward (and the greater number 
 of targets are cowards) confronts that 
 row of wicked bows and flees for lack 
 of moral strength to stand the wound, 
 the quick eyes and practised hands of • 
 Jealousy, Disappointment, and Hate 
 send their arrows with sure and rapid 
 flight on their crippling missions. 
 
 But the telling game, which has been 
 played since time was, goes on and 
 will continue as long as time is. The 
 old targets relate their experiences over 
 and over again, as directing guides to 
 
22 CHARACTER. 
 
 the young who have not as yet entered 
 the arena. It matters not, however — 
 the marksmen seem to know their own. 
 The whole world is an archery-field, 
 and its people are all wounded — some 
 slightly, others badly. These wounds 
 as they heal leave scars called char- 
 acter. 
 
DAWN. 
 
 HE stars, as if envious of 
 11^5? ^ e so ^> me llow flush in 
 the east, which wove it- 
 self into golden raiment 
 to clothe a newly born day, 
 cT seemed to gather fresh force as 
 they nervously showered glittering 
 rays in asserting their proud claim 
 as guardians of a still sleeping world. 
 Each moment, however, their brilliant 
 light trembled, and their faces grew 
 paler and paler, as their rival silently 
 climbed, step by step, the hill in the 
 far east and warmly smiled through a 
 gray shroud enveloping waking night. 
 The leaves turned their delicate 
 faces, moistened with cold tears, to 
 
 23 
 
24 DAWN. 
 
 that loving warmth for drying. 
 Shoots of grass, bending like an army 
 of old men loaded down with weight 
 of years and dark trials, now raised 
 their delicate bodies erect, and silver 
 beads of dew dropped from their 
 slender forms to moisten the thou- 
 sand mouths of earth. 
 
 The bee on tip-toe, wedged himself 
 through the closed velvet doors of 
 sleeping roses and stole from within 
 the hoarded gold, which he buckled 
 about him until disguised in a great 
 yellow cloak, and again pushing aside 
 the petaled portals, escaped, humming 
 gleefully to himself in flight at his bold 
 robbery. Gradually the jeweled army 
 in the heavens took up its retreat 
 before the pursuing light. Suddenly 
 the last reflected flash of its burnished 
 shields, as it fled, was hailed by the 
 thrillingly sweet voice of dawn's 
 
DAWN. 25 
 
 courier, the lark, which darted high 
 to the clouds, as if in pursuit of the 
 fading host of night watchmen. Its 
 song awakened the roses, some of 
 which turned deathly pale and others 
 blushed blood-red at the daring theft 
 of their treasured savings; but in the 
 loving warmth of that smile from the 
 risen eastern light, they soon forgot 
 the loss, and opened wide their barren 
 hearts and listened to the trembling 
 voice of awakening earth, who em- 
 braced them tenderly and held them 
 firmly as they gazed in rapture into 
 the face of dawn. 
 
VITA ET MORS. 
 
 From the rue de 
 Rivoli, looking up the 
 Avenue de 1' Opera it 
 seemed, this night, 
 ■-- y^n w Heaven had loaned her 
 jewels for vain earth's adornment. 
 The cro wiring gem was formed 
 by the Grand Opera building, loom- 
 ing out of the distance like some haloed 
 sentinel guarding the city's entrance. 
 It was enveloped in a thousand chang- 
 ing lights, casting forth their silver and 
 golden rays like a rebellious and riot- 
 ous army of fireflies. 
 
 Bordering the avenue of approach 
 to this playhouse of men, were studded 
 in regularit}^, lesser jewels, nervously 
 
 26 
 
YITA ET MORS. 27 
 
 sparkling. Like shooting meteors, 
 across the middle, open space, flashed 
 truant stars of cab and carriage, bear- 
 ing their human freight to an atmos- 
 phere where momentary forgetfulness 
 of real life was found as they knelt at 
 the feet of Pleasure. Paris was in all 
 her gay garb of night, in the flash and 
 whirl of her famed life — the height of 
 the opera season. 
 
 The dazzling and mirrored illumina- 
 tions at the entrance of the Opera 
 reflected the surging movement and 
 fickle existence of a miniature world 
 congregated there — a bowing and po- 
 lite body, unwittingly struggling in 
 the border mesh of the tangling and 
 holding net of excitement. 
 
 Slowly ascending the wide, marbled 
 staircase was a perfect type of woman, 
 pausing a moment to lean over the 
 sculptured balustrade and smile a rec- 
 
28 VITA ET MORS. 
 
 ognition to the fortunate below, or 
 perhaps to let those large and sweetly- 
 innocent eyes play some unexpressed, 
 though none the less active, conversa- 
 tion with the infatuated man b\ r her 
 I side. His arm consciously 
 | f* pressed tightly a fleecy lace 
 fe>S^ Y'J .ii suggestion — her wrap. 
 fr To appearance she was 
 ~ fl one of those living and ex- 
 1'te"^* quisitery carved sermons of 
 God — a true woman, in whose pres- 
 ence the crude and common qualities 
 of man would be placed in the crucible 
 of influence, and the refined metal of 
 true character revealed. 
 
 It was the opera that Marie An- 
 toinette had had produced for her old 
 master, Gluck. 
 
 They were seated now in a box, she 
 apparently interested in the play and 
 entranced by the music ; he, closely, 
 
YITA ET MORS. 29 
 
 watching the changing waves of well- 
 acted pleasure move the lips in smiles, 
 or open wider those eyes — innocent- 
 looking eyes — as she bent forward in 
 the study of the seemingly real stage 
 scene before her. 
 
 She never saw it. Her thoughts 
 were far from the bewildering lights, 
 jewels and lovely shoulders, to a little 
 tragedy of her own — she called it a 
 delightful comedy. Only three actors 
 on the figurative stage. She, — Actor 
 Number One, — knowing well her part, 
 she thought, in the comedy of " Frivol." 
 She might not have named it so, nor 
 discarded, as they rose to go, the 
 flowers, whose donor was the second 
 actor, the one who had over-rated his 
 capabilities, to find relief in the third 
 actor, or better, agent, the Seine; and 
 at that time, just as her foot crushed 
 the roses, which gave forth their cr}^ 
 
30 
 
 YITA ET MORS. 
 
 only in a delicate odor, he, the second 
 actor, was cold and very still in the 
 small charnel-house just facing a tiny 
 patch of green and the dark rear walls 
 of Notre Dame. 
 
WHERE THE TALL WEEDS GROW. 
 
 ^-S^mi J UST through the forms of the 
 pjfg!l; majestic sentinel oaks, which had 
 stood their guard on this knoll 
 for a century and more, one could 
 M l! \>\ catch a glimpse of the weather-beaten 
 '^\i and veteran mansion. The shingles 
 
 It* 
 
 :\rK^ crowning it were dark in the center, 
 and framed about the edges with rich 
 moss; while here and there in open 
 places, where the wind and storms of 
 years had stolen these shingles, grew 
 tiny patches of lichen, living and thriv- 
 ing on the daily decay. 
 
 The curious little window-panes 
 had lost the crystal sparkle of their 
 youth, and now gave forth dulled 
 lights of blue, green and yellow, like 
 
 31 
 
32 WHERE THE TALL WEEDS GROW. 
 
 the dimmed glaze of an old man's 
 eyes. 
 
 From below the many-eyed win- 
 dows, on each side, little streaks of 
 light brown, tinged with red, made 
 delicate imprints, like the path left on 
 the cheek by tears. The row of colo- 
 nial pillars, though their pure white- 
 ness was long ago gone and their 
 formerly erect bodies slightly bent, still 
 proudly supported a roof under whose 
 protection had often been seated in gay 
 groups the wits and beauties of the 
 colonial days. Under the eves now 
 lived a colony of bats. 
 
 The side balcony still retained some 
 of its quiet dignity, even though suf- 
 fering the loss of more than half of the 
 quaintly carved pillars. 
 
 The once clear path leading to the 
 old mansion was completely choked 
 with weeds of rank and rapid growth, 
 
WHERE THE TALL WEEDS GROW. 33 
 
 which, proud of the quiet ground in 
 which they were given life, raised their 
 foul heads so that they might better 
 watch the two old rocking-chairs so 
 close together on the wide porch — a 
 porch whose paving had served as 
 ballast for the bold little ship that 
 had dared to sail the sea to the new 
 world. 
 
 The wind had whispered it oft to 
 the oaks, and they in turn tremblingly 
 repeated it through their messengers, 
 the falling leaves, to the growing weeds, 
 that the old house was haunted — 
 that the two rockers were never still, 
 but leaned forward, then back, as they 
 sang in tune with the changing tone 
 of the wind, "Past Glory Gone" and 
 that the two old chairs were always 
 occupied at twilight — one by a lovely 
 dame, with her silver hair just peeping 
 from out a lace cap, while a dainty 
 
34 WHERE THE TALL WEEDS GROW. 
 
 kerchief thrown over a gray shining 
 silk, embraced her shoulders ; her deli- 
 cate white hand rested on the arm of 
 the other chair, in which an officer of 
 the Continental Army sat. His face 
 was cleanly shaven, his head adorned 
 with a spotless powdered wig; close 
 by his feet was his three-cornered hat. 
 A sword in scabbard stuck straight 
 out from his chair, and like a pendu- 
 lum kept regular record of the slow 
 rocking. The silver buckles on his 
 shoes shone like eyes in the night. A 
 little stream of red flowed from his 
 temple down the right side of his face, 
 dyeing the high lace ruffle about his 
 throat, but the dame never saw it. 
 
