: ; 
 
 TAMAM 

 
 TAMAM
 
 IIPI I ^1 1 
 
 fin
 
 TAMAM 
 
 BT 
 
 CHARLES CHILTON MOORE 
 
 NEW YORK AND WASHINGTON 
 THE NEALE PUBLISHING COMPANY 
 
 1908
 
 COPYRIGHT, 1908, BY 
 THE NEALE PUBLISHING COMPANY
 
 To 
 
 HELEN MOORE COOK 
 The Livmg Embodiment 
 
 of a 
 Memory, Ineffable 
 
 2137374
 
 TAMAM 
 
 There are thoughts which, through words, can find no 
 outlet. The composer attempts the expression of these ; 
 and where there is concerned the depicting of a series of 
 events that has led up to a sublime conclusion the form of 
 the symphony is used. 
 
 The greater symphonies have comprised five parts. Each 
 of the parts is complete in itself, such that the theme may 
 have reached its climax, and apparently, leave no reason 
 for its continuance. The one requisite is that the same 
 themal motif shall predominate throughout; and though 
 the key may vary in the intermediate parts, after hav- 
 ing completed a cycle, howsoever elaborate in construc- 
 tion, it must terminate in the key employed for the intro- 
 duction of the motif. 
 
 Life is a symphony, and 1 we make up the great variety 
 of instruments used in its production. Some of us are the 
 blare of the trumpets; some, the brazen clash of the 
 cymbals; and some, the sullen rumble of the kettle-drums. 
 Some are the squeak of the piccolo; some, the nasal twang 
 of the clarionet; and some, the gentle, plaintive voice of 
 the flute. Some are the soulful tones of the violin; some, 
 the rich and sonorous quivers of the 'cello; and some, just 
 plain " second fiddlers." Many are in the corner of the 
 "utility man," scratching sandpapered blocks, blowing 
 gurgling whistles and jangling triangles. 
 
 7
 
 8 TAMAM 
 
 The symphony is produced once in every generation. 
 It begins at the cradle with an " allegro " movement, and 
 a series of possible soloists soon make themselves heard. 
 Most of the efforts prove to be a "wasted puff," but 
 finally the primary theme is suggested, and from it there 
 can be determined the disguise in which the secondary 
 theme may possibly appear. When it comes, we get the 
 motif, and the other aspirants are relegated to the posi- 
 tions of harmony constructors. The motif dances before 
 us and vanishes with the budding of youth. And so closes 
 Part I. We have seen the flower, and are satisfied without 
 witnessing the stage of fruiting. 
 
 Part II of the symphony opens with a graceful " adagio " 
 movement, then perhaps quickly changing to an " allegro, 
 con grazia," and we may have it in " five-four " time, the 
 rhythm in the dance of witches. There is much distrac- 
 tion through this change of time, and we forget the motif. 
 If may be the flower was more attractive than the budding 
 fruit with is dismantled petals. Then we notice the fasci- 
 nating witch-dance disappears when the motif comes upon 
 the scene. It always appears accompanied by the " adagio," 
 and we resent it until we realize the fruit is taking shape 
 and promises a color of its own. It may be the " allegro, 
 con grazia " was attractive owing to its contrast against 
 the " adagio," and we are glad the motif came again. And 
 though we saw it only in the awkward stage of fruiting, 
 it gave hope of a rich color and fine flavor at the time of 
 ripening. This would tempt us to look for the motif in 
 any succeeding part of the symphony, should one be con- 
 structed; or if we have heard the finale, we are satisfied. 
 
 When a new part opens with the slow and measured 
 cadence of the " andante," we know the serious part of 
 life has been reached. There is to be no more frivolity,
 
 TAMAM 9 
 
 unless it be hysteria, the laugh that alternates with tears. 
 Life is real now, and must survive or perish. The motif 
 cannot be changed, or made to disappear from the center 
 of the stage. It has acquired too much momentum, and 
 must continue in its gyrations, wild though they be. The 
 fruit has ripened externally, and may have the rich color; 
 but its flavor has not been determined, nor the nature of 
 the larva that may live at its core. We know it may fall 
 at any moment even while the external appearance is 
 sound and burst open, displaying its rotten interior. Also, 
 we know a scaly coating may conceal sound flesh. This 
 part of the symphony harrows us too much, and we are 
 relieved when it has closed. 
 
 Part IV may possibly be an " allegro molto vivace," but 
 probably a " largo lamentoso." The chance is there will 
 be sadness, and not happiness, in this movement of life's 
 symphony, for we know death must come with its close. 
 Any " five-four " movement here would be the childlish- 
 ness of infirmities; the ghost-like dance of Death's shadow. 
 We are prepared to weep, and have the mourning dress 
 ready for use on short notice. 
 
 The last part in the life symphony is the remembrance. 
 We may call it the reverberations of the life that has 
 passed. This fifth part is frequently no more than a 
 " coda " a hasty summing up of the themes by the con- 
 spicuous instruments that made up the harmony, once 
 more sounded that its final echoes may die away in the 
 abyss of oblivion. 
 
 The composer must exhaust his effort and reach the 
 climax in each part. If he should not be able to continue 
 it into a symphony, then his work would have been 
 finished. It is this ability to rekindle fresh fires, that lets 
 the symphony develop.
 
 10 TAMAM 
 
 Life is made up of distinct parts youth, manhood, age, 
 death, remembrance. Who knows how many of its inter- 
 vening parts will be completed? Who would risk saving 
 their climax for a part other than that being constructed? 
 Whatever be your motif, summon all of your resources 
 and divest your soul of its uttermost possibilities, that in 
 each part you may bring forth all the music.
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER 
 
 PAGE 
 
 I. " FOREST RETREAT " 13 
 
 II. ARLINGTON ^0 
 
 III. THE POTTER'S FIELD 128 
 
 IV. THE SEA 183 
 
 V. OBLIVION
 
 TAMAM 
 
 " FOREST RETREAT ' 
 
 " O for a lodge in some vast wilderness ! " 
 
 " FOREST RETREAT " is typical of those homes 
 in the South whose existence dates prior to the 
 civil war, and around which are clustered incidents, 
 stories and sacred spots, which posterity inculcate in 
 their creed of faith in the blood of their ancestors. 
 And the more distant the ancestry the more enchant- 
 ing the stories, for the more transitions there must 
 have been, until it is difficult to separate fact from 
 fiction. But this only lends to the charm. 
 
 Each of such homes has its individual mark of 
 distinction. Some distant master may have been 
 the host of a famous soldier, statesman or author. 
 Or the place may have been the battle-ground of a 
 duel between great politicians with eloquence and 
 argument as weapons, or perhaps even dirks or fire- 
 arms ; for at that time the culture of the community 
 was in the country, and the shade of the woodland 
 was often a political arena. 
 
 The kaleidoscopic shift of war, the division of 
 estate, and the changes in economic conditions were
 
 14 TAMAM 
 
 not without effect on these great home places. The 
 very contour of the land seems to have changed ; and 
 the returning visitor, in after years, may have to 
 search for a mark of identity in order to connect his 
 memory with old associations. 
 
 The base line of reminiscent triangulation may 
 have been completely obliterated, but there remains 
 one undisturbed place, even though time may efface 
 all others, and conditions bring about the sale of 
 the home until it will have passed into the hands 
 of the uncouth tobacco-grower, or the purse-inflated 
 magnate who would buy for himself a heritage. For 
 even these men will doff their hats at the gates of the 
 family graveyard in respect to the memories held 
 by those mute historians, the tombstones. 
 
 At " Forest Retreat " the graveyard is like that 
 of any other country home of similar pretensions : 
 a small rectangular enclosure with tall aspens and 
 pines, surrounded by its hedge and stone wall. 
 These trees seem appropriate, for the aspens 
 tremble and the pines moan ; that is, if you feel that 
 way. But the graveyard is not always sad. The 
 table-shaped tombstones have many times served at 
 a children's impromptu tea-party. This form of 
 gravestone is a stone table made by placing a 
 rectangular slab, approximately the length of a 
 man, on four stone legs, about two feet in height. 
 It must have been designed for more than marking 
 the resting-place of the dead, for it well serves the 
 same purpose for the living. Little girls have 
 played " dolls " and " keep house " under the stone
 
 "FOREST RETREAT' 15 
 
 table, while boys, with goat-like instinct, have jumped 
 from slab to slab. What did they know of the 
 lichen-covered epitaph terminating with a verse from 
 the Bible? When they had tired of their play they 
 scratched out the moss with a nail, and, by a labor- 
 ious process, read some of the legend. Then their 
 imagination would recall certain occasions when they 
 had heard tender references to the dead one, and 
 straightway an envy was born. How nice it would 
 feel, they thought, to be spoken of in subdued tones, 
 to have one's own name carved in stone, and with it 
 a verse from the Bible : " He is not dead, but 
 sleepeth ! " Why not lie down under the slab, shut 
 your eyes, and in your childish fancy see the tear- 
 ful mother as she repeats your virtues? Nor would 
 it be the first time it had been done. It is only that 
 period in -child-life when the glory in posthumous 
 fame is conceived. 
 
 As childhood grows into youth we climb the trees 
 to carve names on the topmost branches, not our 
 name, but hers. Then youth blends into manhood 
 and again we go to the graveyard. Perhaps this 
 time a young woman, unconsciously, leads the 
 way. 
 
 Long ago the features of sadness in " Forest Re- 
 treat's " garden of sleep have been eliminated, be- 
 cause no one is ever buried there now. Not in our 
 memory do we recall fresh earth. We have heard, 
 from the darkies, of the morning when " old Mos- 
 ter " died ; yes, heard it so long ago that we have 
 told it to our own children. We can even remem-
 
 16 TAMAM 
 
 ber when the singing of " Marsa's in the cold, cold 
 ground " would send that sensation of pent emotion 
 through us, till our faces assumed a preoccupied 
 look, as though we were gazing into the past, just 
 'as we remember to have seen those do who in reality 
 remembered the old man. Here, in the far left-hand 
 corner as you enter, he rests, and his wife next in 
 position. Not that they died first, for they had 
 moistened the graves of their own dear ones with 
 tears of anguish ; but without prearranged plan the 
 place of their resting had been set aside. 
 
 Here the old couple had come many times to talk 
 on things of momentous importance. It may have 
 been for consolation during the critical illness of a 
 child. It may have been to discuss the apportion- 
 ment of part of the estate as a family wedding 
 neared. It may have been when they made their 
 wills. Here was a spot for meditation, for no one 
 came near if the place was occupied. The most 
 sacred confession ever made was not surrounded by 
 such privacy as one enjoyed within these walls. 
 
 Here, it was, a daughter came one day with a tall 
 swarthy one in the bloom of manhood. The next fall 
 they were married, even while the critical strain of 
 1860 was at its greatest tension. Duty soon called 
 him, and here they came again. In the uniform of 
 a Confederate officer he gave her his parting saluta- 
 tion, mounted his horse, and found his body-servant 
 at the road gate. He was soon on his way to join 
 " Morgan's Men." When she left the graveyard 
 the world was wrapped in the hush of sudden silence,
 
 "FOREST RETREAT' 17 
 
 and no living form was in sight, for the way to her 
 room had been cleared. After this she was jocu- 
 larly known as a " war widow." 
 
 They were not altogether doleful days in the 
 early part of the struggle. The Confederacy had 
 won victories in some large engagements. Morgan's 
 daring had stirred the Ohio valley until it was a bil- 
 lowy sea, and the brilliancy of his movements was 
 only equaled by that of his men, for this body com- 
 prised the wealth and aristocracy of central 
 Kentucky. 
 
 But again to the graveyard! There is a mound 
 of fresh earth; they are bringing the soldier's body 
 home. In the frosty winds of a winter's morning 
 they placed him there. Oh, the icy shiver of the 
 aspens, the wail of the pines, the crunching of the 
 snow ! The glistening frost has a dazzling effect. 
 The evergreens are studded with diamonds, in carni- 
 val dress at the return of a hero. 
 
 She stands through the ceremony in a perfunctory 
 way, perhaps seeing herself in stunning black, with 
 a dash of white adroitly placed about her throat and 
 wrists, no longer only a " war widow." How strange 
 it is, and how merciful, that in our greatest trials 
 Nature will come to the rescue and throw over us a 
 stupor of indifference. Just when we fear the heart 
 cords will be torn, the moment of supreme anguish 
 gives way to an idle vision. To you only, O God, 
 can we ascribe this blessed phenomenon. 
 
 But, Graveyard, you will put a tinge of sadness 
 on our romance. This happened so long ago, is it
 
 18 TAMAM 
 
 yet necessary the enthusiasm of our youth should be 
 kept subdued? You possess not only the secrets of 
 our sorrow, but the secrets of our joy which we im- 
 plore you to keep even more sacredly. And there 
 are your wonderful secrets of mystery, for was there 
 ever a graveyard without these? 
 
 It was not our graveyard that had the mystery ; 
 that is, for us ; though ours doubtless supplied 
 mysteries for others. We found more in the grave- 
 yard of our neighbors ; which idea originated with 
 the negroes, who, in the spirit of faithfulness to 
 their masters' homes, found certain conditions else- 
 where that made their own eminently superior. Just 
 so, we made our moonlight escapades to neighboring 
 farms ; laid the scenes of strange and mysterious 
 conditions elsewhere not at home. Even if we never 
 saw the Smallwood graveyard, we knew all about it. 
 Nothing strange was ever seen there, because no one 
 ever went there to see it ; but of course strange things 
 must have been occurring since that Christmas week 
 Miss Smallwood was buried. We have heard the 
 story so often we could repeat it just as our Uncle 
 Jesse used to tell it in the after years, when we were 
 gathered on the front steps for a summer evening's 
 relapse into reminiscences, and somebody was pres- 
 ent who was to hear it for the first time. 
 
 " The old Smallwood place had passed down 
 through the branches of the family," Uncle Jesse 
 would explain, " and, in division among the heirs, 
 the sons had received their portion in the shape of
 
 "FOREST RETREAT' 19 
 
 unimproved fields because they were able to build 
 homes. But the old house and its immediate sur- 
 roundings had gone to the three daughters, it being 
 easily foreseen they would remain maiden ladies in- 
 definitely, and must have the assurance of at least a 
 shelter. The sons, in the hope of doing better in the 
 far West, had sold their farms to the more preten- 
 tious landholders around them. This is why the 
 three Smallwood sisters were left alone in the old 
 stone house. The outskirts of the larger adjoin- 
 ing farms seemed to encroach to the very borders of 
 its garden, on the one side, and its orchard, on the 
 other, and of course the sisters grew queer as they 
 grew old ; that is, they seemed queer to others. It 
 was always so quiet about the place: no horses, no 
 dogs, and none of the ordinary life about a farm. 
 They did all of their housework, and, except through 
 old Jim Arterpea, who worked their garden, had no 
 communication with the outer world. Old Jim was 
 what the darkies called ' Guinea Nigger ' ; from which 
 it was understood that he was an original importa- 
 tion from Africa. He had been brought over and 
 sold to a Louisiana rice planter and, after the war, 
 had drifted in slow stages, until here he was in 
 Kentucky, bereft of friends or sympathy because he 
 had no pride in ancestry ; no great family had ever 
 owned him. With a heavy growth of kinky beard 
 he was the only negro in the country who had a 
 beard an enormous shaggy head, and an impedi- 
 ment in his speech, of course he too was queer. Even 
 if he had not been queer at first, the Smallwood
 
 20 TAMAM 
 
 sisters would have made him so ; and if he had been, 
 they would have made him even more so. 
 
 " The years went by with no change in the Small- 
 wood sisters. They were old in their youth, but 
 their quiet and unruffled life had preserved them in 
 their age, so a period of several years made practi- 
 cally no change in their appearance; only their 
 queerness increased, and this even to those who had 
 never seen them. 
 
 " When, one Christmas morning, old Jim came 
 over to ' Forest Retreat ' to tell of the death of one 
 of the sisters, of course there was a mystery. ' Some- 
 thing strange about those people. Never knowed no 
 one to die on Christmas morning before,' whispered 
 the darkies. I went over because I knew them bet- 
 ter than any one else, and some one had to see to 
 the funeral arrangements. Word was sent to the 
 undertaker in town, and he reached the house that 
 afternoon with a modest black wood casket adorned 
 with four heavy metal handles of the usual style. 
 The old sister was properly laid out, and the casket 
 placed in the parlor to await burial next day. I put 
 some extra wood on the fire, also kindled a fire in the 
 adjoining room, and told the two sisters I would 
 return by nightfall, and ' sit up with the corpse.' 
 
 " Those who may have performed such a service 
 know it is not without its compensations. It is un- 
 canny, of course, but there is, connected with it, 
 the idea of a certain heroism, the importance with 
 which you are invested, and the obligation the rela- 
 tives feel. Then the drinking of strong coffee, which
 
 "FOREST RETREAT' 21 
 
 is generally supplied, excites the mind and stimulates 
 the imagination ; and as the vigil is usually taken by 
 pairs, it is neither a bad place nor time to talk. But 
 this time I went alone, and when the two sisters stated 
 their desire to relieve me during the night I assured 
 them I would need no relief before daylight." 
 
 Here Uncle Jesse would pause a moment and 
 study the effect his story was having on the new 
 listener. 
 
 " Now I have always had my doubts about the 
 necessity of this sitting-up custom, and had come to 
 believe that primarily it was intended as a courtesy 
 to the corpse. So on this occasion I intended to 
 sit in the adjoining room, and doze throughout the 
 night, with that kind of a feeling that I could be 
 awake beyond suspicion should the two sisters come 
 to insist upon relieving me. Leaving the door be- 
 tween the two rooms partly open, I put extra fuel 
 in the fireplace before me, for the night was very 
 cold. I then turned my lamp high, so it would 
 brighten the room as much as possible, squared my- 
 self before the fire, and was enjoying no small degree 
 of comfort. 
 
 " What a study the fire is, and its companionship 
 was never more strikingly illustrated than it was that 
 night. I watched the smoke curl up the chimney ; 
 then the puff and flicker of a flame on a splinter as it 
 flashed up with a kind of human braggadocio, and, 
 like the human braggart, die out with a pitiful 
 flicker. What a time to think in those channels 
 where the mind wanders at its own ease and free-
 
 22 TAMAM 
 
 dom ! Then is when the happiest scenes of life 
 come before you. You feel satisfied with your life, 
 whatever it may have been, because Nature, in her 
 benevolent providence, generally erases from mem- 
 ory the jagged edges, and magnifies the smooth 
 places, until it is probable that at the close of every 
 life the balance is safely on the side of happiness. 
 
 " I thought of the old lady whose remains I was 
 watching, not as dead, but wondered what romance 
 in life she had seen. At one time she must have 
 been a country schoolgirl. Though I had not known 
 her, I now saw her, in the fire pictures before me, 
 the bloom of youth on her face, and with the other 
 children out at play. I studied the fire further, but 
 she became lost in their midst. 
 
 " At first it was a little hazy, but soon I began 
 seeing decidedly clearer. It was the old schoolhouse, 
 and I was young again. We were giving the ' Sleep- 
 ing Beauty ' at the school exhibition on Christmas 
 eve. I was the herald that blows the blast on the 
 bugle as an announcement to the people that the 
 king was about to speak. What an important per- 
 son, even more so than the king, because I must 
 precede him. How strange it all seemed that I was 
 again blowing that old horn, which had been bor- 
 rowed from a hunter for the great occasion. 
 
 " There is the noise and hubbub of a crowd. All 
 the children's parents are assembled to witness the 
 exhibition. The time for the performance is indi- 
 cated by the tinkle of a small bell, and the voices 
 become quiet in eager expectation. The king and
 
 "FOREST RETREAT' 23 
 
 his courtiers are supposed to be approaching, and I 
 must go out first on the improvised stage before the 
 wonderful audience and announce him. 
 
 " My knees shake, but my determination is steady. 
 I have so long looked forward to this great moment, 
 I to be the first one the audience is to see ! I go, 
 but don't get near enough to the center of the stage, 
 so the teacher whispers from the door, ' Go out 
 farther.' 
 
 " Why did she do that? I was almost steady. I 
 take another step, then put the horn against my 
 lips with difficulty, because my lower lip was in an 
 uncontrollable tremble. But I must not take too 
 much time, so my scarlet cheeks swell out, and I blow 
 with all my force. 
 
 " Oh ! guardian angel of little children, why did 
 you forsake me? Why was my heroic blast to be- 
 come a wasted puff, resembling more the cough of 
 a cow? A long, lean, freckle-faced boy, who stood 
 in a window in the rear, gave a horrible guffaw, and 
 the audience smiled. 
 
 " I rush out the back door I will run away and 
 come back some day a real rich man, and then they 
 will wish they had not laughed. No, I don't want to 
 be consoled! I slip through the crowd in the hall- 
 way, go out into the back porch, then down toward 
 the barn. It is cold and dark but I am away from 
 them all, and intend to stay, even if I freeze, because 
 then they would be sorry for having made a poor boy 
 freeze to death. The darkness and the cold make me 
 feel clammy, and shivers creep over me. I sit down
 
 24 TAMAM 
 
 on the stile, and lean back, because I am tired and 
 don't know just what to do. My legs begin to feel 
 stiff with cold, so I conclude I will get up and walk 
 over to the 
 
 " The fire has burned out and the room is dark. 
 How can I be in such a strange place as this? Can 
 I arouse myself from a dream, or am I now awake? 
 The clock in the hall strikes two. Yes, I heard 
 that same clock strike eleven and but a few moments 
 since, and then I was sitting up with the corpse. 
 Am I still here? 
 
 " In every twenty-four hours there is one period 
 when human vitality reaches its lowest point. It is 
 the daily ebb in the tide of life. Just as the dividing 
 line between calendar days is placed in an isolated 
 part of the Pacific Ocean, where it will cause the 
 least confusion of dates, so the guardian of our des- 
 tiny has fixed the ebb of vitality to occur during our 
 night's sleep. In your bedside petition ask that 
 you may be guided past the hour of two a. m. If 
 the sick person survives this hour, there is hope until 
 the same time the following night. 
 
 " To awaken at this hour means to find your sys- 
 tem absolutely relaxed. Your heart action is tak- 
 ing its opportunity to rest, and in consequence the 
 sluggish circulation of your blood brings about an 
 anaemic condition of the brain. You are neither sane 
 nor insane. You have your thoughts, but no con- 
 trol over them. The horrors of nightmare torture 
 you, though awake. Then it is you would again be 
 a child, that you could put your head on your
 
 "FOREST RETREAT' 25 
 
 mother's breast, and sob out the agonizing terror. 
 In all the gamut of human suffering there is noth- 
 ing that compares with the condition of one when he 
 realizes his faculties are wandering beyond reach; 
 when one lobe of the brain is under control, and en- 
 deavors to soothe, while the other is demoniacal, and 
 he must chase through dark cold shadows, and see 
 phantoms of horror in their leaps and bounds to 
 overtake him. 
 
 " My fire and lamp had burned out, my legs were 
 stiff from my sitting position, and cold air was 
 rushing down the chimney. I knew the first thing 
 to do was to regain complete control of myself, then 
 re-make my fire and dispel the gloom. I saw the 
 communicating door was partly open, just as I had 
 left it, and could hear the deep breathing of the two 
 tired sisters in the room above. 
 
 " If you must awaken yourself at this hour, do it 
 gradually, not with a single spasmodic jerk. After 
 the first sensation of consciousness permit yourself 
 to lapse into semi-consciousness for a while, then 
 rouse and relapse, repeating this as long as neces- 
 sary. After each lapse you will feel better. 
 
 " I had only passed out of the second lapse, when 
 a sound was recorded on the tympanum of my ear. 
 I heard three taps unmistakably clear and distinct. 
 There was no question as to whence they came. 
 Nothing ever made except a coffin could resound like 
 that hollow, and that awful muffled effect! 
 
 " The first tap was terrifyingly distinct, the sec- 
 ond but moderately so, and the third so soft it would
 
 26 TAMAM 
 
 not have been noticed except for the warning by the 
 preceding ones. Of course there was cold perspira- 
 tion on my forehead, and the beating of my heart 
 was such that the old spring-bottom chair in which 
 I was sitting fairly creaked with the vibration. 
 Must I rush out of the house as I did the night of 
 the ' Sleeping Beauty ' exhibition ? No, I had 
 schooled myself all through life for just this emer- 
 gency. This time I intended to stand my ground. 
 There should be no more guffaws from any long, 
 lean, freckle-faced boy. 
 
 " I was blessed with a mind for psychological in- 
 vestigations, yet did not move from my seat. My 
 first impulse had become dissipated into an intense 
 curiosity to know who would play such a trick at 
 such a time; but even then I did not move my head 
 or cast my eyes upward, though the stars would have 
 afforded ample light to examine the room. Why 
 should I rush into the presence of the old lady's last 
 sleep as though I were storming a fort? I could 
 just as well go in later. I knew I had never been 
 superstitious or believed in spirit rappings. Was I 
 sure of my position now? Certainly, I would analyze 
 the occurrence from where I sat, even before I had 
 made myself warm. Had I really heard such rap- 
 pings? I was sure of that. I could almost hear 
 the echoes lingering in the house. 
 
 " The three raps had occurred at regular inter- 
 vals, in just about the time we take to say, ' one- two- 
 three,' before the final ' go ' in a foot-race. 
 
 " As I grew calmer my ingenuity began to work.
 
