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POEMS. 
 
 A CHAPTER FROM 
 
 THE MODERN PILGRIM'S PROGRESS. 
 
 Slander and Gossip. 
 
 [compiled.] 
 
 All our trials, our anguish, our woe, 
 Bring us strength, as the angels know: 
 If life's lessons be all read aright, 
 The bright morning is born of the night, 
 And our joy is the offspring of woe. — C. J. M. 
 
 Out of the chaos of some awful crisis of personal experience 
 a new heaven and a new earth have been born." 
 
 PRINTED 
 
 FOR PRIVATE CIRCULATION. 
 1882. 
 
u q3> 
 
 
 205449 
 5 13 
 
DEDICATION OF POEMS 
 
 TO MY FRIEND, 
 
 ROBERT BROWNING. 
 
 Thou wilt not turn away — thou wilt not say, 
 " I care not for such sad, wild strains as these, 
 I care not for pale field-flowers like to thine, 
 Nor yet for fractured stones, though set in gold." 
 Thou wilt bend over them, and from thy eyes 
 Some pitying drops will fall to give them worth. 
 A beggar might choose pebbles by the road, 
 As well, to take unto a king, whose crown 
 Is set with gems : — a peasant better could 
 Choose wayside flowers, and bear them to a queen 
 Whose palace gardens glow in gorgeous blaze 
 Of tropic hues. The king, the queen, might turn 
 In cold disdain ; but thou, the king of men, 
 Wilt say, " No flower but that to me is sweet, 
 Which love or friendship places at my feet." 
 
A FRAGMENT. 
 
 Tell me, petrel, flying homeward, 
 Tell me, dost thou ne'er repine, 
 
 When the billows and the tempest 
 Spend their force on thee and thine ? 
 
 But the petrel, flying onward, 
 Falters not, nor turns aside : — 
 
 Read a lesson ye who murmur 
 When your hopes are crucified ! 
 
 ,* 
 
POEMS. 
 
 LOST RICHES. 
 
 In love, one who ceases to be rich begins to 
 " poor. — Cham/or t. 
 
 My life that once was rich indeed, 
 
 Is now so rich no more ; 
 And like a beggar I must plead 
 
 For alms from door to door. 
 
 Here, with cold looks they turn away, 
 There, a small pittance give, 
 
 And ever, wander as I may, 
 Scarce find I food to live. 
 
 But see, my road draws near its end, 
 A beacon-light shines fair — 
 
 And though alone my way I wend, 
 More than I've lost is there ! 
 
POEMS. 
 
 SAN MORITZ. 
 
 High in the sterile Ober-Engadine, 
 
 San Moritz's villas cluster by a lake ; 
 There Winter slowly drags her icy car, 
 
 And scarce a sound the slumbering echoes wake. 
 
 But when triumphal Summer holds her reign, 
 No vale on earth so wonderfully fair ; 
 
 And rippling streams, and rustling forest leaves, 
 And warbling birds with music fill the air. 
 
 In this fair land there lies a wondrous spell : 
 
 For those who drink where bubbling waters spring, 
 
 Return again and oft unto that well, 
 
 The poor, the rich, the peasant and the king ! 
 
 What find they here which brings them o'er the seas, 
 And over lands that stretch from east to west ? 
 
 Why leave they homes where, wrapped in lavish ease, 
 The years should glide in happiness and rest? 
 
8 POEMS. 
 
 Ah, know ye not there is a boon more dear 
 
 Than can be bought with all their untold wealth ? 
 
 This is what sends the countless numbers here : 
 They search this boon — the priceless boon of health. 
 
 Oh ye that search and find, turn not away 
 
 Till you have left your thankful offering here ; 
 
 Pause for one moment by the fount to pray 
 
 And give your gift some sufferers heart to cheer. 
 
POEMS. 
 
 OBER-ENGADINE. 
 
 Know you the Engadine where green lakes lie 
 Like emeralds o'er monarchs' mantles strewn, 
 
 Where cloud-capped peaks reach up unto the sky, 
 In grandeur bleak and desolate and lone ? 
 
 There, on his matchless throne, the storm-god reigns, 
 Hurling his fiery arrows through the air ; 
 
 There Maia drives the fleecy flocks o'er plains 
 Whose azure fields are infinitely fair. 
 
 There the coiled glaciers' rampant glittering scales 
 Mark the defiles where, in past ages born, 
 
 With stealthy force they crept along the vales 
 Which once smiled upward to the golden morn. 
 
 Eternal snows make pure the altar crests, 
 
 Round which these subtle, sinuous glaciers twine, 
 
 Clinging like serpents to earth's rocky breasts, 
 And draining from their founts her blood divine. 
 
io POEMS. 
 
 There great Apollo, in his flashing mail, 
 
 Pierces these monsters till the milk-white flood 
 
 Flows down in fretful torrents to the vale, 
 Gliding at last in peace by field and wood. 
 
 There glowing blossoms sprinkle meadows green, 
 Brilliant as those which bloom in warmer lands, 
 
 Fringing the limpid brooks which coldly gleam 
 From lush and level banks o'er silver sands. 
 
 Chilled as that water is a heart I know — 
 No fragrant flowers redeem its icy cold : 
 
 The summer comes and goes, nor melts the snow, 
 Heaped up by hands it trusted once of old. 
 
 Love not, trust not, and few will be your woes : 
 Love not, trust not, and few your joys will be ; 
 
 But where love reigns, life blossoms like the rose, 
 And bears its fruit beyond death's arctic sea. 
 
POEMS. 
 
 BE BRAVE!' 
 
 De Tocqueville uttered the want of all noble souls when he 
 said, " I cannot be happy or even calm without the encourage- 
 ment and sympathy of some of my fellow-creatures." 
 
 Be brave ! poor heart, be brave ! 
 
 And suffer and grow strong ! 
 Just when the night the darkest is, 
 
 The day will break ere long. 
 
 Be brave ! sad heart ! be brave ! 
 
 And falter not nor fear : 
 For when the road the longest seems, 
 
 The turning-point is near ! 
 
 Be brave ! strong heart, be brave ! 
 
 These words say o'er and o'er, 
 Until the pulse has ceased to beat 
 
 And lips can plead no more ! 
 
POEMS. 
 
 ESTRANGED. 
 
 " There is a sorrow worse than death, 
 Know ye who weep the dead ! 
 There are more bitter tears than thine 
 In this life daily shed." — C. J. M. 
 
 Thy golden bowl of life is broken, 
 
 The pitcher to the fountain comes no more ; 
 
 And thou hast gone, and left no token, 
 That now thou lovest as in days of yore. 
 
 I summon thee, O soul departed ! 
 
 Recall the years within our youthful home ! — 
 Think of the paths in which we started, 
 
 Hand clasped in hand, earth's pilgrim ways to roam ! 
 
 Think of the love which thou then showered, 
 Saying I made the sunshine of thy life ; 
 
 Think of my patience when the dark storms lowered, 
 Which ended in that agony of strife ! 
 
POEMS. 13 
 
 By that fond love, which I still cherish, 
 
 By that sweet trust we gave in years gone by, 
 
 Tell me, if love like ours can perish ? 
 
 Such trust, like embers in their ashes, die ? 
 
 Thou canst not pass the golden portal, 
 
 soul, until thy answer comes to earth ! 
 Ere thou canst tread those lands immortal, 
 
 Thy childhood's love must have its second birth ! 
 
 I hear thy answer : " Love is heaven; 
 
 ' To turn aside from love is hell,' in truth ; 
 The veil between us is forever riven. 
 
 1 love and trust as in my years of youth." 
 
 San Moritz, July, 1881. 
 
14 POEMS. 
 
 TO ONE WHO WILL UNDERSTAND. 
 
 " Fate's arrows thickly fly, 
 And if they strike not now, will strike at even. 
 And so I ask no pity. On life's field 
 The wounded craxvl together, but their cry 
 Is not to one another, but to heaven." — Proteus. 
 
 Turn with me to-night the pages 
 
 Of the record of thy days ; 
 See if I have e'er been wanting — 
 
 True in censure, true in praise. 
 
 How I loved thee ! how I trusted ! 
 
 How my heart called after thee 
 When my sorrows rolled in on me, 
 
 Like the billows of the sea. 
 
 Didst thou keep those watches with me ? 
 
 Didst thou bring one cheering ray 
 Under those thick clouds of anguish 
 
 Wher adrift my frail barque lay ? 
 
POEMS. 1 5 
 
 Since that barque, so even-laden 
 With its trust and faith, went down, 
 
 'Tis another sharp thorn added 
 To my sorrow's thorny crown, 
 
 That I showed thee all my burdens, 
 All my wounds, revealed the pain, 
 
 Which I strove to hide from others, 
 When I reached the land again. 
 
 Shouldst thou ever turn the pages 
 
 Of the record of my past, 
 Thou wilt see how well I loved thee, 
 
 Faithful even to the last. 
 
 When its final leaf is written 
 
 And I've passed unto my rest, 
 Take thy pen and write upon it — 
 
 " Always she has done her best. 
 
 " Always loving, always loyal, 
 
 Scorning treachery and all wrong, 
 
 Though her weaknesses were many, 
 Love it was that made her strong." 
 November 8, 1881. 
 
5 POEMS. 
 
 THE SKELETON MEMORY. 
 " Would that I could forget." 
 
 Wherever I wander, wherever I rest, 
 
 A skeleton stalks by my side — 
 Its long bony fingers close over my breast, 
 
 With, grasp of the true and the tried. 
 
 Of all the dear friends that I counted a host 
 
 This one alone constant remains : 
 The others all fled when I needed them most, 
 
 Or laughed at my woes and my pains. 
 
 So I've learned to lean on my skeleton friend, 
 
 Alone, or when lost in a crowd ; 
 For I know upon him that I may depend 
 
 Until I lie wrapped in my shroud. 
 
 Here's a health to my faithful skeleton friend, 
 And a health to friends who once fled : 
 
 May they, in their turn, find him faithful to them, 
 When I shall lie cold with the dead ! 
 
POEMS. 17 
 
 WRECKED. 
 
 Weird was the face of the ocean, 
 Wild was the pitiless blast, 
 
 As driven before it madly 
 A vessel's wreck swept past. 
 
 Out of the gaping port-holes 
 Poured seas of foaming brine ; 
 
 From battered hulk to broken masts 
 No living thing made sign. 
 
 Straightway in dreams before me 
 My own wrecked life swept by — 
 
 When I was left on seas of grief 
 To sink, with no help nigh. 
 
 * * * * * 
 
 But He who holds the ocean 
 In hollow of His hand, 
 
 Guided that vessel into port 
 
 And brought me to the land. 
 2* 
 
1 8 POEMS. 
 
 The stanch ship stored with treasure 
 
 Of silver and of gold, 
 Held all confided to its care, 
 
 Safe in its iron hold. 
 
 My barque, though wrecked, deserted, 
 Holds now its treasure still, 
 
 And He who brought it into port, 
 Does with it as He will. 
 
POEMS. 19 
 
 HOMELESS. 
 
 AS A WANDERING BIRD CAST OUT OF THE NEST." — IsdZak. 
 
 Like a bird from its nest driven forth, 
 
 The earth's wide face I roam ; 
 Though I sail east, though I sail west, 
 
 I find no more my home. 
 
 O storm-tost petrel of the wave, 
 
 Knowest thou if rest there be 
 Beyond this earth, in havens fair 
 
 Where beats no surging sea ? 
 
 The petrel bravely breasts the storm, 
 
 Nor murmurs at its fate ; 
 Take lesson ye who dare repine 
 
 When wrecked and desolate 1 
 
 The waves roll o'er, the winds sweep on, 
 
 But they of sinews strong 
 Feel not the waves, hear not the winds 
 
 Which hurry them along. 
 
2o POEMS. 
 
 They struggle not, but calmly bow 
 
 Submissive to His will 
 Who holds the waters in His hands, 
 
 And bids the waves be still. 
 
 The weaker ones, with plumage torn, 
 
 Sink helpless on their way ; 
 Yet not one sparrow falls unmarked 
 
 In darkest night nor day. 
 
 And we our course must each fulfil, 
 
 Breasting the storms of life ; 
 The stronger heavenward will soar — 
 
 The weaker fall in strife. 
 
 Sd, like the bird that's driven forth, 
 
 The earth's wide face I roam ; 
 Though storm-tost, wrecked and homeless here, 
 
 I'll find in heaven my home. 
 
 Qber-Engadine, July, 1881. 
 
POEMS. 21 
 
 MIMOSA'S CHANT. 
 
 From " The Modern Pilgrim's Progress." 
 
 Then Mimosa remembered the vision she had seen so long 
 ago in the cavern chamber of Depression, where the woman 
 cried out, " O God ! these my offspring, whom I nourished at 
 my breast, and reared through their childhood, and educated in 
 their youth; whose joys have been my joys and whose sorrows 
 have been my sorrows, whose love is all that I have left to live 
 for; they have bitten my heart and torn my breast with the fangs 
 of ingratitude, until I long for the grave, wherein to hide my 
 grief, and to escape the demons which Anguish and Despair 
 have set upon my path !" " It was my own future that I saw 
 foreshadowed there," said Mimosa. Her harp was beside her ; 
 for cruel as was her keeper, he had not the power to take that 
 treasure from her. With tearless eyes she swept its strings as 
 she chanted : 
 
 Oh, grief, beyond all other griefs combined, 
 
 When those round whom the tender heart-strings 
 
 twined, 
 With ruthless wrench the clinging tendrils tear, 
 And leave the bleeding wounds for love to bear. 
 Such is my lot ; such is my hapless fate — 
 Alone to walk, way-worn and desolate. 
 
22 POEMS. 
 
 No staff to lean on, as my days go by. 
 
 Bereft of all that made it hard to die, 
 
 What wonder that my roving thoughts I send — 
 
 Some solace to my weary life to lend — 
 
 Back to the years Avhen cradled on my breast, 
 
 They found, whene'er they sought, both peace and rest. 
 
 Why should it be that I should look in vain 
 
 For what I gave to them without refrain ? 
 
 No stinting hand the flowing measure doled; 
 
 From love's deep founts in waves it gushed and rolled. 
 
 What is my sin? In what have I e'er erred 
 
 Where mother-love its guiding power stirred? 
 
 Why has my God apportioned unto me 
 
 This bitter cup? — this keenest misery! 
 
 I boasted not, as Niobe of old, 
 
 Who drew down vengeance on her happy fold ; 
 
 I thanked my God, who unto me had sent 
 
 Treasures I counted as but treasures lent ; 
 
 Yet thought that nought could rob me of their love 
 
 In earth beneath or in the heavens above. 
 
 Oh ye, who weep your true and happy dead, 
 
 Oh ye, who never to yourselves have said — 
 
POEMS. 23 
 
 li There are some sorrows worse than death to bear — 
 Some griefs too deep for sympathy to share!" 
 Think if each drop were wrung, with wail of pain, 
 Out of your heart's best blood, in crimson stain; 
 And they, who turned the rack, to you owed all 
 That earth can give and memory recall ! 
 