 This was the story the wind told 
 the trees, and the trees the weeds. 
 
 Weeds always grow 
 high and thick in haunt- 
 ed ground. 
 
 ~w- 
 
THE EBB AND FLOW. 
 
 Do you know why the sea ebbs 
 and flows? 'Tis this: — the army of 
 drowned twice daily gather their forces 
 at the bottom of the deep, and march 
 toward the four points of the compass 
 to lay their weary bones in earth and 
 escape from their watery tomb. 
 
 You can hear their tramping — they 
 call it sea moaning — and see the waves 
 being pushed on before them in great 
 
 35 
 
36 THE EBB AND FLOW. 
 
 water -hills, which dash against each 
 other in their furious flight from the 
 escaping host; and when the waves 
 break and hurl clouds of snow-white 
 spray high in air, it is because of the 
 lashing from the swinging, bony arms 
 of the army drowned. 
 
 And did you ever listen to the weird 
 noise as these mountains of water leap 
 upon each other? That is the smoth- 
 ered cry of the victims of the sea. On 
 and on the waves are driven, farther 
 and farther they encroach on land, and 
 the feet of the mighty body can be 
 heard scraping for foothold on the 
 smooth, shifting pebbles. Only another 
 incoming wave and escape is theirs — 
 but it is just too late ; the re-acted un- 
 dertow from the water-wall they force 
 before them sets in, and you hear their 
 bony feet slip from under them, and 
 back they are carried, the sea holding 
 
THE EBB AND FLOW. 37 
 
 them tightly in its arms, exhausted 
 captives. Then look when the tide has 
 run far out, and see the prints of their 
 feet, and you will know why the sea 
 ebbs and flows. 
 
CHECK-MATE. 
 
 The one ring on the old 
 man's hand was worn away 
 to a very thin gold band, 
 and it seemed in keeping 
 IPS^- with its owner's face, 
 which resembled a piece of parchment 
 well dried after wetting. 
 
 He was seated alone at a chess- 
 table, with the men regularly arranged 
 on their respective inlaid blocks. He 
 had waited a long time for a partner ; 
 that was the reason his eyes — eyes 
 which shone with a strong high light 
 beneath white brows and an encase- 
 ment of wrinkles — rested on a young 
 man, an attentive observer of the 
 game at the next table. 
 
 38 
 
CHECK-MATE. 39 
 
 The young man smiled approval 
 of the winner at the finish, and con- 
 sciously turned to confront those lit- 
 tle eyes which had seemed burning 
 their way through his back. 
 
 He was greeted with a polite beck- 
 oning to be seated in the va- 
 cant chair opposite the old 
 
 9 
 man. 
 
 He advanced. Not a word 
 was exchanged, though he noted 
 his temporary host's polite but 
 unsuccessful effort to rise and the 
 manifest disinclination of weakened 
 muscles to obey. 
 
 Selecting the red from the proffered 
 pawns, the young man opened the 
 game. 
 
 The eager yet conservative moves 
 of the little old man were akin to the 
 cautious guidance of an army by an 
 intellectual general, and the trembling 
 
40 CHECK-MATE. 
 
 hand covering the "piece" emphasized 
 the weighing of action. His interest 
 became exaggerated as his forces were 
 pushed closer and closer to the wall of 
 defeat and a possible retreat blocked; 
 then came a whisper from his young 
 partner — " check" — followed in another 
 move by "mate." 
 
 The strain certainty had told on the 
 old man; for his complexion was the 
 color of wax, and the hair, so beauti- 
 fully white, shone like silver, in con- 
 trast with the yellow skin. 
 
 The second game opened, and not 
 a word was spoken. It was played 
 with deeper interest, and victory 
 seemed assured for the former loser; 
 but then two unfortunate moves, and 
 again the almost inaudible whisper — 
 "check." 
 
 A feeble hand supported the old 
 man's head, wherein an active brain 
 
CHECK-MATE. 41 
 
 seemed seeking some salvation for 
 badly crippled forces. 
 
 The small hand shielded the eyes — 
 piercing eyes — that had exerted such a 
 mysterious power over the young man, 
 who now waited patiently for that 
 only possible move to be made — for 
 the recovery of lost vantage-ground. 
 In the room all was perfectly still, 
 save now and then for the noise of a 
 player shifting in his chair — a silence 
 oppressive to an outsider, but the 
 only atmosphere for a devotee of the 
 game. 
 
 Five minutes were ticked away by 
 the great clock; then ten, and not a 
 sign came from the old man. 
 
 It was a critical position, and pos- 
 sibly he was studying thoroughly his 
 next play. Suddenly the frail arm re- 
 fused to bear even the burden of that 
 now unthinking brain, and as muscles 
 
42 
 
 CHECK-MATE. 
 
 relaxed his head fell lifeless, face down- 
 ward, on his chest. The game " check," 
 the man " check-mated." 
 
A LIFE. 
 
 Duty slept. His face was one of 
 strength and beauty; the mouth was 
 firm, almost hard. 
 
 Every mark in the features told its 
 mission, and played its part in the 
 completion of the perfected whole. 
 
 One strong, bared arm lay on his 
 breast, his head resting on the other. 
 
 Over the loins was thrown the skin 
 of a wild beast, yellow, spotted with 
 black. 
 
 He was fast asleep. 
 
 Playing around him was a harmless, 
 innocent -looking child, whose great 
 golden locks fell in tangled curls on 
 white shoulders. 
 
 His face was fair to look on; his 
 
 43 
 
44 A LIFE. 
 
 eyes had marked power, and danced 
 with glee. 
 
 His plaything was a large ball, and 
 in his romping he was cautious lest he 
 should arouse or disturb Duty; but 
 he often came dangerously near, and 
 boisterously tossed his toy again and 
 again in mid-air, to catch and clasp 
 it to his white breast. 
 
 By and by the covering on the ball 
 became loosened, yet the laughing 
 child Indulgence tossed it higher, and 
 it returned always to his outstretched 
 hands. 
 
 Duty slept on. 
 
 Then there stood before laughing 
 Indulgence and sleeping Duty a tall, 
 gaunt figure, w T ith sad eyes deeply 
 sunken and thin, gray hair; he trem- 
 bled as he advanced with outstretched 
 arms to take the ball from the playful 
 child, who only hugged it tighter and 
 
A LIFE. 45 
 
 willfully refused with smiling defiance 
 to give it up. 
 
 Then the tall figure Experience 
 pleaded with the child, but to no avail, 
 and, catching him in his arms, tried to 
 rescue the worn plaything; but in the 
 scuffle the ball dropped from the arms 
 of Indulgence, tattered and torn: it 
 was wrecked Man. 
 
 The noise awoke Duty, but it was 
 too late. Experience released Indul- 
 gence, who was now crying at the loss 
 of his toy, and went on his weary way. 
 
VIOLETTE. 
 
 'HEN first entering Paris 
 
 he was an awkward 
 
 boy, fresh from a southern 
 
 province, but that was years 
 
 ago. 
 
 He sometimes remembered, now, 
 those struggling days when work 
 could not be secured, and even food 
 was scanty, and then there always 
 stood before him that noble face of 
 Violette, seated in their small dreary 
 room, poorly heated ; she was copying 
 his stories, and he could even see the 
 little fingers blue with cold. She had 
 forsaken family, luxury, all, for his 
 love; and what had he given in 
 return ? But that was years ago. 
 
 46 
 
VIOLETTE. 47 
 
 To-day, as he walked with his wife, 
 a little girl had stopped him, and 
 coaxed, with tears, that he should buy 
 her violets. He Imd grown, he 
 thought, to hate violets long 
 ago, but he bought them. He 
 remembered the recognition and 
 attending success of his literary 
 work and the day of his decoration, 
 and too well, the discarding of the 
 child who had shared his privations 
 and helped him to the success they 
 had both dreamed of. 
 
 * * * * * * 
 
 In Pere-Lachaise, in the quarter 
 known as the common burial-ground, 
 is a neglected grave, covered with wild 
 growth. Under the weeds is a head- 
 stone, carved "Violette," and a few 
 tiny wild violets; they were planted 
 years ago. 
 
SHADOWS. 
 
 Over the face of the day there 
 glide, strangely formed, cool-breathing 
 shadows. 
 
 They are born and vanish so quickly 
 one wonders whence they come and 
 whither they go. 
 
 Miles of them travel day by day on 
 _ ,-v ^ the sea, cooling the dark blue 
 waters over which they 
 fc hover and frown a trail. 
 
 They are in league with the 
 clouds against the sun. 
 When the day is strong, at noon- 
 tide, the sun overpowers the shadows 
 with its great strength; but in the 
 day's youth and again as it waxes 
 old, these shadows, with the clouds as 
 
 48 
 
SHADOWS. 49 
 
 their allies, race over land and sea in 
 wild glee seeking refuge ; for they scat- 
 ter and hide behind every elevation 
 from the great mountains and rocks to 
 slender twigs and stones. 
 
 They always hide on the side oppo- 
 site from that which the sun lights, and 
 as the great orb descends lower and 
 lower in its journey, they lengthen as if 
 growing with pride in their approach- 
 ing victory. Their breaths are cool all 
 the da} r , and cold as the day grows old. 
 
 They win the people of the w r orld by 
 their strange, soothing voices; for in 
 all shadows a soft air whispers, which 
 is not heard in the sun. 
 