 "FOREST RETREAT' 27 
 
 Would I win in my mental struggle, or would the 
 shivering mystery regain control of me? 
 
 " Cold draughts were coming through the partly 
 open door, for the parlor fire must have burned out 
 some time before mine. 
 
 " I inhaled several deep breaths of the fresh air 
 that it might make my brain more active. I was 
 repaid for my effort, for the faint dawn of an ex- 
 planation seemed drifting into view. It came nearer 
 and I grasped it with all my soul. I would rescue 
 myself from the perils of superstition. I almost 
 leaped from my chair with enthusiasm, and im- 
 mediately would prove the analysis correct by repro- 
 ducing the exact sound on that same coffin, and dur- 
 ing that very minute. No, I would light the extra 
 lamp which had been left for me, then rekindle the 
 fire. I felt that I would like to prolong the delight- 
 ful sensation caused by the happy culmination of my 
 reasoning, just as a cat postpones the killing of 
 her prey. 
 
 " The rapping was not the trick of any person, 
 but far beyond that of human ingenuity. Had I 
 made a psychological study involving every principle 
 in the law of chance, I would not have found so 
 clever a solution as had unfolded with but a few 
 moments' effort on my part. Did I feel proud? I 
 guess I did. I strutted around like the last boy in 
 line when he has turned down the whole spelling- 
 class. 
 
 " After my fire began to burn, I decided to muse 
 a little longer. No doubt as to the possibility of
 
 28 TAMAM 
 
 the explanation being correct had existed in my 
 mind. I knew myself on this point. The explana- 
 tion was so simple, yet so complex. I determined to 
 go through the sensation again, magnifying it, be- 
 cause I intended to tell the story ; and since it was all 
 mine, why not make it a good one. I went over the 
 premise to touch the story up and make it more 
 vivid. There I was, the only man within two miles, 
 in a strange old house, sitting up with the corpse of 
 a queer old woman, and I had awakened from an un- 
 intentional sleep in a sitting position, at the dead 
 hour of night, to find neither fire nor lamp burning. 
 In the oppressive stillness, while I am benumbed with 
 cold, and mentally struggling to overcome the sur- 
 rounding gloom, I hear rappings on the coffin. 
 
 " There was no room for elaboration, the plain 
 cold facts made the climax. Could I then elaborate 
 my explanation, making it appear more miraculous? 
 No ; at the first stroke I had hit the nail squarely on 
 the head. 
 
 " Opening wide the communicating door, the par- 
 lor became abundantly lighted, and I went in. How 
 quiet and subdued everything was ! I knew the old 
 lady was peacefully resting, though I had not yet 
 looked at her. Glimmers of light from my rekindled 
 fire reflected from the ebony wood, like the rise and 
 fall of a breast in restful sleep. The heavy metal 
 handles hung limp, as the arms of a man who is 
 sleeping on his back on a narrow couch. 
 
 " I went over, looked down into the dead woman's 
 face, and with a feeling akin to that of reverential
 
 29 
 
 affection, raised a handle by means of my extended 
 forefinger, toyed with it an instant, dropped it, then 
 listened to the tap-tap-tap. 
 
 " The spirit of the old woman, somewhere in 
 eternity beyond, must have shrieked with laughter, 
 like a little child who creeps up behind your chair to 
 tickle your ear with a straw. At first you merely, 
 brush away the fly, then do so several times in a 
 very demonstrative way, each time increasing the 
 pretended aggravation. For the sake of the child 
 we continue the illusion. If you wait too long the 
 little one will explode with a burst of muffled sounds. 
 So before that point is reached you turn, discover 
 the culprit and fail to catch him, while he splits the 
 ear with his shrieks of laughter. Just such a shriek 
 the old woman's spirit must have given." 
 
 Uncle Jesse used to pause here. He would cough, 
 and say he had talked himself hoarse and must get 
 a drink of water, then disappear until breakfast next 
 morning. 
 
 If you have skilfully performed a bit of leger- 
 demain, after which the person whom you have 
 mystified teases you to do it again, whereupon he dis- 
 covers the secret, you know how contemptuously he 
 says " pshaw ! " 
 
 Uncle Jesse dreaded ending his story. He had 
 never told it exactly alike any two times, though al- 
 ways rigidly adhered to the actual framework. He 
 would watch his new listener for any signs of an 
 enviously critical tendency, or the kind of bravado
 
 30 TAMAM 
 
 bearing which, while indicating a recognition that 
 the story was interesting, showed also a determina- 
 tion to do, or die, in the attempt to tell a better 
 one. If he discovered such signs in a listener's face 
 he would branch off at various opportune places, and 
 wander so far, as it were, that sometimes we children 
 could hardly keep awake. But what a commotion 
 there was when he had gone to get his drink! We 
 fairly screamed in our efforts to be the first to ex- 
 plain to the confused auditor how one handle worked 
 stiffly and had remained in its extended position after 
 the coffin had been placed on the rests, until the 
 room became cold and the metal contracted, letting 
 the handle swing down against the side, after which 
 it rebounded two times. 
 
 The negroes in the neighborhood knew Uncle 
 Jesse's story and religiously accepted it; that is, 
 they accepted all but the explanation. One of them 
 voiced the darky sentiment when she said, " Marse 
 Jess put on 'bout that han'le business, 'cause he 
 didn't want to 'rouse no 'spicions." 
 
 So the Smallwood graveyard was " marked " ; for 
 having no proof to the contrary, every negro be- 
 lieved the old woman would rap again if any one 
 approached. 
 
 It was the very next summer that old Jim put 
 some poison on a dead hen to kill a skunk. Instead 
 of a skunk, the poison killed a favorite fox-hound 
 belonging to Major Corbin, a neighbor. When told 
 of it, the Major had jokingly remarked, " Jim should 
 have eaten the hen instead of letting the dog have
 
 "FOREST RETREAT' 31 
 
 it." Such a message had gotten to Jim, as coming 
 from the Major, and probably in a distorted form, 
 as the remark apparently implied a double mean- 
 ing. 
 
 There was a story in the neighborhood how years 
 ago a man had been killed because of some trouble 
 over a sheep-killing dog. Old Jim knew this story, 
 and the more he thought of that message the more 
 firmly he believed the Major intended to kill him. 
 So finally the poor old innocent, friendless negro 
 disappeared. 
 
 After Jim left them the Smallwood sisters sold the 
 old place to a Western tobacco-grower and went 
 into a convent. The tobacco-grower did not know 
 the history of the place, there being no one to tell 
 him, because this class of men found no associates 
 in central Kentucky. They were generally known 
 as " my tobacco-grower " by the landowner whose 
 farm they worked " on the shares." The negroes 
 referred to them as " them poor white trash," and 
 avoided them as they would a serpent. 
 
 The tobacco-grower got the Smallwood farm very 
 cheap, else he could not have bought it at all. It 
 has been said there were but two spots on the place 
 where no tobacco was grown. One was the ground 
 on which the house stood, the other was the grave- 
 yard. 
 
 After a while the tobacco-grower got the owner 
 of one of the large adjoining farms to let him cul- 
 tivate a little " strip " on the shares. Each year 
 the size of the strip increased. Each year the outer
 
 32 TAMAM 
 
 fences of the large farm were brought in a little to- 
 ward the great house. Now the tobacco-grower 
 owns that farm. 
 
 Oh ! bitter fate, that the scions of a boasted ances- 
 try must give way before their scullions ! 
 
 We had better go to the graveyard even more 
 frequently than we do, for the old master rests there 
 after a successful journey through life. He con- 
 quered difficulties, and made a great home for his 
 posterity. 
 
 When the tobacco-grower suggests you let him 
 put in a little " strip " on the shares, go to the grave- 
 yard and think think before you move the fences. 
 
 Sometimes the scions outgrow the old place. 
 Even with all its ancestral tendrils the noble son 
 spreads beyond its bounds. He leaves the great 
 farm in charge of the " real estate agent," and be- 
 comes " one of the prominent men " in a great city. 
 
 Does the scion forsake his family graveyard, leav- 
 ing his ancestral dead behind? Never; their remains 
 are exhumed and deposited in the mausoleum he 
 builds for himself in his adopted city. And be it 
 to the honor of his successors, though it may be 
 founded on superstition rather than respect, none 
 of these dismantled graveyards are ever further dis- 
 turbed. 
 
 Sometimes, with all their sacred memories and 
 clusters of hallowed charms, these graveyards finally 
 become the resting-place of but a single and obscure 
 occupant. Such an occupant may have been only a
 
 "FOREST RETREAT" 33 
 
 distant acquaintance, or perchance a stranger. The 
 more vague his history, the more certain was he to 
 remain in final possession. 
 
 The old Kentucky homes of much pretension were 
 glorious houses with many rooms, for in that time 
 people entertained in the highest sense of the word. 
 A party of young folks on horseback might come by 
 at any time, spend several days, get the young people 
 in the family, and take them on to the next stopping- 
 place, only to repeat the performance. One day, a 
 house full; next day, an exodus. 
 
 Two important formalities of to-day were un- 
 known an invitation to visit, or notice of an in- 
 tended visit. You went if you felt like going, be- 
 cause you knew you were always welcome. 
 
 When old Captain Shelton, the master of " Forest 
 Retreat," saw an unknown man ride up to his porch 
 he was neither surprised nor disappointed. 
 
 " Captain Shelton, I am Major E. C. Nicholson," 
 the stranger announced, as he dismounted and 
 hitched his horse. 
 
 The Captain had no idea under the sun who Maj or 
 Nicholson was, but he gracefully concealed the fact, 
 and the two old gentlemen sat down in the cool on 
 the great porch. 
 
 There is a little secret test you may make use of 
 in case of emergency get a glimpse of the stran- 
 ger's fingernails.
 
 34 TAMAM 
 
 The Major's fingernails passed muster, for in a 
 short while the two were refreshing themselves with 
 the inevitable mint-julep. 
 
 The Major had been in the war of 1812, he and 
 the Captain having been in the same fight at the 
 " River Raisin Massacre." So there was no ques- 
 tion as to his claim. The fight had been with the 
 Indians whom the British had armed. The Indians 
 were victorious, afterward making their captives 
 run the gantlet. At the end of the gantlet was the 
 block-house in which the prisoners were to stay when 
 they had made the passage between the double line 
 of Indians, armed with sabers, clubs, tomahawks, 
 switches and every conceivable snare to trip the run- 
 ners. Remarkable as it may seem, some reached the 
 block-house. 
 
 After the gantlet race the unsatiated Indians held 
 a council and decided on the killing of more captives. 
 
 It is well known an Indian never spares a red- 
 headed man, and the captives in the block-house were 
 busy in their efforts to conceal the few red heads 
 that were there, among which was the Major's. 
 
 In the midst of this performance a cloud of dust 
 attracted the attention of all. The terrified cap- 
 tives, peeping between the logs of the house, saw 
 emerge from the cloud an Indian in furious gallop 
 on a harnessed horse. What it meant they did not 
 know, but the Indians did, for they began sneaking 
 away like sheep-killing dogs. Afterward the cap- 
 tives learned it was the great Tecumseh, who, upon 
 hearing of the battle, had mounted a cannon horse,
 
 "FOREST RETREAT' 35 
 
 hastening to prevent the massacre which he knew 
 was sure to follow. 
 
 It made no difference if the old gentlemen could 
 not recall each other, the Captain and the Major 
 having been, in reality, privates ; no fraud, however 
 well couched, could have stood the series of leading 
 questions these incidents recalled, as the two old men 
 rehearsed the awful experience. 
 
 The Major's horse was put in the stable. 
 
 " Will you go to the sale? " asked the Captain on 
 the third morning of the Major's visit. 
 
 The Major's response was to take his seat in the 
 chaise with the Captain. 
 
 A sale on a large Kentucky farm meant more than 
 the mere selling out of implements, stock and crops, 
 preparatory to the settling of an estate. It was a 
 decided social function, with its barbecue and gen- 
 eral handshaking. 
 
 " Colonel , this is Major Nicholson," said the 
 
 Captain. 
 
 " How-de-do, Major," the Colonel heartily re- 
 sponded as they shook hands ; " where is your 
 home? " 
 
 The Captain became all attention. He too would 
 like to know. The Major had not volunteered this 
 information, and, as the host, he could not ask. 
 
 " I live at Captain Shelton's," the Major replied 
 with gentle dignity. 
 
 Again the Captain had to conceal his ignorance 
 of so important a fact. 
 
 The Major proved an easy guest. He was always
 
 36 TAMAM 
 
 ready to listen, if the Captain felt loquacious, though 
 the war was the only subject where he supplied more 
 than a nod of approval. He possessed the happy 
 faculty of knowing when and how to leave the fam- 
 ily group. Visitors were coming and going all the 
 time and the family table was large, so the Major's 
 seat at the coffee-pot corner made no material change 
 in anything, or anybody's plans. In the course of 
 the years which followed the sale, the only strange 
 thing would have been the Major's absence. He 
 was the acme of neatness, punctuality and propriety. 
 
 When the Captain discovered the initials " E. C. 
 N.," freshly cut in one of the great aspen trees in 
 the graveyard, he knew what it meant, and told the 
 Major he could be buried there. And long ago 
 the roots of that same old aspen have sapped the 
 phosphate from the Major's decomposed bones, and 
 translocated it to form the leaves that shiver. 
 
 No mark other than the tree upon which he carved 
 his initials has served to indicate the Major's grave. 
 The Captain felt the simple modest nature would not 
 care to have his memory perpetuated in stone, but 
 prefer to pass from their midst into oblivion, from 
 whence he had come. 
 
 If you would have for yourself a monument more 
 magnificently intricate in lines than has ever been 
 carved from stone, one that is stateliness and 
 grandeur in the extreme, that lifts you upward as 
 does a figure symbolical in its offering to the mighty 
 sweep of blue canopy above, one on which no lichens 
 obscure the legend, but passers-by can always read
 
 "FOREST RETREAT' 37 
 
 the emblem of tranquil rest ; if your life has been 
 such that your deeds are worthy of commemoration 
 in a way beauteous beyond compare, then have your 
 body buried at the foot of a stately tree. Its 
 roots, in an affectionate embrace, will lift you up 
 to form its flower, and in the waft of its perfume you 
 breathe again. 
 
 The Buddhists' respect for animals is due to their 
 belief that the souls of their ancestors may have 
 transmigrated into animals. 
 
 When you go to the graveyard, don't look down ; 
 look up and receive a blessing beneath the arms of 
 your ancestors as the trees sway in sympathetic har- 
 mony. 
 
 When the graveyard at an old neighboring place 
 owned by the Castletons was dismantled, there was 
 much excitement, it being the first instance of the 
 kind in that immediate neighborhood. Then again, 
 the Castletons were a great people, and it made the 
 neighbors feel somewhat as one does when the family 
 doctor dies. 
 
 The scion of the family had become a " Colonel, 
 U. S. A.," while the ancestors had only been " Ken- 
 tucky Colonels." The " Colonel, U. S. A.," was prac- 
 tically unknown to the neighbors, having been away 
 since entering West Point as a youth. But the 
 " Kentucky Colonel " was so intimately associated 
 with the great home he had founded, that it was con- 
 sidered nothing less than a desecration when his re-
 
 38 TAMAM 
 
 mains were removed. Indignation was expressed, 
 even though it was recalled that at the time of the 
 old Colonel's death he was only temporarily placed 
 in his own family graveyard. This was because he 
 had died during the excitement incident to the civil 
 war. His wife, feeling the possibility of a change 
 in the old home, declared she would never leave his 
 remains behind. It was suggested that his grave 
 be walled up, so if she should want to have the body 
 reinterred the grave could be opened by the removal 
 of a layer of earth which covered a stone slab that 
 rested on the top of the side walls. 
 
 The old lady's fears proved unfounded, for a few 
 years later she was buried at his side, where they 
 rested peacefully within the sound of the voices of 
 those to whom they had been dear. But their rest 
 was destined to be broken, for the " U. S. A." scion 
 had them all exhumed and the remains deposited in 
 his mausoleum, with their names in fresh gilt letters, 
 on the marble panel that closed their niche, as if they 
 had just died. 
 
 What is the use of having a great house if you 
 have no ancestral portraits to cover its walls ? What 
 is the' use of having a mausoleum if you have no 
 ancestral remains deposited there? 
 
 So there remained the old stone wall faithfully 
 protecting the dismantled tombstones, while the as- 
 pens and pines waved in exclusive grandeur. The 
 spot was completely isolated, every other vestige 
 of the old home having been erased. 
 
 If one is detected in the avoidance of some act,
 
 "FOREST RETREAT' 39 
 
 with which a superstition is associated, he generally 
 declares that it is the only superstition he has. In 
 the same spirit people avoided the old dismantled 
 Castleton graveyard, even though they avoided no 
 other. And perhaps with more excuse, for there 
 were many, including responsible people, who in- 
 sisted they had seen a dark object moving about at 
 twilight. If you cross-questioned them you found 
 they had seen the object from a distance, then 
 straightway had gone to the stone fence and looked 
 over, to find nothing there. Some believed they 
 had seen it rise out of the ground, while others 
 claimed to have seen it disappear by re-entering the 
 ground. 
 
 A group of boys had at one time concealed them- 
 selves just outside the walls of the old place to await 
 the coming twilight and the " hant," as the object 
 was known. They claimed to have heard a noise 
 resembling the "swish of straw," whereupon their 
 courage gave place to unceremonious flight. 
 
 So the neighborhood was divided in opinion, in 
 consequence of which all stayed away ; one side be- 
 cause they believed there was something there, the 
 other side because they did not. 
 
 One night Major Corbin had some friends out 
 from town for a fox-hunt. The night was dry, 
 which made trailing difficult. The dogs seemed dis- 
 couraged and the sport was about to lag, when an 
 old mongrel hound, that had joined the pack without 
 invitation, began a glorious and continued bellow- 
 ing. The dog had struck a " coon " trail, and every
 
 40 TAMAM 
 
 one of the high-bred fox-hounds joined in the chorus 
 and was going it full tilt. 
 
 By some remarkable instinct the experienced 
 hunter can tell what kind of a trail his dogs are fol- 
 lowing. If it is a fox trail the yelps seem to be 
 short and on a high key, as if the dog knows he must 
 save his wind for a long swift chase. If it is a 
 " coon " trail, they seem to enjoy making as much 
 noise as possible, as if they know the coon will take 
 to the nearest tree. 
 
 " Let 'em take it," called the Major, for on a fox- 
 hunt the negroes are instructed to call the dogs off 
 " coon " trails. 
 
 " They are heading for the old Castleton home- 
 site, and I believe will tree him in the graveyard," 
 explained the Major to his friends. 
 
 Up the grassy slope went the pack, making the 
 night ring with their yells, leaving behind a cloud 
 of dust and bits of dried grass, which their claws 
 extracted as they clinched the turf in the taking of 
 their wonderful leaps. Straight for the graveyard 
 they headed. 
 
 The negroes, who always accompany such hunts, 
 began to show unusual interest. What if those dogs 
 went to that graveyard? Would the Major follow? 
 They would watch developments. 
 
 The yelping hounds sprang, as a bunch, over the 
 wall, only to change their triumphant yelps into 
 short sullen screeches, and immediately leaped back, 
 returning to their master with tails drooping be- 
 tween their legs, and casting furtive glances at the 
 graveyard.
 
 "FOREST RETREAT' 41 
 
 The Major knew that his dogs had seen something 
 unusual and distasteful to them. Could it be the 
 " hant " ? Here was a case of " graveyard fright," 
 and in dogs ; which can have no superstition. 
 
 The Major was in the class who did not believe 
 there was anything there, consequently he had 
 stayed away. Now he did believe something was 
 there, would he stay away? He carried in his cheek 
 a Federal Minie ball; he had faced his enemy in the 
 crucial test. His visitors knew nothing of the super- 
 stition connected with the place. 
 
 " Gentlemen," he said calmly, " we will approach 
 the place on the four sides." 
 
 The courage of the negroes was strengthened by 
 the stand so promptly taken, and they followed at 
 a most respectful distance. 
 
 " What a strange spot," remarked one of the 
 visitors, as the party rested on the four walls of the 
 yard, surveying the place. 
 
 No doubt they would have heard a noise resem- 
 bling the " swish of straw," had they come for that 
 purpose. 
 
 The old tombstones were ruthlessly scattered. 
 Some in piles as if they had assembled to hold either 
 indignation or consolation meetings over the loss of 
 their precious charges. Others seemed to have gone 
 stark mad and thrown themselves on their backs, and 
 lay staring at the heavens as if in mute appeal to 
 those spirits whose earthly abode had for a while 
 been left in their keeping. A white dove that had 
 long stood with outstretched wings in representation 
 of the flight of a soul, though now wingless, was still
 
 42 TAMAM 
 
 pathetically beautiful in its watch over a hole in the 
 ground. 
 
 Never again would the lichens be scratched out of 
 grooves of the letters with a nail, so the legend 
 could be laboriously read. 
 
 Moonlight escaped through the tree tops as the 
 branches swayed in an occasional breeze, momentarily 
 lighting up spots, so that, with patience, they could 
 see over the entire place. 
 
 The pine trees were moaning with spasmodic 
 wails, while the aspen trees trembled with a succes- 
 sion of shivers. When there is a wind there are wails 
 and shivers, while in a dead calm there is the ceaseless 
 moan and tremble. But for this they might have 
 heard the noise resembling the " swish of straw." 
 
 " I wonder if any one is still buried here? " asked 
 a visitor. 
 
 " I don't know," replied a companion, " let us ask. 
 Major Corbin," he called, " is there any one here 
 now?" 
 
 The Major interpreted the question as having ref- 
 erence to what had frightened his dogs. " I don't 
 know," he replied, jumping down into the yard, " I 
 will look " 
 
 The Major's sentence was interrupted by a sound 
 that chilled to the marrow. It seemed to come 
 from the very ground beneath him, and was followed 
 by something resembling suppressed guttural sounds 
 and convulsive outbursts, as if from a person of pow- 
 erful strength terrified in the agonizing throes of 
 death.
 
 "FOREST RETREAT' 43 
 
 The negroes were in precipitate flight, and the 
 visitors also retired, but in decorum. 
 
 The Major instinctively felt the Minie ball wince 
 in his cheek as he hastily turned toward the fence. 
 
 After a moment for composure, the party, as if 
 with one thought, returned to the walls. With that 
 reserve courage, which in reaction follows fright, 
 they entered the yard. As they stood in silence, not 
 a sound was to be heard save the moan of the pines 
 and the tremble of the aspens. Even the spots of 
 light had vanished, for the moon was nearing the 
 western horizon. 
 
 " Gentlemen," said the Major, and the Minie 
 ball must have twitched, " if you can find your way 
 to the house without my assistance, I shall remain 
 here until daylight." 
 
 But they preferred to stay with him. Of course 
 they would. Should they let him take all the glory 
 of such a vigil? 
 
 The hours remaining before dawn were easily 
 passed, the excitement having served the purpose of 
 strong coffee, for all wanted to talk. They let the 
 dawn more than break before arising from their im- 
 provised bench of tombstones. 
 
 By the first faint streaks of light each one, no 
 doubt, had, from where he sat, silently examined the 
 surroundings, and felt even more strongly determined 
 to conquer the mystery. Perhaps they lingered 
 rather than dispel the heroic illusion, for they were 
 enjoying the experience, especially since they had 
 seen enough to see nothing. There were plenty of
 
 44 TAMAM 
 
 foot-prints and down-trodden weeds and grass, but 
 that meant nothing, for they had tramped over the 
 place during the night. 
 
 Stone fences, as built in Kentucky, are generally 
 finished by placing the top rows of stones on end, 
 selecting those with ragged edges, so that if an ani- 
 mal reaches over with its head, as it does prepara- 
 tory to a jump, the sharp points of the stones force 
 it back. When one wishes to climb over such a fence 
 the natural impulse is to push off some of these edge- 
 wise stones. 
 
 A disturbed place in the graveyard fence caught 
 the Major's eye and aroused his suspicion. Upon 
 examination he noticed the faint outline of a path 
 which seemed to lead from that 'place in the fence 
 to the far left-hand corner of the yard. Yes, it 
 led to the empty grave of the old " Kentucky Colo- 
 nel," and the very corner over which he had climbed 
 when he had first entered the graveyard during the 
 night. Keeping this clue to himself, he evasively 
 went to the place. 
 
 Did he pause to toy with the handle of the coffin ? 
 No, that is done only in certainty here was doubt. 
 
 He hastened to remove some brush concealing an 
 old door which was resting on the side walls of the 
 pit, apparently to afford shelter. Lifting the door, 
 the pit was seen to contain considerable straw, some 
 of which had been heaped in one corner, probably to 
 conceal some object. This straw he pushed aside 
 with a forked stick, and there, crouched in the
 
 "FOREST RETREAT' 45 
 
 stillness of death, a terrified glassy stare in the eyes, 
 the massive, bushy head thrown back, the mouth wide 
 open, causing the lower jaw to force a heavy growth 
 of disheveled kinky hair against the chest, was all 
 that was mortal of old Jim Arterpea, a friendless 
 fugitive from an innocent jest. 
 
 ***** 
 
 Words spoken in jest sometimes pierce like the 
 stiletto, which makes a wound too small to let the 
 blood flow out, but causes an internal bleeding which 
 suffocates the victim. 
 
 The ignorant and superstitious many times har- 
 bor in silent suffering a firm belief in the infallibility 
 of an idle jest which we have thoughtlessly flung at 
 them, as does a boy cast stones at harmless animals. 
 