 ****** 
 Of old asked One who in the garden prayed — 
 "Can ye drink of the cup I drink?" He said; 
 And I, in my grief, ask of Him to-night, 
 " Did thy cup, dear Lord, with the angel bright, 
 Hold a draught that was blacker than this of mine, 
 With hemlock, and aloes, and bitter wine ? 
 Did thy cross, dear Lord, bear a heavier weight 
 Than the cross I bear, in my hopeless state, 
 With its iron spikes that enter my soul 
 As alone I walk to my Calvary goal ? 
 Thy apostles, dear Lord, deserted Thee ! 
 Were they as much as my children to me ?" 
 
24 POEMS. 
 
 EVIL AND GOOD. 
 
 ' The soul of good in things evil." — Rev. Stopford Brooke. 
 
 A SUBLIME FEELING OF A PRESENCE COMES ABOUT ME AT 
 
 times." — Rev. F. Robertson. 
 
 In the lap of the mountains I lie, 
 Looking up to the cloudland of sky, 
 
 While a vision, keen, piercing, and clear, 
 Descends from the gods to me here, 
 Till I see the pale spirits flit by. 
 
 What mission have they to fulfil ? 
 And is it of good or of ill ? 
 
 No answer from far or from near ; 
 
 And trustful I rest without fear, 
 And wait as before on God's will. 
 
 I hear not a breath nor a sigh, 
 
 Yet some power forever is nigh ; 
 
 Some Presence beside me keeps guard 
 Around me to watch and to ward, 
 
 And evil forever must fly. 
 
POEMS. 
 
 Yet evil clings close to the good, 
 As the rough bark clings to the wood ; 
 And evil its course must perform 
 Through sorrow and darkness and storm, 
 Through lire of trial withstood. 
 
 And good with the evil must grow ; 
 In the field where white lilies blow, 
 
 Bloom the blood-red blossoms of sin ; 
 
 We know not how deeply within 
 Strikes their stain on bosoms of snow. 
 
 But the stain, the sin and its pain, 
 
 And our grief, is never in vain ; 
 
 We suffer, endure, and grow strong, 
 And our right is born of our wrong ; 
 
 And through fire our gold we regain ! 
 
26 POEMS. 
 
 DEAD HOPES. 
 
 I HAVE left my life behind me, 
 I have buried my past to-day, 
 
 And turned the lock of the grave-yard, 
 And given the key away. 
 
 I know will come days of longing — 
 O days of unspeakable dread ! — 
 
 When I shall go back in spirit 
 To look on my precious dead. 
 
 But I shall not faint nor falter, 
 Nor show by a word nor a sign, 
 
 How I mourn for what lies buried 
 In this grave-yard heart of mine. 
 
 And they who know not my anguish, 
 My woe, and its deathless pain, 
 
 Will smile with kind words of greeting, 
 Counting my loss as my gain. 
 
POEMS. 
 
 Their smiles with smiles I will answer, 
 For they shall not read in my face 
 
 How I mourn my dead hopes buried, 
 How I watch the sacred place. 
 
 Whate'er befalls in the future, 
 
 Life's lessons have taught me to say, 
 
 " The Lord directeth the steps of man, 
 Though his heart devise the way." 
 
28 POEMS. 
 
 URANIAN LOVE. 
 
 Uranian love is the deity of pure mental passion. Pandemian 
 love, of ordinary sexual attachment. — Plato. 
 
 The laurel rose, or rhododaphne, is the emblem of Pandemian 
 love. In Scandinavia, the first anemone, gathered in the spring, 
 if kept, is thought by the superstitious to preserve from illness 
 during the year. 
 
 The calm and passionless, the disinterested and respectful 
 affection of " soul friends" is reserved for men and women of 
 the finest mould. . . . Let not the world look askance upon a 
 relation so true and holy that it glorifies even the common de- 
 tails of life, and is the noblest form that friendship wears — Anna 
 B, McMahon. 
 
 Anemone ! My treasured flower, 
 How have you lost your magic power ! 
 
 Where flown your charmed spell ? 
 No flower e'er was guarded more, 
 And fondly gazed on, o'er and o'er, 
 
 Than from this Norseland dell. 
 
 For he who brought you to my care, 
 One radiant April morning fair, 
 Told me the worth you bore. 
 
POEMS. 29 
 
 If I would guard you thro' the year, 
 Sickness nor death I need not fear 
 Would enter at my door. 
 
 The year is scarcely but half told, 
 And summer shines on wood and wold, 
 
 Yet now thy spell hath flown ; 
 For fever surges in my veins 
 And suffering racks me with its pains, 
 
 And day and night I moan. 
 
 Art thou the emblem of his faith ? 
 
 " False flower, false love !" the Thracian saith. 
 
 If so, then let me die ! 
 Yet I could not the angels trust, 
 Nor spirits of " the perfect just," 
 
 Should falsehood in him lie. 
 
 I keep my faith, my cherished flower — 
 His love I hold my richest dower, 
 
 I keep my faith in him. 
 A true soul-love is born in heaven, 
 Never by aught on earth is riven, 
 
 Nor e'en on earth grows dim. 
 3* 
 
30 POEMS. 
 
 Thus wrote the wisest men of old — 
 Plutarch's and Plato's words of gold — 
 
 " No true love ever dies." 
 Worthless is life when love is gone, 
 Worthless that love that lives not on 
 
 When youthful beauty flies. 
 
 And though my flower's spell be brief 
 As Rhododaphne's symbol leaf, 
 
 I will not yield to gloom ; 
 True love will still its radiance throw 
 On all that's fleeting here below, 
 
 On all beyond the tomb. 
 
POEMS. 31 
 
 " ON THE HEIGHTS." 
 
 " Sympathy is more than silver or than gold." 
 
 " Friendship, to natures large and comprehensive in sym- 
 pathy, at once noble and tender, means attachment as warm 
 and strong as life itself, enthusiasm of personal interest, trust 
 unshaken through all things, faithfulness unto death. What- 
 ever befalls, it is the solace, the light, the joy of life." 
 
 " Any one can love, but few have the capacity for friendship." 
 
 George Sand. 
 
 I cannot write for fulness of content : 
 
 Poems are born as thunders are ; from out 
 
 The strife of elements to purify 
 
 The stagnant air. So high I stand, so near 
 
 To heaven, nor strife, nor passion's sultry breath 
 
 Can reach me here. When hearts are full as mine 
 
 Few are the words which break — as bubbles break 
 
 The quiet surface of an ocean deep 
 
 When cradled into calm — few are the words 
 
 I ween, that stir the sweet content when hearts 
 
 Are still ; but, ere we met, one whom I loved, 
 
 Back from a new-made grave, had stepped to stab 
 
32 POEMS. 
 
 Me in the dark ; and all my wrongs arose 
 
 To sweep my heart-strings with their myriad hands. 
 
 As wakes the wild wind-harp, so woke my lyre, 
 
 And strain on strain escaped until the storm 
 
 Of tortured feeling ceased within the calm 
 
 Of thy blest presence. Lost my riches were ; 
 
 And wrecked the barque which held my all in life : 
 
 I stood in terror on the rock-girt shore, 
 
 No voice to pity, and no arm to save — 
 
 Fearing the worst, nor hoping aught of man ! 
 
 Anon, the darkness lifted, and I saw, 
 
 Riding at anchor, on the treacherous sea, 
 
 A noble ship, laden to edge with all 
 
 Which makes life sweet and strong. Straightway, a 
 
 hand 
 Was stretched to which I clung : — with hungry heart 
 And famished soul eating the angel's food 
 You brought, in largess such as great souls yield. 
 There is no wealth like that which thou hast given 
 To me : — no riches like the treasure thou 
 Hast poured from founts exhaustless of thy own ! 
 I who was poor am rich ! I bring my lyre 
 
POEMS. 33 
 
 And break it at thy feet : its need is o'er, 
 Since discord and despair can strike its strings 
 No more. Thou art my friend ! no greater boon 
 Hath earth to give than friendship such as thine ! 
 
35 
 
 The proof-sheets of the following pages, in the year 
 1S79, fell into the hands of one of the most brilliantly 
 talented young authors in England, who, not having 
 met with the sympathy and appreciation which all 
 noble souls crave, fancied it was a weakness of our 
 human nature to crave it, and that this craving should 
 be suppressed as a weakness. The author had never 
 heard anything of the young writer's family, but he had 
 a widowed mother with six children, and after read- 
 ing this chapter in the proof-sheets, and finding much 
 that was suggestive of experiences which had trans- 
 pired in his family, he fancied it had been written to 
 lay these experiences bare to the public. This was 
 the time when he should have been compelled to 
 put aside his pen, and to try the diversions of foreign 
 travel, the way for which was opened to him. But 
 the importance of the advice given was not realized 
 until it was too late. He went to John Morley, Esq., 
 editor of the Fortnightly Review, and accused him of 
 having written this chapter to expose him and his 
 views (on the weakness of requiring sympathy) to the 
 public. Mr. Morley, who had never heard of the 
 story, indignantly expelled the young man from his 
 office; after which time his mind became more and 
 more unsettled, and learning that the author of the 
 Modern Pilgrim's Progress was to sail from Liver- 
 pool to New York on the 27th of November, 1879, 
 
56 
 
 he told his family that this was an intimation that he 
 was to die on that day. At the hour on which the 
 ocean steamer left the wharf he shot himself, and to 
 the memory of this marvellously gifted man the author 
 intends to dedicate her work when it is completed. 
 She has tried to show, in her story (what this author's 
 life and death gives testimony of), the need of human 
 sympathy; and that, when denied to such supersen- 
 sitive natures, those who deny it are as responsible to 
 God as is the murderer. There is more than one 
 way of committing murder; and all ways are open 
 to God's eyes, and all murderers are known to Him, 
 whether slayers of " a good name," or of the soul, 
 or only of the mortal part. 
 
A CHAPTER FROM THE MODERN 
 PILGRIM'S PROGRESS. 
 
 In a dream, in a vision of the night, when deep sleep falleth 
 upon men, then God openeth the ears of men, and sealeth their 
 instruction. — Job 33 : 15. 
 
 BROKEN in heart, wounded in spirit, and ill in 
 body, I went to the place of sepulchres, on 
 New Year's Eve, that I might seek in the solitude of 
 the tombs the peace for which my soul longed. 
 
 As I sat in their midst I slept, and in my sleep a 
 vision came to me. The face of the earth seemed 
 spread out before me, while, as from an eminence, I 
 looked down upon endless undulating meadows ; each 
 of which was separated from the other by a little tor- 
 rent. Many roads and paths led over these fields; 
 some of which had bridges crossing the torrents. 
 Wherever there was no bridge, the far shore of the 
 torrent was not visible, a thick haze settling down to 
 its brink. Some of the roads were thronged with 
 pilgrims ; so many upon each that I could scarcely 
 discern at first whether there was not one continuous 
 throng of persons pressing forward, jostling each other 
 on their way; but as I looked steadfastly, I saw that 
 some were wending their way alone, some were 
 travelling in groups, and others walking hand in hand 
 in couples. Then I marvelled as to their destination, 
 4 
 
3§ 
 
 and determined to single out some group, or couple, 
 and follow their steps with my eyes. As I did so, I 
 became aware of the fact that the beings whom I saw 
 were not altogether human ; the peculiarity or differ- 
 ence lay in the double face which each one carried, 
 and which, invisible at times, every now and then 
 revealed itself. 
 
 The two whose course I finally decided to follow 
 had their hands joined in companionship, emerging 
 from a bower garlanded with flowers, and taking a 
 path alone by themselves. One had the form of a 
 man in earliest manhood, the other the form of a 
 maiden in her youth, and both were comely when the 
 face that corresponded to human beings was visible. 
 In the man I saw that his sometimes invisible face 
 was the face of a satyr; in the woman, a wild mani- 
 acal face, with rolling eyes, that ever and anon gleamed 
 out and then disappeared. As I looked, they stopped 
 where a sandy road crossed diagonally the one they 
 were traversing. 
 
 "We will take this road, Mimosa," said the man, 
 "it is the straightest to the Golden Castle, where I am 
 going to lead thee; " stepping into the arid path he 
 had chosen, as he spoke. 
 
 <l Ah, let us stay in the path on which we started, 
 Opal, it is so much more beautiful. See, there are no 
 flowers growing where thou wishest to lead me, only 
 weeds and prickly plants and thorny bushes. I am 
 sure there must be noisome reptiles crawling among 
 them." 
 
 " Thou thinkest so because thou art a woman, and 
 
39 
 
 women know nothing. Come where I lead thee, 
 and be thankful thou hast some one to guide thee, for 
 thou wouldst never have the sense to find the way 
 alone. Thou wouldst soon find thyself plunged in 
 some pitfall or quicksands from which there is no 
 escaping." 
 
 Then I saw Mimosa step bravely and trustingly by 
 the side of Opal, casting only one wistful glance back 
 at the sweet flowers that bordered the road which they 
 left behind them. 
 
 " I could not have believed it, that pitfalls could 
 lie on such a lovely path as the one we were in, hadst 
 thou not told me, Opal," she said, looking fondly in 
 his face. 
 
 " How shouldst thou know, child ? Not that I am 
 sure either, that there are any on that particular path, 
 but didst thou not observe that it wound in and out 
 from the point where we turned ; while this one keeps 
 straight across the track that lies between us and the 
 Golden Castle? The sooner we reach the Castle 
 the more time we shall have to rest, when we get 
 there." 
 
 " If I could have my way, I would stop to rest 
 whenever I felt tired ; and I would choose all the 
 flowery paths to walk in, instead of wading through 
 this sand. See, where it is not sandy it is muddy ; 
 oh, dear Opal, let us go back to the sweet path we 
 left, if you are not sure there are pitfalls there." 
 
 •'Trust me ; I know what is best for us, Mimosa. 
 Flowers are of no use ; they will not help us on our 
 way, and if you keep your eyes, as I do, on the sand 
 
4 o 
 
 over which we are going, we may chance to find golden 
 ore in it, enough, perhaps, to fill a room of the Golden 
 Castle." 
 
 " I do trust thee, my dear husband, but I cannot 
 keep my eyes on the ground ; and of what use will 
 the golden ore be to us when we reach the Castle of 
 Gold ? And then, too, it has neither fragrance nor 
 beauty in itself to beguile us on the way, as the lovely 
 blossoms have." 
 
 " Thou dost not love me as thou shouldst, if thou 
 dost desire anything to beguile thee on thy way. It 
 should be enough for thee that I am thy companion. 
 If we are all in all to each other, as we should be, 
 what matters it what road we take ? " 
 
 " Now, thou hast spoken truly ; for what does it 
 matter to thee whether we find golden ore as long as 
 we have no need of it, if thou lovest me truly, as I 
 am sure thou dost ? And I do have need of the 
 flowers that I love so much. Do let us turn back, 
 and get away from these stinging nettles. I shall miss 
 more and more, at every step, the beautiful flowers 
 that my father and my mother planted for me in our 
 gardens at home." 
 