 But there is something treacherous 
 in these voices, something deceptive in 
 these cool gray shadows as they grow 
 paler and gather more in one great 
 body as the sun goes down. Strange, 
 was it not, that one of these shadows 
 
50 SHADOWS. 
 
 whispered one warm day its mission, 
 saying that it w^as a part of night, 
 which haunted da\ r ; that its duty and 
 that of its family of shadows was to 
 capture the earth for night just as 
 soon as the sun went down? It said 
 that no one of the people of the world 
 had ever known that this was why the 
 shadows always hid behind elevations, 
 tiny twigs and stones and cast their 
 lengths out as blots of night on the 
 face of day, w r aiting for the sun to sink, 
 then to collect in a body and cover the 
 earth as night. 
 
ONE CHAPTER. 
 
 'HEY had a tiny room, on the 
 
 top floor, opening on the court, 
 
 in the Hotel du Senat, rue de 
 
 Tournon — he and little Marie. 
 
 Life then was all he could have 
 
 ***tk — I wished — he loved. 
 
 Every morning he crossed the Seine 
 to study at the Julian School until 
 twelve; then returned to Marie, who 
 had prepared their mid-day meal. 
 
 In the afternoon he painted in their 
 room. True, it was not the best light, 
 but he painted there, because she 
 wanted him near her. 
 
 In the evenings they sometimes had 
 dinner at a neighboring cafe, and then 
 went to the theatre. 
 
 51 
 
52 ONE CHAPTER. 
 
 He mingled little with his fellow- 
 Americans, save in his classes, where 
 he worked hard, and was recognized 
 as a man of talent and promise. 
 
 Weekly he received letters from 
 home — encouraging letters from fond 
 parents. 
 
 It lasted two whole years. For 
 two years he really loved; then came 
 the cable from home, announcing his 
 father's death. 
 
 It was cruelly hard to leave at such 
 a time, but it was necessary. 
 
 Only one whole day they had to- 
 gether before the steamer left. The 
 pleasure and torture of that day ! 
 
 Little Marie packed his clothes, 
 which she had mended and cried over, 
 then neatly folded. 
 
 He is back in Paris now, and has 
 never married. 
 
ONE CHAPTER. 
 
 53 
 
 Every All Souls' Day he wanders 
 out to Pere-Lachaise, carrying two 
 wreaths, — one large, the other small, — 
 and places them on the one grave of 
 mother and child. 
 
MOTHER AND SOX. 
 
 }> HE old sexton of Pere-Lachaise 
 knew everybody in Paris who 
 had dear ones there, and he could 
 accurately gauge the depth of 
 sorrow and its possible duration 
 in the breasts of regular visitors ; 
 at least, he always said he could. 
 New arrivals he hailed with a 
 certain glee, and he ruminated over 
 them, as any old gossip of Menilmoii- 
 tant might, over a bit of precious 
 scandal. 
 
 Close to the entrance of the cem- 
 etery passed a beautiful old silver- 
 haired woman, bent with years. She 
 carried flowers : it was All Souls' Day. 
 The sexton knew her and saluted. She 
 
 54 
 
MOTHER AND SON. 55 
 
 was one of his favorites, and he often 
 mused over her story. 
 
 Her son had left Paris twenty-one 
 years before, in the Two Hundred and 
 Thirty-fifth Chasseurs, and had dis- 
 tinguished himself in the Franco-Prus- 
 sian War. The sexton had known 
 him well as a small boy, coming g^g 
 with his mother to visit his *? 4 
 father's tomb. He must have 
 been wicked then, for at one time 
 he was caught digging into the mound 
 of a grave, and any one who desecrates 
 the sod over the dead is sure to come 
 to a bad end. 
 
 He made a good fighter and won 
 a decoration, but murdered a lieuten- 
 ant and was shot for it. His mother 
 never knew this, however, and never 
 will ; for his commanding officer hon- 
 ored his war record, and spared her 
 the truth. She believes, to-day, that 
 
56 
 
 MOTHER AND SON. 
 
 he fell at Sedan fighting; and weekly, 
 for nineteen years, she has visited what 
 she believes to be his grave; but it 
 belongs to the sexton, this grave she 
 'gr decorates: it covers his own child, 
 who was killed at Bazeilles. 
 
 As the old lady passed out, 
 empty-handed, she looked up 
 through her tears to bow 
 again to the sexton. 
 
M. LE MINISTRE. 
 
 He had been raised to the highest 
 office in the diplomatic department of 
 France, and was a universal favorite; 
 but his wife few cared for, and all 
 wondered at his ever having married 
 her. 
 
 They had never had a child. 
 
 Whispered rumors, ripe with scan- 
 dal, were breathed of her life prior to 
 her marriage — but they were only 
 breathed. 
 
 Her husband knew nothing of them , 
 and he idolized his wife. 
 
 His position gave her unlimited 
 power as a social leader, which she 
 exercised, and of which he was proud. 
 To be acknowledged by a card to one 
 
 57 
 
58 M. LE MINISTRE. 
 
 of her soirees was sought for with 
 eagerness and recognized as an honor 
 by social Paris. 
 
 ****** 
 
 It was All Souls' Da} r , and almost 
 sunset, when a rich equipage stopped 
 within a few hundred feet of Pere- 
 Lachaise, and Madame directed the 
 coachman to wait for her return. 
 
 Drawing her veil tightly over her 
 face, she walked to the entrance of 
 the cemetery and through it unno- 
 ticed. 
 
 She passed avenue after avenue of 
 decorated graves, going on to the 
 far limit of the consecrated ground, 
 where she stopped before a very small 
 mound, shaggy with grass and weeds. 
 It was only a bunch of violets she 
 dropped on the grave of her baby 
 boy, whose father she had loved years 
 ago, in the da} r s long before' she had 
 
M. LE MINISTRE. 
 
 59 
 
 married M- le Ministre — days of which 
 whispered rumors still chronicled the 
 history. 
 
TWO WOMEN. 
 
 He had been brutal to her, 
 f% his wife — brutal without cause. 
 
 He often wondered at it, and de- 
 spised himself for it. 
 & It was hate, almost without rea- 
 son, possibly because she made it so 
 apparent to him that she loved and 
 overlooked ; but it was principally be- 
 cause she took no interest in his work. 
 He had thought he cared for her 
 when they were married, but he soon 
 discovered that he did not love her. 
 
 His art classes were large, and at 
 them he met congenial, sympathetic 
 beings. The physicians told him he 
 worked too hard ; his wife, after pour- 
 ing her domestic woes into his ears, 
 
 60 
 
TWO WOMEN. 61 
 
 added he was looking poorly, and he 
 hated her for this ; but the little En- 
 glish girl who had studied with him a 
 year one day spoke of his failing 
 health, and besought him to be more 
 prudent, and he loved her the more 
 
 for that. 
 
 ****** 
 
 Two women yearly journey to Pere- 
 Lachaise on All Souls' Day, one with 
 a heavy veil thrown back from her 
 face, over her shoulders. She goes in 
 the early morning and places a wreath 
 at the head of his grave. The other 
 is still a young girl, always wear- 
 ing a bit of black as a tie; 
 she goes in the afternoon and wi 
 scatters white roses at 
 his feet. 
 
SLEEPING AND WAKING. 
 
 It was night. Mind corraled its 
 forces of still active Thoughts into a 
 fold of rest. 
 
 In this fold was an atmosphere of 
 perfect peace, except when disturbed 
 by a fickle corps of night fairies called 
 Dreams. They came this night, after all 
 was quiet, and with their strange voices 
 and seductive manner drugged this army 
 of drowsy Thoughts with a strange 
 lotion called Sleep, and led it forth to 
 Fields of Forgetfulness of Truth. Mind, 
 which controlled Thoughts, also sipped 
 of the lotion and was dulled . 
 
 Then it was that parent Mind and 
 children Thoughts wandered under the 
 influence of their mystic guides through 
 
 62 
 
SLEEPING AND WAKING. G3 
 
 Elysian fields, then into the midst of 
 strifes and scenes changing from the 
 distinct life they had just left to in- 
 distinct departed scenes and faces long 
 since dead. And all the while Dreams 
 held them with power. 
 
 So they reveled and were sad in 
 rapid changes ; nor did they stop for 
 rest in their wanderings, until sudden- 
 ly, just as the dawn of a new day 
 was breaking, the crude hull in which 
 Mind and her children lived tossed 
 about as if wearied of its tenants' 
 night chase. 
 
 Then it was that Mind awakened 
 from its stupor dazed — what was real, 
 what was false? The fairies had fled 
 after retreating night, and misguided 
 Thoughts were forced by Reason back 
 into the fold from which they had been 
 enticed. Then again they rested. 
 
 Soon the day awcikened, and with 
 
64 SLEEPING AND WAKING. 
 
 it Mind, which was weary and ex- 
 hausted by its reveling. Mind and 
 Thoughts affected the hull — the crude 
 hull, which always moved method- 
 ically when directed by Mind. This 
 hull is called man. The world was 
 alive and active, and it pronounced 
 man melancholy, morose. True, the 
 world did not know it was all the 
 fault of that night band of Dream 
 fairies which had led both Mind and 
 Thoughts on a debauch. 
 
FAN AND GLOVES. 
 
 The delicate plumes, em- 
 bedded in mother-of-pearl 
 sticks, and frayed to curling 
 edges, trembled, as the wind from the 
 open door chilled them. They uncurled 
 slowly, like vague thoughts finding ut- 
 terance in speech. 
 