 We who hold in keeping the higher degrees of 
 intellect prostitute our trust when we make light of 
 the ignorance displayed by those who have not been 
 so blest. 
 
 ***** 
 
 As innocent as was Major Corbin's remark about 
 the poisoning of his dog, after old Jim's death, his 
 manner became changed to that of marked sadness. 
 
 What days the friendless old negro must have 
 spent in hiding from his imagined foe, who in reality 
 would have been as responsive to his call for help as 
 any man living. The terror of those last moments, 
 when the poor old creature had heard the Major's 
 name called, then heard his voice in response and his 
 jumping down so near the very spot of concealment
 
 46 TAMAM 
 
 all this had snapped the cords which bound his 
 soul to its humble abode. 
 
 However, Major Corbin did the handsome thing, 
 for he arranged with the owner of the estate to have 
 Jim's body buried in the grave where he had lived 
 the last bitter weeks of his pitiful life. And there 
 he rests, alone, in one of the most beautiful spots 
 in the blue-grass pastures of Kentucky. In a place 
 which was selected as the sacred receptacle for the 
 mortal remains of one of the most aristocratic of 
 families, an unknown captive, bound in the shackles 
 of tyranny and superstition, becomes the sole occu- 
 pant. 
 
 What is the nature of destiny? Are we to find 
 that the " tobacco-grower " will trim a little closer 
 each year, until finally we must remove our dear ones 
 from " Forest Retreat," and leave Major Nichol- 
 son, the homeless wanderer who came to us out of the 
 great unknown, in solitary possession of our sacred 
 spot? Was this the purpose of the old Major's 
 mission to us? 
 
 Graveyard, if such is one of the secrets you hold 
 in store, conceal it from us. We would not know 
 all. We still go to you in the exuberance of youth, 
 even though you harbor the secret ghost that has 
 been seen by our ancestors, and by some of us ; that 
 ghost whose memory, when one has passed through 
 its visible presence, he conceals in the most secret 
 archives of his heart. To see this ghost is to break 
 the spell of your charm. Curiosity has never 
 tempted one to inquire if it appeared in the same
 
 "FOREST RETREAT" 47 
 
 form any two times. When one has seen it, an im- 
 print is left upon the countenance and there is a 
 faltering in the foot-steps. How tenderly we would 
 sympathize and calm the throbbing heart, if we only 
 dared ! 
 
 If you are wise you will not waken the somnam- 
 bulist, but let him return to his bed and resume nor- 
 mal sleep. Neither will you approach him who has 
 just seen the ghost of " Forest Retreat." Yearn as 
 you may to offer him comfort, you must let him 
 seek solitude and resume his normal awakening. Our 
 ghost is a secret whose existence is known only to 
 those who have seen it ; and they can never warn 
 others. 
 
 Oh ! graveyard, would that we could betray you by 
 the expression of some slight emotion, when we see the 
 victims at your very portals, rather than slink away 
 as we must ! 
 
 There was a posthumous daughter of the Confed- 
 erate officer who had passed the care-free hours of 
 childhood and youth. As an infant she had been 
 carried to the graveyard, as a child she had carried 
 her own dolls there to play " keep house," and when 
 in the bloom of young womanhood, still she went. 
 And such a bloom ! It is said her combination of 
 raven-black hair and blue eyes was never equaled. 
 Her hair was that kind of a mass of ringlets, wavers 
 and whirls that brings over you an almost irresistible 
 impulse to play your fingers through it.
 
 48 TAMAM 
 
 Physical beauty exists where there is a combina- 
 tion of some two or more of the elements of beauty. 
 The foremost of these combinations is hair and eyes. 
 Then comes eyes and mouth, mouth and neck, neck 
 and arms and so on ; the one element enhancing the 
 other. 
 
 Every person has a distinctive characteristic by 
 which he or she is classified in our memory. This 
 characteristic may be in the appearance, or manner, 
 or both, but at first contact it is revealed. We may 
 have to think just where it belongs, but the longer 
 we think the more we exclaim, inwardly, when we 
 have found its class. So in feminine beauty, we in- 
 voluntarily analyze to find the elements which lend 
 the charm. 
 
 There is but one of woman's long list of beauty 
 elements that can stand alone. Nature in her charity 
 made this elastic, susceptible of culture. A flexible, 
 musical rhythm in enunciation is a charm as beautiful 
 as it is rare. 
 
 When the posthumous daughter spoke, her words 
 emanated with the mellow sweetness of minor chords 
 tuned to mezza timbre. The sounds did not appear 
 to come from the throat, through the nose or even 
 from the lips, but as if reflected from the entire 
 face. And when she laughed it was like the warble 
 of a playful brook. More than one heart had made 
 sacrifice at this altar, for be it known she was not al- 
 together sincere. 
 
 In the twilight of a summer evening she sat on a
 
 "FOREST RETREAT' 49 
 
 myrtle-covered mound in the graveyard. Years be- 
 fore the mound had been made by the excess of dirt 
 from the graves. It was thickly grown over with 
 the vines, and formed a rather inviting seat. At her 
 feet sat a young man. 
 
 " Let us make wreaths," she suggested as she 
 picked the myrtle leaves about her ; and the aspens 
 trembled and the pines moaned. 
 
 They worked for a short time in silence, appar- 
 ently concentrating their attention in the inception 
 of designs. 
 
 As she stopped to select some extra long stems 
 she spoke. 
 
 " I think I will ask you a conundrum. Why are 
 deserters like trees in the spring? " 
 
 He was intent on his work, and replied as if with- 
 out thought, that he did not know. 
 
 " Because they leave of their own accord," she 
 said, laughing while she looked at him, and rolling 
 her head in a chiding way so the black hair was 
 wonderfully effective. 
 
 He wished he had tried and given the answer, so as 
 to avoid the first thrust. He would try her, and 
 about the same trees. 
 
 " Why is a woman, who loves for ten years and 
 then ceases, like a hollow tree? " 
 
 She could not guess, so he felt better as he ex- 
 plained about the decade heart. 
 
 As the honors were equal, she suggested they con- 
 tinue to ask about trees only, and see how far they 
 could go.
 
 50 TAMAM 
 
 After a pause in which the minds of both were 
 evidently active, she was the one to speak. 
 
 " Why is the top of a tree like the settlement of a 
 Western prairie? " 
 
 " That sounds easy," he said. " Let me think. 
 There are branches, and ranches Am I getting 
 warm? " 
 
 " Yes, because they go to b-ranches," she replied 
 without waiting. 
 
 " I would have guessed if you had given me time," 
 he said. 
 
 " That is why I did not do so," she replied, affect- 
 ing an air of injured feelings. 
 
 " Well, it is my turn," he said, " and I am going 
 to get even for that. Will you tell me why a tree 
 with a broken limb is like a lame duck? " 
 
 She made him promise not to tell until she " gave 
 up." 
 
 " All right," he said, " take as much time as you 
 want." 
 
 She hummed a bit with closed lips, indicating she 
 wanted it understood her mind was not to be dis- 
 turbed. 
 
 Finally she distracted his attention by pretending 
 there was an insect crawling on her neck. He looked 
 thoroughly, and declared there was nothing, where- 
 upon she said it was strange he could not see a thing 
 when it was as large as she knew that creature was, 
 after which remark she suggested they proceed with 
 the work on the wreaths. 
 
 " Hold here, while I finish this plait," she said,
 
 "FOREST RETREAT" 51 
 
 sliding down the mound. Did she do this involun- 
 tarily, or was the spirit of the coquette awakening? 
 
 At first his fingers appeared unsteady, nervously 
 so, caused by the gliding of hers in and out through 
 his as she tied the knots, but he was sorry when she 
 had finished. 
 
 Why could he not ask her to tie some places in 
 his wreath while he held it for her. 
 
 " Won't you help me? " he asked, holding his 
 wreath toward her. 
 
 A slight flush came over his face when he found 
 himself in an imploring attitude, with outstretched 
 arms, looking into those wonderful eyes of blue. 
 
 Yes, she would help him. 
 
 They were using the mound as a kind of back rest, 
 and consequently were side by side. To do the work 
 she had to pass one arm under his, reach over with 
 the other, lowering that elbow, until it, likewise, was 
 between his extended arms. The raven-black hair 
 brushed his cheek as she moved her head in various 
 positions in the examination of the wreath. She 
 could have heard the increased beating of his heart, 
 because her head was inclined well down toward his 
 breast. 
 
 Would he fold his arms, enclosing his prey, like 
 a trap closing around the victim it had enticed? He 
 was the soul of honor, and hers was purely an ac- 
 cidental position. There may have been a quiver, 
 but his arms remained extended. 
 
 " If I had a piece of thread I could tie this place," 
 she remarked, as she held two short ends.
 
 52 TAMAM 
 
 " Will a black silken thread do ? " he asked, en- 
 deavoring to conceal that he had a purpose in view ; 
 " if so, I can get one for you." 
 
 " Just the thing ; but don't let go yet, the wreath 
 will come apart," she replied, wholly unawares. 
 
 " Oh, I don't have to let go to get it," and he 
 caught a few strands of her hair in his lips. 
 
 There was a toss of the black ringlets and a burst 
 of her marvelous laughter as she affected indigna- 
 tion in her wonderful blue eyes. And the aspens 
 trembled and the pines moaned. 
 
 " Now you will have to make your wreath by 
 your lone self," she said, as a kind of retaliation for 
 his wit having caught her off guard ; but compromis- 
 ing, she extracted one of the black silken threads and 
 repaired the wreath. 
 
 He had proved himself quite skilful, for in con- 
 structing his wreath he had woven some branches 
 that were in bloom, so it was dotted with little blue 
 flowers. He kept her from seeing this, because it 
 was evident there was a spirit of rivalry in the mak- 
 ing of the wreaths, as well as in their wit. 
 
 " Yours is the prettier," she said, " let us ex- 
 change. Besides, you ought not to wear flowers. 
 The olive wreaths that are given to conquerors never 
 have flowers in them." 
 
 She felt that this display of knowledge was an off- 
 set to his skill, and proceeded to take his wreath 
 without awaiting his consent. 
 
 " No, no," he protested, " that is not the way 
 to do. I will crown you with mine, then you must
 
 "FOREST RETREAT' 53 
 
 crown me with yours, and we will see who can make 
 the grander coronation speech." 
 
 Here was a challenge, and the chances appeared 
 even, especially as he was to go first. So she ac- 
 cepted. 
 
 " What shall the winner get as a prize? " she 
 asked, unable to conceal the fact that she had a bit 
 of repartee ready to let fly when he paused for an 
 answer. 
 
 " Let the winner take the loser for better or worse, 
 etc.," was his quick response, and a gleam of satis- 
 faction shone in his face as he watched her in the 
 struggle to parry. 
 
 She asked time, but finally consented to the terms, 
 on condition that she be the judge, inasmuch as he 
 had named the stake. 
 
 Here he had to ask time, for he discerned her 
 affected innocence. He studied the premise and the 
 conditions, with her as the sole judge of the contest. 
 Suppose she declared herself the winner; then he 
 must be the loser, and she would have to take him. 
 Suppose she declared him the winner, then she must 
 be the loser, and consequently his prize. It seemed 
 to be as broad as it was long, so he consented. He 
 made the mound into a bloom of lilacs, which he 
 gathered from the screening hedge surrounding the 
 the graveyard, and indicated for her to sit on the top 
 as her position in the coronation ceremony. 
 
 But first she must " fix " her hair. It is strange 
 why women with beautiful hair have to " fix " it so 
 often. She drew her chin against her throat, as
 
 54 TAMAM 
 
 one does preparatory to this operation, and lifted 
 her hands to the back of her head. Her loose sleeves 
 fell to the elbows, leaving the white arms in contrast 
 with the raven-black hair, while she played her fingers 
 through the tresses. Her face in this position 
 caused her to cast her eyes upward, after the man- 
 ner of Raphael's cherubs, as she looked at him, while 
 the rich melody of her laughter filled the stillness of 
 the twilight. 
 
 After the hair had been fixed, refixed and fixed 
 again, she seated herself upon the improvised throne, 
 adjusted her skirts in graceful folds, drew herself 
 up to her full sitting height, and, slightly elevating 
 her chin, assumed a pose of magnificent dignity. 
 
 In the same spirit he made a low bow, took his 
 position, standing behind her with the bedecked 
 wreath extended above her head, maintaining his 
 dignity as he spoke. 
 
 " In the presence of your immortal ancestors 
 through the past three generations, I stand in the 
 performance of the glorious honor which is mine to- 
 day. 
 
 " Great as were your fathers in the heroic days of 
 '76, the makers of history in 1812, and none the less 
 true to their convictions in 1860 ; greater than they 
 was their inspiration their wives and their pos- 
 terity, this daughter, is no less. 
 
 " Womanhood ! in the unadorned beauty of your 
 presence, we make our obeisance to the majestic 
 sway of your influence.
 
 "FOREST RETREAT' 55 
 
 " Was there ever man unsusceptible to the magnet- 
 ism of your charms? Was there ever man who did 
 not float in a billow of pride when you smiled coun- 
 tenance to his act? Was there ever a man who did 
 not cower in humiliation when his act had brought 
 to your face the startled flush and tremor of doubt? 
 If so, he is lost. 
 
 " The breath of your existence fans into flame the 
 spark of ambition you create in our breast. 
 
 " The aroma of your fragrant nature is the 
 anaesthetic to our morose temperament. 
 
 " You are the fanciful conception, the coloring, 
 the flower of the animate world. 
 
 " As our sweethearts, we bask in the sunshine of 
 your souls. As our wives, you are a sacred halo 
 about our lives. As our mothers, you are the foun- 
 tain from which springs all that is good within us. 
 
 " Queenly daughter, at the threshold of woman- 
 hood you have inherited the graces of your mothers ; 
 each grace is a charm, ea/ch charm is a pearl, while 
 they are countless as the sands of the seas. 
 
 " For every leaf in the garland I hold, there is 
 a worshiper at your shrine. Each flower in it is the 
 bloom of ecstasy that opens in the radiance of your 
 love. 
 
 " And now, in the happy compliance with my priv- 
 ilege, I crown you the Queen of Hearts." 
 
 " Good ! " exclaimed the Queen, clapping her hands 
 and dancing around the mound, as though the strain 
 of imperial dignity must find an outlet.
 
 56 TAMAM 
 
 In the final " fix " of her hair, preparatory to the 
 coronation, she had left it falling loosely down her 
 back. 
 
 " I must make my curtsy to your tribute to woman- 
 hood," and she gathered her skirts at the sides, lifted 
 them a trifle, placed one foot to the rear and op- 
 posite, and slowly sank into a mass of folds. 
 
 As she arose she dexterously gave her head a 
 kind of toss, causing the hair to divide and fall over 
 each shoulder, leaving her with the appearance of one 
 wearing an exquisite silken shawl. 
 
 And then, as if it were possible that the spirit of 
 the coquette could yet be unsatiated, she took a 
 cluster of lilacs, fixed them in her corsage, and, with 
 that serenity born only in woman, plucked a few 
 violets from the side of her father's grave. 
 
 In that momentary lull which always follows ex- 
 citement, she stood with a far-away look in her 
 eyes as she raised the violets to her lips. 
 
 Was there ever such a symphony in color as was 
 made by those lilacs, those violets, those myrtle 
 blooms and those eyes? 
 
 She took a deep breath, inhaling the perfume of 
 the flowers. 
 
 He saw the enchanting swell in her bosom, and 
 as she exhaled, it suggested a sigh, as if she had 
 found in it the fragrance of an unknown father's 
 love. 
 
 An involuntary sound from his lips followed, suf- 
 ficiently audible in the silence to attract her atten- 
 tion, and it caused her to turn suddenly toward him.
 
 "FOREST RETREAT' 5 57 
 
 This produced a slight embarrassment on the part 
 of each, for she found him in a kind of hypnotic 
 stare, watching her every movement. 
 
 " Oh ! I forgot, I have not crowned you," she 
 said, as the inevitable ripple of laughter escaped. 
 
 " I was just wondering if I am to take the prize 
 by default? " he replied in a droll humor, and again 
 the tension was relaxed. 
 
 She took the lilacs from the mound, explaining 
 he was not to have any in his coronation, because 
 flowers were associated with feminine weakness and 
 not with heroic conquerors. She must be original, 
 and doubtless had he not made use of them she would 
 have done so, with a reverse in the historical deduc- 
 tion. 
 
 He took his seat on the green throne, she standing 
 behind him with the unadorned wreath she had made, 
 swinging on her arm. 
 
 " Will you promise to be good and not make me 
 laugh in the midst of my speech? " she asked, tak- 
 ing a few strands of his hair with the tips of her 
 fingers that she might force his consent. 
 
 " Yes, I will be solemn," was his reply, for this 
 was now the easiest thing he could do. His jocular 
 mood was weakening, and his zest for repartee was 
 giving way before the pall of seriousness that was 
 creeping over his spirit. 
 
 That sparkling effervescence with which he was 
 naturally endowed had flown, leaving him enthralled 
 in poetic pathos. 
 
 The Queen must laugh once more before she har-
 
 58 TAMAM 
 
 nessed her risibles ; after which, in a truly regal 
 voice, she began: 
 
 " My most respected ancestors, I call upon you 
 to witness the Queen of Hearts in the performance 
 of the crowning glory of her achievements. I stand 
 here to execute the loftiest ideal of woman, the pay- 
 ment of a tribute to the honor of man. 
 
 " Manhood ! the synonym for bravery, gallantry 
 and chivalry, in your hands we unhesitatingly place 
 our destiny. In you we find nobility embalmed in 
 the steadfastness of purpose. In you we find 
 strength for our weakness, succor for our need. In 
 you we find a vassal in the presence of desire, a pro- 
 tector in the presence of foes, a refuge in the pres- 
 ence of sorrow. 
 
 " We concede your superiority, and ask only to be 
 your helpmate. 
 
 " If you are moved by our influence, it is because 
 the generosity of your character has sympathy for 
 our wish. If you covet our smile of approval, it is 
 because you ask only what we can give, in the sim- 
 plicity of our appreciation. If you shrink under 
 our frown of disapproval, it is because your nobler 
 self ever comes to your rescue at the time of inadvert- 
 ence. 
 
 " As we are the embellished creations of fancy, so 
 are you the sombre, solid, indestructible foundations 
 of our being. 
 
 " As our suitors, we revel in the attention shown
 
 "FOREST RETREAT' 59 
 
 us. As our husbands, you are trusted pilots on the 
 uncharted seas of life. As our fathers, you are the 
 Nestors of our homes. 
 
 " Princely son ! Providence has seen fit to clothe 
 you with an inborn character which bespeaks 
 courtesy, thoughtfulness, generosity, justice, hon- 
 esty and truth. In your countenance is the mark of 
 trust. In the spontaneity of your wit lies the soul of 
 culture. 
 
 " Each leaf, in the garland I hold, is my wish. 
 One is for the maintenance of your physical strength ; 
 one is that the pathway of your life may conceal 
 no pitfalls ; one, that your ability may receive its 
 just recognition; one is that your happiness may in- 
 crease with your days ; one, that your days may 
 continue to the allotted number ; one, that your death 
 may be the peaceful passing of a spirit, bathed in the 
 incense of love from those who have been nourished 
 by the fruits of your life. And all the wishes that 
 are left I would have combined in one, that it may 
 be the stronger. This wish is that she whom you 
 honor with the offer of your hand may receive from 
 God the gift of every quality that goes to make 
 woman in the supreme sense, that she may be a fitting 
 helpmate. 
 
 " The garland needs no blossoms, for it will rest 
 upon the flower of youth. 
 
 " And now, as your august Queen, I assert my 
 royal prerogative, and crown you my Princely Con- 
 queror."
 
 60 TAMAM 
 
 He did not clap his hands in applause, or even 
 arise from the mound. 
 
 The serious coloring which the Queen had put 
 into her voice gave place to laughter which, if pos- 
 sible, had never before been so musical. Her mirth 
 seemed to boil over, for she felt she had held her own 
 in the contest. She dropped on her knees before 
 him, resting her extended arms on the base of the 
 mound, after the manner of one " on all fours." 
 The raven-black hair fell over one shoulder, like a 
 mantle in graceful folds, terminating in delicately 
 twisting ends, which stood out in the soft breeze 
 truly the floating of zephyr upon zephyr. Again 
 she had to lift her eyes in the same cherubic manner, 
 as she tantalizingly peered up into his face. Then 
 in a burst of chiding laughter she told him he was 
 mean, not to applaud. 
 
 When he spoke there was a tremor in his voice, and 
 his breathing showed a tempest in his breast. 
 
 " I am saving my applause for the decision of the 
 judge," he said in measured words. 
 
 "Oh, yes!" she replied; "the judge declares it 
 a drawn contest, and there will be no prize." With 
 that she sprang to her feet, ran out of the gate, on 
 toward the house, leaving in her wake only ripples of 
 marvelous laughter. 
 
 The only move he made was to place his elbows on 
 his knees and rest his chin in his hands. 
 
 The twilight was fading into dusk, and with it 
 came the stillness which accompanies this period of 
 the day.
 
 "FOREST RETREAT" 61 
 
 As he gazed at some quivering shadows on a marble 
 slab the only sound to be heard was the tremble of 
 the aspens and the moan of the pines. 
 
 The darkness thickened and the shadows united 
 to form larger and more grotesque forms. The 
 calm was broken by a breeze which caused the trees 
 to move, and with this the grotesque forms began 
 to dance and chase, as in childish play. The breeze 
 increased, and the forms became more rude, rushed 
 against each other with leaps and bounds, passed 
 from one slab to another, dashed themselves to pieces 
 on the ground, then sprang back to their first quiver- 
 ing forms, only to repeat the tragedy. 
 
 He watched the process of self-annihilation until 
 the forms seemed to tire of their ghost dance. They 
 became sullen, no longer even quivered, but assumed 
 a motionless position in thick black masses. They 
 appeared to feel satisfied they held him in their grasp, 
 as a serpent transfixes its prey through the stare of 
 its eye. 
 
 With a sudden motion he caught his breath, par- 
 tially straightened up, and in the same movement 
 placed the tips of his fingers against his lips, as if 
 to suppress an utterance. 
 
 Could it be that the very tombstones were begin- 
 ning to quiver? Were they going to frolic and 
 chase in playful glee, after which they would work 
 themselves into furious rage, and hurl their ponder- 
 ous weights, with desperate crash, into each other's 
 granite sides? 
 
 The terrific pumping of his heart caused the blood
 
 62 TAMAM 
 
 to rush through his veins and swell his temples until 
 it seemed it would ooze out, like drops of perspira- 
 tion. 
 
 O precious soul! you are fast in the clutches of 
 the mystery of " Forest Retreat's " graveyard. You 
 are in the awful presence of the secret ghost. Afar, 
 and with prayerful aspect, we await you as you 
 struggle through the unequal combat. Henceforth 
 you must unite with us in the silent custody of the 
 mystery. 
 
 Still, in mute helplessness, he stared at the picture 
 before him. 
 
 The breeze was coming again ; he felt its coolness 
 on his brow. The aspens began to shiver, and the 
 moan of the pines was like a siren as it gradually 
 increases the speed of its revolution. 
 
 He began to quiver, then to tremble, then to shake 
 in piteous emotion. 
 
 The siren in the pines rose to a wail, then a howl, 
 then a screech. 
 
 Finally, making a supreme effort, he arose to his 
 feet, staggered over to the large white slab which 
 stood at the head of the soldier's grave, rested his 
 arms on it, and, making a sound that could have been 
 either a sigh or a sob, buried his face in his arms. 
 
 This movement caused the myrtle wreath to slip 
 from his head, and it fell squarely on the grave at his 
 feet, as if he had been shorn of his laurels that a 
 real hero should be crowned. 
 
 Before raising his head, a sound, audible like the
 
 "FOREST RETREAT' 63 
 
 plaintive murmurs of prayer, came from his lips. 
 Having regained self-control, he straightened up. 
 The wind had passed, and calm reigned once more. 
 
 From a movement it appeared he had just become 
 aware of the loss of his wreath. He leaned forward 
 to feel for it, but arrested himself balanced on one 
 foot, the other knee slightly bent, as in the first at- 
 titude of stooping. His head remained drooped, 
 while he folded his arms. Through the screen of 
 darkness he saw the last spent rays of a well-faded 
 day as they reflected from the vitreous leaves of the 
 wreath. The reflections changed into winks, and he 
 felt the wreath was looking at him in defiance, while 
 its tiny tendrils already attached themselves to the 
 grass in an effort to resist removal. 
 
 After a few pensive moments he appeared to have 
 reached decision. He completed his stooping and 
 turned, lightly feeling over the grass near the grave 
 with his fingers, picked up the little wilted violets 
 she had dropped, and placed them on the grave near 
 the wreath. He hesitated, recalled her words, 
 " Flowers are not associated with heroic conquerors," 
 then took up the violets and fixed them in the but- 
 ton-hole of his lapel. 
 
 He made his way through the gate and followed 
 in the wake of the ripples of laughter. There was 
 an imprint upon his countenance, and a faltering in 
 his footsteps. He had seen the ghost of " Forest 
 Retreat " the " ghost of a hope " that she might 
 some day crown his life with that crown of happi-
 
 64 TAMAM 
 
 ness in which there would be no jewel more precious 
 than herself. 
 