 " Then thou hadst better go back to thy garden," 
 said Opal. 
 
 " Oh, it hurts me to hear thee say that, my love. 
 I do not wish to go back, but let us choose the flower 
 path on our journey, because I love flowers so ; and 
 thou wilt learn to love them too, in time." As 
 Mimosa spoke, they came to a stretch of miry road. 
 She hung back, pointing to a tiny foot-path, bordered 
 
4i 
 
 with roses, just wide enough for them to walk in side 
 by side. 
 
 " See, Opal, here is a beautiful path ; we can avoid 
 the mire, and pick the roses as we walk." 
 
 He grasped her hand only the tighter, turning his 
 satyr face toward her and pulling her on. 
 
 When they had passed through the slough, Mimosa 
 said : " I beg thee to sit down by the wayside with 
 me, and let me wash my feet, for the mire is cling- 
 ing to them. I am very tired too, and I long to 
 rest." 
 
 Opal answered mockingly : " Thou canst rest if 
 thou hast a mind to stop by the way, but thou knowest 
 that I have to push on. Perhaps thou wouldst like 
 to go back to thy father's gardens, and rest thyself 
 there." 
 
 Mimosa seated herself on a bit of rock by the road- 
 side, and looked up at him. I saw it was the maniacal 
 ace that she turned toward him as she said, " Thou 
 canst go thy way, and if I am too weary to overtake 
 thee, I will go back to the gardens of my father." 
 
 Opal's satyr face glowed with rage, and, stooping, 
 he gathered a branch of a thorny vine that was grow- 
 ing by the road, and twisting it into a wreath he threw 
 it over her head. It fell so that the longest and 
 the sharpest thorns pierced her white bosom, and 
 brought the blood to the skin just where her heart lay. 
 Then Opal kept on his way, and Mimosa sat alone by 
 the roadside, wiping the mire from her feet, and wash- 
 ing them with her tears. Now and then, some of the 
 pilgrims who passed, stopped to ask if they could 
 
help her on her way, or if they could carry any bur- 
 dens for her; but she always answered in a brave 
 voice : — " I do not trust my burdens to others to carry 
 for me, and I only sit here to rest, until I am strong 
 enough to carry my own load." 
 
 When at last Mimosa saw that her feet were quite 
 clean, she arose, put on her sandals, and still wear- 
 ing the thorn-wreath, pressed on to overtake Opal. 
 
 It was now near nightfall, yet there was no pil- 
 grim station in sight, or halting-place for the night. 
 But as Mimosa kept wearily on, she saw Opal stand- 
 ing under a huge thorn tree, by the entrance to a 
 cave. He made as though he did not see her, al- 
 though he had been watching for her approach, be- 
 fore she appeared in sight. At this moment a small, 
 humpbacked pilgrim, called False Pride, touched 
 Mimosa on the shoulder and said : 
 
 " Come on with me ; I will find thee better lodg- 
 ings than thou canst get in the dungeon home of De- 
 pression;" but not heeding him, she fixed her eyes 
 on Opal, the eyes of her human face, and walking 
 straight up to him said : 
 
 " I know that thou art sorry thou didst drag me 
 through the filthy mire against my will; and that 
 thou wouldst have grieved for me, and turned back 
 for me if I had not pressed on to overtake thee." 
 
 " I am not sorry," answered Opal, " and thou must 
 ask my forgiveness for asserting thy will against 
 mine, before I will take thee back." 
 
 " I cannot ask thy forgiveness when I have not 
 done aught that my conscience accuses me for ; but 
 
43 
 
 thou knowest I cannot be happy until thou art pleased 
 with me again." 
 
 " Say thou art sorry, and then I will take thee 
 back." 
 
 "I am sorry lhat thou art so unreasonable, and so 
 unjust; thou art never just to me, Opal, when we do 
 not think alike. Because we are different, it need 
 not make us unjust or disagreeable to each other ; 
 but if thou wilt not be sullen to me as heretofore, 
 when I have displeased thee, I will try never to ask 
 thee for any blossoms again; and I will go wher- 
 ever thou leadest me, for how can two walk together 
 unless they are agreed ?" 
 
 Then I saw that Opal's heart was touched; the 
 leering, mocking, satyr-face disappeared entirely, and 
 tears started into his human eyes. Just then the little 
 humpback came up and whispered in his ear : " Thou 
 hast won a victory ; wives, subject yourselves to your 
 husbands in all things, says the Apostle. If thou 
 wouldst continue the master, show no weakness." 
 So Opal turned away to hide his tears, and Mimosa, 
 who did not know that his heart was swelling with 
 tenderness for her, fell prone at his feet across the 
 entrance to the cave, and was taken up senseless and 
 carried down to the dungeon ; where I was permitted 
 in my vision to follow her. 
 
 * # * # * 
 
 Now, while Mimosa was lying ill in the dungeon 
 of Depression, she said to her nurse, Patience, when 
 she awoke from sleep : 
 
 " I have been dreaming ; I thought Opal brought 
 
44 
 
 me some flowers, and I was so happy, until he told 
 me we must press on to the Golden Castle. I won- 
 der if the Castle lies near the gates of the Eternal 
 City ? Patience, dost thou think that those who stain 
 their feet with the mire of life can enter those 
 gates ?" 
 
 " There be many that strive and few that enter, it 
 is said," continued Patience, " but my own idea is, 
 that all who wish to get in, will get in, if they do not 
 turn back on the way. Hast thou ever heard what 
 terrible experiences come to those who start, and then 
 turn back ?" 
 
 " Ah, I have no thought of turning back," answered 
 Mimosa. " I fear most dying on the way, before I 
 reach the gates ; it is such a long weary way to walk, 
 when there are no flowers to gather to gladden the 
 heart ; and I am sure the good God never meant to 
 have any of His children walk in such a path as 
 Opal has chosen. It is fit only for the beasts of the 
 field, who care nothing for flowers, and for animals 
 that wallow in their own mire." 
 
 Before Patience had time to answer, the curtain 
 that hung before the entrance of the cavern chamber, 
 where Mimosa lay, was lifted, and Depression en- 
 tered, bearing in his arms an oblong casket, with a 
 glass window at one end. 
 
 " I have brought thee my reflector," he said to 
 Mimosa, " invented by and named after Reflection, 
 one of the guides to the Eternal City, who bestows 
 great aid upon those who call upon him for service. 
 I know of many whom he has helped to retrace their 
 
45 
 
 steps after they had turned aside to wander in forbid- 
 den paths. Wilt thou look in the instrument ? It 
 sets forth in tableaux, with figures that speak and 
 move, the course of one who started for the Eternal 
 City, and who was held back by her husband and 
 children, who would not let her depart. But thou 
 must not be discouraged by what thou seest. All 
 pilgrims do not have to pass through such terrible 
 scenes before they are relieved from the pangs of 
 earthly love." 
 
 " I shall not be easily discouraged," answered 
 Mimosa, " for I counted the cost before I started ; 
 only I am grieved because Opal cares more to reach 
 the Golden Castle than the Eternal City ; then, too, 
 he will not help me on the way. He might so easily 
 lift me over the rough places in his strong arms, and 
 let me walk around the muddy places that I loathe 
 so, instead of plunging through them in his haste to 
 get to the Castle, where he says I shall rest with him 
 as long as I like, and have all the roses that I want. 
 Now that I am ill, he has to stop; and after this, 
 perhaps he will not tire me so, but will let me rest 
 by the way. When one has been accustomed to 
 flowers, it is hard to walk where only thorns grow ; 
 and I love flowers more than anything else in the 
 world. Opal says I shall have everything that 
 money can buy when we get to the Golden Castle ; 
 but it may be years before we get there ; and I 
 would rather have some wild flowers every day 
 now, than all the gorgeous blossoms then that ever 
 
46 
 
 burst their lives away under tropical suns, or in 
 hot-house windows; I would indeed." 
 
 " I am sure thou wouldst," said Depression, ar- 
 ranging the burnished metal which threw light on the 
 scenes within the reflector. " There, now thou canst 
 look in." 
 
 " Oh, how lovely ! Oh, how lovely !" exclaimed 
 Mimosa. 
 
 " What dost thou see ?" asked Patience. 
 
 « I see Paradise ; flowing fountains, statuary that 
 might have been chiselled by Praxiteles ; great beds 
 of roses of all hues, and each bed of one hue ; crim- 
 son, gold, pink, ruby, white, blush ; alleys of fern- 
 like plants with blossoms of flame and snow alternat- 
 ing; every beautiful plant and flower that the eye 
 ever saw ; and a marble palace with a river flowing 
 at the back ; and now I see a woman approaching the 
 river; she is going to step into a gondola that is wait- 
 ing for her. No, she is held back by her husband, 
 who has followed her; I know it is her husband, be- 
 cause she looks up at him with such tenderness in 
 her eyes ; and in his I see a worshipping fondness. 
 Now, three, four, five, six daughters and sons come 
 down the terrace, catching hold of their mother's gar- 
 ments, saying: "We will not let our mother go!" 
 They kneel around her, they kiss her hands, entreat- 
 ing her not to leave them. Hark ! she speaks ! 
 "Why do you hold me back, my darlings? I have heard 
 the voice of the messenger, summoning me to go with 
 him to the Eternal City. I may not stay with you, 
 my dear ones; I must be gone; the messenger waits; 
 
47 
 
 prevent not my going." The husband says : " What 
 would become of me without thee ? Thou must not 
 go." The children say: "We cannot part with our 
 mother; we must go also, if thou wilt depart." The 
 woman hesitates, looking back upon them all with 
 her eyes full of love! Oh, so full of love! How 
 beautiful to see such love ! Now she puts her arm 
 around two of the daughters, and chants : 
 
 " Not a blessing broods above you 
 
 But it lifts me from the ground; 
 Not a thistle-barb doth sting you 
 
 But I suffer from the wound. 
 Though I leave you, precious darlings, 
 
 You will never be alone ; 
 I shall sorrow when you sorrow, 
 
 I shall shiver when you moan !" 
 
 She turns to the gondola, but while she paused to 
 embrace her children, it floated out in the river, and 
 she is left on the shore. 
 
 "I will come back for thee," cries the gondolier. 
 " Beckon, if thou wishest me, and I will return." 
 
 " I thought thou wast sent to take me to the Eternal 
 City," she answers. 
 
 " I was sent to see if thou art ready to go," he 
 said. 
 
 " If it is permitted me to choose, I will stay yet 
 a little longer; for I fear I should be wretched even 
 in Paradise, if I thought my darlings needed me 
 here," she replies. 
 
 " Thou hast chosen !" the gondolier shouts back, 
 as his gondola glides swiftly away. " Thou hast 
 
4 8 
 
 chosen ! It would have been better for thee, I fear, 
 if thou hadst said : ' Thy will, my God, be done!' " 
 Now, all is melting away, like a dissolving view ; 
 and I see only a gray and golden smoke, rolling in 
 billows, which breaks, as I look, in the centre, part- 
 ing like curtains on either side, disclosing a desolate 
 scene. A wild, devastated tract, with patches of 
 black, burnt stubble, checkered with sere vegetation, 
 slopes down to a torrent spanned by no bridge, but 
 with a crossing of stepping-stones far apart. On the 
 summit of the slope I see a newly made grave, not 
 yet sodded, looming up against a background of 
 black sky : around it are seven kneeling figures. 
 The silence of death is broken by the sobs of the 
 children only; for the widow, with calm confidence, 
 looks up into the blue heavens above her, as though 
 she heard a voice summoning her to follow her be- 
 loved one. Now they rise and turn to leave the 
 grave. The most anxious care is bestowed upon the 
 mother, her steps are guided, her arms supported ; 
 every pebble is removed from her path. Suddenly 
 the sky is overcast, darkness shrouds the scene. 
 There comes flying through the air a swarm of crea- 
 tures with bat-like wings and demon faces, swooping 
 down upon the group, and bearing away the children 
 in their talons. The mother, thus left alone, turns 
 helplessly from right to left, and from left to right, in 
 her vain search for the earthly stays that she was 
 leaning upon. She stretches her arms, calling pite- 
 ously after them. At last she realizes that she is 
 alone, and with an anguished cry of despair she stag- 
 
49 
 
 gers on, shaping her course for the torrent, beyond 
 which there seems to rise from a thick haze- the turrets 
 of a city. As she pushes on, scorpions crawl out 
 from their nests, and venomous reptiles hiss after her. 
 On either side of her path two demons stalk or lie in 
 wait, one is the fiend Insanity, the other Palsy, who 
 every now and then strikes at her with his shaking 
 fist. At first she did not see them; but now she 
 rushes on, stumbling in her terror, and even calling 
 upon her lost children to help her on her way. " My 
 darlings, come back and drive these fiends from my 
 path !" she screams again and again. The air rings 
 with the agony of her cries, until nearing the torrent 
 she sees a sentinel pacing its brink. 
 
 " Is this the stream of Death ?" she asks. " If so, 
 wilt not thou help me across ? for I am ill and weary 
 of my life." 
 
 " Nay." answers the sentinel. " This little torrent 
 is the barrier between the old year and the new. 
 Take good heart, woman, for on the other shore thou 
 mayst find the health and happiness which thou hast 
 lost on this side." 
 
 Now she presses her hand on her forehead and 
 talks to herself of the little rustic bridges which she 
 used to build in the youth of her children to help 
 them across, garlanding them with wreaths of ever- 
 green, and scarlet-berried holly ; hanging pretty 
 playthings to beguile them on their way. She 
 moans piteously, " Ah, they have forgotten that I was 
 so near the torrent, or they would not have left me 
 until they had helped me across, this first year that I 
 5 
 
5° 
 
 have been without their father's strong arm to lean 
 upon. Oh, they could not have known how ill I am ! 
 I will wait here awhile and call after them ; and 
 when they hear me they will come back out of pity 
 for me in my unspeakable desolation." The sun sets 
 and rises, the days come and go, and she waits pa- 
 tiently until the last night of the old year. Then she 
 cries out in her despair : " Oh, my children ! my chil- 
 dren ! if not one of you can return to guide my feeble 
 steps, send me the staff of Sympathy that, supported 
 by it, I may reach the other side, and not lose my 
 footing in the torrent, nor be overtaken by the 
 fiends." 
 
 As she calls strange shadows flit around her, indis- 
 tinct and formless. A voice from one of them an- 
 swers, " Esculapius told us not to give thee the staff, 
 that thou wilt get along better without it ; and that 
 it is only a fancy of thine that fiends are pursuing 
 thee." 
 
 She presses one hand to her head and one to her 
 heart, as though she had been struck both head and 
 heart by a sudden blow. 
 
 " Wilt thou believe Esculapius instead of thy 
 mother ? He knows me not ; I am not like those 
 who lean too heavily and break the staff of Sympathy ; 
 nor is it fancy that the fiends pursue me, for I have 
 felt their blows. By and by, when I get well and 
 strong I will not trouble thee ; but now I pray thee 
 get me the staff, and I will return it as soon as I can 
 walk alone. I would not be a burden to my chil- 
 dren, but I fear the time will come when you will 
 
5* 
 
 have to take me up and carry me, if I am left in this 
 my hour of sore need without any staff to lean 
 upon." 
 