 Where these minutely slender ten- 
 dril feathers came to a point, they 
 were tinted a pale shade of yellow; 
 for Time had touched them with a 
 brush dipped in a color called age. 
 
 Through the small gold band, pierc- 
 ing the end of the handle of the fan, 
 was tied a long ribbon of white satin. 
 A bow-knot partly hid the band, and 
 the white fold, with the trembling cov- 
 er. 
 
66 FAX AND GLOVES. 
 
 erlet of feathers, seemed to make a 
 fitting shroud for the small pair of 
 gloves they rested on. 
 
 The hand of one glove hung over 
 the edge of the table, and just at the 
 tip of the fingers, the soft white suede, 
 had little marks of use. 
 
 The fingers of the other glove were 
 huddled together under the fan. 
 
 Any one would have known that 
 the fan and gloves had been costly. 
 Few could have correctly told their 
 age, and the most casual observer 
 would have wondered at their pres- 
 ence in this miserable garret-room, 
 whose furniture consisted of a table, 
 single chair, and a mattress on the 
 floor, beside which was an overturned 
 bottle and an empty box. 
 
 ****** 
 
 It was All Souls' Day, and hun- 
 dreds in Paris journeyed to Pere- 
 
FAN AND GLOVES. 67 
 
 Lachaise, there to revive sorrow, and 
 honor it with some outward form. 
 All Souls' Day was garlanded with 
 memories for him, but they consisted 
 of funeral wreaths only. 
 
 Life once had been living, for he had 
 loved and had been loved. 
 
 Then came the day when he had 
 left her in Pere-Lachaise, — from that 
 time he had counted the life of the 
 fan and the gloves, and this was their 
 fifteenth anniversary. 
 
 Wealth and the brightest prospects 
 had been his — but after she had rested 
 for a year in the old cemetery, pros- 
 perity began to forsake him ; ambition 
 now had no raison d'etre. He re- 
 membered discovering the fan and 
 gloves, on his return from that first 
 visit to Pere-Lachaise. 
 
 They were in a box, and he recalled 
 the delicate odor, as he had lifted them 
 
68 FAN AND GLOVES. 
 
 out carefully and cried over them. 
 
 Treasured belongings and mementos 
 
 went one by one. Fifteen years found 
 
 ^ ife- them all gone except the fan and 
 
 the gloves with which he had 
 
 never parted, but ,he looked at 
 
 them only once a year, on All Souls' 
 
 Day, when he took them out and placed 
 
 them on the table. One other thing 
 
 was left him, a blurred memory, and 
 
 he took that with him this day as he 
 
 started out to Pere-Lachaise. 
 
 He tried hard, returning, to smother 
 the thought, as he walked along the 
 streets, that in his garret room were 
 the fan and gloves, and an empty bot- 
 tle, and that for the former he could 
 certainly get five francs, and with that 
 fill the latter. 
 
 Fifteen years can bring many 
 changes, and he had guarded as his 
 life during that period the fan and 
 
FAN AND GLOVES. 69 
 
 gloves. But five francs was a great 
 amount of money to him now, and the 
 overturned bottle bj r the mattress was 
 empty — he could see it as he reached 
 with exertion the top flight. 
 
 It would have seemed the fan di- 
 vined his thoughts for the delicate 
 plumes, embedded in mother-of-pearl 
 sticks, and frayed to curling- edges, 
 trembled as the wind from the open 
 door chilled them. 
 
THE OTHER SIDE OF THE 
 PICTURE. 
 
 Could one collect and take 
 w ( ) from Paris all the characters re- 
 ^^ sembling Annette's, a colony com- 
 prising many hundred souls would be 
 formed — for Annette was a grisette. 
 Now this sounds exaggerated — the 
 truth often does. And what would 
 cause the foreheads of the so-called 
 virtuous to draw up in deep wrinkles 
 above the nose, and their eyes to 
 assume a blank, though conversant 
 expression, and their whole attitude 
 manifest mortification and offended 
 dignity, would be to say that Annette 
 was a noble character. We'll away 
 with her early life, unless you over 
 
 70 
 
THE OTHER SIDE OF THE PICTURE. 71 
 
 yonder — you, with that self-sufficient 
 air — wish to stand and act as her 
 judge, and, being a mortal like herself, 
 throw the first stone, which must mul- 
 tiply and build a monument of guilt 
 over her, according to the charity of 
 mankind. 
 
 Annette had once had a sister, who 
 lived in a small town in the province 
 of Gascony. This sister died a widow 
 and penniless, leaving crippled twins. 
 She had not suffered want, however; 
 for Annette had mailed weekly a man- 
 dnt de poste ; and strange, is it not, 
 to think where the many daily prayers 
 from this poor widow had gone, pray- 
 ers that blessed and pleaded for bless- 
 ings on the life and being of Annette's 
 husband? For this sister in Paris had 
 drawn many a picture of the great 
 and good character of that husband, 
 and had often had brought letters 
 
72 THE OTHER SIDE OF THE PICTURE. 
 
 forged, as coming from him to the sis- 
 ter fast dying far away in Gascom*. 
 This is another crime Annette commit- 
 ted : she lied very often to lighten the 
 burden of life for that invalid. 
 
 A grisette is bad ; but a Wmg 
 one, 3 t ou say, is worse. An- 
 nette was not rich, but she 
 took the children to live with 
 her. 
 A young art student lived in a room 
 on the seventh floor, next to the one 
 occupied by Annette and her little 
 crippled charges, and he will never 
 forget the talks he overheard between 
 the little ones and their aunt-mother. 
 They were always of love, purit\ r , and 
 honesty. 
 
 He also noticed when the cold No- 
 vember days came, that Annette grew 
 thin and delicate, and that she paused 
 and breathed heavily for a long time 
 
THE OTHER SIDE OF THE PICTURE. 73 
 
 in front of the two chairs holding 
 the little cripples, before she could talk 
 to them or give them the additional 
 kisses they begged for. 
 
 The twins were just six ; but they 
 looked much older, with their crooked 
 necks and bent spines. Annette was 
 then thirty-five. 
 
 Bread is hard to get after a woman 
 is thirty -five, and has lived the life of 
 Annette. She had wrinkles, her hair 
 was touched with gray, and her figure 
 was wasting away ; but her heart 
 grew larger, for she lived on the 
 thought of coming home and feeling 
 those thin little arms about her neck 
 — arms that belonged to pure little 
 beings, 
 
 * * * * * * 
 
 The young student supposed they 
 had moved, and realized something 
 had gone out of his life. He missed 
 
74 THE OTHER SIDE OF THE PICTURE. 
 
 hearing their voices at night, and par- 
 ticular^ the little French prayers 
 which Annette had taught the crip- 
 ples, and which they repeated together 
 so sweetly to her. 
 
 Death by starvation had occurred 
 in the student's hotel before, but three 
 in one night was a great number ; but 
 then she was a grisette, and what a 
 blessing for the children ! 
 
 The student had never spoken to 
 her — only nodded as they passed on 
 the vStairs ; but he had to stint himself 
 considerably the next year, for he 
 bought the little space in Pere-La- 
 chaise, which swallowed up mother- 
 aunt and the two cripples. But since 
 then he has become a great painter, 
 and has enclosed the little spot, and 
 never fails on All Souls' Day to cover 
 the graves with flowers; for he said — 
 strange though it seems to you — that 
 
THE OTHER SIDE OF THE PICTURE. 
 
 Annette had taught him a religion, 
 even though she had never spoken to 
 him, and was a grisette. 
 
TWILIGHT. 
 
 Over the earth there silent- 
 ly floated a thin veil, and 
 through the delicate texture, 
 rays of the sinking sun were 
 §p2 sifted as from the hand of an 
 ancient sower, and fell in a 
 shower of golden grain over the green 
 fields and on the bosom of the water. 
 In the east the meshes of this ether- 
 eal covering were tightry woven. From 
 overhead to the far west its fleecy 
 body was borne on gentle winds and 
 frayed into trembling fringe, which 
 mingled with pearly clouds covering 
 the face of the blushing horizon. 
 
 The hearts of these clouds shone 
 like great opals in irregular settings 
 
 76 
 
TWILIGHT. 77 
 
 of burnished gold. They lingered on 
 this western border-line as sentinels, 
 their faces telling the story of the de- 
 parting day-watcher. 
 
 The smile of a fading sun left its 
 warmth on the velvet fields of green, 
 and here and there in earth's dimples 
 the sunlight settled in little pools on 
 the tufts of grass, and sparkled like 
 running rivulets of mingled molten 
 silver and gold. 
 
 Sharply cut silhouettes of naked 
 trees, with their network of limbs and 
 branches, made elaborate chased de- 
 signs, enameled on the surface of the 
 sky. 
 
 The winding river borrowed a pearl 
 flush from the clouds, and caught the 
 reflection of their deep blush from the 
 far heaven ; its water rose and fell like 
 a soft breast in peaceful slumber, each 
 breath creating new colors. 
 
78 TWILIGHT. 
 
 The veil wound itself closer and 
 closer about the drowsy earth, crowd- 
 ing the beautiful tints nearer and 
 nearer, yet never destroying the mar- 
 velous blending on this pallet of 
 nature ; slowly like fluids they mingled 
 into a shimmering harmony, their 
 brightness dulled by this night cloak, 
 whose meshes w^ere woven tighter, 
 screening the light from the eyes of a 
 drowsy world. 
 