 And the aspens trembled and the pines moaned. 
 
 When he retired for sleep that night his was a 
 weary body and a tumultuous brain. 
 
 Physical strength is the measure of capability in 
 nervous expenditure, and the fact that he was tired 
 indicates no weakness. That indescribable sensation 
 of the moment of contact between a tired body and 
 a comfortable bed was his. 
 
 Throughout the day there seems to be a series of 
 magnetic currents playing between one and the place 
 of his night's rest. In the morning the forces are 
 normally repellent, but by evening they will have 
 reversed, and the force of attraction increases, until 
 we find our bodies merely supply the office of 
 " keeper " to a magnet bed. 
 
 Attire yourself for your night's sleep. There is 
 the space between the head and foot poles of the 
 magnet. Connect these points with your body, the 
 " keeper." The burst of pent-up currents that race 
 through you, causing that soothing of your muscles, 
 is the payment Nature makes for a day's toil. 
 
 For the moment this soothing was his. The linen 
 cover on his down pillow was a cooling salve to his 
 flushed cheek and throbbing temple. There was 
 complete relaxation, gradually fading into semi-con- 
 sciousness the critical point in " going to sleep." 
 
 If you wish to drive a flock of sheep through a 
 gate, you will find little trouble in concentrating
 
 "FOREST RETREAT' 65 
 
 them at the opening; but there is the time for cau- 
 tion. The fact that you may have them actually be- 
 tween the gate posts is the very reason they will 
 scramble over each other, and rush back at the risk 
 of their lives, should you attempt to force them. 
 The reassembling of them will prove difficult; they 
 have become suspicious. You may succeed and mass 
 them near the gate a second time. You will have 
 learned something about the animals' natures, so 
 remain at a distance. Again they stand solidly in 
 the gate-way for a moment, when the foremost one 
 may chance to toss its head with a snort. The tossed 
 head strikes the sheep nearest, knocking him slightly 
 backward, and the sound startles him, causing his 
 movement to be increased. Through this means the 
 momentum of the mass, due to the acceleration of 
 fright, will have become such that the last sheep is 
 thrown completely around, and terrified to desperate 
 flight, whereupon the flock will follow. 
 
 Had the sheep entered you could have closed them 
 in the fold for the night. As it is, you must keep 
 watch over the scattered flock. They may tax your 
 patience and your strength. 
 
 In entering upon your sleep for the night, be 
 careful when you get your sheep to the gate. 
 
 The cooling salve of his pillow warmed to the 
 tumult of his brain, making his thoughts rush back 
 to the closing of the day in the graveyard. He had 
 a restless night ; he had to watch his scattered sheep. 
 
 The blessing of sleep is most apparent when 
 noticed least. If life was the first result of creation, 
 sleep must have been the second.
 
 66 TAMAM 
 
 Who has never spent a night wooing Nature's 
 balm for every . anguish of mind and body, and 
 found her affections unrequited? You reason you 
 should go to sleep, then rest on your accustomed side, 
 adjust your covers, embrace your pillow with one 
 arm, take a deep breath and await the mysterious 
 tide to carry you out. The tide does not come, so 
 you try the reverse side with a feeling of suspicion 
 as to a successful launching. A second failure may 
 increase the determination, so you try it on physio- 
 logical principles ; rest on your back with out- 
 stretched lower limbs, fold your arms over your head 
 to give your heated blood a better chance for cir- 
 culation, remove your pillow to place your cheek on 
 the cool spot beneath it. Failure here means despera- 
 tion, and you clutch at your covers with an outburst 
 of impassioned wrath. You toss until your body 
 feels physical exhaustion, and there is that drawn 
 feeling in your face consequent to unrelaxed muscles. 
 There is yet one resort. It is to bring yourself into 
 a hypnotic state. 
 
 When the eye is open, it is impossible to prevent 
 it being focussed on some object; when the brain is 
 awake, it is impossible to prevent it being focussed in 
 some thought. To break this focus will bring about 
 sleep. 
 
 Go through the entangled labyrinth of your mind, 
 collect your scattered thoughts, resolve them into 
 one, easing the focus on this one until it gradually 
 fades, and once more you have your scattered sheep 
 at the portals of their fold.
 
 "FOREST RETREAT" 67 
 
 What a panacea sleep is ! If it is whispered 
 from the sick room " the patient sleeps," a sense of 
 relief fills us. 
 
 Sleep is an intoxication, rapturous and divine ; the 
 mellower of antipathy, the solvent of dilemma, the 
 oil on the waves of tempestuous anguish. It is a 
 psychological phenomenon we class with the myriad 
 of unknowns. 
 
 No one can look into the face of a sleeping person 
 and not be pervaded with a sense of awe. There is 
 too much suggestion as to the possible presence of 
 some guarding spirit from the realm of a creative 
 power. When asleep, the expression of servility is 
 not found in the face of the menial, the accustomed 
 smile has vanished from the countenance of the little 
 child, the hauteur of the ostentatious has become 
 dissipated, and the three stand on common ground 
 in the majesty of their dignity, equal communicants 
 at Nature's fountain of blessings. 
 
 When we go fo our " garden of sleep," and grope 
 at the impenetrable veil of mystery separating the 
 living and the dead ; when in the embroilment of emo- 
 tion we stand by the open grave, while one all placid 
 in countenance is lowered into the absorbent folds of 
 Nature's coverlet, our souls, in their supplicant 
 yearning, indulge us in the poetic conception, " He 
 sleeps." 
 
 When we, in the hush of solitude, stand by the 
 newly formed mound we cannot admit of disturbed 
 sleep. Should the grave of the most inhuman tyrant 
 of history be marked with a slab bearing the legend
 
 68 TAMAM 
 
 Insomnia, we would shudder at the thought of such 
 torture. 
 
 We know but the one kind of sleep for those in our 
 garden. They never have trouble with their sheep. 
 The soothing currents are always coursing through 
 their bodies. Their pillow of soft earth is ever a cool- 
 ing salve. Their sleep is one sweet perpetual dream 
 of an unbroken chain of the golden moments of child- 
 hood, linked with the boundless enthusiasm of youth, 
 and the satisfaction in a beautifully ripened age. 
 
 Our love stimulates our fancy, which in turn pre- 
 dominates our belief. As a cold stern reality, we 
 know nothing. At the grave our minds become 
 nebulous, and we unhesitatingly concede the greatest 
 mystery of life lies in the archives of our graveyard, 
 the mystery of death. 
 
 From that night, his was a changed life. 
 
 It is always sad to see the first effects of frost in 
 the fall, the first withered leaf to curl its corners 
 and droop in its surrender of the throne of sum- 
 mer. And how much more so to see the first frosts 
 on ambition ; the first blight on the enthusiasm of 
 youth. 
 
 What is there in life comparable with that period 
 of youth when in the flush of vigor we look down the 
 vista of a fancied career where the perspective has 
 so deceivingly distorted the stumbling places, the 
 jars and the reverses, that it appears one beautiful 
 grassy slope ; that period when the amorous emotions 
 are healthy, wholesome and undaunted?
 
 "FOREST RETREAT" 69 
 
 Was his sleepless night a jar, such as to throw 
 him out of the grassy slope into the rut worn by 
 others in their wanderings through the entanglement 
 of reverses? Would he pass through and look back 
 to find the vista only a mirage? 
 
 The posthumous daughter fared differently, if 
 judged from her outward appearance the next morn- 
 ing. All of her sleep must have been " beauty sleep." 
 It was not difficult to imagine that for a pillow she 
 cooled her cheek on a " poultice " of milk and roses. 
 Her sheep were always docile lambs, lovingly obedi- 
 ent to their shepherdess.
 
 II 
 
 ARLINGTON 
 
 " On fame's eternal camping ground, 
 Their silent tents are spread." 
 
 EMOTION is the quintessence of our nervous sys- 
 tem, that indefinite part of our organization which 
 through poetic license is styled " the heart." It is 
 the dormant motive in action, the exuberance from a 
 trepid soul in the human Leyden jar, the subtle 
 charging fluid. 
 
 Emotion expressed is the acme of pity, the weak- 
 ening, withering discharge, leaving the Leyden jar 
 inert. Emotion retained is rhythmical harmony, the 
 poise, the poetry, the music of life. It is the fer- 
 ment in our jealousies, the yeast in our pride, the 
 golden silence in our strength, the brazen speech in 
 our weakness. 
 
 The creative instinct in art is but emotion. With- 
 out it, the song of the poet, the eloquence of the 
 orator, the triumph of the soldier would be innocuous 
 bauble. 
 
 It is in our emotional nature where the composer 
 revels, for by him it may be expressed and yet re- 
 tained. It is he who interprets prosaic words into 
 the divine language of music ; he who speaks for us 
 
 70
 
 ARLINGTON 71 
 
 in tones that set in unison the vibrations of our 
 souls, until in harmony they blend and soar from 
 us. It is he who speaks for us from those innermost 
 recesses, the habitation of the unschooled, untutored, 
 unconventional but pristinely pure and inspired con- 
 ceptions, the trysting place of the soul with fancy. 
 He speaks for us in language tha knows no tongue, 
 that is neither bound in the shackles of words, per- 
 forated with the punctilios of accent, nor scarred 
 with the slurs of rhetoric, but clothed in phrase and 
 harmony with limitless license to intermingle the 
 ecstasy of hope and the agony of despair. He tells 
 for us the longing of a heart, the pining of a spirit, 
 the wail of a soul, the martial feeling of patriotism, 
 the pride in victory, and of the soothing incense that 
 rises from the sacrifice of life that others may live. 
 
 A not infrequent sight in the streets of the nation's 
 Capital is a military funeral procession. There is 
 the clatter of distant hoofs, the flash of sunlight on 
 polished brass, the swirl of a crowd, a muffled rumble 
 accompanied by the grit and grind of caisson wheels. 
 The clatter distracts our preoccupied self, the flash 
 stimulates us to alertness, the swirl draws us toward 
 its vortex, yet ours is but passing curiosity. The 
 grind of wheels may cause a shiver, and the sight 
 of our nation's flag used as a winding-sheet may 
 cause a momentary convulsion in our breasts ; yet we 
 remain master of ourselves, and stand in dignified 
 silence, emotion retained. We feel we are the repre- 
 sentatives of strength, action and life, life with all its 
 possibilities. How we rise in comparison with the
 
 72 TAMAM 
 
 closed career before us, terminating in a winding- 
 sheet. Our bosoms swell with secret pride. 
 
 Presently there comes a strange sound from the 
 drums. Are the drummers possessed with a spirit of 
 derision, that they should appear so indifferent to 
 the simple principles of rhythm? At first it seems 
 an incongruous rattle, then becomes more subdued, 
 followed by the muffled accompaniment of the alto 
 instruments, the screeching tenors are silent, 
 lending a tint of sombre coloring to the brilliancy 
 of the uniforms and the caparisoned horses. A sen- 
 sation of uneasiness begins to show itself throughout 
 the procession. The cavalry escort unconsciously 
 pull the visors of their caps lower. Though the 
 musicians have played this strain innumerable times, 
 they mechanically tighten their grasp on the instru- 
 ments, for, to them and to the cavalry, these func- 
 tions are but routine duties, until the marvelous 
 strain is reached. Here these men who are taught 
 to face danger with stolid indifference ; these men 
 whose only faith and creed is based on the law of 
 chance in which their lives are the unit in calculation, 
 here they submissively bend as the icy shiver of emo- 
 tion, expressed, sends through them a momentary 
 quiver, for the sublime in composition has been 
 reached. It is the immortal Prelude of the Chopin 
 " March Funebre." Our pride-swollen bosoms col- 
 lapse; and, as the Prelude continues, we scourge our- 
 selves in humiliation. 
 
 Without the Prelude there would be many tearless 
 funerals, and with the Prelude many an undeserving
 
 ARLINGTON 73 
 
 wretch has gone to his grave bathed in the tears 
 of absolution. 
 
 If the dirge is not played, it is sometimes refresh- 
 ing to see a military funeral, so marked is the con- 
 trast with that of the civilian, with its long train 
 of creeping carriages, its glistening, silvered, ebony- 
 and-glass carriage, drawn by horses wearing black 
 fly-nets and ear-bobs, and the heavy odor of flowers 
 mingling with silent figures massed in crepe veiling. 
 
 What a relief is that of the soldier, where the 
 caisson horses swing around in a trot, or the artil- 
 lerymen must hold some restless animal as he rears 
 for his plunge in the start. No black fly-nets and 
 ear-bobs for them, but lathered in the heat of rest- 
 less motion, they grind their bits and are pacified 
 only by the rumble of wheels behind. No drawn cur- 
 tains there; no perfume-laden air; no figures en- 
 cumbered with crepe veiling, but men uniformed to 
 permit of litheness and trained for the dispatch of 
 duty. One can see they intend reaching the burial- 
 place on the same day, and that the duty will be 
 performed in good taste and time. These men have 
 not allowed themselves to become instilled with the 
 idea that death is a weakness, a thoughtless act on 
 the part of the demised; they remember their com- 
 rade in the activities of his life, and in his death will 
 attend him with the same feeling, alertness and ma- 
 chine-like discipline, emotion retained. 
 
 And when the firing squad lines up at the grave, 
 will the sergeant allow a waver in his voice when 
 he gives the command, fire! Is there a man in the
 
 74 TAMAM 
 
 squad whose finger will quiver on the trigger, such 
 that the salute will not be as one shot? If so, he 
 is no credit to the dead comrade. 
 
 In the Capital it is fittingly said of the soldier: 
 " They pass over the river, and rest in the shade of 
 the trees." 
 
 Arlington ! when we pass along your silent paths, 
 breathing the redolent exhalations from your bosom, 
 classic in memory and fertile in the life-blood of 
 fellow-men ; when there falls upon us the music of 
 your arborescent choir, soft and plaintive, stealing, 
 with an exquisite swell, into the inattentive ear, then 
 rising in a celestial descendo, passing beyond reach, 
 while we strain to catch the echoes of the ravishing 
 chord; when we find ourselves in silent communion 
 with Nature, drinking from the cup of reminiscence 
 and partaking of the bread of future hope, our 
 thoughts, in their musings, become centered on those 
 whom you shelter in your sacred folds, and who, in 
 return for the warmth of your nurture, create in 
 you our historic " City of the Dead." 
 
 We find ourselves prone to wander toward those 
 long symmetrical lines of small slabs bearing epitaphs 
 eloquent in their brevity; they who were privates in 
 life, but captains in death, commanders of a nation's 
 respect. Each modest slab marks a spot where the 
 world has been made more verdant, and the grand 
 ensemble leaves us stilled in retrospective meditation. 
 There are other slabs more pretentious, isolated and
 
 ARLINGTON 75 
 
 exclusive, with legends that can be read afar. They 
 are carved in relief with a portrayal of valor, and 
 the degree of their exaltation from the ranks. Some- 
 times the massive pedestals appear to overshadow 
 the modest bit of verdure creeping from its base, 
 paled in insignificance. Sometimes it is well the 
 legends can be read afar. These cumbersome piles, 
 though the pride of a boastful posterity, are the 
 abomination of a valiant soldier, for in death all 
 heroes ascend to a common rank. 
 
 Sometimes, however, we do stroll among the pedes- 
 tals. The work of the artisan is wonderful in his 
 olive wreath, the intaglio is impressive, and the 
 granite imperishable. We forget to look for the 
 verdure. There is one pedestal so impressively mas- 
 sive, we instinctively marvel at the power necessary 
 to move it. There is another, and we stop to think. 
 Yes, we recall, fire was his weapon. We sniff for 
 the redolent exhalations, but our nostrils become filled 
 with the smoke from burning fatherless homes, and 
 we remember the jest about the crow that would have 
 to carry his rations. 
 
 Another pedestal, and another jest is brought to 
 mind ; a bad-tasting simile, " the bull-dog of the 
 Navy." We strain our ears to catch the hymn of 
 the arborescent choir, but can hear only a snarl and 
 the gnash of teeth. 
 
 Our emotion rises, and we strive to retain it. 
 
 Do we thrive in a spirit of justice, purchased by 
 the sear of a fire-brand?
 
 76 TAMAM 
 
 Do we use in our nation's defense thick-necked, 
 heavy -jawed men, whose mouths droop at the cor- 
 ners, men with an insatiable thirst for gore ? 
 
 Have they, whom we believed responded to the 
 nation's call through nobleness of purpose, done so 
 through love of conquest, and taken advantage of 
 a nation's weakness to vitalize an innate animal in- 
 stinct for fight? 
 
 When we review our military pageants, marvel at 
 their skill, admire the glistening accoutrements, and 
 give them plaudits as our defenders, do we admit 
 they are chafing through the inactivities of peace? 
 
 If these are truths, then the profession of arms is 
 base, it is degradation itself, and they who follow it 
 are fiends incarnate. 
 
 But there is another pedestal, and another legend: 
 " Let us have peace." The hymn of the choir drifts 
 toward us, and the breath of this soil is again redo- 
 lent. We feel a lump in our throat, characteristic 
 of childhood's emotion. Did the great soldier want 
 only peace? Do we have among our defenders men 
 with that for their ambition? Are there among 
 them men who will forego the charms of domestic life, 
 the excitement in the mercantile world, the esteem of 
 scholarship, and hold themselves in ready training 
 to fight like Trojans, and fight for peace? If so, 
 theirs is the heritage of chivalry. 
 
 The greatest soldier is he who loves peace most 
 and war least. 
 
 We don't know why we should feel hypercritical 
 when among the pedestals, but we like best to go
 
 ARLINGTON 77 
 
 where the slabs are small, and the spots of verdure 
 have united to form one continuous greensward. For 
 there it is we may listen to the choir. A flow of 
 melody here, a diminuendo there, a crescendo drift- 
 ing on the swell of harmony, and in the retard diffuse 
 itself and blend its whispers with the breath of 
 flowers to form an incense of consolation as we 
 stand by, tearful in the thought that we live because 
 they died. Again we partake of the bread of hope, 
 and pass along the silent paths. 
 
 A decade had passed since the posthumous 
 daughter pondered over the query regarding the re- 
 lationship of a woman's love and a hollow tree. 
 
 His was the heritage of chivalry, and during these 
 years he had held himself in ready training. In an 
 international war the country had struck a fierce 
 blow in its demand for peace. This called him to the 
 scene of action, far from his native shore. 
 
 It is in the calm following the tempest when the 
 soldier suffers. Then is when he would turn to the 
 arms of wife, mother or sweetheart. Read the letter 
 written by the light of a camp fire, the night after 
 battle, and you read the most tender sentiments of 
 human expression. Letter writing is the soldier's 
 safety valve on the pressure of emotion. 
 
 It is during these calms the soldier's inactive body 
 absorbs the poison of fevers, and that most dreaded 
 of diseases, nostalgia. Then is when you can hear 
 the clink of glasses and the rattle of dice, not in a
 
 78 TAMAM 
 
 spirit of revelry, but in desperation. In one of these 
 calms a letter was written to the posthumous 
 daughter. 
 
 ". . . Since that evening my hope has been that 
 duty would absorb my mind, and in this I have been 
 blessed beyond my deserving. . . . May I be par- 
 doned when I say, that could I have had a choice, I 
 would have fallen upon the field of battle rather than 
 now admit the sound of your voice has never left 
 my ears. . . . Rumors of our return bring smiles to 
 the face of all save one. Can I, bowed in the humilia- 
 tion of child-like weakness, confess that I, too, would 
 like to smile, and indulge myself for one moment in 
 the thought that I was returning to you? . . . On 
 that evening you fanned the spark into flame, and 
 it has long since left my youth a smouldering ember 
 which spits if it be touched by fingers moistened with 
 memories. . . . 
 
 " My life is not what I would have had it, and it 
 is because of my weakness, not your strength. I un- 
 willingly spent that night in thought which left me 
 in no fit condition to decide on so serious a question 
 as a change in my course. If I can have made a 
 sacrifice in my personal happiness, I shall look for 
 my reward only in the steadfastness of purpose. I 
 have imposed upon myself a rigorous discipline, be- 
 lieving that to the best end I must be devoid of senti- 
 ment, and allow the thought of no one to be a subter- 
 fuge against my duty. . . . The rapid flight of past 
 years leads me to believe I have been very busy, and
 
 ARLINGTON 79 
 
 I feel conscious of a change in my nature. . . . The 
 strain has been great, and this weakness developed 
 during relaxation. I do myself justice when I say 
 that were I in normal condition I would not now be 
 writing this letter. 
 
 " Fever is prevalent, but we hope for the best. 
 Even I, at times, feel the premonitory symptom, a 
 parched tongue. 
 
 " P. S. It is one week later. I am stronger and 
 can enjoy a smile at the possibility of my really mail- 
 ing this letter. I guess I had some delirium, and 
 thought I was again under the spell of those eyes 
 that parched sensation in my tongue was another 
 strand of hair, eh? 
 
 " I shall place this letter in its envelope, return it 
 to my pocket, and keep it as a tantalizing souvenir 
 of the first time, since I varied my course, that my 
 hand has trembled on the wheel." 
 
 The letter reached its destination bearing the 
 characteristic red ink notification, " Mailed by Hos- 
 pital Orderly." 
 
 Is there anything surpassing in freshness the early 
 hours of a summer's morning? When the air has not 
 yet been breathed through the lungs of daily toil, 
 when the vibrations of nature have not been put out 
 of tune by the jar of daily strife! This is when you 
 hear the love-song of the meadow lark from the high- 
 est perch in the woodlands. This is when you see the
 
 80 TAMAM 
 
 blush of the new-born rose when its petals are first 
 kissed by the dew. 
 
 The posthumous daughter knew these things, and 
 was wont to steal from the house and gather nar- 
 cissus for the breakfast table. On the morning 
 following her leaving him in the graveyard she did 
 not vary her custom, but arose from the delicious in- 
 toxication of wholesome sleep and went into the 
 garden. The perfume of lilac was everywhere, the 
 sparkle of dew was fairy-like, and the violet, her 
 favorite flower, seemed to rise in evidence before 
 her. 
 
 Through the abundance of her gathering, if for 
 no other reason, and with a decided nonchalance, she 
 went to place some violets on her father's grave. It 
 was while doing so that she noticed a small pocket 
 note-book which appeared to have fallen the day be- 
 fore. She read the name and address, which were 
 printed in gilt letters on the back, the book evidently 
 being a gift. Down in the corner was the word 
 " Diary." With not more than a moment's hesitation 
 she did just what any other woman would have done 
 under like circumstances she opened it. Like the 
 diaries of most men, every page in it was as clean 
 as on the day the book was made. 
 
 From the manner in which she opened the book 
 there was some disappointment in finding it blank. 
 In the afterthought there was some satisfaction that 
 it was. If she was guilty of a breach of accidental 
 trust, he would yet be innocent of her action, and 
 she could send him the book with no misgivings. Be-
 
 ARLINGTON 81 
 
 fore her return to the house she had resolved to keep 
 it until he should call again. 
 
 Now every woman is firm in her belief that every 
 man who has at one time been within the sphere of 
 her influence, will again return. She will concede 
 time to an indefinite extent, but not one iota of her 
 faith in the eventual outcome. 
 
 The ten years had borne lightly on the posthumous 
 daughter. Her blood was an infusion of sturdy an- 
 cestry and an out-door life. She was only becoming 
 beautifully ripened. And though she had never 
 breathed his name to a living soul, she felt certain it 
 was ten years nearer the time when he would atone 
 for his silence. 
 
 The air of the nation, which had been rife in an 
 international strife, was subsiding, troops were re- 
 turning, and people were flocking in the Capital to 
 meet them. Some they met, and the greeting was 
 loud and joyous. Some they met and followed in 
 silence as they crossed over the river to the shade 
 of the trees. These silent homecomings continued 
 long after, for the tropical fevers had proven a 
 deadly foe. Some, who had separated, the one bear- 
 ing the kiss of the other's assurance, came together 
 in the shades of Arlington. 
 
 When the letter bearing the red ink stamped noti- 
 fication reached the posthumous daughter, she rec- 
 ognized it instantly. She knew it would come! Of 
 course she was interested in the stamp ; but, as we like 
 to do with letters of serious moment, she postponed
 
 82 TAMAM 
 
 the opening until the surroundings were more suit- 
 able. She sought the sanctity of her own room, and 
 from the care and composure with which she ar- 
 ranged herself in a chair it was evident she antici- 
 pated a reverie of some length. There she opened 
 the letter and read. She fairly tingled with inter- 
 est, and how the light of satisfaction danced in those 
 eyes ! A smile played from the corners of her mouth 
 over the damask of her cheek. She continued to 
 read, and the fire in her eyes, the crimson in her lips, 
 the heaving in her bosom made her the woman mag- 
 nificent, emotion retained. The silence was broken 
 by the sound of paper crushing in her hand. Had 
 he come only in weakness ? Why had he not come in 
 strength? She studied the red ink stamp a moment, 
 then with care smoothed out the rumpled letter. 
 Just what did the red ink stamp mean? It told in 
 plain words, but did it tell all? He had smiled at 
 the possibility of having mailed this letter, then had 
 he mailed it that it might tantalize her, and finally 
 leave her in chagrin? 
 
 He had spoken of fever, and admitted some of the 
 premonitory symptoms. He may have gone to the 
 hospital for treatment, and there left the letter on a 
 table, after which the orderly, in the round of his 
 duties, found it. She could almost see him toying 
 with his " tantalizing souvenir," and, in careless in- 
 difference, leave it on a public writing-table. She 
 wondered if he would ever miss it. 
 