 " Esculapius says that thou art as well able to 
 walk as I am ; that thou dost only fancy thyself ill, 
 and that we must not humor thee, or we will make 
 thee worse," are the words that come from a second 
 shadow. 
 
 " Oh, my darlings ! am I not your mother ? have 
 I not been a good mother? Have I ever turned 
 away from you, when you called upon me for help ? 
 Can you not trust me then when I tell you that Escu- 
 lapius ignorantly measures all alike with his Procrus- 
 tean rule. I am not as they are whom he judges me 
 by. I cannot walk alone, or I would do so, and 
 trouble no one, my darlings. Come and help me, 
 and listen no more to the cruel words of Esculapius." 
 -A third shadow answers : " Have we not lost our 
 father, and are we not going our way without lean- 
 ing upon thee ? Why dost thou reproach us, and 
 trouble us with thy repinings ?" 
 
 A fourth shadow flits nearer, saying : •" The sooner 
 thou learnest to walk alone, the better ; if we give 
 thee the staff, thou wilt always expect it." 
 
 " No, we will not give it to thee," says the fifth 
 shadow, and a sixth echoes the words. 
 
 Now the woman rises, and growing strong in her 
 despair, stands upright. She lifts up her hands to 
 the heavens, and exclaims, "O God! these my off- 
 spring, whom I nourished at my breast, and reared 
 through their childhood, and trained in their youth — 
 
52 
 
 whose joys have been my joys and whose sorrows 
 have been my sorrows, whose love is all that I have 
 left to live for — they have bitten my heart and torn 
 my breast with the fangs of ingratitude, until I long 
 for the grave wherein to hide my grief, and to escape 
 from the demons which Anguish and Despair have 
 set upcn my path!" 
 
 As she spoke the last words she fell in a swoon, 
 and the shadows flitted away and disappeared, leav- 
 ing her lying on the ground. An angel comes down 
 out of the sky, and bending over her breathes upon 
 her. She turns wearily, as one turns in troubled 
 sleep, and lifts herself slowly up, looking in a be- 
 wildered way around her. She seems to have for- 
 gotten the shadows and their voices; or, if she recalls 
 them, it is to her as a dream ; for she says, " I have 
 been sleeping, and have not yet crossed the torrent. 
 I will ' be brave,' though I am weak ; perchance 
 Death may meet me on the other side ; or, should 
 health return, I may still be of use to my dear ones. 
 O, my daughter ! my darling ! put out thy dear hand 
 and guide me, for I am weak in body and soul, and 
 the darkness of night has overtaken me." 
 
 A voice comes from the distance : 
 
 " Why canst thou not be the kind, unselfish mother 
 that thou wast once, whom I so idolized, and not con- 
 tinue to reproach me, and call upon me to sustain 
 thee ?" 
 
 Tears are streaming down the woman's pallid 
 cheeks now, as she steps one foot, alone and without 
 any staff, on the first stepping-stone. 
 
53 
 
 ** Come thou, my son, and lead me over and well 
 on my way, until I pass those gleaming turrets which 
 may rise from some madhouse, into which the fiend 
 Insanity will drive me in my weakness if I have no 
 one to protect me. Come, my son !" 
 
 " Esculapius told me not to listen to thee, and I 
 will not stay within the sound of thy voice if thou 
 callest on me any more. Thou art quite as well able 
 to cross as I am, and thou must learn to walk without 
 support, for now thou hast lost thy best friend, thou 
 wilt not soon find another to humor thee in thy 
 fancies." 
 
 At these words the woman reeled as she walked, 
 losing her balance at last, and almost falling in the 
 torrent ; but the same angel that breathed upon her 
 is by her side, holding her up and supporting her. 
 With quivering lips and eyes streaming with tears she 
 speaks : 
 
 " He knows not what he is saying, but the day will 
 come when it will be given to him to know the worth 
 of the heart he has broken. I have one more hope ; 
 perchance my carrier dove may bring me a missive, 
 which will cheer my heart and help me to reach the 
 border land of the new year." As she ceases to 
 speak she looks steadfastly into the sky, and she sees 
 the evening star rising over the black hill-tops throb- 
 bing with its fulness of golden light. 
 
 " O, beautiful star ! thou hast risen anew to light 
 my steps; but no, I feel the cold wind sweeping 
 down from Arctic seas, and driving thick clouds be- 
 tween us, and no carrier dove comes with the lines I 
 5* 
 
54 
 
 long for ! O, my children ! I would have died for 
 you, but I did more. I lived for you, through seas 
 of trouble that you knew not of! Do not desert me, 
 now that for the first time in my mother-life I need 
 you more than you need me ! I have lost my sole 
 support, thy father, in whom I trusted, and whose 
 arm was always ready to support me as his heart was 
 ready to sympathize with me; help me, until I reach 
 the other bank, and move this obstacle in the stream 
 that bars my progress, I pray you !" 
 
 As she speaks she reaches toward a shadow that is 
 near her, but the shadow approaches only to push 
 treacherously the object nearer, so that the woman 
 stumbles and falls over into the stream. I see the 
 angel once more returning to her, accompanied by a 
 second spirit ; together they lift her and carry her 
 between them across the torrent. As they float away 
 from her, the ground beneath her feet crumbles, and 
 once more in wild desperation she stretches out her 
 hands calling : " My children ! my children ! I am 
 not afraid of Death, but I am afraid of the fiends 
 that dog my footsteps and break the ground from 
 under me. Do not leave me to be dragged into their 
 dens, as I surely will be without your support and 
 without one ray of light to guide me in this thick 
 darkness. I can render you services in the land that 
 lies beyond, as I have in the past. Oh, help me ! 
 help me !" 
 
 The sentinel of the new year speaks to her: 
 "Art thou mad, woman? If so, I will call a 
 keeper." 
 
55 
 
 " No, I am not yet mad ; but call the keeper ; for 
 I will be grateful to him if he will lead me where 
 my brain can get some rest." 
 
 " Pass on to the tribunal yonder, where all are tried 
 for their deeds done on the other side of the stream. 
 "When thou hast received acquittal, or sentence, as 
 the case may be, then take the road to the right, and 
 the first turning will bring thee to a madhouse, where 
 thou wilt find a keeper." 
 
 The woman walks on, with one hand held over 
 her forehead as in pain, and reaches the tribunal. 
 
 "Woman, where are thy accusers?" asks the 
 judge. 
 
 " I know not that I have any accusers," she 
 answers. 
 
 As she speaks, a cowled shadow confronts her. 
 
 " I am thy accuser," it says. 
 
 " Of what dost thou accuse me ?" she asks. 
 
 "Of thinking of thyself instead of others." 
 
 " What hast thou to say in answer ?" asks the 
 judge. 
 
 A wan smile comes in the woman's face, and with 
 quivering lips she says : 
 
 "God is my judge. He who knoweth all things 
 needeth not that I should answer." 
 
 " Thou canst not be permitted to show contempt 
 here ; answer, hast thou, indeed, lived wholly for 
 thyself?" 
 
 " Were my dead here they would answer for me ; 
 but, as I cannot prove my words nor my acts, I will 
 make no other answer than that God is my judge." 
 
56 
 
 " Go on, accuser; what other charge hast thou to 
 bring ? " 
 
 " Of injustice, partiality, untrustworthiness, and 
 selfishness." 
 
 "What is thy answer, woman?" 
 
 " I have striven to do justly, walk humbly, and to 
 deal mercifully and unselfishly with all. Here, also, 
 let God be my judge ? " 
 
 " What is the next charge ? " 
 
 " Self-glorification, and making herself as one in- 
 spired." 
 
 " What dost thou answer?" 
 
 " Nay, nay, I have not glorified myself; that would 
 be impossible; for it is God that worketh in me to 
 will and to do of his own good pleasure. It has of- 
 tentimes perplexed me that He hath chosen me for 
 one of His vessels, and conferred upon me a gift 
 spoken of by the Apostle in our Holy Scriptures. I 
 have marvelled that God hath raised me up to the 
 office which I have so unworthily fulfilled, but never 
 have I failed to give Him the glory, and to say that 
 of myself I can do nothing." 
 
 " What other charge is there ? " 
 
 " She is always in the right, in her own opinion ?" 
 
 " What hast thou to say, woman ? " 
 
 "Would that I were; my frequent short-comings 
 are not because of my desire to do that which is 
 wrong, but rather because of the infirmities of hu- 
 manity which cannot be wholly overcome in this 
 world ; though I have never yet ceased to strive for 
 the victory which is promised to all who endure to 
 
57 
 
 the end. When I am wrong I strive to make 
 amends." 
 
 " Hast thou any other charge ? " 
 
 " She worries everyone with her explanations, her 
 self-defence, and her demands for sympathy." 
 
 " What answer dost thou make ? " 
 
 " I know not that I have demanded sympathy ; I 
 have given much, and I could not but expect it in 
 return. I plead guilty of self-defence and explana- 
 tion, for I could never endure the thought that any 
 one whom I loved or respected could believe me 
 guilty of deeds that would make me unworthy of 
 their love, or of their respect." 
 
 " What other charge is there ? " 
 
 " She is a lover of fulsome flattery." 
 
 " To the extent of being led by it into unseemly 
 acts and sinful deeds? For, if it is not so, this 
 charge must be passed over, since all human beings 
 are susceptible to flattery ; and only those who are 
 led into evil because of it are hurt by it. All flattery 
 is fulsome to those whom it does not concern. Name 
 the next charge, accuser." 
 
 " She squanders money, and gives no account of 
 it. No one knows how, or on whom she makes way 
 with money that is not her own." 
 
 " What hast thou to say, woman ? " 
 
 " It is false ! What moneys I have disbursed were 
 my own, and I hold vouchers that I have spent all in 
 worthy causes and on worthy objects. Show me thy 
 face, coward, for this charge betrays thee as the false 
 accuser that thou art." 
 
5* 
 
 The judge lifts the cowl, and the woman reels for- 
 ward as if she had received a mortal wound, and 
 drops on her knees before the tribunal. Now the 
 angels appear, the cowled shadow flits away, and the 
 angels lift the woman to her feet. 
 
 Her face is blanched, her hair is no longer gray, 
 but white, and her lips are bloodless. 
 
 " Guilty, or not guilty?" asks the judge. 
 
 " God is my judge, who sees the heart." 
 
 " Why didst thou quail before thy accuser, if thou 
 art not guilty ? " 
 
 " Must I answer ? " 
 
 " It is imperative, if thou wouldst not be detained 
 in prison." 
 
 " Because my accuser is one whom I have loved — 
 one whom I have fed and clothed with kindness, 
 and I am a widow in the first months of my widow- 
 hood." 
 
 " Though thy sins be many, all are forgiven thee ; 
 pass on." 
 
 She reels now as one reels who has had a death- 
 blow. But, see ! a carrier dove appears flying toward 
 her ! She gives a cry, half anguish and half joy, 
 and stretches out both hands for the missive. Ah ! it 
 is an arrow, and so cunningly devised that as she 
 takes it in her hand it works its way to her heart. 
 Another shaft comes whizzing through the air, aimed 
 at her temple, and with the blood flowing from the 
 wound it has made, she falls backward and is 
 caught in the arms of the angel, who has not left 
 her since she fell at the feet of the judge. 
 
59 
 
 " Who is holding me ? " she asks. " Is it thou, 
 sweet, gentle Death? I have longed for thee so 
 much. Take me to my true-hearted dead ! " 
 
 The angel answers : 
 
 " I am the angel Sympathy — an angel of life ; not 
 an angel of death. This, my companion, is one of 
 the ministering spirits of the angel Health, and we 
 have come to restore thee ; thou art not yet ready to 
 die, for thou hast not learned to call upon thy Cre- 
 ator; the Father of Love, who pitieth his children 
 in all their sorrows; the Lord of Sympathy, who 
 helps all who call upon his name. Thou hast called 
 only upon thy children. Thou hast loved the crea- 
 ture more than the Creator ! " 
 
 " Ah, accuse me not ! I am weary of accusations ! 
 If I love not my children whom I have seen, how can I 
 love God whom I have not seen ? I fear not to pass 
 into His presence. He judgeth not as men judge; 
 nor does He weigh our failures against our efforts. 
 Take me to Him, that I may find peace." 
 
 " This I am not permitted to do, until of thy own 
 free will thou seekest His arm to lean upon, instead 
 of the arms of thy children, upon whom thou hast 
 not ceased to call for support since thou wert stricken 
 to the dust by thy sore bereavement." 
 
 " Is it God's will, then, that I turn from the chil- 
 dren whom He gave to me ? Can I serve Him better 
 than through my love for them, which taught me the 
 strength of His love for me ? " 
 
 " It is God's will that His children submit their 
 wills to His own. He ordains that every human soul 
 
6o 
 
 shall pass through the Gethsemane of life to the place 
 of crucifixion, learning, through Calvary's lesson, to 
 say : " Thy will, my God, be done ! " 
 
 A holy light beams over the awful sadness of the 
 woman's face, as she repeats the words : " Thy will, 
 my God, be done ! " 
 
 Hark ! she is chanting now : 
 
 " I knew not it was Thou, or else 
 
 I would not so have murmured, Lord, 
 To find my gushing fountains sealed, 
 My palm trees fallen on the sward. 
 
 " I knew not whence the arrows flew, 
 
 That rent my bleeding heart in twain, 
 For had I known Thine was the mark, 
 I could have borne the torturing pain. 
 
 " I knew not that Thy guiding love 
 Decreed, from idols I had made, 
 I must be torn to do Thy will, 
 And, knowing not, I was afraid 1 
 
 " But now I know that it is Thou, 
 
 Welcome the loss, the pain, the strife, 
 For whatsoever be Thy will, 
 Shall also be my will in life." 
 
 Ah ! now, there start forward, out of the dark- 
 ness, loving human forms, no longer shadows, hasten- 
 ing toward her and surrounding her. 
 
 " Where have you been, my darlings? I have been 
 pursued by demons and mocked by shadows. Fright- 
 ful visions have seemed like realities to me. I 
 thought I had lost you all, forever ! " 
 
6i 
 
 " We have been held back by the powers of evil," 
 answers one, " but our heartstrings were tugging to 
 get to thee." 
 
 " Only that it was God's will, we could not have 
 stayed away from thee so long," says another. 
 
 " He permitted these fiends to have control of us, 
 in order that his purposes might be accomplished," 
 says a third. 
 
 Now one of the sons speaks : 
 
 " Ah, that mock tribunal, where I saw a spirit of 
 darkness personating myself! I thought my heart 
 would break when I found how my hands and feet 
 were pinioned, and saw how thou wast suffering, yet 
 could not reach thee." 
 
 " Though Esculapius held me back," says another 
 son, " he could not have done so, had not Providence 
 made him His instrument, for I could have broken 
 away from him, and flown to thee had he been en- 
 dowed with only human strength." 
 
 Now the mother embraces each child in turn, and 
 kisses them one by one, tenderly. 
 