 Silently and more closely the dark 
 veil gathered. Yet to destroy the 
 gloom a supernatural hand tore a 
 myriad of tiny holes in the black 
 mantle at which were placed the silver 
 lanterns of heaven. 
 
A SYMPHONY OF 
 THE SEA. 
 
 jHE had heard this voice of 
 the sea called a symphony. 
 What meant symphony to 
 her? Her mind had known no sym- 
 phony but madness, since he had left 
 that little hamlet on the bluff to steal 
 from the deep its life, and the deep in 
 turn to steal his. 
 
 And now to her the wicked, break- 
 ing waves carried a weird theme of 
 only a few notes, repeated often and 
 plainly heard despite the discord in 
 the vast chorus, as it swelled and 
 changed. 
 
 There! She heard those three suc- 
 cessive breakers scream, as they hurled 
 
 79 
 
80 
 
 A SYMPHONY OF THE SEA. 
 
 : 
 
 themselves on land, "On lives we live!" 
 The wind was her friend, for it 
 swallowed up the sound, and then 
 raced out to sea to meet the incoming 
 swells, and lash their curved bodies 
 into shrouds of foam and 
 harmless mist, as the}- 
 uttered their wild notes, 
 4 'On lives we live !" Then 
 the wind turned traitor, 
 for she heard it join in 
 what they called the sym- 
 phony, and in perfect ac- 
 cord with that murder- 
 ous in-coming tide shriek, 
 IT e are one! On lives we live! " 
 It blew her torn garments about 
 her bod}^, now fast growing cold ; 
 whipped her scanty growth of hair 
 around her thin neck, and dashed the 
 dead force of the spent waves in clam- 
 my moisture against her face and 
 
A SYMPHONY OF THE SEA. 
 
 81 
 
 wild dry eyes — but it could not still her 
 dying cry, " Traitors, on lives they 
 live!" 
 
MOTHERHOOD. 
 
 The soft wind from the sea whis- 
 pered in a strange though intelligible 
 language, a message of soothing sym- 
 pathy, as it caressed her burning tem- 
 ples and breathed its cooling breath 
 through her waving hair, which ran 
 riot in little ringlets over a pale fore- 
 head. 
 
 This voice from the sea, blended 
 with the tiny waves of pure air, which 
 raced along ihe strand and stopped 
 just long enough to gently encircle and 
 embrace her, while whispering "Love 
 and Motherhood"; then the waves of 
 air sped away to make room for the 
 coming ones, who had a similar greet- 
 ing. All seemed in perfect harmony 
 
 82 
 
MOTHERHOOD. 83 
 
 and sympathy, and the rich crim- 
 son, which started in two tiny 
 spots on her pale cheeks and 
 spread to her temples, always came 
 when these truant winds murmured 
 her own secret to her. But she loyed 
 them and loved the sea ^SSgg^S" * 
 
 and the clear sky, for surely ^S&*~, 
 they knew the true and pure - *** 
 value of that flush of pride. So it 
 was she stopped in her wanderings 
 where an old bent pine screened 
 with its scantily clothed body the 
 faces of the sun's rays, making a 
 small purple shadow, and, seated here, 
 while looking far out on the sea she 
 loved, she slept and dreamed. 
 
 She was Queen - Regent , with that 
 precious weight in her arms : the 
 gnarled old pine was changed to a 
 great throne. Her counselors were the 
 sea, the sky, and the winds — long, 
 
84 MOTHERHOOD. 
 
 white -bearded, benevolent old men; 
 they were her vassals, too, for they 
 did her bidding. Often they gazed at 
 that small, silent body in her lap. 
 
 Then over the bosom of the sea, 
 to her very throne, sailed a fleet of 
 richly laden galleys, whose masters 
 came to offer gifts, from their rare 
 cargoes one gave riches, another in- 
 fluence, another the power to gratify 
 all ambitions . One by one they came, 
 one by one they departed, the oars in 
 the hands of the chained slaves flash- 
 ing like the silver fins of huge fishes. 
 
 But there was a great weight on 
 her heart, and she scanned the horizon 
 for another sail, and her counselors 
 left her to walk to the water's edge, 
 that they might better see, and all the 
 while the little weight never moved. 
 Then, far away on the horizon, 
 appeared another sail, which flew 
 
MOTHERHOOD. 80 
 
 towards her on the wings of the wind. 
 Its keel grated on the white sand and 
 its yotmg master sprang out , kneeling 
 at her feet, and cried: "I bring Life." 
 Then it was , with her eyes filled with 
 tears of joy, and the precious little 
 moving body pressed to her breast, 
 that her counselors left her, and she 
 awoke, but she heard their soothing 
 chant coming from the breaking wave, 
 the swelling sea, the clear sky, and the 
 soft air — "Life, Love, Motherhood," 
 
WINTER WINDS. 
 
 These northern winds, which 
 haunted the eaves of the old 
 house, were like the smothered 
 \ \ voices of an army of soulless, 
 , '/.J wandering dead — now mur- 
 ' muring in quiet whispers, 
 ^ y now swelling into wails of dis- 
 tress. They seemed to carry the 
 moans of the multitude drowned, 
 whose tide-tossed souls ever pleaded 
 for rest from the wearisome ebb. 
 
 Pitiable sobs joined the dirge- 
 chorus, swallowed up instantly by 
 piercing curses, as from the host of 
 damned, racing through the air in 
 furious flight from some fiendish pur- 
 suer; they were gone, and their tracks 
 
 86 
 
WINTER WINDS. 87 
 
 were covered by soft, plaintive whis- 
 pers, dreamily vibrating into a 
 mother's sweet lnllaby, hummed to a 
 drowsy babe in arms. 
 
 The winds swelled to a great chant 
 in weird minor tones, like a band of 
 dancing fiends, yet strangely harmon- 
 izing in this wild natural symphony. 
 
 All was hushed again, save a few- 
 wandering and scattered winds that 
 had loitered or strayed from the great 
 body gone before. They cried at the 
 door; they stole softly under the 
 eaves ; and with trembling voices 
 sought direction for their lost way. 
 Their cold breath penetrated the 
 room, chasing in fright great flames 
 from the burning log high in air and 
 up the walls of the vast chimney-place. 
 
 Then came the deep tones of the 
 returning force. These delinquent 
 winds were missed, and with howling 
 
88 WINTER WINDS. 
 
 fury the main body came rushing back 
 from every compass-point, with an- 
 gered mutterings, encircling the house 
 with hellish 3-ells, tearing at doors 
 and windows, and screaming through 
 crevices to regain the lost. 
 
 The night seemed alive with demons. 
 The huge log tottered and fell from 
 the fender, the candle flickered and 
 was out; the room became as cold as 
 death, and the lost were carried away — 
 their weird screams of delight sounding 
 shrill above the bass moanings and 
 wailings of the departing many-voiced 
 wraiths. 
 
IN HARBOR. 
 
 &- Patched hulls of 
 salters from Cadiz, 
 green - coated, ' scarred 
 and pitted with barna- 
 cles, rested against the old 
 weather-beaten wharves, 
 as if for breath after their ocean 
 journeys. 
 
 In their half-furled sails they caught 
 light from the retreating sun, which 
 settled in little pools and changed in 
 color as the hulls rose and fell on the 
 breast of the breathing sea. 
 
 Their naked topmasts on one side 
 were dark and sharp in outline, on the 
 other they were burnished like yellow 
 gold. 
 
 89 
 
90 IN HARBOR. 
 
 The wind hushed its breath and 
 silently stole away on tiptoe over the 
 water until the sun, gazing in its sea 
 mirror, had combed its wealth of soft 
 hair, which flowed along the western 
 sky in masses of ringlets. 
 
 The old hulls were quick to see the 
 vanity of the sun, and as it sank slowly 
 down in the west they leaned farther 
 over in their rockings and created tiny 
 trembling waves, which spread far over 
 the waters and destroyed for a moment 
 the beautiful reflection of the sun. 
 
 Then these old vessels threw into the 
 sea their own outlines, with all the 
 beauty of color made by years of use 
 and decay, and they held themselves 
 perfectly still until their forms were 
 cast in duplicate mould in the body of 
 the water. The white and rose tinted 
 sails were distinctly repeated as the 
 trembling waters stilled and many 
 
IN HARBOR. 91 
 
 hundred fingers dipped on one side with 
 molten gold vibrated on the mirror's 
 face. 
 
 For a few seconds the perfect picture 
 remained, then it was rudely obliter- 
 ated by a little black boat, 
 propelled by a lone figure 
 silhouetted as it shot 
 out from the dark 
 shadow of the wharf 
 into the light. 
 
 Only the oars of the 
 boat caught any of the bright- i_ L 
 ness of the color; they dipped deep and 
 captured on their blades great wash- 
 ings of red and gold, which had been 
 stolen by the sea from the sun's toilet 
 and secreted just below the surface of 
 the water. Soon the little boat was 
 lost again in shadow. Strange voices 
 of Spaniards droned the change of 
 watch on this fleet of salters. 
 
92 IN HARBOR. 
 
 Two figures stood on the edge of the 
 old wharf. One saw all that harmoni- 
 ous beauty, and, like the oars of the 
 boat, stole as much of it as his brain 
 could retain for his future paint- 
 ings. The other figure, the one with 
 bronzed face and shaggy white beard, 
 only saw the patched and barnacled 
 hulls, the torn sails and the opened 
 seams pleading for calking. This was 
 all he noticed, as he wondered if he 
 would ever again see far-away Cadiz. 
 