 One thought would assert itself in spite of her 
 resistance. Could it have been taken from his pocket
 
 ARLINGTON 83 
 
 after his death? Had the red ink stamp really told 
 all, and did she now hear in the echo of his life his 
 real nature rising from beneath the crush of in- 
 domitable pride in his steadfastness of purpose? 
 
 They were tedious months that followed, and 
 through which she waited in silent fear, lest she 
 might receive an apologetic note in which his new 
 nature was predominant; a note asking perhaps for 
 the return of a stray letter, should it reach her, and 
 lest she might not. She could but wonder if it 
 were possible any one had followed him, in silence, to 
 " the shades." 
 
 In the aftermath of war there is generally suffi- 
 cient reason for grand peace carnivals, triumphant 
 processions, memorial arches, and the like. Little 
 does it matter whether the country was victor, there 
 is always excuse for these pageants in a nation's 
 capital, so there the people gathered, which well 
 served the purpose for her to make the journey, 
 ostensibly to participate in the gayeties. Having an 
 ulterior motive, it was not strange she soon sought 
 out the silent paths of Arlington. She came to know 
 them well, and of one thing she felt reasonably sure: 
 she could not have missed his name had it been there. 
 But this afforded no rest of mind, for these were 
 busy times over there in the shade, and new slabs 
 were going up every day. With the determination 
 of a sleuth, she watched for the new mounds, and 
 scanned the temporary boards placed at the head. 
 
 The wonderful old tomb of the " Unknown Dead " 
 became possessed with a strange fascination, and
 
 84 TAMAM 
 
 served as an objective point in her wanderings. In 
 the days gone by many are the tears that have fallen 
 at its base, tears from the eyes of those who have 
 wandered long in search of loved ones and at last 
 left their tribute at the old tomb. Divided in life, 
 but united in death, are the twenty-one hundred 
 heroes placed here, for a heart-broken nation indis- 
 criminately gathered her children's mangled remains 
 from the bloodiest battlefield in the history of civil 
 strife. You can safely drop a flower near this 
 shroud of mystery and feel that its fragrance is 
 wasted on no desert air. 
 
 Futhermore, the tomb provided a shelter from 
 which she could observe the busy workers and the 
 passing processions, for it stood in the greensward 
 long since fertile in historic memory, and in these 
 times people were not coming that way, but seeking 
 the new ground to consecrate it with the most glori- 
 ous possession of a nation, the lifeblood of a reunited 
 people. 
 
 One morning, from this shelter, the posthumous 
 daughter observed an open grave. Approaching 
 it was a carriage, from which alighted a veiled figure, 
 dressed in black, supported on the arm of a silver- 
 haired man, an army chaplain. At the same time 
 there was heard a trampling of hoofs made by plung- 
 ing horses, and the grind of a heavy caisson, bearing 
 a casket, moving toward the same open grave. 
 
 They were coming together in the shades of Ar- 
 lington. 
 
 The veiled figure awaits him, blessed in the com-
 
 ARLINGTON 85 
 
 posure of emotion retained, but it is more than human 
 resistance she is called upon to endure. 
 
 Though not far, yet humanely softened by dis- 
 tance was the enthralment of mystic sound. Wails 
 of majestic sorrow resound in musical rhythm, and 
 there is a perceptible tremor in the outline of the 
 black-veiled figure. As if this were not enough, the 
 immortal Prelude resolves into subdued whispers of 
 superhuman expression, and in piteous supplication 
 chants its appeal to mercy, toned from the heart's 
 life-strings. The perceptible tremor merges into 
 convulsive movements, and the silent figure in black 
 clutches the sleeve of the silver-haired chaplain. The 
 appeal of the Prelude, to Mercy, is answered by the 
 interlude in strains of sweetness that cannot be 
 deemed of earth, but more the voice of angels in soft- 
 breathed hope and consolation. The blessing of this 
 strain can only be experienced. It gives her the 
 needed strength, for she releases the clutched sleeve. 
 It enables the artillerymen to steady themselves while 
 they bear the casket to the side of the grave. Not 
 one utterance has been given, for who has voice for 
 speech ? 
 
 The silver-haired chaplain leaves her side, and ad- 
 vances. The breezes play in the locks of his bared 
 head as he stands with uplifted face, in silence. Will 
 he dare attempt speech? Does he realize the effect 
 a break in his voice will produce? 
 
 With the assurance of divine aid his voice rings 
 out in the stillness, and in pure accent, under perfect 
 control, he recites the burial service.
 
 86 TAMAM 
 
 Man of God! you have our gratitude. You pre- 
 serve us from emotion expressed. When we must 
 speak and yet are choking, you come to our rescue. 
 
 As he proceeds he marvels at his own self, but the 
 tremolo in his voice fast increases. His is but 
 human, not infinite strength. There is yet one 
 sentence and he will have concluded. Oh! why was 
 this left to the ebb of his strength? 
 
 " Dust thou art, to dust " he paused, then 
 
 lowered his upturned face in humiliation at his 
 weakness. There was a spasmodic gasp, and the 
 veiled figure fell in his arms. 
 
 When the posthumous daughter saw this she sank 
 to the ground on her knees, swayed forward, and 
 buried her face in that same grass, verdant in its 
 chlorophyl of mystery. She tore from her bosom a 
 handkerchief, which she placed over her mouth in an 
 effort to check a burst of emotion. Withered and 
 weak, she arose, protecting her tear-stained face as 
 best she could, and hurriedly passed out along the 
 silent paths. 
 
 Oh! Arlington, with your wealth of classic 
 memories, are you born again, and in a spirit of re- 
 taliation, that you bring to us such scenes ? Is there 
 concealed in the innocence of your flowers the sting 
 of anguish which you thrust in silent vituperation? 
 Do you seek your justification in the following bit 
 of history not yet lost from memory, though clothed 
 in the mystery of silence?
 
 ARLINGTON 87 
 
 The blighted hope of posterity born in the breast 
 of the immortal Washington was palliated through 
 the adoption of a soft-natured, flaxen-haired boy, 
 whose tender shoulders were destined to bear up un- 
 der such weight of importance as would be attached 
 to the name " George Washington Parke Custis." 
 This youth was the grandson of the great patriot's 
 friend and first husband of his the patriot's wife. 
 He was successively godson, namesake, grand-step- 
 son, and son by adoption. Everything was his herit- 
 age save the blood of his childless father, so he was 
 taken to Mount Vernon that this might become in- 
 culcated in his veins by a kind of induction process. 
 It requires no vivid imagination to picture the pomp- 
 ous old General, erect and well-balanced in his saddle, 
 riding out over the great estate with the little G. W. 
 P. C. perched up behind, sticking the heels of his 
 bare feet into the horse's flanks, his arms encircling 
 the waist of his august foster parent in an effort to 
 hold on. 
 
 Mount Vernon was the home of aristocracy, the 
 shrine of the revolutionary pilgrim, and the Mecca 
 of statesmen. All of this was brought to bear 011 
 the small boy, and many who twined their fingers in 
 his curls thought they were stroking the brow of a 
 future minister to the Court of St. James. But so 
 much parade and that kind of evanescent peacock 
 vanity which seemed to be the old General's halo 
 must have palled on the boy. Or he may have got- 
 ten in his mind some idea, from unwritten history, 
 o* how the great aristocrat, dressed in the warmth
 
 88 TAMAM 
 
 and resplendence of his wonderful uniforms, used to 
 parade the winter camp at Valley Forge, exacting 
 from the ill-clad and starving men the obeisance of a 
 soldier's attention, they standing in knee-deep snow, 
 shoeless and with frost-swollen feet. Howsoever it 
 may be, the youth seemed to forego the temptation to 
 follow in the paths that lead to greatness, and chose 
 for himself the innocent life of a country gentleman, 
 a choice that gave no little disappointment to the 
 father of his adoption. When of age, he went further 
 up the Potomac, took up the hereditary Arlington 
 estate, which had come down through his ancestors 
 as an original grant from the King, built for him- 
 self a mansion of classic Doric architecture, and be- 
 came the " Squire." 
 
 Arlington, we want to come when there are no 
 silent paths, when we can hear the bleat of lambs and 
 the mooing of cows ; when there are no concrete 
 roads, but roads in the dust of which we can find the 
 prints of little feet ; when the landscape is not marred 
 by the grotesque of geometrically shaped flower beds, 
 but your lilacs, buttercups, and violets seek their own 
 salvation and establish themselves according to the 
 law, " survival of the fittest " ; when your shaded 
 woodlands have not retained the echo of the immor- 
 tal Prelude, but resound in the frolic and laughter 
 of picnic parties, and the screech of fiddles at the 
 brand dance. 
 
 The " Squire " was a happy combination : a 
 plebeian by birth, a patrician by environment. He 
 adorned the mansion with treasures from Mount Ver-
 
 ARLINGTON 89 
 
 non, his " office " with fox-tails and " coon " skin 
 caps of his own catch and make. He could don a 
 white silk vest and preside as the host of a Lafayette, 
 or put on a home-spun shirt and sit cross-legged on 
 his horse while he discussed with a neighbor the 
 quality of wool produced from crossing merino 
 strains with scrub sheep. He knew how to go 
 through the stately minuet, and that in extending his 
 hand to a lady his palm must be up. He knew which 
 tunes from his own fiddle made the darkies' feet light, 
 and also when he had an obstreperous kinky-haired 
 youngster resting face downward on his knee, his 
 palm should be down. It can be said, he was never 
 out of his element, and that he was short, fat, thin- 
 haired and happy. 
 
 Arlington had wonderful magnetic properties in 
 those days. The social center had moved up the 
 Potomac after the death of Washington, and left be- 
 hind its rigid formality. Here the ladies did not 
 smile only behind their fans, and it is said that old 
 General Lafayette used to laugh until he would suffer 
 from the shaking of a gouty foot contracted at 
 Mount Vernon. It is even hinted that the digni- 
 fied dance of that day at times seems to have been 
 inoculated with a kind of syncopated serum, which in 
 the parlance of to-day is " rag-time." However, 
 this is nothing more than a deduction abstracted from 
 the precious annals of memory, as chronicled in the 
 following incident: 
 
 The occasion was not unusual, though the mansion
 
 90 TAMAM 
 
 was filled with light and guests. Ladies with ex- 
 quisitely small waists, accentuated by the umbrella 
 shape of their skirts ; with a bit of court-plaster, 
 shaped like a star, a crescent or even a coach and 
 horses, placed near the left corner of their mouths, 
 contributed the graciousness of their presence. The 
 gallantry of Colonial days was at its height, and the 
 young man did not feel neglected should he be com- 
 pelled to tiptoe for a glimpse of the notable digni- 
 taries as they moved in the minuet, or the courtly 
 grace with which they escorted the ladies to a seat. 
 
 So the prevailing decorum forced the " Squire " 
 to the center of interest, and what came about in 
 consequence was attended by no lack of modesty on 
 his part. 
 
 He had been explaining to some friends of his 
 patrician environment that the rythmical cadence in 
 music descends with the ascent of formality, and that 
 he knew no better illustration than a comparison of 
 the dance of that evening with the " jig " of his own 
 slaves. As he said this his plebeian birth was in 
 evidence through an involuntary movement of one 
 foot. This did not pass without observation, and 
 not that the spirit of revelry was subsiding, for it 
 was at its height, but through the wileful pleadings 
 of the ladies and the tantalizing clamor of the men, 
 the " Squire's " consent was forced that he give a 
 practical demonstration of his theory as to this de- 
 cadence in time, and do the jig. Simultaneously 
 they receded, leaving him alone in the center of the 
 floor; and the musicians, taking their cue, began a
 
 ARLINGTON 91 
 
 familiar hornpipe, whereupon the ever resourceful 
 " Squire " took up the rhythm with his feet. 
 
 The drivers and servants were out back of the 
 house drowsily awaiting the termination of festivi- 
 ties. Like the click of a gun lock to a well-trained 
 dog, so the change of music fell upon their ears ; 
 and instantly alert, they made for the house to listen. 
 Here the sound of shuffling feet sent them up a trellis 
 just outside the window, to see. 
 
 Round went the " Squire " with all the enthusiasm 
 of his soul. His thin hair fell in strings over his 
 face. His white silk vest began to crawl, showing 
 the waistband of his trousers^ and the starch in his 
 linen was rapidly wilting. " Terpsichorean feet " 
 was no undeserved comment, for he was displaying 
 remarkable agility for one short and fat. The din 
 of laughter had subsided into stilled admiration, and 
 there was the hush that precedes genuine sponta- 
 neous applause. 
 
 One of the negroes perched on a trellis had reached 
 the high-pressure point, and unfortunately let out 
 a gurgling laugh that was heard inside. The 
 " Squire," who was only waiting an opportunity to 
 terminate the dance, sprang to the window and 
 thrust out his head. There was a sudden disturb- 
 ance of equilibrium, and down went the trellis with 
 a crash. The breathless, overheated " Squire " was 
 struck by a small falling timber, but it was enough. 
 He staggered back and sank into a chair. This pre- 
 cipitated sudden action among the guests, some going 
 to the " Squire's " assistance, others hurrying out
 
 92 TAMAM 
 
 to seek an explanation. In the confusion a light 
 was overturned, setting fire to some window hang- 
 ings, which, however, were quickly torn down and 
 extinguished. A roughened moulding on the near 
 side of the far window in the north parlor, to-day, 
 bears evidence of the historical accuracy of this 
 narrative. 
 
 The sequel to this series of accidents was deliv- 
 ered, the Sunday following, in the form of an un- 
 expected thrust. Most of that evening's assem- 
 blage were parishioners at the fashionable Christ 
 Church in Alexandria. Now their venerable rector 
 had many times looked down into the face of Wash- 
 ington, from his lofty pulpit, though, as a matter 
 of history and contrary to the prevailing impres- 
 sion, the General's name was not on the official 
 church list of his parishioners, but was attached to 
 that of Pohick Church, a small log structure about 
 midway between Mount Vernon and Alexandria. Be- 
 cause of this fact the rector doubtless nursed per- 
 sonal jealousies, and it was no secret that he looked 
 askance on the tendency of decorum in the new social 
 center. 
 
 On the Sunday in question the pews at Christ 
 Church were occupied by their accustomed holders. 
 This was before the quaint old-fashioned church had 
 become modernized. The backs of the seats had not 
 been cut lower, and a larger pulpit stood nearer the 
 ceiling to enable the rector to see into the pews. 
 This pulpit was reached, though with some difficulty,
 
 ARLINGTON 93 
 
 by a small winding stair resembling the modern fire- 
 escape. Owing to this, and the insufficiency of other 
 arrangements, it was the rector's custom to ascend 
 prior to the assembling of his parishioners. The size 
 of the pulpit permitted him to work, unseen, when 
 necessary to add the finishing touches of a sermon. 
 
 It is assumed the rector had prepared his usual 
 " stock sermon " for that week, but upon hearing of 
 the narrow escape from catastrophe and the 
 " Squire's " assured recovery, felt called upon to 
 select a new and more fitting text. 
 
 The pewholders were themselves conscious of an 
 inner feeling of gratitude and, in a subdued state 
 of mind, patiently awaited the beginning of the serv- 
 ice, which was at all times irregular. 
 
 Patience, like virtue, is supposed to have its re- 
 ward, and the amount displayed that day bore prom- 
 mise of abundant " food for thought." 
 
 One of the " pillars " left his customary seat at 
 the foot of the pulpit stairs to whisper to another 
 " pillar." They looked at the " fire-escape," and 
 evidently decided it was easier to go to the rector's 
 house, for they quietly took up their hats. The pa- 
 rishioners, misinterpreting their motive, arose, filling 
 the silence with the sound of shuffling feet. 
 
 The location of the pulpit was not conducive to 
 coolness, and the unusual degree of fervor in the 
 rector that day had resulted in the loosening of his 
 stock, the opening of his shirt front and the comb- 
 ing of his long heavy hair through his fingers. So 
 completely engrossed was he in the finishing touches
 
 94 TAMAM 
 
 of a hurriedly remodeled sermon, that he had become 
 oblivious to the time or the stage of the service. 
 When the sound of the moving audience attracted his 
 attention, he instantly arose, simultaneously reading 
 the text, " I am the rose of Sharon, the lily-of-the- 
 valley, the fairest of ten thousand." After the audi- 
 ence was again seated, he explained this claim was 
 not made in the sense of pride in personal beauty, 
 but that one mission of the Saviour was to afford a 
 living example which the Father chose to manifest 
 in Him ; and the lily-of-the-valley meant of the 
 world ; that every valley had its lily, and that the 
 illustration could be brought home by looking for 
 the lily of the Potomac valley, which, in his humble 
 belief, was to be found in the life of the great Patriot, 
 not long dead. He pleaded for adherence to those 
 precepts of the Potomac lily, claimed that divine 
 manifestations of disapproval were as possible to-day 
 as at any time in history, and in conclusion asked 
 them to take home the thought given in the one hun- 
 dred and sixth Psalm, eighteenth verse : " And a fire 
 was kindled in their company." 
 
 It is not known if the sermon deterred many from 
 subsequent visits to Arlington, but it is known that 
 during convalescence the " Squire " sat in the door- 
 way of his " office," playing those same tunes which 
 made the darkies' feet light. 
 
 Arlington and its master filled the important posi- 
 tion of social gateway. If either stratum of the 
 social world felt the need of the other, this was the 
 shortest route.
 
 ARLINGTON 95 
 
 Though not of importance, it is more than prob- 
 able the present-day political campaign method can 
 be found to have originated at the " Squire's " home. 
 It was his long-time custom to have the neighbors 
 and their friends come once a year to judge of his 
 stock, with particular reference to the new strains. 
 In the natural course of events he invited them to 
 bring their stock for comparison, which resulted in 
 the offering of premiums by himself. This led to 
 an increase in attendance, which in turn led to the 
 delight of the " Squire." 
 
 It is easy to believe the wily political aspirant took 
 advantage of such an opportunity to be present, on 
 the " Squire's " open invitation, and do a little hand- 
 shaking. And if his predilection was volubility, he 
 could doubtless get himself invited to make the 
 awards, which gave opportunity for a " stump " 
 speech ; in fact, one that would undoubtedly be fol- 
 lowed by the applause of his innocent host. 
 
 To-day the great need in every community is an 
 Arlington and its " Squire," for who can neither 
 teach nor learn the lessons of bland innocence of 
 self-aggrandizement and unsophisticated purpose, 
 that are delineated in those we call the " lower 
 strata." 
 
 Functions at Arlington were as diversified as the 
 colors in Joseph's coat, and the genius of the 
 " Squire " was a standing guarantee as to their suc- 
 cess. Even in " coon "-hunt parties he had been 
 known to have a pet " coon " secretly led around 
 through the woodlands, and then tied up in a tree.
 
 96 TAMAM 
 
 The excited guests would follow the dogs, on its trail, 
 and arrive at the tree, breathless, whereupon the 
 " Squire " would send a negro up, ostensibly to shake 
 it out. Amidst the yelping of dogs and the astonish- 
 ment of the guests, the man would come down with 
 the " coon " in his arms. 
 
 One evening the laugh was on the " Squire," and 
 no one joined in more heartily than himself. 
 
 The woodlands of Arlington had long been fa- 
 mous as a roosting-place for crows. The passing 
 of the crow is like unto that of the buffalo, which 
 used to exist in such numbers that they blackened the 
 plains. So the flocks of crows used to be of such 
 proportions that they blackened the sky. One never 
 wearied of sitting in the open, toward the close of 
 day, watching the heavy-winged flight of the tired 
 birds on their way to roost. The line extended far 
 as the eye could see. You would never see the be- 
 ginning nor the end. There were always crows in 
 the sky, and toward evening they began to move in 
 the same direction, getting thicker as the daylight 
 weakened, being thickest about dusk, and still flying 
 when the light had so faded they were no longer visi- 
 ble. In every direction these lines could be seen 
 bearing toward Arlington. 
 
 Crows are indigenous to good soil, and, like the 
 negroes of the " Squire," the Arlington crow was dis- 
 tinguished by his black, sleek, glossy, and well-kept 
 condition. 
 
 A favorite pastime of the negroes was to shoot 
 into the roosting-trees. There would follow a tre-
 
 ARLINGTON 97 
 
 mendous whirr of wings, and as though night itself 
 were in flight, the black cloud would rise from the 
 tree and hover over another before settling, like a 
 thick and smothering blanket. 
 
 The " Squire " had taken some guests out to shoot 
 into the roosts. It takes skill to get near a flock of 
 crows, even when they are sleeping. 
 
 The " Squire " selected a large, dead-top oak, upon 
 whose branches many black bunches could be seen in 
 outline against the heavens. With much care the 
 party had crawled through wet grass, and were un- 
 usually successful in getting under the tree without 
 a single crow having given the alarm. At the 
 " Squire's " command, all blazed away, sending a 
 perfect hail of slugs and shot, and in return received 
 a rain of mistletoe, while never a crow was in the 
 tree. 
 
 This period of Arlington's history is but the his- 
 tory of the " Squire," and so on we could trace 
 through the three score and ten years of his life. 
 The plebeian in his blood never disappeared, and 
 when in his declining years he suffered the common 
 fate of all who grow old, finding himself replaced by 
 those of more vigor and youth, he built an exten- 
 sion to his wharf in the form of a dancing platform. 
 When merry picnickers would land to spread their 
 lunch by the side of Arlington's famous spring there 
 would be seen coming down the hill a short, white- 
 haired, red-nosed, lonely man with a fiddle under his 
 arm. If they no longer came to him, he would go 
 to them.
 
 98 TAMAM 
 
 To-day there stands, far down toward the 
 " greensward," an unkept, old-fashioned monument, 
 the existence of which is not even known to those 
 thousands of visitors who pass. If you scratch off 
 the lichens, you can read : 
 
 GEORGE WASHINGTON PARKE CUSTIS 
 Born April 30, 1781. 
 Died Oct. 10, 1857. 
 
 On another side is the usual absurdly inappro- 
 priate scriptural quotation. There is nothing to 
 show that you stand by the grave of the sweet-na- 
 tured, unselfish, cultured, simple master of the great 
 home in its halcyon days. 
 
 The death of the " Squire " was the dawn of a 
 new day in Arlington's history. His only child, and 
 heir, had some years before become the wife of a 
 brilliant young officer. Around the new master 
 clustered a galaxy of official dignity that must have 
 brought a smile of approval to the spirit of Wash- 
 ington. He was all that is courtly, gracious, and 
 gentle, yet stern and unrelenting. His face, though 
 strongly masculine, was radiantly beautiful, and his 
 soulful expression awoke one's tenderest emotions, 
 yet you were held in awe by the almost cold dignity 
 of his manner. He was all that the most cherished 
 hope of Washington could have realized for his 
 adopted posterity, and we like to think of him as 
 an actual lineal descendant of our first and most 
 aristocratic President. In truth he is the nearest,
 
 ARLINGTON 99 
 
 even though but the son-in-law of the great patriot's 
 step-grandson, and son by adoption. 
 
 In the new day, fox-hunts and syncopated music 
 were relegated to the negroes ; not that the new mas- 
 ter disapproved such things, but as the delightful, 
 informal, loving freshness of youth must eventually 
 give way to the dignity of maturity, so was Arling- 
 ton becoming of age. 
 
 While the new master had no plebeian blood, 
 neither had he an aversion for it ; and the fact that the 
 merinos were now intrusted to the overseer was owing 
 to the master's being a most active officer in his coun- 
 try's service, and spending little time at home. But 
 when he was there the functions were even more 
 notable than in earlier days. If the guests were not 
 met at the carriage by the host, as in the days of 
 yore, they were received in the parlors with superb 
 dignity, and the seriousness in the ever sad face of 
 the host left one imbued with a high sense of their 
 own self-respect. 
 
 While the new master, like all men of serious pur- 
 poses, encouraged no intimacies, yet he cherished the 
 esteem and friendship of all. 
 
 Among those numbered as near friends was a cer- 
 tain lieutenant, perhaps so through association, as 
 he had served in a subordinate capacity. This lieu- 
 tenant had many times accepted of the hospitality 
 at Arlington, and it is believed he is not the only 
 one who, after pacing in solitude the portico of the 
 mansion and looking down upon the natural beauty 
 before him, felt the birth of jealousy in his breast.
 
 100 TAMAM 
 
 Scarce time had the host for indulgence in the 
 thought that he might have folded a serpent to his 
 bosom. 
 
 The serious sadness in the new master's face proved 
 to be a reflection of the first sorrowful brewings of a 
 nation's distress. In the line of duty he had been 
 sent to Harper's Ferry to arrest a violent abolition- 
 ist movement. This scarcely preceded the secession 
 of seven States and the President's call for volunteers. 
 At the height of this excitement Arlington's master 
 went home to enter upon a struggle with his con- 
 science. 
 
 He studied the oath he had taken, as an officer, 
 and his obligation to the Union, which embodied the 
 height of his ambition ; but a lurking call in his heart 
 would not be pacified. He was in the Union through 
 the instrumentality of his own State's existence as 
 a unit. It was not his option to take part in the 
 direction of his State's policy. He came out of the 
 struggle, guided by the dictates of a pure conscience, 
 resolved to accept the mandate of his State as para- 
 mount. 
 