 " Thou art coming with us, never to be separated 
 from us again," says one. 
 
 She answers : " You no longer have need of me, 
 my dear ones, and I go to do the work for which I 
 have been prepared. Keep fast hold of each other, 
 live in love, be compassionate one toward another, 
 and we shall meet in Eternity." 
 
 The angel Sympathy takes her by the hand, and 
 leaning upon him he leads her away out of their 
 sight. 
 
 6 
 
62 
 
 As Mimosa ceased speaking she closed the instru- 
 ment, and heaving a long sigh, said : 
 
 " I am glad to know that the shadows were not her 
 children, for had they been, it would have made me 
 wish never to have any children of my own." 
 
 " Oh, children are a great drag, sometimes, to those 
 who are in haste to get to the Eternal City," answered 
 Patience. 
 
 " But they must help to make the road less tedious. 
 I would not like to think that Opal and I will never 
 have any little ones ; but if we have children I will 
 not forget the lesson I have learned to-day; I will 
 call upon God when in trouble, and not upon my 
 children." 
 
 " It is a good lesson to learn," answered Patience, 
 " and thou wilt do well to teach it to others on thy 
 way. It would be hard indeed if each human being 
 had to learn it by such terrible experience as the poor 
 widow had; but all who will may help to lighten 
 their pound of the world's woe, by tender ministra- 
 tions, and teachings, that ward off suffering. The 
 farther you walk on the road to the Eternal City the 
 farther you can see, and the more you can help 
 others." 
 
 " I will remember what thou hast said," replied 
 Mimosa, " and as I walk I will try to help all who 
 suffer. If I meet Esculapius I will entreat him not 
 to seek to deprive any one of what our Saviour so 
 abundantly bestowed on all; for it is what we are 
 most called upon to bestow on one another. Dost 
 
63 
 
 thou know what became of the children when the 
 angel Sympathy led their mother away from them?" 
 
 " They had not travelled far before they found that 
 they needed her. I will tell thee some day all that 
 happened ; but now thou must go to sleep, and I will 
 watch beside thee, as thy mother would watch, to 
 keep all noise away." 
 
 " There is no love like a mother's love, and thou 
 art kind to take such care of me," said Mimosa, as 
 she lay back on her white pillow, while Patience sat 
 within call, just outside of the curtain. 
 
SLANDER AND GOSSIP. 
 
 COMPILED FROM VARIOUS AUTHORS AND DEDI- 
 CATED TO ALL WHO RETURN EVIL FOR GOOD. 
 
 " There will come 
 Alike the day of trial unto all, 
 And the rude world will buffet us alike. 
 
 ***** 
 But when the silence and the calm come on, 
 And the high seal of character is set, 
 We shall not all be similar. The flow 
 Of lifetime is a graduated scale; 
 And deeper than the vanities of power, 
 Or the vain pomp of fashion, there is set 
 A standard measuring our worth for heaven.' 
 
 " Behold, all ye that kindle a fire, that compass yourselves 
 about with sparks : walk in the light of your fire, and the sparks 
 that ye have kindled. This shall ye have of mine hand ; ye 
 shall lie down in sorrow." — Isaiah 50 : 11. 
 
 Bulwer has said, " It makes one ashamed of human 
 nature to think that the reward which the world be- 
 stows on those who brighten its dulness and delight 
 its leisure, is — slander." No one, inventor, author, 
 singer, actress, or private citizen, who has attained 
 success of any kind, can hope to escape slander. Dr. 
 Holland tells us that the cure for gossip is culture ; 
 6* 
 
66 
 
 but there is no cure for slander ! It must be crushed 
 in the embryo egg, or it will hatch an ever-increasing 
 brood. There never was but one falser sentiment 
 than "silence is the best answer to calumny." It is 
 only applicable to such great men as Washington and 
 others, whose lives stand out clear and pure before 
 the public. " Speak only good of the dead," is 
 another sentiment which embodies a maudlin and 
 dishonest pathos. I hold that of the dead, as of the 
 living, what ought to be spoken is the truth. Let 
 all the infirmities of the dead be buried in the grave 
 with the body, all that has been of evil, which it is 
 not necessary to remember, for the protection, or the 
 defence, or for the good, of the living. " Truth is the 
 strong thing, therefore let man's life be true," writes 
 Browning, and both men and women would strive 
 more earnestly to make their lives true, if. there were 
 not so much of false sentiment prevailing in reference 
 to " the sacred dead." There is an old saying, " As 
 a man is, so his ghost is." Death cannot change the 
 character, but it causes us to forget all the frailties of 
 life when the effect of those frailties is not left be- 
 hind, sowing dragons' teeth, which spring up like 
 armed men to dispute every foot of ground over 
 which the path of life lies. But, when no sooner is 
 one wrong laid in the grave than another rises up, so 
 that the sword can never rest in the scabbard, and we 
 know that all might have been saved, had but our 
 dead been true and loyal ; then we cannot bury that 
 which will not stay buried ! It comes back like some 
 horrid spectre, denying us even the luxury of grief. 
 
67 
 
 This age will hold its own for inveracity among all 
 the ages of the past; but it bids fair to eclipse the 
 ages of Tiberius and Nero in its reckless assaults 
 upon reputation. That men should deliberately and 
 day after day defame public men and assault women 
 in the public prints, has ceased to surprise anybody. 
 
 Frequency blunts the edge of murder even 
 
 But we cannot help thinking that this age of scandal 
 will finally pass away, and be remembered and re- 
 ferred to pretty much in the same fashion as the era 
 of witchcraft is remembered and referred to. The 
 public press is greatly responsible for this prevailing 
 inveracity. It gives credence to, and perpetuates the 
 unspeakably mean utterances of the slanderer and 
 the scandal- monger. A writer in the Washington 
 Republican says of this class of beings : " It is their 
 office to defame virtue and despoil worth, to feed on 
 the failings of the good and fatten on the follies of 
 the weak. Vile themselves, without a sentiment of 
 honor or decency, they cannot endure to see others 
 respected for traits they do not possess, or beloved 
 for conduct of which they are incapable. Hence 
 they make the estate of purity the prey of their pira- 
 cies and the object of their plunder. Nothing is so 
 sacred as to deter them, and no eminence is beyond 
 their attack. Is there a man who stands high in the 
 estimation of the public by reason of the excellence 
 of his character and the quality of his endowments, 
 they rest not until they have smirched the one and 
 disparaged the other by the fiendish devices of innu- 
 endo and insinuations, which constitute the weapons 
 
68 
 
 of the guilty ambush they keep in perpetual reserve 
 for those they dare not openly assail for fear of pop- 
 ular resentment. Lives there a woman whose fair 
 fame transcends the plane of ordinary attainments, 
 because of special attributes, accomplishments, and 
 graces, all the precedents of successful calumny and 
 falsehood are ransacked for suggestion of means to 
 depose and humiliate her, without subjecting the 
 authors of the detraction to the punishment they 
 deserve." 
 
 So goes the world, one portion of its inhabitants 
 striving to be worthy of the general esteem, and to 
 achieve the highest blessings of life for all, while the 
 other portion strains every nerve to pull the aspiring 
 down to the baser level of vulgar existence and vile 
 enjoyments itself attains and enjoys. And unceas- 
 ingly have the good in all ages labored to solve the 
 problem of morals involved in human instincts and 
 agencies, hoping ever and anon to arrive at such a 
 knowledge of the subject as should enable them to 
 lift up the debased, and reclaim the fallen, and to 
 establish such associations and institutions among 
 men as should ultimately remove class antagonism in 
 so far as to admit of brethren dwelling together in 
 unity, and to secure general peace and fellowship. 
 But we fear that while man remains mortal, and 
 therefore frail, this consummation so devoutly to be 
 wished for will remain in abeyance, and the good 
 with which philosophers and philanthropists would 
 crown the happiness of the world, will be reserved 
 for the eternal possession. We have no such hope 
 
o 9 
 
 as that which animates the Utopian believer; and 
 the great obstacle in the way of the realization is the 
 spirit of envy which prompts the tongue of the slan- 
 derer. Jealousy is the disturber of the harmony of 
 all interests, and unless by the interposition of Provi- 
 dence men are made better by supplemental inspira- 
 tion, it will continue to tear down as fast as love and 
 labor shall build up; and the purposes and pleasures 
 of the good must be forever marred by the will and 
 wickedness of the bad. Forever must virtue suffer 
 from the whispered intimations of vice, and honor 
 bow before the imputations of shame. 
 
 " I am used to running the gauntlet," said Tupper 
 one day to a friend, " and don't care a bit for slan- 
 der, ridicule, or even libel. Let them rave. No 
 shuttlecock can fly aloft without battledores ; and I 
 know well that all such only help success." 
 
 There are others again who have to bring in Chris- 
 tian principle to help them bear slander and misrep- 
 resentations, — sensitive to praise and to blame, — who, 
 while they pity and forgive, suffer if they cannot 
 make explanations to remove the odium thrown upon 
 them by misrepresentation and falsehood ; but no one 
 can have an opportunity of explaining all such charges, 
 even were it desirable to do so, so that those upon 
 whom stigmas are unjustly affixed often have no re- 
 source but to bear them. It is better to try to forget 
 the petty meannesses and trickeries of our kind in re- 
 calling the acts and words of noble men and women, 
 which stand like wayside shrines all along the paths 
 of some lives, " for the noble attract each other," and 
 
7o 
 
 the Scripture truth is always repeating itself that to 
 him who hath shall be given. 
 
 If society would maintain that esprit de corps 
 which would lead its members to support those who 
 are worthy of respect, never permitting their actions 
 to be arraigned by the narrow-minded, sneered at by 
 the envious, or distorted by the tale-bearing detractor, 
 how much might be abated of the power exercised 
 by evil natures, slanderous tongues, and thoughtless 
 brains ? But as long as the very kindness of heart 
 which shapes the course of some members of society 
 is made to confront them in some odious form, as 
 long as there is so little of that charity that thinketh 
 no evil, and so much of that credence of the vilest 
 insinuations that it would seem only demons could 
 breathe, it is as Utopian to look for any esprit de 
 corps in society as to look for a change of character 
 in the depraved, or for angelic natures in the human. 
 
 Still, no one should be deterred from attempting 
 to put some check on the slander and calumny which 
 mislead the judgment by the thought of the little one 
 can accomplish single-handed, working for any good, 
 or warring with any evil. The world would have 
 remained stationary, as in the dark ages, had all men 
 reasoned this way. The great art of doing much is 
 doing a little at a time. Many who hold it in bad 
 form to repeat the stories of envious women, and 
 the tales of club rooms, are withheld from openly 
 discountenancing them from the fear of seeming to 
 set themselves up as leaders, or reformers, or from 
 the dread of ridicule. 
 
71 
 
 Sneers and ridicule have been called the weapons of 
 small souls and silly minds, but it is well known that 
 people who use ridicule as a weapon of assault, are 
 often able to command powerful results for the time 
 being, and to thwart the efforts of larger souls and 
 nobler minds, which reminds one of what Ruskinsays, 
 writing of base criticism : " In all things, whatsoever, 
 there is not, to my mind, a more wilful, a more woful, 
 or wonderful matter of thought than the power of a 
 fool. In the world's affairs there is no design so 
 great or good, but it will take twenty wise men to 
 move it forward a few inches, and a single fool can 
 stop it ; there is no evil so great or terrible but that, 
 after a multitude of counsellors have taken means to 
 avert it, a single fool will bring it down." There- 
 fore, those who move in works of philanthropy must 
 expect no sudden reforms, must not be frightened by 
 sneers, nor discouraged by ridicule, for the race of 
 fools is not dead yet. Philanthropists sow the seed, 
 and leave the harvest for another generation to reap. 
 Fools can trample down the sprouting blades, and 
 then the seeds must take their chance for another 
 spring-time. Happily, nothing can destroy their 
 vitality. The truths of inspiration — and all truth is 
 inspired — are mighty, and will prevail. The weak 
 thing, weaker than a child, becomes a strong thing 
 one day if it be a true thing, Carlyle tells us ; but 
 even were we sure that failure would be the result of 
 all effort, there is that in the exercise and culture of 
 our powers that brings compensation with it. They 
 who would know the true enjoyment of life must 
 
72 
 
 learn that no pleasure can satisfy the mind as work 
 does when the head and the heart are interested in 
 it. Dickens showed his knowledge of human nature 
 when he made Nicholas Nickleby say : " So these 
 are some of the stories they invent about us, and 
 bandy from mouth to mouth. If a man would com- 
 mit an inexpiable offence against any society, large 
 or small, let him be successful. They will forgive 
 him anything but that." 
 
 It is sad to learn by experience the power of the 
 envious. The old and vulgar adage of giving a dog 
 a bad name, is exemplified but too often in the lives 
 of individuals. Many men have the bad name, 
 unjustly given, clinging to them to the end of life. 
 Many a young man is defamed by an envious rival ; 
 many a woman whose social success has been bril- 
 liant, is maligned by those who hate the excellence 
 they cannot reach ; many a benefactor misrepresented 
 and calumniated by the ones who owed him, perhaps, 
 more than they owed those who brought them into 
 the world. It has been said to be the peculiar privi- 
 lege of ingratitude to wound hearts that have learned 
 to harden themselves to the hate or contempt of men 
 to whom no services have been rendered ; but, even 
 where injuries have been received in exchange for 
 benefits, if you would know the happiness that true 
 nobility of soul confers upon its possessor, forgive 
 and, as far as possible, forget. It is true that injury 
 once inflicted cannot be repaired ; and it must ever 
 be impossible for God himself to sponge out the 
 records of the past. But there are no injuries that 
 
73 
 
 the brave cannot forgive. Cowards have done good 
 and kind actions : cowards have even fought — nay, 
 sometimes conquered, but a coward never forgave ; 
 it is not in his nature ; the power of doing it flows 
 only from a strength and greatness of soul conscious 
 of its own forces and security, and above all the 
 little temptations of resenting every fruitless attempt 
 to interrupt its happiness. It is the most refined and 
 generous pitch of virtue human nature can arrive at. 
 The practice of it leads one into that royal road, to 
 the perfecter life, where prayers and anxieties and 
 tears are of little avail, if the foundation be not 
 laid in our own moral capabilities. The laws of 
 human progress are inexorable. For us to speak the 
 truth, and do the thing that is just, and live in sym- 
 pathy with men, is to make truth and justice and 
 sympathy easier for our children, and those who 
 shall come after us. Even where the husband differs 
 in opinion from the wife as to the educating of chil- 
 dren, if the mother is true to her duties, truest to 
 them in the season of trial, as the quietly loyal 
 and good always will be, then the Scripture promise 
 will not fail her, " when he is old, he will not depart 
 from it." In youth, inheritance and bad example, 
 and habit, may hold him in iron fetters, but the 
 softening influence of time and experience will 
 loosen their hold ; and as the mother has sown, so 
 shall she reap in the end. A mother's influence 
 never dies, but lives on to guide and bless when she 
 has gone to her rest. 
 