 SILVER SANDS. 
 
 For miles stretches a floor of silver 
 sand. 
 
 The sun has bleached that palor on 
 its face — a deathly pallor. 
 
 The stni and the sea are foes, and 
 their battle-ground is that floor of 
 silver sand ; for when the mighty waves 
 dash in to cool the parched face and 
 quench the thirst of the sand, how 
 quickly the sun blows with force its 
 heated breath and dries the moisture! 
 
 93 
 
94 SILVER SANDS. 
 
 Then again for miles stretches a flow 
 of silver sand. 
 
 The knotted old pines on the knoll 
 turn their heads and bend their bodies 
 from the sea, and the tall, thin, burnt 
 brown grasses lean inland and tremble 
 at the cry of thirst from the burning 
 sand they live in. But they are slaves, 
 these trees and weeds — slaves to the 
 sun. They dare not do otherwise than 
 feign rebellion for the sea. 
 
 Only when the sun lowers its proud 
 and cruel head is is that these trees 
 and grasses raise their crooked forms 
 and open their mouths for the moist 
 kiss of night ; only when the silver 
 sand has slaked its thirst, and the 
 rising tide, unchecked by the sun, has 
 bathed it, do these cowards turn their 
 faces seaward. 
 
 What hypocrites, these slaves of 
 the sun, for on the morrow, when the 
 
SILVER SANDS. 
 
 95 
 
 day awakes and the sun and the sea 
 carry on their never-ending combat, 
 they play again their part, with backs 
 to the sea, while at their feet for miles 
 stretches a floor of silver sand. 
 
A LOG FIRE. 
 
 >HE great logs seemed 
 living things, whose life 
 was plainly marked by irreg- 
 ular breathings of colored 
 flames; whose language was 
 voiced by sharp crackles, emitting a 
 thousand miniature stars, "which shot 
 upward through the great chimney- 
 place to the outside darkened world, 
 and were wafted to settle on the bare 
 limbs of trembling trees and there bear 
 messages from the burning pine. 
 
 The flames grew about the entire 
 body of the logs — chasing, leaping, 
 winding, like a nest of warmed snakes 
 — twisting and crowding, then growing 
 wicked and wildly writhing. 
 
 96 
 
A LOG FIRE. 97 
 
 Now one less fortunate than the 
 others was hurled off suddenly and 
 choked crimson ; fangs were created 
 by the thin threads of black smoke, 
 and the log's surface consumed in a 
 bright flame which leaped high against 
 the side walls and was lost. The once 
 rich brown clothing on this monarch 
 of the forest now grew black, and 
 great rents exposed the pure white 
 body beneath, which had for half a |^ 
 century been protected by the 
 warm coat of bark. 
 
 The log trembled and fell from 
 the rack of the andirons, and up "" 
 fled a host of messages again to light 
 the face of night and stamp their 
 blackened, tiny bodies on the hearts 
 of the snowflakes fast falling. 
 
 Big tears trickled down its browned 
 ends ; but they were quickly dried bj r 
 a flame which stole from underneath, 
 
98 
 
 A LOG FIRE. 
 
 leaping and consuming as if offended 
 by this expression of sadness. 
 
THE TWO DESTINIES. 
 
 Her figure was tall and 
 gaunt; yellow sun-dried % r - 
 hair matted itself into —^5 
 thin cords, and hung over a ' . j|^ 
 defined skull, only covered 
 
 ' ! nirpilTMil 
 
 with a skin like parchment. llTlTnffn 
 The hair broke its regular 
 
 lines as it fell on high, square 
 
 shoulders. It had not the appearance 
 
 of a live growth, but of thriving on 
 
 nourishment after death. 
 
 Her eyes were so light that at times 
 
 one would think their resting-places 
 
 empty sockets. 
 
 The mouth expressed firmness and 
 
 cruelty, and lacked about it those lines 
 
 which are born only of smiles. 
 
 99 
 
100 THE TWO DESTINIES. 
 
 Her dark garb was more like a 
 skin than a garment; and though it 
 was loosely draped, as if to better dis- 
 guise her wasted figure, it contracted 
 and expanded with her breathing. 
 
 In her hands, which were long and 
 bony, she held a book — a curious vol- 
 ume, bound in deep red, with its pages 
 bordered with black. She opened it, 
 and started down the avenue leading 
 to the city of Unborn Souls. 
 
 She was Nature's Assassin. 
 
 It was not a walk with w r hich she 
 moved, but a glide, like a serpent 
 crawling on, inch by inch, to its para- 
 lyzed prey; and her eyes shone with 
 the changing dulled effect of an opal. 
 
 Soon she arrived at the great gate- 
 way leading into the city, where mil- 
 lions of the yet unborn were to have 
 a brand scorched on their future ex- 
 istence by the touch of her finger, 
 
THE TWO DESTINIES. 101 
 
 The future of those whom .she 
 claimed as her own was to be re- 
 corded in that book, with its leaves 
 bound in blood-stains, and its edges 
 stamped with death. 
 
 Her pace quickened as she passed 
 through the gateway, down the 
 broad avenue, bathed in morning 
 sunshine, and bordered with blos- 
 soming flowers of every clime. %/ ,~ 
 
 ^h 
 
 No human life could be seen. 
 Everywhere were flowers budding and 
 blooming — a city peopled only with 
 blossoms. 
 
 Quickly she stooped, and with those 
 long fingers plucked petal after petal 
 from the flowers ; then broke stem 
 after stem of the most beautiful, until 
 all along the line, thousands were 
 uprooted, beheaded, blighted, and 
 wounded by this merciless fiend called 
 Destiny. 
 
102 THE TWO DESTINIES. 
 
 Her ferocity and brutality increased 
 as she advanced. 
 
 Behind her came the most beautiful 
 of women, with a face of pure love 
 and a mouth expressing mercy. Her 
 great wealth of hair fell in soft masses 
 over her shoulders down to her waist. 
 
 She was enveloped in a pure white 
 garment, fleecy like a cloud. She fol- 
 lowed those footsteps of destruction 
 and vainly strove to save life. Her 
 name, too, was Destiny: she was Life 
 in Nature. 
 
 As she advanced she lifted bent and 
 
 broken stems from the ground, and 
 
 caressed and coaxed many to life ; but 
 
 thousands were already dead. 
 
 * # * * * * 
 
 It was dusk w^hen the two figures 
 returned to the gates of the city of 
 Unborn Souls. 
 
 The first stopped and leaned against 
 
THE TWO DESTINIES. 103 
 
 the wall, pale but satisfied as she 
 scanned the pages of that fearful record 
 and rapidly summed up the results. 
 
 Against the other wall leaned the 
 beautiful figure who had followed her. 
 
 Her face was bright with smiles as 
 she thought of the lives she had saved ; 
 but then her glance fell on the wilted 
 and wounded flowers in her arms, and 
 her eyes were overflow-ing with tears. 
 
DREAMS. 
 
 Throughout all the day, Thought 
 visitors came and went through the 
 audience-chambers of Brain. Mam- of 
 them had been there before, and often 
 brought with them new kin called 
 Ideas. 
 
 Some of these new guests were wel- 
 comed warmly, others coldly. Thus 
 Brain was occupied with the reception 
 of Day Thoughts ; but there were many 
 who, unbidden, sought entrance and 
 were debarred. These still waited out- 
 side. 
 
 Then Night drew near in its perpet- 
 ual flight. Its great outstretched wings 
 covered the earth, casting a great 
 shadow. 
 
 104 
 
DREAMS. 105 
 
 The last guest of Brain had de- 
 parted. 
 
 Gathered in small groups outside 
 the threshold, concealed and protected 
 by the shadow and silence of Night, 
 were the body of Thoughts, who had 
 waited all the bright day, seeking an 
 entrance, but had failed. 
 
 Now they plotted and planned, and 
 when the watchman, Sleep, went his 
 rounds, they silently glided after him, 
 and edged one by one into the cham- 
 bers of Brain. They roamed through 
 the vacant halls, where Day Thoughts 
 had been so lately welcomed. All was 
 dark and confused. Some crept stealth- 
 ily from room to room ; others were less 
 guarded, and roamed carelessly about, 
 asserting themselves in their true char- 
 acters, and hideously masquerading as 
 phantoms of Day Thoughts. 
 
REALIZATION. 
 
 She had been born of ordinary 
 parentage, and reared in an atmos- 
 phere whose outskirts were semi- 
 poverty — a noble girl, whose only 
 marriage-dot was her virtue. 
 When he would have wedded her, 
 his family objected; they had for gen- 
 erations been reared in luxury — and 
 their name ! 
 
 His career had been that of a man 
 of the world. His life had been shield- 
 ed by a mantle embroidered with his 
 coat -of- arms, which necessarily cov- 
 ered a multitude of sins and indiscre- 
 tions. 
 
 True, had he not borne such a family 
 name, and retained a few redeeming 
 
 106 
 
REALIZATION. 107 
 
 traits of polish derived from education 
 and contact, he would have been 
 termed an idle, dissipated roue; but 
 then family and name elevated trifling 
 failings, and created for him this title, 
 "a man of the world." 
 
 Certainly, the pure, innocent little 
 girl, whose terrible crime, past redemp- 
 tion, was poverty and lack of name, 
 must be even lower than his family had 
 thought her, when she dared care for 
 their only son. But this man of the 
 world admired purity and honesty, and 
 so he sacrificed his unspotted self — for- 
 ever contaminated his name and dulled 
 the bright burnish on the family es- 
 cutcheon, by marrying her. 
 