 Virginia had not then seceded, but only through 
 the inborn patriotism of its people had wiser counsel 
 delayed the movement which, to all, was inevitable. 
 In the agony of this suspense Satan took the master 
 upon a high hill and, showing him the beauties be- 
 low, said, " Bow down before me, and all these 
 things are yours." For President Lincoln unknow- 
 ingly played the role of Satan when he offered the 
 command of the Union armies to Arlington's master.
 
 ARLINGTON 101 
 
 Almost simultaneously Virginia had cast her lot 
 with the seceding States. 
 
 It is idle to speculate as to the inability of one, 
 in calm judgment, to have been able to foretell the 
 outcome of the secession movement, and no one knew 
 this better than the master of Arlington. When the 
 time for action came, he declined the command, ac- 
 companying it with his resignation as an officer in 
 the service of the Union. Taking his family, he left 
 Arlington in charge of the overseer, and the new day 
 had closed. 
 
 When distress is brewing, action is not far distant, 
 in a people like ours, in whose ancestry was the 
 " spirit of '76." And never in the history of the 
 world was there a people who more unswervingly 
 abided by the dictates of their conscience, and were 
 more justly entitled to the arbitrament of arms, than 
 they who fought in the cause of the North and of the 
 South. So it was not long before they came to- 
 gether on the field of Manassas. This terrible battle 
 resulted in the Union forces falling back and en- 
 trenching on the heights of Arlington, and there was 
 the dawn of a new era in Arlington's history. 
 
 The master had become the Confederacy's chief- 
 tain and the sting of defeat in the opening action 
 festered in the hearts of the defeated. Through this 
 we find a palliative for our own kindred having con- 
 verted the contents of the mansion, which comprised 
 some of the most precious personal relics of Wash- 
 ington, to their private use through the channels 
 of common loot. The dismantled mansion was again
 
 TAMAM 
 
 filled with people, but the rooms resounded with the 
 gruff voices of soldiers. 
 
 Arlington became an important base, and later 
 on, a much-needed hospital; for the carnage of war, 
 always fearful, is never more so than when brothers 
 meet. 
 
 A certain lieutenant, who in previous years had 
 paced the portico in solitude while the house re- 
 sounded with wit and laughter, again paced, in soli- 
 tude, the same portico, though now in the garb of 
 master. He was a Quartermaster-General and in 
 charge of the Arlington camp. 
 
 There is a chronicle, though now practically ex- 
 tinct, which was inscribed by the pen of one bearing 
 the delightful Scotch appellation Angus McSween. 
 The authenticity of this chronicle was never ques- 
 tioned. The Chronicler quotes a certain command- 
 ing quartermaster, in an impulsive statement ad- 
 dressed to President Lincoln, on the occasion of one 
 of the President's visits to the camp: 
 
 " Lee shall never return to Arlington. No matter 
 what the issue of the war may be, the arch rebel shall 
 never again enjoy the possession of these beautiful 
 estates." 
 
 We can picture the sad face of the pure-hearted 
 President. There must have been a smile, not the 
 smile of iniquity, but a timid smile of tender com- 
 passion for a man whose heart could harbor such a 
 thought. 
 
 The Quartermaster-General found conciliation in
 
 ARLINGTON 103 
 
 the rapid filling of the national cemeteries, and as- 
 sumed authority to direct interments at Arlington, 
 the first of which were made under his personal super- 
 vision, on the garden terrace in the immediate vicinity 
 of the house. The act was sanctioned, and there 
 goes without question the motive of the trusting 
 President, who believed no man would intentionally 
 wrong another. 
 
 In an incredibly short time the beautiful wood- 
 lands were fertile with the life-blood of a nation, and 
 the paths were silent. 
 
 Arlington, was your bosom consecrated to this 
 high service through the noblest motive in man? 
 Was the scene of laughter and sunshine changed to 
 silence and shades that you might serve to the better 
 end? Born again as you are, and faithful in your 
 trust, is your voice forever stilled in the mystery of 
 your conception? 
 
 There were others who came together in the shades 
 of Arlington, long after the posthumous daughter 
 had left the " Unknown Tomb " in her burst of 
 emotion. There were some who came together, else- 
 where, and better had it been ill the shade, for they 
 brought life only. Depleted physically, by the 
 scourage of fevers through which they had passed, 
 theirs was neither the glory of a soldier's death nor 
 that which goes with an empty sleeve. They were 
 trembling in spirit and flesh, subjects only for tender
 
 104 TAMAM 
 
 sympathies and gentle hands. Later on their cup 
 of sorrow was to overflow when they would be in- 
 valided out of the service. 
 
 Many who went with the vigor of health and pur- 
 pose, winning to their credit deeds of courage and 
 valor, standing fast, from the opening to the closing 
 of hostilities, saw their comrades march home in 
 glory and leave them to withstand, single-handed, 
 the siege of fever. After convalescence they were 
 to struggle in, one by one, with no martial feeling of 
 pride, but a feeling akin to that of strangeness at 
 the sight of their own shadow. 
 
 And so came one who had held himself in ready 
 training, whose steadfastness of purpose had de- 
 veloped him into full flower at the time of his coun- 
 try's need. 
 
 As the flower of an army is at front in advance 
 and at rear in retreat, so it fell to the lot of such as 
 he to be the last to return after the termination of 
 hostilities. It was during this delay, and the conse- 
 quent relaxation, that the delirium of fever and its 
 host of allied complications laid a siege which taxed 
 the mettle of his well-rounded constitution. The hos- 
 pital record shows a desperate encounter, a tenacious 
 resistance and victorious stand for the beleaguered 
 one. The long convalescence brought about a 
 change in his nature. That stern veneering, with 
 which to cover himself he had worked so unrelent- 
 ingly, disappeared, and he had neither heart nor 
 strength to again undertake the task. 
 
 After a placid review of his sacrifice of the golden
 
 ARLINGTON 105 
 
 years of his life, he went back to take up the 
 thread where he had dropped it, more than ten years 
 before. 
 
 The active principle of vitality is something dif- 
 ficult to comprehend. When the broad-chested, full- 
 blooded man succumbs at the prime of life, and the 
 pale-faced, shriveled weakling reaches a ripe old 
 age, we naturally ask, how is it? When we find 
 people who have health and bad habits, and others 
 who have neither, we wish to know wherein lies the 
 virtue of temperance? We know that women of 
 hysterical tendencies have remained composed in the 
 face of disaster, when strong men resort to inhuman 
 desperation. Those most robust can least bear the 
 rack of pain. They who have never known a sor- 
 row are the first to fall when overtaken. When we 
 find such incongruities existing, the best explanation 
 is that which is most abstruse. And that which con- 
 veys least to clear up these physiological enigmas in- 
 volves the use of emotional natures. 
 
 The posthumous daughter characterized all that 
 was wholesome and well-balanced. It could be said 
 she was of good poise, which implies control of an 
 abundance of emotion. No sorrow had hovered near 
 her life, and the taste of anguish was unknown. But 
 the sting of Arlington's flower had pierced deep, and 
 when she left the " Unknown " tomb, she husbanded 
 her strength that she might reach the privacy of her 
 own room. 
 
 Next morning found her with flushed face and an 
 unusual brilliancy in the eyes. The flush increased,
 
 106 TAMAM 
 
 the breathing quickened, and by night the fever was 
 higher. The physician's remark about too much 
 gayety made her smile, in the thought that her secret 
 was not known. She rallied quickly, but there had 
 been time enough to think. 
 
 What priceless hours are those which, in our weak- 
 ness, we devote to plans for action in our returning 
 strength. Through the time of convalescence we 
 can inspect our inactive mechanism, detect its weak- 
 ened parts, and many times emerge with a remodeled 
 life. 
 
 We can picture her resting in the quiet and soft- 
 ened light of her room. What was her purpose? 
 What was her future? It is the normal intent of 
 every woman to be a wife, though through the 
 peculiar machinations of destiny Nature is at times 
 baffled and some of the highest prizes in the lottery 
 of life are never drawn. It is not to be supposed she 
 dwelt on the thought of spinster loneliness, for Na- 
 ture has a compensating pendulum, and every spins- 
 ter believes she became so through a higher motive 
 in her destiny. 
 
 She knew, when on that evening she had laughed 
 in his face of seriousness, it was because of her 
 weakness; for at the time she was just as conscious 
 of being in his power as she was of his being in hers. 
 The laugh, like bravado, was an only defense. So, 
 on through these years she had waited his return, 
 some day, she knew not when, nor had she particu- 
 larly cared. Waiting had been her unconscious 
 purpose in life. Now if she allowed herself to believe
 
 ARLINGTON 107 
 
 anything regarding him, that purpose had been 
 frustrated through his death. She withstood that 
 thought, and sought assurance from her inability to 
 confirm it, but dared not trust the assurance. She 
 would seek a new and living purpose. It was plain 
 to her he had taken up a new purpose since that 
 evening, and further, that she had been the immedi- 
 ate cause of the change in his course. She felt con- 
 fident any other affinity in her life could not be a 
 true one. There was some consolation in the thought 
 that if she had displayed weakness by laughter, he 
 displayed the same by petulance, as there had been 
 no true reason for assuming her pretended indiffer- 
 ence was genuine. She endeavored to call to mind 
 that in his long absence she had not particularly 
 missed him, that she found about the same in life, 
 during that time, as in the years of his friendship. 
 But an inner whispering hinted this indifference was 
 when she expected his eventual return. So the longer 
 he postponed coming, the more she determined to re- 
 taliate by a formal coolness in her welcome, though 
 the stimulus of this thought no longer more than 
 sufficed. 
 
 When he had changed his purpose the new one 
 admitted of the most drastic consecration of person- 
 ality. It left no room in life for the individual self, 
 only an ever readiness for summons to duty, and in 
 which there could be nothing subserving to his ulti- 
 mate happiness. He had written that he looked for 
 reward in the steadfastness of purpose. Why could 
 not she, herself, look for a similar reward? If a man
 
 108 TAMAM 
 
 can seek one of the most difficult routes on the chart 
 of life, follow it through darkness and storm, in the 
 knowledge that there is no haven at the end, and 
 steering by the one beacon, steadfastness of purpose, 
 cannot a woman do the same? 
 
 She recalled the dramatic effect of her response 
 when, upon a certain occasion, having been chided 
 for her espousement of the " Lost Cause," she had 
 replied, " If my father could die for it, I can live for 
 it." So why should she not live for a purpose? By 
 what course should she steer to avoid calms? Where 
 does the tempest of life rage highest? Where is the 
 chart least defined? What is there which calls for 
 woman's every action that offers most in opportu- 
 nity and least in reward, where rest is found in doing, 
 and hope only in the unselfish adherence to purpose 
 without end? 
 
 The world can be said to consist of two classes : 
 those who have purpose and those who have not ; and 
 in either class are to be found all conditions of 
 society. There are those continually inert, and those 
 continually active, all equally devoid of purpose. 
 Purpose is dependent neither upon luxuries nor the 
 necessities of life. It is no more accelerated by suc- 
 cess than it is retarded by failure. The love and 
 protection we have and provide for our dependents is 
 instinct, and goes with its price, affection. The 
 part we play in upbuilding society is duty, the price 
 we owe. Beyond instinct and duty is the purpose of 
 our creation into the highest order of intellect, and 
 the world advances upon the addition of each recruit
 
 ARLINGTON 109 
 
 into the ranks of those who seek this purpose. The 
 advance is maintained only by those who remain 
 steadfast. 
 
 The posthumous daughter came from her con- 
 valescence a remodeled woman. The wonderful light 
 that had dwelt in those blue eyes was more of a soul- 
 ful mellow tint. The flower, once in the face of her 
 youth, was again flushed to the burst of a full- 
 bloom rose. Her normally vigorous features were 
 shrunken to the proportions of exquisite Dresden 
 china. The mellifluence of her speech was colored 
 with the tinge of serious sadness. She seemed happy 
 to the point of ecstasy. She had sought her purpose 
 and the world advanced. 
 
 It was through no spirit of defiance to the laws 
 of nature, but from a critical analysis of " the most 
 in opportunity and least in reward," that she entered 
 upon the work of nurse in a charity hospital. 
 
 At Arlington the sexton makes an early round, 
 every day, to gather up the wilted flowers that were 
 fresh in life and love when placed there the day 
 before. 
 
 The grave is no place for wilted flowers. We 
 want to leave them in their freshness and fragrance, 
 and not find them when we come again, but feel that 
 the timid spirit of our dear one has breathed them 
 in. 
 
 What is more indescribably beautiful than a flower 
 in the splendor of its freshness? What is more em-
 
 110 TAMAM 
 
 blematic of pathetic woe than the same flower when 
 wilted ? 
 
 Nature's teachings are always by contrast. She 
 shows us the most glorious tints and magnificent 
 coloring in her skies, not to be followed by the light 
 of day, but by the darkness of night. She makes 
 the dewdrop sparkle in childish innocence and the 
 sea storm in furious threat, the one but the multiple 
 of the other. We find fairy-like grace, ceaseless ani- 
 mation, gorgeous raiment and the joy of light de- 
 picted in the same butterfly whose larva was the 
 passive, homely and slothful worm groveling in the 
 damp and darkness. 
 
 And so we trust our heaviest burdens to that 
 carrier most frail in construction. It is when our 
 emotion must speak, and yet there are no words, that 
 we send the message through flowers. It is when our 
 hearts are pining, and the loneliness weighs heavily, 
 that we seek communion through flowers. It is when 
 we would appeal to the guardian spirit of our des- 
 tiny for consolation of mind, and offer sacrifice that 
 its scent may rise to the heavens in acceptable fra- 
 grance, that we offer flowers. It is when we would 
 whisper of our loneliness, seek comfort in the com- 
 mingling of thought and memory and invoke pity on 
 our desertion, that we place flowers on the graves 
 of those who were dear to us in life. It is through 
 charity that the sexton makes a daily round to re- 
 move them. Would that the same charity could be 
 extended to the living ! 
 
 There are those beautiful in the bloom of youth;
 
 ARLINGTON 111 
 
 but the cheek will fade, the brow will wrinkle, the 
 hair will frost, and no one comes to remove the 
 withered flowers. There are those fresh in the zenith 
 of pride in success ; but calamity smothers the fresh- 
 ness, the friction of reverses wilts the spirit, and who 
 comes to remove the withered flowers? There are 
 those gleaming in the possession of a new born hope, 
 but when spotted by the blight of disappointment and 
 mildewed with the inactivity of a stayed ambition, 
 why are the withered flowers left? There are those 
 clothed in the spotless garment of chastity; though 
 when the triumph of creation is smirched in the mire 
 of degradation, and the delicate flower of personal 
 purity wilts in remorse, why can not the hand of 
 mercy remove the withered flowers ? 
 
 When the crest of life's wave has rolled by, the 
 buoyant spirit become sodden and the weight of 
 years disturbs the footstep's equilibrium, why will 
 not some one remove the bondage of withering age 
 ere the mortal spirit must take flight from its shat- 
 tered abode ? Why did not Providence, in His munifi- 
 cence, give us a sexton for the living, and let us 
 awake each morning to find the witherings from the 
 flower of a past day's life removed? 
 
 If the flowers, even when withered, must remain 
 on life, can not we preserve them, in their freshness, 
 from the fiery rays of strife and the chilling frosts 
 of indifference, so their period of fragrance may be 
 extended? Can not we, each day, freshen the cheek 
 of those dear to us with the aromatic spirit of love, 
 and so make the bloom linger? Can not we remove
 
 113 TAMAM 
 
 the poison from our darts of criticism and blunt the 
 point of our foil, that in the parries of life the wound 
 we give to pride will cause the flower to wither less 
 quickly ? 
 
 When hope is the remnant of a boundless ambi- 
 tion, when it becomes the food of a hungry soul, 
 when the crest-fallen float on the sea of existence by 
 clinging to it, can we not leave the remnant intact, 
 can we not spare a little from our spice of life to 
 make the food more palatable, can we not breathe a 
 few soft words to inflate the vapid life raft, and so 
 postpone the withering of the flower? If the gar- 
 ment of chastity, though long steeped in the cleans- 
 ing power of contrition, yet retains a stain and the 
 flower must wilt in isolation beneath the pitiless pelts 
 of censure, can we not let him who is without sin 
 among us cast the first stone? 
 
 There is a little flower appropriately called the 
 Immortelle, owing to its property of retaining 
 shape and color after drying. It shows a delicate 
 framework of rich colors, but has no fragrance. 
 There is another little shrub called the Calycan- 
 thus, peculiar in that its flower is more fragrant 
 when wilted. 
 
 A woman devoid of the charm of feminine fra- 
 grance is very unlike one possessing this characteris- 
 tic. We like best those who are most reliant, most 
 dependent, most susceptible to neglect, who have least 
 of self-reliance. In the frailness of their structure 
 man's vigor is best reflected. 
 
 So we don't care for the Immortelle; its fadeless
 
 ARLINGTON 113 
 
 nature wears on us ; there is no contrast. We much 
 prefer the Calycanthus that wilts but continues to 
 pervade us with its fragrance long after. 
 
 When the hoary frosts of age are resting on the 
 brow, and they who in the even-tide of life have be- 
 come matted in the entanglement of accumulated 
 witherings, and the petals are so dry that more than 
 a breath will blow them from the corolla of existence, 
 can we not pause for a moment to look for the 
 colors in their western horizon which are so fast fad- 
 ing into night? Can we not remember that true 
 flowers are not Immortelles, and so draw near to 
 detect if there is fragrance in the witherings, and if, 
 like the Calycanthus, most fragrant when most 
 wilted ? 
 
 If we cease in our own desire to be Immortelles, 
 and devote more energy toward sexton charity, we 
 may sooner take on the homely hue of the Calycan- 
 thaceas, but then we will have their fragrance. 
 
 So every morning the faithful old sexton at Ar- 
 lington makes his early round, and it is tons of 
 withered flowers he carries away each year. The 
 bounty of his harvest comes with our celebration of 
 the National Memorial Day, when his gatherings 
 are the lifeless carriers in the annual offering of our 
 perennial love. On this day the clippings from every 
 shrub and vine throughout the nation go to mingle 
 their fragrance with the memory of our soldier dead. 
 So universally recognized is the custom to gather 
 flowers wherever found, that the dearth of them the 
 day following is a wonderful object-lesson. It shows
 
 114 TAMAM 
 
 us how it looks when the flowers of our homes are 
 suddenly gathered in at the nation's call. 
 
 It was on one of these days that a flower com- 
 mittee had clipped its resources to the roots, and 
 there was yet an old-fashioned garden belonging to 
 an old-fashioned woman, a garden which probably 
 never had a pruning knife of any description in its 
 midst. There was a jumble of honeysuckle, a group 
 of glaring red hollyhocks that appeared to be walk- 
 ing about on stilts, and a snarl of wild roses, all 
 combining to form a paradise for spiders and grass 
 snakes. The poor little old widowed woman, who 
 had fought life's battle, single-handed, since early 
 in the sixties, was generally conceded to be the most 
 unreconstructed " rebel," for her size, of the time. 
 So the flower gatherers, ever zealous in their harvest 
 and with a partly filled basket, halted at her gate for 
 consultation. All were willing to brave the spiders 
 and snakes, but who would brave the little old woman 
 to ask consent? They were not certain she even 
 knew of the existence of Memorial Day, but were 
 sure she had never been in any national cemetery. 
 Should they merely ask for the flowers, or should 
 they reveal their true purpose and openly say they 
 were to go on the graves of Federal soldiers? They 
 finally resolved that the memory of heroes should 
 not be clothed in a false garb, and made a clean 
 breast of their intentions to the widow. A twinkle's 
 flash filled the eyes which had more frequently been 
 filled with tears. Could she believe her senses, she 
 who had waited all these years for an opportunity
 
 ARLINGTON 115 
 
 to avenge the death of her husband and his " Lost 
 Cause"? She must verify that question. 
 
 " And you want my flowers to put on Yankee 
 soldiers' graves? " 
 
 The committee saw that they had exposed an un- 
 protected flank, and determined to retire under the 
 truce of frankness, so meekly answered, " Yes." 
 
 " Well," she said, rising to the height of her 
 weazened little body, and spitting out the words as 
 well as she could from a toothless mouth, " take 'em, 
 and I wish you had ten thousand more Yankee graves 
 out there to decorate." And the next morning the 
 blooms of the widow's garden were among the with- 
 erings the sexton gathered up on his early round. 
 
 It was while making one of his charity rounds the 
 sexton came to the " Unknown " tomb, a place that 
 generally contributes to his accumulations. While 
 raking up some witherings, he observed a small pocket 
 note-book which seemed to have fallen the day before. 
 He read the name and address which was printed in 
 gilt letters on the cover, the book evidently being a 
 gift. Down in a corner was the word " Diary." 
 With no more than a moment's hesitation he did just 
 what any other man would have done under like cir- 
 cumstances. He put it in his pocket. When he had 
 returned from his round he enclosed the book in an 
 envelope and wrote an address, identical with that 
 in the gilt letters on its cover. Had he not been a 
 man he would have read:
 
 116 TAMAM 
 
 " It has been a long time since I found you, little 
 book, and through it all I have waited for your owner 
 to come and get you and, incidentally, me. Now I 
 would not say that aloud for worlds, even when no 
 one was within hearing, but it was fun to write it, 
 and since I have adopted you and intend keeping a 
 diary, it has to stay. Anyway, this is not to be a 
 diary ; that word sounds commonplace. It is to be 
 a confidence-book, and if I can't tell my confidence- 
 book everything, what is the use of having one? 
 
 " Do you know, little confidence-book, that every 
 night before I go to bed I take you out, and look at 
 the name in gilt letters on your cover, kiss you, then 
 say my prayers, and one thing I always add is no, 
 I don't have to tell even my confidence-book what 
 I say then. But it is something nice, and I think he 
 is horrid, for he has not so much as written a note to 
 me since he went home the night you were lost. And 
 he did not stay home, either, but went into the army, 
 as if he never wanted to see any one again. 
 
 " Who would say ' yes ' the first time she was 
 asked anything? And do you know, I never realized 
 what he meant, and what I did, until next morning. 
 He should have said, ' Now I am going to say some- 
 thing very important, something that I long ago 
 decided to say at this time, something that I am go- 
 ing to offer ' and just lots of other somethings. 
 Then I would have looked down and picked at the 
 hem of my handkerchief, and have been silent for a 
 long time, so he would get real anxious and say it 
 again. After he had repeated it, I would have been
 
 ARLINGTON 117 
 
 silent a little while longer, then slowly raise my eyes 
 and looking straight into his face, say what an honor 
 I consider that to be ; how much he offers for so little ; 
 what great happiness any one can expect who shares 
 his life, and finally ask him to wait while I strive to 
 become more worthy of his love, and if I could never 
 become so, not to think that our friendship will be' 
 come lessened. 
 
 " But no, he did so differently, and asked me with- 
 out showing any preliminary symptoms. I can't 
 remember what he said, but I know it was no little 
 speech like they say in stories. And so I had to 
 laugh and run away. That night I felt real happy, 
 and went to sleep thinking that the next time he 
 talked that way I would not laugh. 
 
 " It was next morning that I went out and found 
 you. Of course I didn't expect him ever to ask for 
 you, because he did not really want you. Who ever 
 heard of a man keeping a diary ? He kept you in his 
 pocket, through a kind of appreciative duty, be- 
 cause you must have been a present, but he never told 
 you a single secret. And when he comes again he 
 will not dare refer to the evening you were lost, so 
 of course you are safely mine. Perhaps some day, 
 a long, long time from now, it may be I can tell 
 him I found his little book and scribbled in it, and 
 then he will want you. 
 
 " Little confidence-book, there is so much I can 
 not tell any one except you. You are the only thing 
 I have that he ever gave to me. Doesn't that sound
 
 118 TAMAM 
 
 queer? I am pretending he gave you to me. He 
 could have left you there, well knowing I would find 
 you. 
 
 " Do you know what I did with that myrtle wreath 
 he made for me? I hung it in my room and com- 
 posed a verse to go with it. 
 
 " This is a garland of thought entwined 
 
 With moments caught from time, in its flight; 
 Not held in the frail withered myrtle's bind, 
 But fast in the hold of love, in its might. 
 
 Ah! that verse means much to me. The train of 
 thought, that rolls on in the course of life, has been 
 interrupted and a gem stolen. Even Time, which 
 boasts it never waits, had to pause and surrender 
 the moments we spent that evening, and fast I hold 
 them in memory. 
 
 " Now I may as well speak my mind, for it brings 
 relief. For a long time I have experienced the sensa- 
 tion of being in love. At first I did not know what 
 it was. It seemed to come in the ordinary course of 
 human events. The evening he was here I was con- 
 scious of being in my best humor. I also felt very 
 happy. After he left, everything seemed so differ- 
 ent that I began to think he was the cause of my 
 sensations. Day after day I go alone in this secret. 
 Think of having to keep a secret from everybody, 
 even the one who is most concerned! Yes, from all 
 except my confidence-book! I wonder how many 
 people there are who have a secret love, and have to
 
 ARLINGTON 119 
 
 sham all of the time, while deep down in their hearts 
 are memories of a look or word which, if but 
 the hundredth part of a second's duration, was 
 bliss ? 
 
 " I am sad to-day and heavy at heart. I have 
 waited so long for a letter from somebody that will 
 in some way, no matter how distant, refer to him. I 
 know that only the mention of his name will cause me 
 to tremble. 
 
 " On time goes, and not a syllable comes, so have 
 I not reason to be sad ? 
 