 " If I could find it in my heart to envy any one 
 7 
 
74 
 
 for anything, I should envy you the devotion of your 
 son," said one mother to another. " I am, indeed, a 
 happy mother," was the answer; "but it is always 
 the father's influence and example which mould chil- 
 dren in their conduct towards their mother, just as it 
 is the mother who moulds them in their opinion of 
 their father." Herein lies a great truth for parents to 
 ponder over in rearing their children early in habits 
 of deference and respect. 
 
 It has been said that if we knew all that has made 
 up the characters of those around us we would grow 
 as pitifying as are the angels. More and more, men 
 of culture are growing to acknowledge the laws of 
 heredity, and to admit how much a man may have 
 to contend with, from transmitted qualities of mind 
 and heart. Some writers tell us that one eccentric 
 trait may lie dormant for generations, and then crop 
 out in a character that, otherwise, would have been 
 nearly faultless. What mother who has not been 
 puzzled by the complex characters of her children ? 
 some of them feeling, perhaps, as a European woman 
 of distinction said, " I can understand the fable of 
 the mother hen who walked from her nest with a 
 brood of goslings, for I cannot see one of my traits 
 of character in my children." Children imitate the 
 faults of their parents more readily than their virtues. 
 The gossip-loving mother will rear a brood of gossip- 
 loving children, unless some ether power, such as 
 inherited traits, or the father's influence, is strong 
 enough to prevent it. Parents who indulge in slan- 
 der perpetuate it in their offspring, and themselves 
 
75 
 
 open the way to still farther dishonesty and crime. 
 The man or the woman who could wilfully and inten- 
 tionally stain the good name of another, is a man 
 not to be trusted with the gold of another. As surely 
 as he would rob of the one, would he rob of the 
 other, if he felt equally sure of being undetected. 
 Women who delight in slander and gossip are 
 despicable characters, but there are human beings 
 who are even more contemptible, and they are the 
 men who delight in it. Still more despicable are 
 those of either sex who return benefits with slander. 
 " Whosoever rewardeth evil for good, evil shall not 
 depart from his house." — Prov. iy : ij. 
 
 Shakspeare, in words of wisdom as golden as any 
 from the pens of inspired prophets, wrote : 
 
 " Good name, in man and woman, dear my lord, 
 
 Is the immediate jewel of their souls: 
 
 Who steals my purse, steals trash ; 'tis something, nothing ; 
 
 'Twas mine, 'tis his, and has been slave to thousands : 
 
 But he that niches from me my good name 
 
 Robs me of that which not enriches him 
 
 And makes me poor indeed." 
 
 Public opinion should be educated up to the point 
 that " a good name is better than great riches," and that 
 those who really and truly feel that it is so, should 
 manifest it by pursuing the robber of their good 
 name as earnestly as they would the robber of their 
 bonds and securities. Not dignified to notice slan- 
 ders ! When our caskets of jewels are broken open 
 and rifled, do we consider it beneath our dignity to 
 pursue the thief and demand their return ? And if 
 
76 
 
 our character is really more to us than our jewels 
 are, we will not sit down folding our hands and say- 
 ing, " It is beneath my dignity to do anything towards 
 restoring what I value more than life itself." On 
 the contrary, no means will be left untried for the 
 recovery of our good name and the conviction of the 
 robber. When one generation of children has been 
 trained to place the right estimate upon character 
 (the foundation of which is truth), then we may 
 hope for less gossip and slander ; for if the rob- 
 bers of reputation were followed up by all those 
 whose characters they seek to defame (as they would 
 be, were all men and all women equally sensitive to 
 stains and slurs cast upon a good name, instead of 
 feeling wrongs, rudenesses and insults in proportion 
 to the fineness of their moral fibre), fear would check 
 both gossip and slander. As long as men follow up 
 the robber of their gold and leave the robber of their 
 good name unmolested, so long will that carnival 
 continue so well described by the poet : 
 
 The flying rumors gathered as they rolled ; 
 Scarce any tale was sooner heard than told, 
 And all who told it added something new, 
 And all who heard it made enlargements too ; 
 On every ear it spread — on every tongue it grew. 
 
 It is not enough that the anonymous critic and the 
 tale-bearing individual are told that " he who repeats 
 a slander shares the crime." Seared consciences are 
 not touched by proverbs and truisms. Bolder steps 
 are necessary to defeat their ends. The first duty of 
 
77 
 
 every one who calls himself a friend is to defend the 
 absent one. No tie is worthy of being called friend- 
 ship which does not lead one to the defence of an 
 absent friend ; and there is a second duty which is 
 not less binding where the friendship is of long 
 standing, or a worthy one, and that is to put it in the 
 power of the one traduced to deny the invention 
 and to counteract the influence of the slander. 
 
 There is a large class of persons who, unknow- 
 ingly to themselves, help to keep up both gossip and 
 faith in gossip. They refrain from putting it in the 
 power of their friends to deny these rumors ; partly 
 from fear of getting into trouble themselves or being 
 called mischief-makers ; and partly from pure indif- 
 ference to the good name of the one whom they 
 profess to regard as a friend. It is a custom of gos- 
 sips, slanderers, and tale-bearers to call those persons 
 who have moral courage enough to help a maligned 
 woman face her accusers, mischief-makers. But no 
 gentlewoman would ever abuse such a proof of 
 friendship as to give the name of the friend who 
 kindly put it in her power to contradict a scandal or 
 deny a falsehood. She would show herself so want- 
 ing in the first principles of honor if she could do so, 
 that she would be unworthy of friendship in any 
 form. Who is there that would not a thousand 
 times over rather stop a scandal at its start, than 
 to let the ball go rolling on until it became too 
 large to manage. Before all tribunals save those of 
 " Fehmgerichte " and of society (our modern Inqui- 
 sition), the accused is allowed to know something of 
 7* 
 
78 
 
 the nature of the charges brought against him, but 
 when he is made acquainted with them by any of the 
 members of either of these associations, the hue and 
 cry of treachery is raised. Why is it that so many 
 men and women have no idea of the true meaning 
 of the word treachery ? 
 
 It is not treachery when a woman raises her voice 
 in denial of the false accusations made against a 
 friend, and who, when evidence is brought forward 
 that she cannot rebut, feeling more confidence in 
 her friend than in the evidence, goes to her with the 
 frank statement of the charges, and asks for the truth. 
 This is not treachery nor mischief-making. The 
 mischief-maker invents her tales, or repeats that worst 
 kind of a tale, half truth and half fiction, and re- 
 turns to report its effect, maliciously distorting all 
 that she has elicited from its object. 
 
 As long as it is in the interest of gossips and scan- 
 dalmongers to put down true friendship with the cry 
 of "mischief-maker!" so long will the true friend 
 have need of moral courage to be worthy of an ex- 
 alted friendship ; and, in the meantime, they who are 
 of sufficient importance to be the subject of gossip, 
 will be able to distinguish between the true and the 
 pretended friend by a very simple test; for it is the 
 latter that always asks the question, " Who tells you 
 of these things ?" Let the reader remember this test, 
 for it is an unerring one. A true friend wishes to 
 put down at the start any story calculated to injure 
 the character of his friend, just as he would one con- 
 cerning a member of his own family ; and the strength 
 
79 
 
 of the friendship may be gauged by his promptness 
 in putting it in the power of his friend to crush a 
 slander. When a man hears any slander of his 
 mother, his wife, or his daughter, he does not say, 
 " Why do people bother me by running to me with 
 such frivolous stories?" He knows the value of 
 character, and they who steal his gold are in his eyes 
 far less criminal than are they who would rob his 
 dear ones of their most precious possession. 
 
 A true friend, and oh, how few they are, will not 
 allow the gold of his friend's good name stolen, in his 
 presence, any sooner than he would allow his friend's 
 purse to be taken. And yet this same true friend, 
 who would not hesitate to make known the name of 
 the thief who had stolen a purse from his friend, 
 would require more than ordinary moral courage, 
 and would give proof of more than ordinary friend- 
 ship, if he should go to his friend with a slander, and 
 put it in his power to refute it. From what does this 
 arise ? From the fact that so few hold as binding 
 the laws of moral obligation. If you go to an ac- 
 quaintance with any gossip or slander about yourself, 
 which has reached your ears as coming from that ac- 
 quaintance, you do not reveal the name of your in- 
 formant ; but if you go to him with any slander which 
 concerns him or his family, you are bound to give 
 the name. You must either withhold the slander 
 from his knowledge, or you must give him the infor- 
 mation which will put it in his power to refute it. 
 
 Simple as this seems to all who have any sense of 
 moral obligation, those who have not this sense are 
 
So 
 
 unable to discriminate as to when honor requires that 
 the name should be given, and when it is shamefully 
 dishonorable to reveal the name. Within a few years 
 the New York Evening Post had the following article 
 under the heading of 
 
 " WELL-BRED BARBARISM. 
 
 " A prominent Philadelphia journal, whose readers 
 are chiefly persons in good society, has recently had 
 occasion to print some elaborate commentaries upon 
 the laws of courtesy between friends, which the jour- 
 nal in question has reason to believe are constantly 
 violated through ignorance. One of the laws set forth 
 is that one should never tell his friend of the exist- 
 ence of a slanderous accusation against him without 
 also giving him the name of the accuser, in order 
 that he may right himself in the matter. Another 
 canon of etiquette explained is that the person to 
 whom a revelation of this kind is made, is in honor 
 bound not to reveal the source from which he received 
 his information respecting his accuser's identity. 
 
 " We refer to this matter now only because it sug- 
 gests the existence of a strange lack of good breeding 
 and sound sense among persons commonly supposed 
 to be well bred. To a person of ordinary percep- 
 tions, and of a tolerably right sense of moral obliga- 
 tion, the laws here expounded are simply indisputable 
 points of morality which ought to require neither set- 
 ting forth nor enforcement. There are many conven- 
 tional usages of society which young persons must 
 learn, but these are not of them. 
 
Si 
 
 " They are not conventional rules at all, but simply 
 dictates of morality and decency, which ought to need 
 no teaching anywhere. If the writer who urges them 
 is right in the conviction that such teaching is needed, 
 there is greater barbarism in good society than good 
 society's well-wishers like to think. 
 
 " As ' professional courtesy ' among physicians is 
 in fact only the law of right between men, so in mat- 
 ters of this kind the requirements are simply that one 
 shall not grossly abuse friendship. It ought to be no 
 more necessary to teach men and women this, than to 
 teach them that they must not take each other's prop- 
 erty, and yet we find a Philadelphia journal printing 
 careful and somewhat philosophical articles explain- 
 ing and enforcing these ordinary obligations as things 
 which are in special need of enforcement. The fact 
 suggests some painful doubts of the civilization of 
 polite society." 
 
 Calumnies coming from any who are dear by ties 
 of blood, must be borne heroically. They strike 
 through helmet and mail, down to the very heart's 
 core ; and what remedy is there for such wounds ? 
 
 Next to such blows are those dealt by Judas-friends, 
 who kiss while betraying, who mingle the drop of 
 gall so subtly with the drop of honey, that we know 
 not from whence the bitterness proceeds ; they who, 
 perhaps, under the guise of affectionate censure of 
 our conduct to others, awaken suspicions which were 
 never before harbored, poisoning the sweet wells of 
 
82 
 
 living waters which are the sources of solace and re- 
 freshment in the green oasis of life's Sahara. Loyal 
 souls, noble minds, are not able to take in the full ex- 
 tent of such treachery until the hour comes when the 
 honey is exhausted, as it will be, and only gall re- 
 mains. Then they know that they have given gold, 
 and received only copper in return. 
 
 A man can carry a hundredweight on his shoul- 
 ders with less inconvenience than a few pounds about 
 his heart. It is the burden of which we dare not 
 speak, which no friend must seem to see, for which 
 no brother must offer a hand, that sinks our failing 
 strength, that crushes us down, humbled and help- 
 less, in the mire. Of all human affections, that be- 
 tween parent and child, if not the strongest, is cer- 
 tainly the deepest and most abiding ; so ingratitude 
 from a child inflicts on our moral being the sharpest 
 and most enduring pain. " Is there any cause in 
 nature that makes these hard hearts ?" says poor King 
 Lear, after " reaping the fruits of his foolish gener- 
 osity," and forced against his own instincts to ac- 
 knowledge the venomed bite of that " serpent's tooth" 
 with which elsewhere he compares "a thankless 
 child." Men and women accept with courage every 
 sample of misfortune and disgrace — in the language 
 of the prize-ring, " come up smiling" after every kind 
 of knock-down blow; but are there any instances on 
 record in which the ingratitude of children has not 
 produced wrinkles and gray hairs, in the proportion 
 of ten to one, for every other sorrow of any descrip- 
 tion whatever ? There is no prospect of alleviation 
 
*3 
 
 to amuse his fancy, no leavening of pique to arouse 
 his pride. Hurt to the death, the sufferer has scarce 
 manhood enough left to conceal his wounds. If to 
 ingratitude a child should add the infamy of slan- 
 dering the parent who has poured out treasure of 
 deep affection, meeting with no return — " not even 
 of silver for gold" — then arises an exception to the 
 rule set down, that the robber of a good name should 
 be pursued as relentlessly as the robber of jewels. 
 No parent but would say, " This is a thief that I can- 
 not pursue; this is one of the cruel wrongs which 
 must be left in God's hands to punish." And " every 
 man's Nemean lion is lying in wait for him some- 
 where." Sooner or later the avenging Nemesis that 
 shows no mercy overtakes the wrong-doer. 
 
 " Life is the seedtime of eternity, and whatsoever 
 a man soweth, that shall he also reap." But for this 
 promise, what heart (or brain) that would not grow 
 faint when putting forth its feeble efforts against the 
 powers of evil, remembering how might triumphs 
 over right, and how calumny pursues its victoms be- 
 yond the grave ? But Life is the seedtime, and 
 Eternity brings the harvest. We have ever before 
 us the inspiring example of the Master, who forgave 
 his enemies and maligners, although he did not for- 
 get the insults and indignities he had received at 
 their hands. Indeed, we are nowhere told that it is 
 our duty to forget them. Rather should we remem- 
 ber them long enough to use them for our own good 
 and for the good of others. 
 
 While " it is the glory of a man to pass by a trans- 
 
84 
 
 gression," mercy needs to be fortified with justice 
 quite as much as justice needs to be tempered with 
 mercy. We are not to put ourselves on a par with 
 the base by hating them ; but while passing over the 
 transgression from a social standpoint, we are to con- 
 centrate all our powers to the effort of counteracting 
 the influence of the slander. 
 
 Thackeray said in one of his papers : " I have a 
 story of my own, of a wrong done to me as far back 
 as the year 1838; whenever I think of it, and have 
 had a couple of glasses of wine, I cannot help telling 
 
 it The wound begins to bleed again. The 
 
 horrid pang is there as keen as ever — that crack 
 across my heart can never be cured. There are 
 wrongs and griefs that can't be mended. It is ' all 
 very well to say that this spirit is unchristian, and 
 that we ought to forgive and forget, and so forth. 
 How can I forget at will ?" 
 