 Love ! love sounds mild for her idol- 
 atry for this man, who, for a whole 
 year, lived as a man should. 
 
 Then came the birth of a boy babe. 
 Most "men of the world" celebrate a 
 
108 REALIZATION. 
 
 similar event. This one did — and died 
 in the embrace of rum. Perfectly nat- 
 ural, was it not, that his family should 
 heap their curses on her head ? She 
 had killed him. Recognize the child ? 
 Certainly not, for they called them- 
 selves of the old school. 
 So the dear little mother toiled, 
 depriving herself — educating and 
 clothing the child just as she im- 
 agined his father would have had 
 her do. 
 
 This boy was shrewd, — but rumors 
 heard by the young often do not ma- 
 terialize until more mature years are 
 reached. She went to Pere-Lachaise 
 weekly, and laid her poor little heart 
 bare, as she minutely reviewed her life, 
 in whispered sobs, over that mound. 
 
 The boy remembered having gone 
 with her to the cemetery when he was 
 a child, and always associated with 
 
REALIZATION. 109 
 
 these visits fallen leaves, tears, and a 
 long black veil. 
 
 Twenty -four years sometimes roll 
 by before a character is born. This 
 boy dates the birth of the formation of 
 his from the morning when, in walking 
 off the dissipation of the night before, 
 he strolled through Pere-Lachaise and 
 unconsciously found himself led to the 
 avenue he associated with those early 
 visits. 
 
 He had not gone far before he recog- 
 nized the bent figure and the long black 
 veil, and at his feet fallen leaves. 
 
 As he took his little mother in his 
 arms, he noted for the first time the 
 patched shoes, the threadbare dress, 
 and the lack of a wrap. Then he re- 
 alized how the woman had sacrificed 
 herself; how deceived she had been ; 
 how she loved, and how much he was 
 like what his father had been. 
 
SEARCHING AFTER TRUTH. 
 
 " Truth lies at the bottom 
 of a well," so the people of 
 the world told her. 
 She was young and fair, 
 and she searched for Truth; 
 but her frequent visits to the 
 well brought no discovery — only 
 the reflection of her beautiful face in 
 the water. 
 
 One night a knock came at her door, 
 and she sprang up and opened it. 
 
 There on the threshold stood a bun- 
 dle of rags, which moved as if breath- 
 ing. She shuddered as she asked, " Who 
 are you ? ' ' 
 
 Then came the answer, "I_ am 
 Truth." 
 
 no 
 
SEARCHING AFTER TRUTH. Ill 
 
 "I would see your face! " she cried. 
 
 "Nay, innocent one, my face is not 
 fair to look upon — but I am Truth. " 
 The cold wind was blowing and 
 crying, and she closed the door. The 
 Truth she sought was pure and beau- 
 tiful, not loathsome, and with the 
 conviction of youth she was satisfied 
 with herself for having refused this 
 gruesome thing admittance. From 
 that day, however, strange visitors 
 knocked at her door, and each called 
 himself Truth. 
 
 First came a gay party of dancers, 
 whose graceful figures, swaying to 
 and fro, captivated her fancy ; their 
 musical voices held her as in their 
 thrall. Their visit was like a delightful 
 dream, and she asked: "Pray tell me 
 who you are?" and they answered: 
 "We are Truth." So she believed for 
 days ; then she realized her mistake, 
 
112 SEARCHING AFTER TRUTH. 
 
 and that they were not Truth, but 
 Pleasure. Again she went to the well, 
 but there found nothing. 
 
 A day dawned brightly, and there 
 came another knock. 
 
 On her threshold stood a lovely 
 child. 
 
 Its hair was garlanded with flowers 
 and its garb was spotless white. 
 
 When it entered, it was as if a 
 portion of the pure light of the sun 
 had stolen into the room. 
 
 The child's arms were soon en- 
 twined about the neck of the seeker 
 after Truth. 
 
 The odor of the blossoms intoxi- 
 cated her. Her heart beat with wild 
 delight ; a tender kiss was stamped on 
 her brow, and, with a gentle whisper, 
 " I am Truth," the child was gone, and 
 at her feet buds blossomed. The room 
 was lighter than it had been for years. 
 
SEARCHING AFTER TRUTH. 113 
 
 The memory of that vision remained 
 with her a long time; but at last it 
 fled, and then she knew it was Love, 
 not Truth. 
 
 Again she went to the well, yet 
 found nothing. 
 
 Years after, another knock came. 
 Her heart beat fast as the figure of a 
 man entered. His manner was flat- 
 tering and full of grace; his face 
 seemed honest. 
 
 She had never felt the influence # of 
 other visitors exerted over her with 
 the power of this one. 
 
 She dared not ask his name, but as 
 he left, he said, pressing her hand, "I 
 am Truth." 
 
 For years she believed it: then 
 came doubt and she saw what had 
 been her ideal of Truth was only 
 Policy. 
 
 The next visitor was a long-bearded, 
 
114 SEARCHING AFTER TRUTH. 
 
 bent old man, whose face was fur- 
 rowed and whose hands were palsied. 
 
 From his feeble lips came the 
 words, "I am Truth." His sta}~ was 
 short, but she remembered that visitor ; 
 oft, when the days were drear, she 
 saw before her the trembling hands, 
 the thin, snow-white locks, the bent 
 form and the quivering lips, and she 
 believed she had found Truth. 
 
 But she was growing older now, 
 and something told her that Sorrow 
 was not Truth. Then she went to the 
 well, and it was dry. But there, far 
 down in its depths, she saw a toad. 
 "Who are you?" she cried, and a hol- 
 low voice replied, "I am Tradition." 
 So she turned her face towards home, 
 and knew that the whole world lied 
 and was deceived. 
 
 That same night came a knock at 
 her door. She rose slowly and opened 
 
SEARCHING AFTER TRUTH. 115 
 
 it. There stood the strange creature, 
 covered with rags — her first visitor. 
 
 " What would you ? Who are you ? " 
 
 Then came the answer, "I am 
 Truth." 
 
 "I would see your face," she mur- 
 mured. 
 
 * : Nay, experienced one, my face is 
 not fair to see; but I am Truth." 
 
 "Yet would I see it," she made an- 
 swer ; " For well know I that Truth is 
 not what we would have it — nor is it 
 fair." 
 
 Then the figure threw off its rag 
 covering, and before her stood a skele- 
 ton. 
 
 Now she knew her life-search was 
 ended, and that she had at last found 
 Truth. 
 
STARS. 
 
 When Night hides not beyond its 
 bulwarks of scowling cloud, the floor 
 of heaven is set with polished mosaics. 
 This floor is the ceiling of the world ; 
 and earth's people never weary in their 
 study of these mosaics, which they call 
 Stars. 
 
 The brilliancy of the gems in 
 heaven's floor is never known, for 
 their powerful radiance is screened 
 by a soft haze of atmosphere, which 
 changes in light and shadow during 
 its allotted Duty, until it gradually 
 fades from color to color, and becomes 
 a black curtain. 
 
 Long before this screen of Light and 
 Darkness performed its even duty, one 
 
 116 
 
STARS. 117 
 
 of the mosaic jewels loosened and fell, 
 and its sparkling body in flight was 
 shattered into tiny fragments, which 
 illuminated the dark face of space. 
 
 With this outcast jewel an evil and 
 rebellious spirit was hurled. Then 
 came the creation of the earth, and 
 the scattered dust from the destroyed 
 jewel, which had been blown for ages 
 in space, sank into the depths of the 
 new creation — and the Evil Spirit was 
 glad. 
 
 Then man was made to complete 
 the earth; but he was not satisfied 
 until he had dug and discovered frag- 
 ments of that mosaic, with which he 
 adorned himself, cultivating pride and 
 covetousness. 
 
 Ever since Man has watched the 
 floor of heaven, hoping to see other 
 jewels destroyed and thrown into 
 space and shattered on his world, 
 
118 STARS. 
 
 When one falls, he calls it a shooting 
 star, and wonders only where it goes, 
 and never dreams it has a warning for 
 him in its fall. 
 
THE FOUR -LEAF CLOVER. 
 
 It lifted its jeweled and 
 slender body from the earth. 
 Slowly it unfolded and ex- 
 posed its heart for the em- 
 brace of that insinuating 
 robber from the east, who, while 
 giving the warm kiss of morning 
 to this newly born, quickly stole every 
 sparkling gem from the four pale up- 
 turned leaves. 
 
 . It was not strange, after this first 
 draught of life, that this frail shoot, 
 with its delicate petals, should wonder 
 at the fearful mistake made by Nature ; 
 for surrounding it were hundreds of its 
 kind, save that they had but three 
 leaves turned to the face of the sun. 
 
 119 
 
120 THE FOUR-LEAF CLOVER. 
 
 So it was that the trembling new- 
 born, abashed at the misfortune which 
 had befallen it, threw its whole strength 
 of life into three of those little leaves 
 branching from its heart, and tried to 
 deprive the fourth of all nourishment, 
 so that it might wither and die. Grad- 
 ually the neglected leaf dropped its 
 little head to the shadow-line of the 
 three lifted above it. It would have 
 perished without honor, and the cruel- 
 ty of its parent-clover would never 
 have been known had not a laddie, 
 while wandering over the lea to his 
 lassie, implored the aid of the Fates. 
 