 " I have been very much interested, of late, and 
 know you won't laugh when I tell you this wonderful 
 amount of interest is centered on what he would say, 
 if, for fun, or for some other reason, he should write 
 a letter to me. Sometimes I can see the headlines 
 
 in carefully written letters : ' My dear Miss ' 
 
 I know I should be seized with the creeps, and would 
 first glance through it to know what he said at the 
 end. At other times I can see the first sentence, ' I 
 crave your pardon,' and lots of sarcastic references, 
 ending with, ' Your indulgence in a reply to this is 
 more than can be expected.' When that kind of 
 letter comes, I want to be where I can say what I 
 think, and not have to think what I say. 
 
 " Since I don't get any kind of a letter, I have 
 decided the one that is to come shall be a nice one, 
 which is certainly the more cheerful way to look 
 at it.
 
 120 TAMAM 
 
 " Just what do I want him to say ? If I could be 
 a fairy and whisper the thoughts in his ear, what 
 would I whisper? This would be an awful respon- 
 sibility ! Suppose I was that fairy and had to write 
 for him a letter to myself, then be myself again and 
 take the consequences as to how I would feel toward 
 him after reading it. I wish I had not thought of 
 that. Suppose I should make him appear as love-sick 
 as I know I am. I would not like that, because no 
 woman cares for a man who is too deeply in love with 
 her. It is too much like having a pet bird in a cage. 
 Suppose I should have him evade all reference to 
 that evening, and write just a plain, every-day, 
 friendly letter? I would think he was intentionally 
 tantalizing me, and would not like that. 
 
 " What if I should make him be real nice and con- 
 fess that his action was close to rudeness ; ask if I 
 should accept his silence as a confession from an er- 
 ratic temperament and let him rest his load of pen- 
 ance at my feet? I know I would think of him as 
 a weakling; and, try as I might, I could never quite, 
 again, think of him as I do now. 
 
 " I realize I must spend some thought before I 
 mould the words that are to commit his fate to my 
 hands. 
 
 " I have decided to trust him to my tender mercies. 
 Since I know I can never do him justice, I shall make 
 allowance for any apathetic tendencies that may 
 arise in my real self. So I will have him write to me 
 a valentine.
 
 ARLINGTON 121 
 
 " PETITION 
 
 " 1 humbly beg, beseech and pray 
 You read, before you throw away, 
 This timid, trembling, pleading missive; 
 For it to me will bring much bliss, if 
 You will sign my pardon. 
 
 " MISSIVE 
 
 " St. Valentine did set a day 
 When all should be as blithe and gay 
 As newly mated birds, which sing 
 Their love-lays in the birth of Spring. 
 
 " A day when hearts should each be free 
 Of care, and spirits filled with glee ; 
 With sunbeams racing through the soul 
 To gain true love, their final goal. 
 
 "To-day, a heavy cloud hangs near 
 A lonely one, who filled with fear 
 Is, lest it should its fury vent 
 On him, an humble penitent. 
 
 " A heavy heart so fiercely thumps, 
 And thuds, and throbs, and pounds and bumps; 
 A bosom writhes in agony, 
 As does a maddened storm-tossed sea. 
 
 "Pray! calm the tempest. If you will, 
 Just softly whisper, ' Peace, be still ' ; 
 And send to me in plain design 
 A pardon for my valentine. 
 
 " All of my pains to save him was simply mak- 
 ing trouble for myself, as I will now have to plan how 
 I would answer such a communication. 
 
 " In valentines one has to interpret their message,
 
 122 TAMAM 
 
 which surely depends on how you feel toward the one 
 who sends it; while with poetic license the wording 
 can be such as to either have much or have no mean- 
 ing, all dependent upon the point of view you may 
 choose to take. 
 
 " I have to admit he has adroitly circumvented 
 every loop-hole from which I can reply. 
 
 " How I would like to tell him of my heart's long- 
 ing, and, in a breath of soft whisper, be forced to 
 admit my plight ! But I can't do it, for a woman is 
 not supposed to really love, only to yield to the love of 
 others, and oh, dear ! how untrue that is. 
 
 " I presume I should write to him a note-size reply, 
 so he would understand I did not care to express 
 myself at length. Then the conventionalism of 
 notes lets one write his name, with the prefix ' Mister ' 
 at the end, together with the date, so you don't have 
 to bother about the beginning or ending. I would 
 speak of his clever conception in valentines, and in- 
 cidentally use the ' we ' form in address, telling him 
 ' we ' had not entirely forgotten him, even through 
 his long silence, and that * we ' always assumed he 
 would take advantage of any opportunity he may 
 have to make us a visit. 
 
 " How unsatisfying all this would be. I don't 
 like it. I want him to make a bold plunge and write 
 one of those letters you can squeeze and see the very 
 drops of life-blood ooze from it. I feel I can trust 
 myself for the consequences, since I am in an exceed- 
 ingly receptive mood, so I will have him confess in
 
 ARLINGTON 123 
 
 unsparing terms his love for me. He can leave out 
 all preliminaries and explanations, and just begin: 
 
 " ' To you, the one whose countenance is in- 
 effaceable in my memory, the sound of whose voice 
 is in my ears, imperishable to the extent of my 
 heart's life, I pour out my soul, in the faith that 
 your generous nature will harken to the call of one 
 who is so intrepid as to nurture the ambition that 
 your life's happiness may be cast from the mould of 
 his own destiny. Scan not too closely the brazen 
 arrogance that prompts this act. You would find 
 the embodiment of jealous envy. Envy of the very 
 sunshine that kisses your cheek, though : 
 
 " ' Were I but a sunbeam, 
 
 And on jour cheek could play, 
 I'd kiss you till it seemed as if 
 I'd kiss you all away. 
 
 Scan not, else you find one prone to idle dreaming, 
 ever seeing the one 
 
 " ' With eyes of soulful azure blue, 
 
 And summer's warmth of turquoise hue. 
 
 " ' You would find one who hears, in the " Voices 
 of the Wood," only yours, 
 
 " ' Whose voice is soft and gentle, 
 
 Like that of cooing doves, 
 Wafted, as a breath of hope, 
 To one who your voice loves. 
 
 " ' The yearning of my life can find relief only
 
 TAMAM 
 
 when I venture to allow the pen to move according 
 to the dictates of my heart, and my soul flow in its 
 trail, that it may lay before you the story of its pent- 
 up love, a love that fires to that feverish thirst, un- 
 quenchable, save by drinking in the spirit of your 
 presence. 
 
 " * The story is one old and simple, though ever 
 new in application. It is only that of longing, hush 
 and straining. Longing for one in person, who is 
 ever near in presence; hushed in preoccupied silence 
 to catch the first utterance of one whose voice ever 
 rings in my ears ; straining into the blank of distance 
 for the first outward glimpse of one ever seen when 
 my vision turns inward. 
 
 " ' Take the story to yourself. It is my life, and, 
 
 " ' Were it filled with brightest promise, 
 
 Noble purpose, strong and true, 
 Though but an offering humble, 
 I would make it all, to you.' 
 
 " How hollow even that seems compared with the 
 way I want to be loved. I want to be smothered in 
 his caress, and revived with his tears. 
 
 " When songbirds flit from our paths and sing in 
 the sunshine as though they would burst their 
 throats, we are not satisfied, but go far into the mid- 
 night mists and make our way through the shadowed 
 woodland to hear the lonely nightingale. 
 
 " When flowers grow at our doorstep, in a pro- 
 fusion of beauty, we leave them and climb the moun-
 
 ARLINGTON 125 
 
 tainside to seek that lonely wild rose which grows 
 highest and among sharpest thorns. 
 
 " Is it always that we long for what is most dif- 
 ficult to obtain? Can it be that my longing for his 
 love only indicates I shall never really possess it? Is 
 he the wild rose growing over a precipice that I can 
 never climb? 
 
 " To-day I gathered a bunch of daisies, and pulled 
 off the petals of every one to the measure : 
 
 " ' He loveth me all heartily, 
 Disdainfully, distrustfully, 
 He loves me not at all. 
 In secret, smart; till death us part; 
 He loves me, all in all.' 
 
 " And do you know not a single one came out 
 right, that is, except when I cheated. I felt very 
 disconsolate until I chanced to think they were only 
 * brown-eyed-Susans,' and those flowers always bring 
 sadness ; you can see tear drops coming from their 
 eyes. After that happy thought I gathered an arm- 
 ful of ' golden-eyes,' for they bring sunshine and 
 happiness. I picked and picked, a long time, before 
 one came out just as I wanted; but it did. 
 
 " So it is, with him, I can wait, if only some day, 
 when I have pulled the last petal from patience, I 
 shall find him waiting for me. 
 
 " I would measure all the stars in the heavens to 
 that verse if, at the end, there would be one little 
 gleam of light, even though ever so distant, which
 
 126 TAMAM 
 
 would twinkle back a ray of hope that ' He loves me, 
 all in all.' 
 
 " My sweetheart book ! why can't I say my sweet- 
 heart's book? Would that I could say' his sweet- 
 heart's book ! It is strange how bold one becomes 
 from little ventures ; at first I felt I must immediately 
 send you to your owner ; then I changed my mind and 
 decided to keep you till he should come. I did this 
 for a good long time, during which I began to fondle 
 you just a little, and each day you seemed more 
 precious. The first time I kissed you I felt guilty of 
 something, I know not what, but I soon became 
 hardened, and it is wonderful how much satisfaction 
 one can get from caressing an inanimate remem- 
 brance if it is coupled with a heart's longing. Then 
 it was I fearlessly adopted you and entrusted the 
 very sacred thoughts from my heart of hearts to 
 your keeping. Each entry I made seemed to anchor 
 him more surely in my life, until I did not hesitate 
 to disclose that he pervades my every thought. 
 
 " Help me keep my secret from the heartless world 
 and, through pity, keep it from him. I pray not to 
 die of a broken heart from his learning of my love 
 and being filled with contempt that I was so insipid. 
 
 " Keep it all, for I keep you in my bosom, nearest 
 my heart. From the first I have tried to keep just 
 one little secret that I did not want to share, even 
 with you. But you wring it from me; and I am no 
 longer mistress of iny own intentions. Do you re- 
 member when I came near telling you what I say in
 
 ARLINGTON 127 
 
 my prayers, then lost courage and persuaded myself 
 that I did not have to reveal that? With it you have 
 my life, all in all. It is very precious, for I say it 
 only in prayer, and shall write it in whispers. 
 
 "If he should die while yet I sleep, 
 I pray the Lord his soul to keep; 
 And ere the time I should awake 
 My lonely soul He too will take: 
 
 "That on their journey through the skies 
 Our souls shall in the same cloud rise; 
 And when they reach the throne of Grace 
 My soul near his may find a place."
 
 Ill 
 
 THE POTTER'S FIELD 
 
 " And they took counsel, and bought with them the potter's 
 field, to bury strangers in." Matthew xxvii : 7. 
 
 BACK in the days when customs were nearer their 
 antecedents and antecedents nearer their origins, 
 there existed the unmarred beauty of two valleys that 
 come together not far south from Jerusalem. 
 
 Valleys are those lines of expression on the face of 
 the earth which signify softness, quiet and rest. 
 Where the valleys of the Gahennan and the Jehosa- 
 phat form a juncture is one of those beautiful 
 dimples in the face of Nature. 
 
 Here the stilled waters took on animation and 
 laved the grass-covered banks with the tenderness of 
 caressing. The boughs of the olden-day cedars 
 swung far over the banks, making a cooling shade, 
 such that the waters, owing to a lowering of tem- 
 perature, formed those little whirlpool-like eddies 
 always to be found in the shade. 
 
 From the far-up source of each stream the air, 
 laden to saturation with oriental spice from the moun- 
 tain flower, drifts into mingled fragrance at the 
 juncture of these valleys. 
 
 Here it was the weary pilgrim, after a journey 
 128
 
 THE POTTER'S FIELD 129 
 
 through parching sands, was wont to stop and rest 
 in the shade and bathe his blistered feet in the cool- 
 ing waters before he entered the city. And while he 
 sat, in restful contemplation, could he have looked 
 into the future he would have seen the very restful- 
 ness of the place was, eventually, to bring about the 
 contumely in which it would be held; for the wor- 
 shipers of idolatry were even then seeking the 
 groves to contaminate their fragrance with the 
 stench of burning flesh in the offering of sacrifice. 
 
 It was not strange that, as the juncture of the 
 Gehennan and the Jehosaphat is of all retreats about 
 Jerusalem the most beautiful, it should have been 
 chosen as the common ground for fanatical religious 
 zealots ; and it was not long before the grass-clothed 
 banks were drenched in blood, and the air rent with 
 the shrieks of sacrificed children, while the restful 
 shades gave way to the dance of heinous shadows 
 formed by the flames of funeral pyres at the mid- 
 night offerings of new-born babes. 
 
 And could the same resting pilgrim have looked 
 even further he would have seen the laden air again 
 retain its spice, the waters once more clean and the 
 paths overgrown, but a lingering taint of abhorrent 
 suspicion hovering about, and the place totally de- 
 serted, a victim to its own beauty, and destined to be 
 coupled with the most dramatic treachery in history. 
 
 " The kiss that betrayeth " was an old story long 
 before the days of Judas. When the desire to err 
 was born in the breast of man, an all-wise Providence 
 coupled with it the seed that gives rise to a disease
 
 130 TAMAM 
 
 known as " remorse of conscience " ; and the same 
 spirit of atonement has ever existed as a saving clause 
 in the weakness of human nature. 
 
 When Judas accepted the thirty pieces of silver, 
 as payment for the betrayal of Christ, the seed of 
 remorse burst into full flower ; and preparatory to 
 terminating the agony of his mental suffering he 
 deposited his wretchedly gotten gain in the church 
 potter, which receptacle was designed for a final dis- 
 position of " blood money," when its sear into the 
 conscience of its holder could no longer be borne. 
 
 In the use of money found in church potters there 
 was associated the desire to obtain, with it, some- 
 thing akin to the price of the deed it had purchased. 
 And the most that the trivial sum for the betrayal of 
 Christ would purchase was the one-time beautiful 
 grove, and afterward the abandoned " field of blood," 
 at the juncture of the valleys of the Gehennan and 
 Jehosaphat, which is known in history as Aceldama; 
 and though to-day it is clothed in Nature's most 
 beautiful garb, yet it reeks with the superstitions of 
 men. Thus it is we seek the origin for the name of 
 the most mysterious of all graveyards, the " potter's 
 field." 
 
 When we who have a well-sodded spot at the foot 
 of an imperishable family monument awaiting us 
 or more grandly, a niche in some palatial mausoleum 
 are taken with a sense of pathetic ridicule at the 
 suggestion of a potter's field grave, let us remember 
 such a graveyard was once purchased with the price 
 of Christ's blood, that not charity, but the hospital-
 
 THE POTTER'S FIELD 
 
 ity of a city's reverence could be shown the stranger 
 who, at the end of his weary pilgrimage, met death 
 within the walls of old Jerusalem. 
 
 While one-half of the world has, to some extent, 
 awakened to the fact that it does not know how the 
 other half lives, it is more than strange that even 
 curiosity has in so slight degree aroused an interest 
 in their passing from our midst. Who stops to look 
 in at the charity hospitals, the morgue, or the pot- 
 ter's field? Yet one out of every two of us takes a 
 charity route for eternity. When the rosy hue of 
 life's contentment seems fading, and your spirit be- 
 comes filled with a sense of unrest, throw off the 
 monotonous contact with the great upper half and 
 go out to the potter's field for an afternoon's delving 
 into the phases surrounding the passing of the other 
 man who, with you, constituted a couple in the 
 scheme of predestination. 
 
 You won't recognize the place if it is a phantasy 
 of marble slabs you are seeking, and not something 
 more nearly resembling a newly ploughed field. Off 
 at one side, in a field of unsymmetrical ridges, you 
 will find a queer old man who responds to your in- 
 quiries with an acrid shyness and suspicion. He 
 may tell you he is the grave-digger, if you can first 
 give him satisfactory assurance as to the purpose of 
 your visit. He will seem very queer, perhaps a 
 trifle unbalanced, but you will reason no thoroughly 
 sane man would have taken such work. And then 
 his surroundings have no tendency to produce other 
 than a morbid state of mind. He may not have
 
 133 TAMAM 
 
 spoken to a soul in days, for no life comes his way. 
 You may wonder at the cause of so disheveled a 
 state of the ground, but the mounds are only the 
 graves of the counted countless credited to the city's 
 charity. After having watched an afternoon's pro- 
 ceedings, you will endeavor to estimate the number 
 of regiments the old grave digger may have buried. 
 Your inquiry may bring forth the statement that he 
 has worked there for years, and again you question 
 to know why the place is not filled, and where is 
 room for the long ridges yet to be made? You are 
 beginning to learn, when he tells you he has been over 
 the ground several times. You will then divine that 
 every time he lays the body of a homeless wanderer 
 to rest, another friendless mortal, whose poor body 
 had at last found lodgment, must give way to the 
 newcomer ; for no sooner are the long rows completed, 
 than a return over the same lines is begun, modern- 
 day official Charity being generally confined to an 
 undisturbed rest of but one year. 
 
 Later on, the grave-digger, who has been awaiting 
 the coming of the " dead wagon," goes out to meet 
 an ordinary-looking vehicle with plain black leather 
 curtains. You may have seen such a wagon but 
 never thought as to what it contained. 
 
 You hesitate before deciding if you will really 
 stay. Momentarily, a new interest has been aroused 
 in the grave-digger, and for the time you are for- 
 gotten while he eagerly glances under the curtain. 
 His face, ordinarily expressionless, will reveal a look 
 of satisfaction or disappointment, for each crude
 
 THE POTTER'S FIELD 133 
 
 box there represents a few cents extra toward the 
 maintenance of his meagre life. You feel you would 
 prefer gradually to accustom yourself, so remain at 
 a distance ; for, should your courage fail, you will 
 want to get your attention diverted. 
 
 There is an odd exchange of greeting between the 
 grave-digger and the driver, together with a receipt 
 for the load of boxes, each box with its serial number, 
 and placed in line consecutively. This enables the 
 identification of a grave should an interred body be 
 subsequently claimed. 
 
 Now, a box containing the body of an adult is no 
 light task for two old men, in its unloading, and only 
 one old man to bury it, so formality gives way to 
 ingenuity, and the boxes, one at a time, are slipped 
 out until an end falls to the ground, the other resting 
 against the wagon. Thus each box very nearly at- 
 tains an upright position during the brief interval 
 occupied by the driver in moving his wagon forward, 
 whereupon the box falls at the side of its place of in- 
 terment, whence it can be rolled into its grave. 
 
 The thud of each fall jars your nerves, but the 
 calmness of the old half-witted man gives you cour- 
 age, and serves to brace you for each succeeding 
 fall. That time it was a crash ! The box gave way, 
 and before your curiosity let you turn aside you 
 caught sight of something in it. You are glad you 
 remained at a distance, and nervously look for some- 
 thing else to hold your attention while the old man 
 repairs the box. 
 
 At first you marveled at the display of self-corn-
 
 134 TAMAM 
 
 posure shown in the grave-digger, then it changed 
 to admiration. Now your cowering nerves make 
 you feel you would even cling to him for support, 
 and you are powerless to leave. When you have 
 made sure there is nothing longer visible, you master 
 yourself and go nearer the line of boxes, for the old 
 man is making preparations for the work of burying. 
 When you have seen the absolute indifference with 
 which he sits on a box for a few moments' rest, you 
 are sufficiently encouraged to remain. He is in fine 
 humor, for his day's work will afford sufficient for 
 his needs, and he busies himself accordingly. You 
 stand by in silence ; you do not choose to sit. 
 
 The old man continues digging, and you feel some 
 sense of relief, until his spade strikes something, 
 sounding as though he had come to a wooden bottom. 
 How did it happen there was a plank there? Then 
 it comes over you : he has struck an old coffin. You 
 feel an inclination to saunter off while he cleans out 
 the grave, but his is a reassuring manner and you 
 remain ; you even look into the grave. It looks very 
 much as a pit would appear if it had partly con- 
 cealed planks in the bottom, and all that remains to 
 be done is to roll the new box in on top of the old 
 one. You can surely witness that. The old man 
 measures the depth with his spade, gives a grunt of 
 satisfaction, and moves forward to make the next 
 shallow opening. 
 
 You have been through it now, and, quite proud 
 of your courage, anticipate the calmness with which
 
 THE POTTER'S FIELD 135 
 
 you will watch him go through the next task. He 
 digs away, and again strikes wood. It jars you 
 slightly, because you had not expected it so soon. 
 He cleans away the dirt from the top of another old 
 coffin, just as before, then straightens up for a mo- 
 ment's rest. You feel vain in the possession of your 
 own wonderful stamina. 
 
 But he does not move to the next place, as you 
 supposed he would, so you wait with your now steady 
 nerves. He makes a stroke with his spade, and be- 
 fore you realize what is to follow, has split open the 
 old box, exposing to view the complete framework of 
 a human body, every bone in its relative position, as 
 if placed there preparatory to the building of an 
 anatomical structure. You are dazed, and wonder 
 what the old man will do next. Surely he did not 
 know he would find so gruesome a sight. In another 
 minute he has rolled the bones into a pile in one cor- 
 ner, and you watch him sift the dirt through his 
 fingers to separate any small bones he may have dis- 
 placed. 
 
 You will probably refrain from a close scrutiny of 
 succeeding openings, and it is well if you do. Occa- 
 sionally an opened box displays remains not suf- 
 ficiently well advanced in the stage of decomposition 
 to permit of being raked into a pile in the corner, 
 whereupon the grave-digger will refill that grave, to 
 be left until again he comes down the same long 
 ridge. 
 
 Should you feel interested in further experiences
 
 136 TAMAM 
 
 of the old man, and make inquiry to this effect, he 
 may scan some recent interments, for what appears 
 to be a disturbed grave, then make you comprehend 
 he sometimes opens a box from which the head is 
 missing, and you will understand it is an easier mat- 
 ter for those who earn their living through the 
 supplying of anatomical material to steal away with 
 the head or a limb, leaving the mutilated body in its 
 resting-place. 
 
 Talk with him further, and you may win his full 
 confidence. This poor old man, ostracised from the 
 animate world, shunned by every human that has a 
 taint of superstition in his nature, and who has 
 not? has pride. Let him take you to the place 
 where he buries the children from the foundling asy- 
 lum. There is a little corner which he retains for 
 this purpose. The small boxes do not take up much 
 room, so he has not found it necessary to disturb 
 them. In the city's administration regarding the 
 potter's field there is a provision to the effect that 
 such graves as are claimed and cared for, to the ex- 
 tent of placing a wooden " tombstone " at the 
 grave, may remain undisturbed. And here in this 
 corner you will find rows of small white painted slabs, 
 elaborated with stenciled letters which say to the 
 pitifully small portion of the world passing that 
 way, that little mites of humanity, even though with 
 but a single name, are sleeping here. 
 
 One little mound may be adorned with a heart- 
 shaped figure formed of small shells, another with a 
 broken flower vase which the old man has found
 
 THE POTTER'S FIELD 137 
 
 somewhere, and there may even be a bunch of wild 
 flowers on the latest among his sleeping charges. 
 He moves about silently, stepping between the 
 mounds, picking up a piece of trash here and there 
 or pulling out a conspicuous weed. 
 Read such an epitaph as, 
 
 " CHARLOTTE. 
 Age about one year" 
 
 Can you comprehend the hidden meaning in that? 
 Do you realize she was a creation of soul and body, 
 ushered into existence, perhaps, through the gateway 
 of parental shame, only to be thrown upon the scant 
 mercy of a world whose sympathies have long been 
 overtaxed, then to pass her one year of strange exist- 
 ence in the din of a foundlings' home, after which the 
 little body finds rest from its jostled career in the 
 potter's field, and no one but a half-witted grave- 
 digger to keep watch? If we believed in the rein- 
 carnation of souls, what place in the new realm would 
 such a little mite's soul fill? If it returned clothed 
 as a golden-haired princess, could one bear envy to- 
 ward her? Will our conceptions admit of contem- 
 plation as to why the Creator of life brought from 
 eternity those little beings, and let them, moth-like, 
 flit into the flame of human selfishness? unless it was 
 necessary they be given a fleeting material existence, 
 that He may gather them from earth to clothe in the 
 down of baby angels, that they may play through 
 the life and dreams of the self-sacrificing nurses who
 
 138 TAMAM 
 
 gave them a name to adorn their slabs, and of the 
 humble potter's field sexton who buried them and 
 placed shells and bits of colored glass on their little 
 mounds. 
 
 You may occasionally pass by wooden slabs indi- 
 cating that the body resting there has yet one hold 
 upon the memory of some mortal being. When you 
 read " Father" with a date and no other identifica- 
 tion, you feel inclined to fathom the mystery of such 
 an epitaph. If successful you may learn that 
 " Father " was a cast away, and the widowed mother 
 had to ask for his burial in the potter's field ; and 
 though she went through the formality of claiming 
 his grave, yet her pride was such she could not have 
 his name stenciled on the wooden slab announcing to 
 the world the wretchedness of her poverty. 
 
 You will find epitaphs in words of ridiculously 
 pathetic endearment, but seldom will you find a name 
 or any designation other than that of relationship, 
 or the occasional " Friend." 
 