 And how true this is ! A woman may even for- 
 give those who have, by a prolonged and systematic 
 public persecution, placed her morally in a pillory 
 where, to quote again from Thackeray, she has been 
 " hooted with foul abuse and assailed with the garb- 
 age of the gutter," until, could she have had her 
 choice, she would have preferred to have been burned 
 alive rather than to have endured it ; but she cannot 
 forget such an experience, try as she may. When- 
 ever the action of the brain becomes over-stimulated 
 by any cause whatever, she will live over all the 
 memories of the past connected with it, rehearse 
 them and dwell upon them, although it may be that 
 
§5 
 
 " nothing but happiness has grown out of her past 
 suffering," and " no sore spot is left in her heart." 
 She may forgive entirely, but, like Thackeray, she 
 cannot forget. She may even go out of her way, 
 seeking for opportunities to return good for evil, to 
 extend a courtesy in return for an insult regretted by 
 its bestower; but forgetfulness is impossible, and the 
 memory of such a gigantic wrong must ever loom up 
 to throw its shadow over the sunniest fields of life. 
 Our experiences in life are sent to us, our talents are 
 given to us, our properties are intrusted to us, to use 
 for the good of mankind. Upon our use or abuse of 
 them depends our happiness here and hereafter. 
 The greater a man's place or power is, the greater, 
 in God's eyes, is the number of his creditors. .... 
 
 A man is put into this world to do a certain share 
 of the world's work ; to stop a gap in the world's 
 fencing ; to form a cog, however minute, in the 
 world's machinery. By the defalcation of the hum- 
 blest individual, some of its movements must be 
 thrown out of gear. The duty is to be got through, 
 and none of us may shirk our share. 
 
 The busy hands appointed to cleanse the garden 
 of the Lord from weeds, must expect nothing but 
 pain from the nettles and thorns that it has to weed 
 out ; but wherever there is a garden to weed, valuable 
 plants are there, as well as worthless weeds ; fragrant 
 blossoms to please the senses of sight and smell, as 
 well as stinging nettles and prickly thorns. The gar- 
 dens of the Lord lie all around us in the world ; in 
 our homes, in society ; in the homes of the poor and 
 
S6 
 
 afifiicted; everywhere. Mothers, teachers, preachers, 
 writers, all find work to do in these gardens ; all 
 find weeds to pluck and flowers to foster ; and all 
 of them should find compensation for the stinging 
 pain of the nettles and the thorns, in the odorous 
 breath and exquisite coloring of the buds and blos- 
 soms which they tend, and in the fruit which is 
 borne. Think for one moment what would be the 
 result if every gardener were to sit down and fold 
 his hands, saying : " I am afraid of these poisonous 
 weeds, these prickly thorns and nettles. I do not 
 wish to be brought in contact with them in any way ; 
 the flowers must look out for themselves. I have my 
 own especial garden to attend to, and I find weeds 
 enough there to pull up, without troubling myself 
 about the weeds in other gardens." Then the teacher 
 would cease to teach, the writer would cease to write, 
 the preacher would cease to preach, and even the 
 mother might say: "I have enough to keep the 
 weeds down in my own heart ; my children must 
 attend to their hearts themselves." There would be 
 only a crop of thistles and thorns then to gather in 
 when the harvest- time came. But where would the 
 lovely blossoms, the exquisits flowers be ? Could 
 they ever develop into fruit, or bear seed that would 
 perpetuate their own fragrance and beauty ? Never, 
 the briers would keep them down out of reach of 
 the sunlight; the rank growth of the nettle-roots 
 would smother the embryo leaves in their earliest 
 infancy, and in time there would be a wilderness of 
 
87 
 
 weeds to offend, instead of lovely gardens of flowers 
 to gratify the eye. 
 
 The blossoms in the gardens of life bear a balm in 
 their juices for the healing of all wounds, and wher- 
 ever there is a garden where there are weeds to be 
 rooted out, there grow the plants which yield this balm, 
 and which are worth all the trouble and the pain of 
 weeding out that would impede their growth, if not 
 altogether keep them down out of sight. The man, 
 whose carefully-furrowed and planted field is sown 
 with tares by his enemy, while its owner sleeps, and 
 who, listening not to the voice of the mistaken friend 
 calling to him, " You have planted your seed, let it go ; 
 nothing that is good ever dies," bends himself to the 
 Herculean task of pulling up by the roots, every 
 prickly, stinging tare, while the crowd gathers with 
 derisive laughter, mocking him at his work — that man 
 is for the time being on a plane beyond the reach of 
 his detractors. They may represent him as working 
 for the greed of gold, and for aggrandizement of self, 
 but conscious of the motives that inspire him, he 
 finds " meat to eat that the world knows not of," as 
 during the blazing hours of midday he toils on, 
 remembering that the full rich sheaves of an abun- 
 dant harvest are promised only to those who are 
 faithful to the end. To the sordid, the mean, the 
 base, it may really seem that he is working to fill his 
 own granary, for, as Spurgeon says in one of his ser- 
 mons, " If you live the most devoted and disinter- 
 ested life possible, you will find people sneering at 
 you, and imputing your actions to selfish motives, 
 
ss 
 
 and putting a cruel construction on all you do or 
 say." 
 
 Well, it does not matter if they do ; if we lead 
 disinterested lives here, we shall have the conscious- 
 ness of the integrity of our motives, and learn how 
 God makes all things (even slanders and sneers) 
 work together for our good." 
 
 No evils touch us save by God's blessed will, 
 Who turns e'en sin to work his purpose still. 
 
 It is worth some suffering to learn this great lesson 
 of life, for when once learned, submission and 
 endurance are made easy. The increase of knowledge 
 includes the increase of sorrow ; but the knowledge 
 of the depth of sorrow is the gate of a divine joy. 
 
 With peaceful mind thy race of duty run. 
 
 God nothing does, or suffers to be done, 
 
 But what thou wouldst thyself, if thou couldst see 
 
 Through all events of things as well as He. 
 
 " I do not wish to be called a brilliant woman," 
 wrote a mother to a daughter who had so called her. 
 " I wish to have my children think of me in my life, 
 and when I am gone, as of one who tried to do all 
 the good that she could while here." 
 
 Such must be the aspiration of every true woman's 
 heart ; for so far as a woman is true to the nature 
 that God has given her, her aspiration is not so much 
 that the world should ring with her fame, says 
 Brooke, or society quote her as a leader, but that 
 she should bless, and be blessed in blessing. Where 
 
she has power of position, she uses it for noble, and 
 not ignoble ends — for womanly services, and not for 
 the degradation of herself and others. 
 
 Kingsley spoke truly when he said, "We are all 
 too apt to be the puppets of circumstances ; all too 
 apt to follow the fashion ; all too apt, like so many 
 minnows, to take our color from the ground on which 
 we lie, in hopes, like them, of comfortable conceal- 
 ment, lest the new tyrant deity called public opinion 
 should spy us out, and like Nebuchadnezzar of old, 
 cast us into a burning fiery furnace — which public 
 opinion can make very hot — for daring to worship 
 any god or man save the will of the temporary ma- 
 jority. It is difficult for any souls but heroic ones to 
 be anything but poor, mean, insufficient, imperfect 
 people, as like each other as so many sheep ; and like 
 so many sheep, having no will or character of our 
 own, but rushing altogether blindly over the same 
 gap, in foolish fear of the same dog, who, after all, 
 dare not bite us; and so it always was, and always 
 will be. 
 
 ' Unless above himself he can 
 Exalt himself, how poor a thing is man.' 
 
 " But, nevertheless, any man or woman who will, 
 can live a heroic life and exercise heroic influences, 
 in any age and under any circumstances. But he 
 ought to have, he must have, justice, self-restraint, and 
 that highest form of modesty for which we have, alas ! 
 no name in the English tongue ; that perfect respect 
 for the feelings of others which springs out of perfect 
 8* 
 
$0 
 
 self-respect. True heroism involves self-sacrifice, 
 but it must be voluntary ; a work of supererogation, 
 at least toward society and men — an act to which the 
 hero or heroine is not bound by duty, but which is 
 above, though not against duty." 
 
 When will the world learn that no man, no woman, 
 can make himself or herself a leader ? When a gen- 
 eral is needed, destiny raises him to fill the place as- 
 signed to him. He has not chosen himself, and very 
 often he is not the one whom the people would have 
 chosen. Neither art, nor literature, nor science is a 
 craft. Those to whom the endowment comes in their 
 cradles, all those in whom the immortal spark of 
 genius (that lives in every soul) is tended into a flame, 
 feel that they have a mission to fulfil— a sacred mis- 
 sion. Sacred it must be, for there can be no mission 
 from men to men. It comes from the divinity within — 
 from God himself. It is He who worketh in them 
 both to will and to do of His own good pleasure. As 
 Hamerton says, it would be as well if, instead of set- 
 ting down originality as folly, we were to give Heaven 
 credit for understanding the best interests of humanity, 
 when it accompanied every good gift with the con- 
 dition that the possessor should be uneasy until he 
 had set it forth. All artists, poets, inventors, think- 
 ers, are compelled to set forth their gifts. This is 
 the condition of the genuineness in art work. Men 
 and women engrossed in great works are not gener- 
 ally the ones who seek leadership in it, but seek rather 
 to establish others than to take the lead themselves. 
 
 Swift said, " Hide your intellect, do what you are 
 expected to do, say what you are expected to say, 
 
9 i 
 
 and you will be at peace." The secret of popularity 
 is to be commonplace on principle. But if, as has 
 been asserted, the thinker's gift gives him no rest 
 until he has used it for the good of mankind, Swift's 
 advice cannot be followed by men of talent. 
 
 Spinoza declared that in order to lead a tranquil 
 life he had been compelled to renounce all kinds of 
 teaching. Truly the teacher and preacher have a 
 hard penalty to pay for devoting their lives to the 
 service of mankind, if the loss of tranquillity is to be 
 one of the forfeits. This is why we often see hearts 
 which are attuned to the melody of all goodness 
 jarred by rude hands, until they utter notes as dis- 
 cordant as those breathed by the Archbishop of 
 Cashel, when he said in a letter to Dean Swift, " I 
 have for these four or five years past met with so 
 much treachery, baseness,, and ingratitude among 
 mankind, that I can hardly think it incumbent on 
 any man to endeavor to do good to so perverse a 
 generation." 
 
 He had paid the forfeit of some noble endeavor, 
 some misplaced trust, in loss of tranquillity of mind 
 for the time being. 
 
 " The evil that we do," says Rochefoucault, " does 
 not draw upon us so many persecutions and so much 
 hatred as our good qualities." 
 
 " Think truly, and thy thought 
 Shall the world's famine feed; 
 
 Speak truly, and thy word 
 Shall be a fruitful seed; 
 
 Live truly, and thy life shall be 
 A great and noble creed." 
 
9 2 
 
 Writers, benefactors, and philosophers, however, 
 are not the characters most beloved by the world. 
 They have the pleasure of reflecting that the public 
 hatred is never universally excited against an ordi- 
 nary man. They are not surprised if the vulgar con- 
 demn whatever they write and all they say, or if some 
 of their readers call black white, and white black. 
 This kind of stupidity is a dangerous kind when it 
 goes with credit and authority, reminding one of the 
 fox in the Indian fable. 
 
 " Reynard, where are you going in so great a 
 hurry ? Have you done any mischief for which you 
 are fearful of being punished?" " No, sir," replied 
 the fox, " my conscience is clear, and does not re- 
 proach me with anything; but I have just overheard 
 the hunters wish that they had a camel to hunt this 
 morning." " Well, but how does that concern you? 
 You are not a camel." "O! sir," replied the fox, 
 " sagacious heads always have enemies. If any one 
 should point me out to the huntsmen, and say, ' There 
 runs a camel P those gentlemen would immediately 
 seize me and load me with chains, without once in- 
 quiring whether I really was a camel." 
 
 Reynard was right, but it is lamentable that men 
 should be wicked in proportion as they are stupid, or 
 that they should be wicked only because they are 
 envious. He who finds himself the object of such 
 wrath, can revenge himself by letting it be seen that 
 no man living is an object of envy or scandal to him, 
 and console himself by remembering that envy is the 
 shadow of glory, as glory is the shadow of virtue. 
 
93 
 
 There are no worse tyrants than the prejudices of 
 mankind, and the servitude of liberal minds becomes 
 more weighty in proportion to the public ignorance. 
 Those minds that have learned wisdom from experi- 
 ence should neither be weighed down, shaken, nor 
 surprised by outside influences. They have resources 
 which repay for all calumnies, for all the ingratitude 
 with which their labors and anxieties have been re- 
 warded; they can use society to minister to their 
 ends without being hurt by it. They will not be in- 
 fluenced in their judgments of others by those who 
 call white black, but will judge for themselves. 
 
 " But breathe the air 
 Of mountains, and their unapproachable summits 
 Will lift thee to the level of themselves. 
 
 Their own thoughts 
 Are their companions, their designs and labors, 
 And aspirations are the only friends 
 Whom they can wholly trust." 
 
 That peculiarity of organization which enables 
 authors to idealize, to take their flights of fancy, and 
 to feel that sympathy with each character that they 
 create, necessary for its consistent and harmonious 
 development, also endows them with that super- 
 sensitiveness, which brings with it great capacity for 
 suffering, as well as great enjoyment. De Tocqueville 
 uttered the want of all true poets, as well as all noble 
 souls, when he said, "I cannot be happy or even 
 calm without the encouragement and sympathy of 
 some of my fellow-creatures." What marks the 
 
94 
 
 poetic temper is the intensity of its sympathy ; what 
 marks the artistic is its versatility. 
 
 Cicero says, " The love of praise influences all 
 mankind and the greatest minds are most susceptible 
 of it." " Praises bestowed upon great and exalted 
 minds only rouse and spur on their emulation," says 
 Plutarch. 
 
 Kingsiey, after stating that every motive which 
 springs from self is by its very essence unheroic, adds, 
 but the love of approbation, the desire for the respect 
 and love of our fellow-men, must not be excluded 
 from the list of heroic motives. Whereby we see 
 that the craving of men for sympathy in sorrow from 
 those whom they love, for appreciation of motives of 
 action when these motives have been maligned and 
 traduced by enemies, for a just and charitable estimate 
 of aims in life, are counted not as weaknesses, but as 
 virtues. 
 
 When friends in whom men have trusted fail them 
 in sympathy, appreciation, and charity, what more 
 natural than that the human should triumph over the 
 divine, as in our Lord's experience when deserted by 
 his apostles. For as a clergyman of the Church of 
 England so eloquently tells us, that which we love 
 most in men and women, in our leaders, in wife and 
 husband, daughter and son, in sister and brother, 
 friend or lover, is faithfulness. It is, as it is in God, 
 the ground of all other qualities. If, even in thought, 
 it is untrue, if it allow base motives to be imputed to 
 those we love for conduct which we do not under- 
 stand, if it listen to blame imputed without denial, if 
 
95 
 
 it maintains silence when speech could aid, then it is 
 faithlessness worse than speech. For we may pardon 
 the faithless looseness of the tongue in excitement, 
 but not the failure of the heart. 
 