 There at his feet was the sign. So 
 the lassie pressed it in her prayer-book, 
 and the three leaves are now cherished 
 for the existence of the other — the 
 small one they would have killed. 
 
THE PRIEST. 
 
 Pere Dominique was regarded with 
 idolatrous reverence by those who 
 confessed to him. It was a reverence 
 void of fear, for he won the hearts 
 while trying to save the souls of these 
 peasants who had built a tiny hameau 
 on the Brittany coast. 
 
 He was young. His work did not 
 begin and end with the mass. It en- 
 tered into the homes and daily walks of 
 every being in the flock he guarded, and 
 he received his reward — for these peas- 
 ants loved him, and believed in him. 
 Purity is often assumed, but on Pere 
 Dominique's face it was stamped. 
 They loved him more as he wasted 
 away, and when his cough caused 
 121 
 
122 THE PRIEST. 
 
 halts in the mass and sermon, every 
 heart in his congregation felt a secret 
 dread. 
 
 His little house consisted of two 
 ground-floor rooms, and it was in the 
 one he called a study they found him. 
 
 In one hand was clasped a crucifix ; 
 in the other an open locket, which 
 held a miniature of a young girl's 
 head. Some might have called this 
 sin, but not the people of the hameau: 
 the peasants loved him even more 
 when they found that locket. 
 
 When his eyes for the last time had 
 looked on that face, she in la Couvent 
 de Notre Dame de Bon Secours was 
 praying for the whole world, and sob- 
 bing her nightly prayer for the one 
 whom she had loved, not knowing he 
 little needed prayer. 
 
 * * * ■* * * 
 
 If they both sinned, whose fault 
 
THE PRIEST. 
 
 123 
 
 was it — that of the parents who had 
 thoughtlessly brought them into the 
 world; that of the church which 
 taught remunciation, or that of the 
 Bon Dieu who had given them power 
 to love? 
 
WOOD NYMPH. 
 
 Her face and figure were as elusive 
 as the graceful rising and disappearing 
 of the silver mists of early morn. 
 
 Her home was the dense wild-wood, 
 where she left a trace of her mystic 
 presence on even the smallest blade of 
 green growing in the dark shadows 
 which struggled to liberate its slender 
 body from its cradle-coffin — earth. 
 
 The great oak would have been the 
 wood nymph's lover, for his whole 
 body swayed with pride when she hov- 
 ered for a moment in his shade, while 
 he uttered with his trembling leaf-lips 
 a musical message of love. When this 
 mysterious fairy, her hair garlanded 
 with wild flowers which never with- 
 
 124 
 
WOOD NYMPH. 125 
 
 ered, ran quickly from the shadow of 
 the oak into the light, and there look- 
 ing high above, concealed something in 
 her breast, the great oak stood motion- 
 less in his stately jealousy. 
 
 The bow of the sun was bent, and 
 its darts of ray-beams flew through 
 space to the dense, wild -wood. As 
 they neared the earth they were shat- 
 tered into millions of fragments, which 
 pierced the gloom and dispelled it. 
 
 The fall of these heaven-sent darts 
 was broken by the uplifted heads of the 
 mighty old oaks in the dense wild- 
 wood. 
 
 These monarchs tenderly extended 
 their many arms to lighten the fall of 
 the messengers of life and light, and in 
 a deep coating of gold some settled on 
 the trembling leaves, and some on the 
 ferns and wild -flowers; others embed- 
 ded themselves into Nature's cushions 
 
126 WOOD NYMPH. 
 
 of moss, and still others were secreted 
 in the breast of the little wood nymph, 
 who fled quickly to her charges, the 
 delicate shoots struggling for life 
 in the dark shadows of the dense 
 wild-wood. 
 
 On them she breathed the breath of 
 life, giving warmth she had caught as 
 the ray-darts fell. 
 
 Such is the mission of the wood 
 nymph. She has no plighted love, 
 for all her tenderness is given to the 
 weak of her wild-wood home. 
 
"THE SINS OF THE FATHERS." 
 
 )ASTILIAN blood flowed in 
 her veins. It was not neces- 
 sary to have this told, for in 
 her eyes history was written. 
 She was intended for one of her 
 own blood. She had been so 
 taught and so believed, until a 
 stranger came from the far north 
 to old Mexico, the land of her 
 adoption. 
 
 History was also written in his 
 great blue eyes, which were fringed 
 with long black lashes. These eyes told 
 of her ancestors, whose ambition 
 prompted them to leave Spain for the 
 little northern isle — where they sinned. 
 Of all this these two never thought. 
 
 127 
 
128 "THE SINS OF THE FATHERS." 
 
 That which held her most was the ex- 
 pression of his eyes — so honest they 
 seemed, so full of love. He smiled 
 when the little romance was over, and 
 he returned to the north, and he told 
 it all — not in detail, but in outline, to 
 the one he loved. 
 
 She? But she was of Castilian 
 blood, and was intended, so the laws of 
 her people decreed, for one of her own; 
 and she took one, and that makes this 
 story. Those blue eyes had done their 
 part in avenging the sins of her con- 
 quering forefathers. 
 
 She used the stiletto to free herself. 
 It is not strange, though, that while 
 counting her beads and listening to the 
 mass for the dead — a mass for which she 
 pays —that at times she forgets and un- 
 consciously prays for one who is happy 
 with another in the far north ; but for 
 this she always does penance. 
 
THE TABLET. 
 
 You may see these tablets on the 
 walls of the "Basilica" at Lourdes 
 Je te remercie, O Notre Dame de 
 Lourdes d'avoir exauce ma priere 
 The thanks may be for a babe, so long 
 wished for; for the restoration of a 
 half-dead husband, the recovery from 
 some dread disease, or the killing of a 
 once daily sin : but in this church there 
 is one tablet on which thanks are 
 graven to the saint for not granting a 
 prayer. We saw it as the sun smiled 
 its last, and the rays streamed over the 
 face of the golden wording on the east- 
 ern wall. 
 
 She had prayed long ago that love 
 might be returned. She was then 
 
 129 
 
130 
 
 THE TABLET. 
 
 young, and life was dear. The prayer 
 was never answered. 
 
 You may find her on one of the 
 white trains leaving Paris even to-da}% 
 ministering to the frightful load it 
 carries to the Grotto ; or if you have 
 patience and wait, you may see her 
 kneeling in front of that odd inscrip- 
 tion on the brass tablet in the chapel. 
 
INCONSISTENCY. 
 
 He had grown old, not gray and 
 feeble, but old with forty years of ex- 
 perience. The winds of the world had 
 buffeted him from port to port and 
 along strange desert coasts. He could 
 not tell why it was so ; but the all-wise 
 claimed that he had been born without 
 the power of loving. Some who met 
 him cared for him for himself, others 
 for his prosperity. 
 
 He had used the whip of selfishness, 
 suspicion, loneliness and terrible hate, 
 and it had brought him riches. Deep 
 in his heart he believed himself incap- 
 able of loving. Then he found he was 
 deceived, and even resenting this new 
 feeling he wooed. Now she could 
 
 131 
 
132 INCONSISTENCY. 
 
 not fully analyze, for she was young. 
 "Wait," she said; "I think I love you, 
 but to me you are strange." 
 
 He understands why he curses and 
 sneers now, for he has lost even the 
 feeling of love — that something which 
 came so earnestly and swiftly, and so 
 quickly sped. But she does not under- 
 stand him for she is happy with an- 
 other. 
 
 The people of the world congratu- 
 late her and pity perhaps, but far oft- 
 ener damn the one who marred her 
 life, even for a few months. 
 
 The world is strange. After all, 
 life is the world. 
 
THE QUESTION. 
 
 The bright smile, which was born in 
 his soul and stamped itself on his face, 
 cheering and influencing his fellow-men, 
 suddenly weakened and disappeared, 
 for his mind, while reviewing and en- 
 joying the alluring present, saw for the 
 first time a dark shadow hover over 
 the face of his world. The flight of 
 this shadow left a trace of cold air, 
 which vibrated tremulously the word 
 " hereafter." The shadow chilled the 
 smile which his own people loved so 
 well, and of which he now knew the 
 value. It was strange, however, he 
 had lived so long and had never 
 thought what hereafter really meant. 
 When the shadow disappeared he threw 
 
 133 
 
134 THE QUESTION. 
 
 himself into the whirl of pleasure which 
 his beloved world temptingly held 
 out to him, and the smile returned 
 and few remarked its short absence. 
 He alone could feel the blight that 
 chill had left on his soul. He said to 
 himself, "I am young, and my coun- 
 terfeit of happiness is clever." There 
 were other beings who had seen this 
 same shadow, and had felt it steal 
 something from them; but yet they 
 resorted not to the distraction offered 
 by the world, but rather inflicted 
 those around them with sad faces 
 and gloomy utterances, and classed 
 themselves with the reformed and 
 saved. 
 
 But he was different. So he lived 
 on, and many loved him and called 
 him honest; others shunned him 
 as he passed — this unbeliever, who 
 could go through life smiling. "Only 
 
THE QUESTION. 135 
 
 wait," they cried, " until he has seen 
 and known that shadow." 
 
 Suddenly the shadow appeared to 
 him again. Its cold breath chilled him 
 through and through, and he had a 
 sense of ease and comfort ; for it kissed 
 his eyes and soul, and those who had 
 drawn their skirts aside as he passed, 
 now filed by him and marvelled at the 
 beauty of the smile on his face, as he 
 lay there so cold, and with one accord 
 they whispered, " But what of his here- 
 after?"