 " Let the mad world go on its way, it will go its 
 own way!" cry the worldly wise to those whose 
 feet have been led into paths which they have not 
 chosen — paths which friends condemn, and foes assail. 
 Heed not the cry ! God has given to every man, to 
 every woman, a work to do (be it ever so humble) for 
 others, as well as for themselves and their own, and 
 the time comes at last when they all find their paths, 
 and when their work is made clear for them. 
 
 Let the mad world go its own way, is also the 
 cry sent after the philanthropist, who, working for the 
 amelioration of the condition of his fellow-men, meets 
 with obloquy and reproach. All who labor to 
 advance the welfare of their kind, are working in 
 God's fields, whether it be work for the race or for 
 individuals, whether it be collectively in some gigan- 
 tic cause, or singly and humbly, by those who, valuing 
 the beauty of beautiful behavior, kind acts, and bene- 
 ficent deeds, strive to improve themselves and others, 
 and to bring blessings wherever they go. If, then, 
 the mad world will go its own way, it is our duty to 
 see that it does not carry us away from the work 
 given to every human being in entail — that of per- 
 fecting his own character and living for the good of 
 others. 
 
 No one can walk over a bed of thornless roses with 
 such a goal in view ; the brambles upon either side 
 
9 6 
 
 of the straight and narrow path of duty bear spikes 
 like that of the desert thorn of Sahara — long enough 
 to pierce to the heart's core of those who stoop. to 
 encounter them. Sharpest among such thorns are 
 those thrust in by hands we have trusted in for sup- 
 port — faithless hands which fail us when we need 
 them most. 
 
 " God has ordained that mankind should be ele- 
 vated by misfortune, and that happiness should grow 
 out of misery and pain," says Reade in his " Martyr- 
 dom of Man." He it is who also says, " To do that 
 which deserves to be written, to write that which 
 deserves to be read, to tend the sick, to comfort the 
 sorrowful, to animate the weary, to keep the temple 
 of the body pure, to cherish the divinity within us, to 
 be faithful to the intellect, to educate those powers 
 which have been intrusted to our charge, and to em- 
 ploy them in the service of humanity, that is all we 
 can do." 
 
 " All writing comes by the grace of God, and all 
 doing and having," says Emerson; but — 
 
 " Thou must be true to thyself, 
 
 If thou the truth would teach, 
 
 Thy soul must overflow, if thou 
 Another soul wouldst reach ; 
 
 It needs the overflowing heart 
 To give the pen full speech." 
 
 Upon no subject has there been a greater variety 
 of opinion expressed than upon the compensation 
 the author finds in his work, for the abuse that he 
 receives. One writer tells us that there is no happi- 
 
97 
 
 ness on earth to equal that which the author feels, as 
 day by day he sees the creations of his fancy grow 
 and develop under his pen; that his talent lends 
 light and color to the poorest life ; that all sickness 
 of the soul is cured by the performance of such work. 
 Others again say that the artistic temperament is too 
 sensitive to its own failures, too dependent on appre- 
 ciation for much happiness to be obtained from it. 
 
 " The gift of the pen is an enigma ; once an author, 
 always an author," says Bulwer. Genius is destiny, 
 and will be obeyed ; you must write despite yourself, 
 if you have the gift. It is true that not all who have 
 the infirmities of genius have its strength, and we are 
 apt to apply the word genius to the minds of the gifted 
 few ; but in all of us there is a genius that is inborn, 
 a pervading something which distinguishes our very 
 identity, and dictates to the conscience that which we 
 are best fitted to do and to be. 
 
 In so dictating it compels our choice in life — maps 
 out our work — and if we resist the dictate, we find at 
 its close that we have gone astray. The power of 
 the writer is breathed into him as he lies in his cradle. 
 It is a power that gathers for its own use all the ex- 
 periences of life. 
 
 The writer is forced to make use of all that comes 
 to him to use ; oftentimes he is driven to his work 
 against his will. Friends may oppose, acquaintances 
 ridicule, strangers wonder why one should work who 
 need not work. 
 
 It is all the same ; in vain the author's best loved 
 ones may quote Horace's words, " I would keep the 
 9 
 
9 S 
 
 vulgar public from all whom I love — all who are 
 sacred to me," the writer must utter that which is 
 given to him to say. It is the voice of inspiration 
 in him, and he cannot turn away from it 
 
 The more intense the sympathy possessed by the 
 author, the more keen is the power of suffering from 
 the injustice and the venom of critics. If the cross 
 of " a good name " maligned is laid upon such they 
 must walk the via dolorosa of their lives bravely : 
 for this cross is not one that once borne can be taken 
 off at pleasure ! 
 
 Is there any trial on earth like that of having such a 
 cross placed by hands that are trusted as implicitly 
 as the Creator is trusted ? "A man's foes are of his 
 own household," says Scripture; but surely the writer 
 of these words could not have meant that it is so in 
 other than exceptional cases ! The great Swedish 
 sage, Oxenstiern, had engraved on a stone of his 
 house these lines, which still arrest the attention of 
 the passers-by : 
 
 " Rid thyself of thine enemy, 
 Trust not too much to thy friend." 
 
 Where there is no trust, there can be no betrayal. 
 It is they who are wounded in the houses of their 
 friends, and not those who find unexpected enemies 
 in acquaintances, that know what the word " be- 
 trayed " means, in its fullest significance. 
 
 It is a great gift of the gods to be born with a 
 hatred and contempt of all injustice and meanness. 
 The more grand and noble the soul the more it will 
 
99 
 
 be wounded by the blows of injustice; and just in 
 proportion to the purity of the soul, to the sense of 
 justice in the individual, will be his hatred of evil 
 and his indignation against it. To love truth is to 
 hate falsehood intensely. 
 
 Truth, which is the foundation of all manly char- 
 acter, and of all womanly virtues, is also the keystone 
 of the arch of domestic peace. If that fails, all falls 
 in ruin. There is no unhappiness in life equal to 
 unhappiness at home. All other personal miseries 
 can be better borne than the terrible misfortune of 
 domestic disunions, and none so completely demor- 
 alize all but the noblest natures. The anguish of 
 disease itself is modified, ameliorated, even rendered 
 blessed, by the tender touch, the dear presence of the 
 sympathetic beloved ; and loss of fortune is not loss 
 of happiness where family love is left. But the 
 want of that love is not to be supplied by anything 
 else on earth. Health, fortune, success, nothing has 
 its full savor when the home is unhappy; and the 
 greatest triumphs in the world are of no avail to 
 cheer the sinking heart when misery within the 
 home has to be encountered. To be supposed 
 gifted with home happiness because Heaven has 
 denied you nothing else, and yet to sit down, Cin- 
 derella-like, to the ashes of the domestic hearth in 
 the midst of contention, discussion and despair, 
 what life can equal the misery of this ? None ; not 
 even imprisonment, nor banishment, nor poverty, nor 
 ruin — nothing has the force of misery which lies in 
 the home where all peace is destroyed by domestic 
 
discord. The most exalted, the noblest, the purest 
 idea, in life, is that of true hearts knit together in 
 mutual confidence, respect and love : briefly the idea 
 of unity at home. Where a real devotion has existed 
 between parent and child, a devotion born of tender- 
 ness on one side, and respect and confidence on the 
 other, is there any power on earth that can alter it ? 
 
 " To step aside from Love is hell — 
 To walk with Love is heaven." 
 
 One fruitful source of family difficulties is found in 
 conflicting interests. " Have no business relations 
 with any one who is dear to you," has been set down 
 as a rule that it is wise to follow ; but where the 
 heart is right, as well as the head, business relations 
 cannot break the ties of family love. Still, experi- 
 ence shows us how few are the natures that can stand 
 this test. When the two brothers came to our Lord 
 with their disputes, he said, " Beware of covetous- 
 ness." This is the shoal whereon, under the fair 
 and smiling skies of w r orldly prosperity, the bark of 
 family love is often hopelessly wrecked. 
 
 George Eliot wrote,— In order to be good we 
 must have persons around us who exert a good influ- 
 ence over us. Better is a dry morsel, and quietness 
 therewith, than an house full of treasures with strife. 
 " How can two walk together unless they are agreed ?" 
 asks the Scripture. The answer should have been 
 given, " Only by a life of entire self-abnegation on 
 the part of one." As a madman who casteth 
 firebrands, arrows and death, so is the man that 
 
deceiveth, and saith, " I do not mean what I say." 
 There is no keystone in the arch where such a one 
 dwells ; and as a house divided against itself must 
 fall, so they whom Heaven sends such sorrows, must 
 " go softly all their years in the bitterness of their 
 souls," mourning over the ruins of their hearthstones, 
 where the cold ashes lie with no light falling upon 
 them ; but when the last hour comes, as come it 
 must to all, how complete the peace that passeth all 
 understanding, if such a one is enabled, as he 
 wraps his mantle around him, and turns his face to 
 the wall, to murmur softly with his latest breath, " I 
 have been placed in command ; I have striven not 
 to abuse my trust ; I have kept in the path of justice 
 and truth, even when I walked on my own heart in 
 the way, my good name pierced by the arrows of 
 calumny, and my spirit wounded unto death." 
 
 True friendship, true love, never dies until it has 
 been murdered. 
 
 " You mourn for your dead ; you go, 
 Clad in your robes of woe, 
 To the spot where they sleep — 
 And you weep, 
 Such bitter tears, and there 
 You strew flowers, fresh and fair ; 
 You place a white stone at the head, 
 Where, graven with sculptor's art, 
 We read your sorrow of heart, 
 And the dear name of your dead. 
 
 " But there are living dead ; you know 
 Not the bitterest woe 
 Till you close the eager eyes 
 Of sweet young Hope, and mournful-wise 
 
 9* 
 
102 
 
 Cross the pallid hands of Love> 
 And sorrowing bend above 
 The ashes and dust 
 Of Honor and Truth and Trust, 
 For these are the living- dead. 
 
 " Ah ! those other dead ; who dare 
 Robes of mourning for dead hopes wear? 
 Who bids a stone arise 
 To tell where dead Love lies? 
 When did ever a mourner say- 
 Help me bury these dead away? 
 These funeral trains men do not see ; 
 They move silently 
 
 Down to the heart where the grave is made, 
 Where the dead is laid. 
 No flowers are strewn there, 
 No moan is heard there, 
 No ritual is said 
 Over their bed, 
 Hidden away from sight 
 The grave lies low. 
 But the solemn silent night 
 That doth know, 
 And it seeth ever the white 
 Face of our woe. 
 
 " You are happy who mourn for your dead, 
 By the side of graves kept green 
 By the tears you shed. 
 Who can lean 
 
 Lovingly where they sleep — 
 Pray for those who in secret weep — 
 The living dead." 
 
 The artistic temperament, the poetic organization, 
 should find a compensation for all slander, all mis- 
 representations, all treachery, whether it come to him 
 
i°3 
 
 through anonymous criticisms, or by the backbitings 
 of the envious ; from trust betrayed and friendship 
 outraged, or family loyalty violated, in learning, what 
 Pope said is the most important lesson of life, viz., 
 the art of being happy within one's self; for, if de- 
 nied the protecting care of friendship and love, and 
 those ministrations of sympathy which all noble 
 hearts crave, he need not fly from one remedy to 
 another for distraction, for his work lies mapped 
 out before him — an ever-broadening life -task. Shut 
 the house-door on men or women who possess 
 " the gift of the pen," and they must needs go forth 
 to work for others. In fixing the mind upon dis- 
 charging the duties of humanity, and in conquering 
 the difficulties in our paths, the soul acquires that in- 
 expressible tranquillity and satisfaction which teaches 
 it to become contented within itself, seeking no higher 
 pleasure. The dignity of the human character be- 
 comes debased by associating with low and little 
 minds. The child, trained in all that is ennobling 
 and elevating, sinks to the level of the associates he 
 chooses ; and even " the character of the man is 
 changed by the company he keeps, or by the wife he 
 marries." Thus one becomes reconciled to those 
 events of life which force him into comparative soli- 
 tude. There are none who have reached middle life 
 who cannot, in looking back, see how unhappy they 
 would be had Providence granted them all that they 
 desired. Even under the very afflictions by which 
 man conceives all the happiness of his life annihi- 
 lated, God purposes something extraordinary in his 
 
104 
 
 favor. He who tries every expedient, who boldly 
 opposes himself to every difficulty, who stands ready 
 and inflexible to every obstacle, who neglects no ex- 
 ertion within his power, and relies with confidence 
 upon the assistance of God, extracts from affliction 
 both its poison and its sting, and deprives misfortune 
 of its victory. 
 
 The slanderer, the robber of a good name, can be 
 left in the hands of Him who best knows the enor- 
 mity of the sin committed. There will be hours in 
 this life in which the still small voice of conscience 
 must make itself heard ; and in that other life, prepa- 
 ration for which is made in this our novitiate, there 
 will be time for conscience to complete its work of 
 reformation. The law of retribution reigns there, as 
 elsewhere, in all the realms of the Most Just. . . . 
 
 Let the slanderer bear in mind the lesson which 
 this poem teaches. 
 
 " I sat alone with my conscience, 
 
 In a place where time had ceased ; 
 And we talked of my former living 
 
 In the land where the years increased. 
 And I felt I should have to answer 
 
 The question it put to me, 
 And to face the answer and question 
 
 Throughout an eternity. 
 
 " The ghosts of forgotten actions 
 
 Came floating before my sight, 
 And things that I thought were dead things 
 
 Were alive with a terrible might; 
 And the vision of all my past life 
 
 Was an awful thing to face, 
 Alone with my conscience sitting 
 
 In that solemnly silent place. 
 
io5 
 
 " And I thought of a far-away warning 
 
 Of a sorrow that was to be mine, 
 In a land that then was the future, 
 
 But now was the present time; 
 And I thought of my former thinking 
 
 Of a judgment-day to be; 
 But sitting alone with my conscience 
 
 Seemed judgment enough for me. 
 
 " And I wondered if there was a future 
 
 To this land beyond the grave ; 
 But no one gave me an answer, 
 
 And no one came to save. 
 Then I felt that the future was present, 
 
 And the present would never go by ; 
 For it was but the thought of my past life 
 
 Grown into eternity. 
 
 " Then I woke from my timely dreaming, 
 
 And the vision passed away, 
 And I knew the far-away warning 
 
 Was a warning of yesterday ; 
 And I pray that I may not forget it, 
 
 In this land before the grave, 
 That I may not cry in the future, 
 
 And no one come to save. 
 
 " And so I have learned a lesson, 
 
 Which I ought to have learned before, 
 And which, though I learned it dreaming, 
 
 I hope to forget no more. 
 So I sit alone with my conscience. 
 
 In the place where the years increase; 
 And I try to remember the future, 
 
 In the land where time will cease. 
 And I know of the future judgment, 
 
 How dreadful soe'er it be, 
 That to sit alone with my conscience 
 
 Will be judgment enough for me." 
 

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