 As you pass out over the long unbroken rows 
 marking the exit from mortality of those who came 
 and went without leaving a footprint for identifica- 
 tion, you should pause and question if the one who 
 constituted your couple in the scheme of creation has 
 as yet found lodgment in those rows. 
 
 While the posthumous daughter was sounding 
 deep in the sea of activity, blessed in the possession 
 of that mental contentment arising when one finds
 
 THE POTTER'S FIELD 139 
 
 oneself deep in the concentration of purpose, how dif- 
 ferent it was with him who had been dashed from the 
 crest of a patriotic wave into the hidden quicksands 
 of broken health, and was now seeking recuperation 
 in the seclusion of country life. 
 
 " Broken in health " is a pitiful phrase when ap- 
 plied to a man. To him we proffer abundant sym- 
 pathy, encouragement and material aid in every way, 
 but he must respond through rapid convalescence, 
 else we desert him ; whereupon he becomes nothing 
 more than a piece of complicated machinery, deficient 
 in a vital part, absolutely useless, and a burden in 
 his keeping. 
 
 With woman, how different! For her there is 
 always our tenderest sympathy. The ebb in her 
 strength is the flood in our love. In fact, frailness 
 and delicacy of structure are distinct attributes of 
 her charm. 
 
 However, the balm of country air and the blue in 
 Southern skies were fast scattering the quicksands, 
 and he was rapidly becoming his old self. He had 
 gone to one of those old home places where the 
 widowed owner, left with few wants and an inherent 
 responsibility, has for let the farm on certain modest 
 conditions ; namely, that she retain the house, the 
 garden, pasturage for her horse and cow, while the 
 tenant is to work the garden, milk the cow, hitch up 
 the horse, and do any odd jobs about the place which 
 cannot be foreseen ; that no live stock be brought on 
 the place, or lands ploughed, other than necessary to 
 supply the immediate personal needs of the tenant.
 
 140 TAMAM 
 
 After complying with these conditions, there was left 
 for him a small isolated house, but so located as to 
 enable him to comprehend to the fullest the beauties 
 of the woodlands and meadows. 
 
 Just how the farm was to repay the generous 
 rental the new tenant did not know, but the purpose 
 sought had been obtained, for he was at peace with 
 himself and the world. That he was more or less an 
 enigma to the widow and her neighbors he knew, and 
 thoroughly enjoyed the novelty of his position. 
 Who he was, whence he came or what was his past, 
 she never had the courage to ask, but trusted to 
 her ingenuity to win his confidence for the gratifi- 
 cation of her curiosity at a later time. She did 
 know one thing, having seen it with her own eyes, 
 that he was wonderfully possessed with those quali- 
 fications which go to make what is called masculine 
 beauty. 
 
 Woman is beautiful through sentiment ; man, 
 through character. Though the rose-tinted flush in 
 the face of woman is fragrant, the sombre bronze in 
 the face of man is more lasting. The classic mouth 
 of woman is artistic, but the firm-set lower jaw of 
 man is assuring. The liquid eye of woman enthralls 
 us in its languor of love, but the penetrating eye of 
 man fills us with a sense of fear, lest it see us as we, 
 in truth, see ourselves. 
 
 He could be described as having that smooth-cut, 
 nearly straight brow indicative of intelligence, rather 
 than the more receding brow indicating the necessity 
 for cultivating the perceptive sense, or the unpleas-
 
 THE POTTER'S FIELD 141 
 
 antly strong and overhanging brow filled with plain, 
 dull logic, ever ready to jab a ragged wound in any 
 artful conceit we may devise. 
 
 His were not those great floating eyes which seem 
 necessary for an effusion of a jubilant nature, but 
 were a trifle small, though not so small as to give 
 the impression of a hidden meaning in his character, 
 while the distinct gray shade dispelled any sugges- 
 tion of the ornate, through the weakness of fanciful 
 coloring. 
 
 The human nose conveys a world of meaning. If 
 of the thin, pinched type, it restricts the flow of 
 oxygen necessary for the combustion of impurities 
 in the blood, which means an accumulation of im- 
 purities in the character. If -it is large and with 
 dilated nostrils, it is generally due to an incessant ex- 
 halation of diluted thought. When tilted slightly, it 
 implies a certain haughtiness not at all displeasing, 
 though if more than slightly, it is apt to suggest 
 freckles and red hair, while a tilt of greater angle 
 makes it necessary that one avoid looking into the 
 nostrils rather than the eyes of its possessor. If 
 pointed downward, the character must struggle to 
 dispel its associations with a bird of prey. His nose 
 was as none of these. 
 
 A critical feature in the human face is the chin. 
 If deficient, how suggestive is the profile to that of 
 a domestic fowl. In woman's face the truly artistic 
 part is that portion below the nose. Her 
 critical line begins with the upper lip and extends to 
 the base of the neck. The nature of this line can
 
 TAMAM 
 
 make or mar any abundance of perfection in the rest 
 of her face. 
 
 His chin was a continuation of that line from the 
 forehead, which gave it just a faint tendency to 
 prominence, rather than toward the weakness dis- 
 played in receding chins ; and the line from the point 
 to the throat was nearly horizontal, making almost 
 a sharp angle with the neck, so characteristic of that 
 strength found in the well-balanced, nervous tem- 
 perament of a sparsely built man. 
 
 His head was crowned with a slight wave in the 
 chestnut brown of his hair, and it may be said his 
 general outline was sufficiently in accord with his 
 face. He was a type particularly lovable, self-sac- 
 rificing and subservient, yet holding himself in high 
 worth. 
 
 He was a joy to the widow's soul, and nothing 
 gave him such pleasure as serving her. Such pride 
 he took in her garden, that nowhere were the toma- 
 toes so red and the peppers so green. Her beans 
 nodded their pods from the tops of poles so high that 
 they could see into the upper window of the barn. 
 So persistently did he hoe and rake the ground that 
 even the dwarf peas grew to the top of the fence 
 along which they were planted. He enjoyed bring- 
 ing splendid vegetables to show to her at some un- 
 earthly hour in the morning, and then chide her for 
 being a late sleeper. 
 
 When cooking breakfast, if he chanced to get a 
 corn-meal cake particularly well browned and tempt- 
 ing, he dropped everything and ran with it to the
 
 THE POTTER'S FIELD 143 
 
 widow. If she but intimated a sense of fatigue, he 
 would come down early next morning with a break- 
 fast of the sweetest cantaloup, the crispest lettuce, 
 the strongest coffee, the hottest corn bread, and the 
 most appetizingly broiled bacon. 
 
 Many times had the widow arranged a meal which 
 she knew was particularly to his liking, then waited 
 patiently until he chanced to come near the house, 
 when she would call to him, saying she was just sit- 
 ting down and would he join her. Invariably he 
 explained he was in no condition to sit down with a 
 lady, had left his coat, been feeding the horse, must 
 put out the cow, or some excuse equally pertinent. 
 
 And strange though it may seem, he never entered 
 her house, but would stand at the door and talk by 
 the hour, and to her suggestion that he " have a 
 seat " would reply he was just going and had only 
 intended to stop a minute. She soon learned that to 
 invite him to be seated was the equivalent of asking 
 him to leave. So many were the evening hours he 
 passed, standing and talking, while she sat in the 
 quiet of her doorway listening to his philosophical 
 rambles on how to cultivate the friendship of setting 
 hens ; that a rooster can teach any one lessons in good 
 manners, and such topics so fearfully irrelevant to 
 the theme for which she thirsted, something of his 
 past. She never found opportunity to lead up to 
 this subject. He always came with something to 
 say, said it, then had something else to say, and so 
 on, always standing, ever on the point of leaving. 
 
 The widow had doubtless measured the span of
 
 144 TAMAM 
 
 twenty years existing between them, and felt immune 
 to the possibilities of neighborhood comment. But 
 younger women, somehow, became particularly con- 
 scious of the friendship they had long entertained 
 for the widow. Though what opportunity offered? 
 Should they go to her house to return some butter, 
 borrow some eggs or get a cake receipt, he always 
 saw them in time to take to the shelter of the pole 
 beans or the sugar corn. 
 
 One resourceful young woman suggested that the 
 sewing-circle meet at the widow's ; but whoever heard 
 of a man being enticed near such a thing as that? 
 Why not make it a quilting-party, after the old-time 
 custom, where men went through the ludicrous per- 
 formance of sewing? The widow knew he could not 
 be gotten into the house. Then why not have it out 
 of doors, a kind of picnic " quilting-bee " ? That 
 surely was the thing! And while the widow warned 
 them she would not guarantee his attendance, yet she 
 said she would do her best. She knew how to be 
 adroit, and could put it in the light of his helping 
 her prepare for the occasion, then keep him on hand 
 until he could be delivered to the first arrival, who 
 in turn would hold him until reinforced. 
 
 So it was agreed, and how busy the neighborhood 
 became! the mothers planning tempting morsels, the 
 daughters frocks, and all a series of questions to be 
 asked in an indeterminable way, such as to avoid 
 suspicion, though when arranged in sequence would 
 throw light upon his mysterious past. 
 
 The widow's suggestion that he help her met with
 
 THE POTTER'S FIELD 145 
 
 his warmest enthusiasm. He would do all, and make 
 everyone fear to undertake a similar function owing 
 to the high standard she had established. Both 
 fairly swam in the delirium of excitement incident to 
 the great success they would make of it. 
 
 How he did work the melons, pinch back the 
 suckers, and prime the new shoots so as to time their 
 ripening for the great day ! He put the cow on 
 fresh pasture, picked the burrs from her tail, and 
 even contemplated putting a flynet over her, all of 
 which measures were, in his judgment, particularly 
 conducive to the production of rich cream. 
 
 The day set for the great occasion finally came ; 
 and before the widow had finished breakfast, he had 
 begun the arrangement of the settees, benches, ham- 
 mocks, and even the quilting-frame. She stood in 
 her doorway and looked on with a smile, knowing full 
 well his ambition was to carry out his own conception 
 without hindrance or advice from any one. She 
 knew he had marked the positions the shade would 
 have at the appointed hour, and that he courted her 
 comment as to why he had placed the seats for the 
 guests in the glare of the morning sun. Vanity 
 exists in strange fashions in women, and she denied 
 him the pleasure he would have found in his reply. 
 
 He spent a busy morning, fixing hooks in the 
 trees for the support of the lemonade buckets, over 
 which an elder-wood " spile " was driven into the tree 
 in imitation of " tapping " for sugar water ; design- 
 ing a pretended camp-fire, over which a pot swung 
 from its " three-stake " support, where the hard-
 
 146 TAMAM 
 
 boiling of the stuffed-egg salads was supposedly 
 done; arranging an isolated sewing-table, where dif- 
 fident girls could go off to themselves and be happy ; 
 collecting horseshoes and a couple of harrow teeth, 
 that diffident men might go off to themselves and be 
 happy. And so the morning passed, leaving to his 
 credit a goodly number of ingenious conceptions. 
 The widow had been equally busy in the preparation 
 of " egg-kisses " and charlotte russe, for which she 
 was locally famous. No one ever dared compete with 
 her in the making of either of these confections ; and 
 with the unusually fine cream of that morning the 
 charlotte russe surpassed all previous efforts, while 
 the " egg-kisses " so closely resembled spun-glass, 
 of a creamy color, as to arouse suspicion. 
 
 In the early afternoon one very ambitious young 
 woman came, suggesting she might be of some use, 
 but found everything arranged except the stretching 
 of the quilt. This she and the widow proceeded to 
 do. 
 
 The procedure at a quilting-party such as this 
 consisted in the guests doing fancy stitching around 
 the edges of the many-colored silk, satin and velvet 
 pieces of irregular pattern combining to make the 
 " crazy-quilt." This stitching concealed the edging, 
 and when done in a variety of styles and colored silk 
 threads formed a wonderfully beautiful piece of 
 handiwork. Such a quilt was not the work of a day, 
 or of an individual, but of a family and its friends, 
 and even a generation. In its development there 
 was often brought into use portions of the grand-
 
 THE POTTER'S FIELD 147 
 
 father's silken " stock " ; a scrap from the mother's 
 satin wedding gown, aged to a beautiful amber 
 shade; and the ribbon that was tied around the 
 daughter's diploma. The same quilt would serve at 
 more than one party, and many times, before com- 
 pletion, entered upon the purpose of its creation, 
 that of being displayed at the annual county fair. 
 Some pieces would be elaborately embroidered, others 
 covered with initials, with here and there a few dis- 
 arranged stitches, showing a masculine hand had 
 come in at that particular place ; sometimes a spider- 
 web, in silver threads, with a brown spider nearby, 
 perhaps showing two protruding red eyes. Such 
 a party afforded opportunity for skill in work and 
 ingenuity of design ; also an excuse for youths and 
 maidens, when working on adjoining pieces, to get 
 their hands together, their heads together, and even 
 their hearts together. 
 
 When the quilt had been stretched, the widow 
 explained a certain square of smoke-tinted silk had 
 been cut from one of her wedding garments, and that 
 she proposed asking him to work the initials of his 
 name on it, explaining, with a twinkle, that at the 
 same time she would be getting something toward 
 his history. " And I want to work on the square 
 just below that," suggested the young woman. So 
 they continued planning groups with respect to 
 possible congenialities, unconscious as to how patent 
 it was that the smoke-tinted silk received the great- 
 est portion of their thoughts. 
 
 The widow had not seen him since the forenoon;
 
 148 TAMAM 
 
 and, busied as she was, the time for the arrival of her 
 guests had come too soon, and after all found her 
 single-handed save for the presence of the ambitious 
 young woman who had come early. Nor could her 
 guests conceal their disappointment when received 
 by her as a lone hostess. Later, when he was seen 
 in the distance calmly strolling about in his shirt 
 sleeves, it dawned upon them all that he had no idea 
 of coming. Immediately the quilting-party was 
 doomed. The smoke-tinted silk lost its charm, and 
 with the exception of a few steady spinsters who con- 
 stituted the charter members of the " circle," the 
 quilt was deserted. 
 
 A second ambitious young woman, together with 
 the first, obtained the widow's permission to carry 
 to him her message that he was wanted. Being com- 
 pletely off his guard he had stopped at the garden 
 fence, and resting his arms on the top rail was ab- 
 sorbed in admiration of his own skill as a gardener. 
 As the young women were coming toward him from 
 the rear they talked in low tones that it might ap- 
 pear they were not endeavoring to approach stealth- 
 ily, yet they were careful that these tones could be 
 heard at no considerable distance. Believing them- 
 selves sufficiently near for the delivery of their mes- 
 sage, they raised their tones to attract his atten- 
 tion. When he caught the sound of voices, without 
 so much as a turn of the head he grasped the top 
 rail of the fence, and made a hand-spring, as if he 
 had just decided to do something in the garden. 
 The top rail was too weak and gave way with a crash,
 
 THE POTTER'S FIELD 149 
 
 letting him fall in the midst of his famous dwarf 
 peas. The young women, fearing he might be in- 
 jured, after a momentary pause neared the break 
 in the fence. Up he sprang like a deer, and made 
 for cover among the pole beans. They saw a form 
 swallowed up in the jungle and clash of the once 
 symmetrically placed poles, and by the wake that 
 followed him through the sweet corn, knew he had 
 not stopped there. This furnished sufficient ex- 
 citement to make the party take on new life, and 
 later, when the guests had surveyed the wreck of 
 the prize garden and enjoyed a laugh at the widow's 
 expense, they departed in good humor. 
 
 It is unlikely if any one enjoyed the episode so 
 thoroughly as he who had wrought the devastation. 
 After that he always protested against the widow's 
 having a woman come on the place, giving as his 
 reason it made him break down more corn than would 
 be needed to supply the horse and cow for a month 
 during midwinter. 
 
 When the combination of new surroundings, simple 
 living, fresh air, independent occupation and un- 
 selfish thought is brought to bear on a depleted 
 constitution of normally healthy construction, the 
 effect produced is but short of marvelous. These 
 remedies were rapidly restoring to him that buoy- 
 ancy characteristic of youth. 
 
 The old sore caused by a one-time unrequited love 
 had healed, and every vein in his body ran with new
 
 150 TAMAM 
 
 blood: a blood that filled him with love and admira- 
 tion, love for himself, and admiration for his own 
 self-mastery. His was perfect contentment, absolute 
 defiance to that great portion of the world beyond his 
 own horizon. Therefore, when an unusual-appear- 
 ing letter package reached him, bearing evidence of 
 having taken a circuitous route through the postal 
 channels, it is not strange that he involuntarily re- 
 sented its trespass-like entrance into the sacred do- 
 main of his sequestered life. It is not supposed he 
 waited until he had sought the sanctity of his room, 
 but, more probably, with some appropriate ex- 
 pletive, made one of those jagged tears, as we do 
 when the letter is neither expected nor desired. A 
 small note-book was revealed, bearing his name in 
 gilt letters on the cover. To see our name in print, 
 particularly in gilt letters, is more than apt to touch 
 our sense of vanity. So it was with curiosity, and 
 some pride, he examined the book. Down in the left 
 hand corner was a word that filled him with con- 
 tempt. Who would send him a " Diary," the school- 
 girl's secret and the old maid's solace? He seemed 
 to recall that years before one had been given him, 
 one similar to this. What had become of it, he knew 
 not yes, he had lost it, and here was the same old 
 book following him through his various movements. 
 Knowing full well he never had nor ever intended to 
 write in it, he let the leaves fly rapidly from the ball 
 of his thumb, to discover it was written in, from cover 
 to cover, and in a feminine hand. His eye rested 
 on a paragraph, beginning, " I am sad to-day and
 
 THE POTTER'S FIELD 151 
 
 heavy at heart ; " then another, " I have decided to 
 trust him to my tender mercies That was 
 
 enough. He glanced around to see if he had 
 been observed, then quickly placed the book in his 
 pocket. 
 
 The principal difference between woman's curi- 
 osity and man's is that a woman's is nearer the sur- 
 face and asserts itself more readily. It is in man to 
 an equal extent, only not so easily aroused. He 
 dwelt on the strange combination of a woman's diary 
 written between covers bearing his own name, and its 
 reaching him in a way so mysterious as to be un- 
 fathomable. 
 
 Later, he sought the sanctity of his own room, and 
 from the care and composure with which he arranged 
 himself in a chair, it was evident a reverie of some 
 length was anticipated. 
 
 That wonderful sensation, felt just as an intense 
 curiosity is being gratified, was abruptly disturbed 
 when in the opening sentence he read, " And through 
 
 it all, I have waited for your owner to come ' 
 
 He closed and lowered the book. For what reason 
 under the blue canopy of heaven had she chosen so 
 strange a way for communicating with him? Why, 
 after the years of suffering such as he had under- 
 gone, was his long struggle for peace of mind to be 
 baffled, and he tripped at the very portals of the 
 goal? Deep down in his breast an old sore began to 
 twitch, to throb, to pain, to fester. Was the new 
 blood in his veins to be displaced by the bitter excre- 
 tions of past memories?
 
 152 TAMAM 
 
 Oh ! human nature, with your unpreconceived tend- 
 encies, through what reason was there interpolated 
 into your scheme of life the avenging spirit of mortal 
 man? 
 
 Again he let the leaves fly from the ball of his 
 thumb, to find a blank space at the end, where he in- 
 tended to write, " He who laughs last " It was 
 
 there his eye rested on the paragraph, " Help me 
 keep my secret from the heartless world, and through 
 pity keep it from him. I pray not to die of a broken 
 
 heart, from his learning of my love " Again he 
 
 instinctively glanced about to see if he was observed 
 while replacing the book in his pocket. 
 
 What was he to understand? She certainly had 
 not sent to him what he felt must be her life-secrets. 
 Another must have done that. They had not ex- 
 changed communications since that evening in the 
 graveyard more than ten years before. He was con- 
 scious of having written one or more letters to her 
 during this interval, but his courage invariably failed 
 before sending them. The suggestion forced itself 
 upon him that this book had been found among her 
 possessions, and bearing his name had been mailed to 
 him, while she at that moment was filling the souls of 
 her angel companions with the melody of her mar- 
 velous laughter as she looked down upon him. Who 
 would have sent him the book, knowing that it con- 
 tained her plea that these secrets be kept? No one, 
 surely, therefore the secrets up to that time must 
 have been safe. His manhood was strong and had 
 never failed him in a crisis.
 
 THE POTTER'S FIELD 153 
 
 If her secrets were up to that time safe, they 
 should continue so, and in no keeping more trusted 
 than his own. Meditation made him feel so sure 
 as to the correctness of his deduction that he re- 
 served for himself the doubt one always entertains 
 regarding an unverified belief. 
 
 A balm of hallowed memories soothed the old sore, 
 and, pervaded with the spirit of forgiveness, he pic- 
 tured her in the regal splendor of her beauty, and no 
 sense of anguish filled his breast. He arose and 
 mechanically went through the performance of some 
 routine duties, utterly devoid of his usual zest. Upon 
 retiring that night he soon reached the haven of rest- 
 ful sleep, only to awaken after a few hours and find 
 himself in a flood of thought. He determined to 
 be no sheep-herder; he had done that once before. 
 If sleep did not seek him, he would scorn it. He 
 completely dressed himself, after his usual manner, 
 for the day; and before the eastern horizon had 
 dissolved into the shell-like tints of dawn, he had 
 read the book from cover to cover, nor had he sacri- 
 ficed one iota of his manhood. 
 
 If his movements became varied after this, the 
 widow failed to take .notice. She was accustomed to 
 his eccentricities, knowing he cultivated them. Had 
 she been sufficiently well observant she would have 
 learned he had obtained a small pocket note-book; 
 that it bore no name upon its cover, nor the word 
 " diary." She would have learned further that he 
 carried it with him, and at times wrote in it. She 
 did, however, notice a tenderness in his speech, and
 
 154 TAMAM 
 
 once detected a sigh escaping his lips. What was 
 more, she saw, sticking in the lapel of his coat, one 
 of the very earliest spring violets. She feared he 
 was becoming restless, but knew full well there was 
 nothing to be done or said, and she trusted his per- 
 sonality would be able to dispel any depression that 
 might be overshadowing his apparently contented 
 life. 
 
 In the very foremost hours of a crisp spring morn- 
 ing, winter, in its dying gasp, had once more exhaled 
 its frosty breath, and everything was covered with 
 white. The air crackled with its overcharge of static 
 ether. Over the frozen ground came rolling along 
 in wonderful clearness the sounds from crowing cocks, 
 miles away. It seemed that nature was supplying 
 a tonic to the enervated life which had weathered her 
 winter. 
 
 He, too, was ready to partake of this tonic, and 
 started for a nearby hill to watch the rising of the 
 sun. A faithful old dog left its bed to join in the 
 walk, but soon stopped, wrinkled its nose in em- 
 barrassment, wagged itself into the form of the letter 
 " S," by way of apology, then grudgingly put each 
 foot on the frosted grass until it reached the warm 
 straw in the box. 
 
 As he walked on, he blew out his breath into the 
 chilled air in little steam-like clouds, sometimes con- 
 tracting his lips to form a small orifice and giving 
 intermittent escapement noises, as though once again 
 a youthful steam engine ; then, with mouth wide open, 
 emitting in puffs and clouds that delicious smoke in
 
 THE POTTER'S FIELD 155 
 
 which every boy has indulged in the reveries of his 
 childhood. 
 
 The sallow shading of the east was fast being dis- 
 sipated into the faintly yellow and leaden streaks of 
 the new-born day. On he came, watching the streaks 
 grow shorter and the sky take on its tallow cast as 
 the pale face of the sun rose above the horizon. The 
 grandeur of the rising sun is more a poetic thought 
 than a truth. 
 
 His attention was diverted from the sunrise by see- 
 ing a man crawl out of a hollow tree, stretch both 
 arms, holding them high above the shoulders, as a 
 bird with lifted wings, and at the same time give a 
 grunt of satisfaction as he exhaled a deep-drawn 
 breath. Neither ceasing in the blowing of his steam 
 clouds, nor changing his pace, he veered his course 
 so as to appear his special mission was to go to that 
 tree. Nearing it, he addressed the surprised man, 
 who stood blinking through embarrassment and 
 sleepiness. 
 
 " Why is a sleepy old rooster like you trying to 
 crow this time in the morning? You must have 
 roosted well to be sleeping so late. I didn't know 
 I made my guests spend their nights out in the 
 woods ; couldn't you find the latch string, or climb 
 in the window? " After which remark he made the 
 woodland ring with laughter. 
 
 The blinking eyes quickened, and the tramp's face 
 wrinkled into a smile as he replied, " The old tree 
 opened its heart to me, let me go into its trunk, 
 stood watch like a dog while I slept, and woke me
 
 156 TAMAM 
 
 with its bark, as you came up " at the same time 
 picking pieces of trash from beneath his shirt collar. 
 Again the woodland rang with laughter, after which 
 the tramp grinned a reply to an invitation for break- 
 fast. 
 
 It is a happy fate that brings two lonely souls to- 
 gether, and a remarkable fate that brought these 
 two, so different and yet so similar. They were 
 counterparts in stature, both in the prime of life, yet 
 a study of the footprints they left on the frosted 
 grass would have revealed their difference in char- 
 acter. One line of prints was clear cut and defined, 
 showing elasticity in movement ; in the other, midway 
 between prints, was the gouge mark of a toe, as one 
 makes when shambling. 
 
 Incongruous as it may seem, each had chosen to 
 isolate himself from what both would have termed the 
 inconsistencies of their fellow-creatures. One, from 
 an inborn apathy for idleness, the other, from the 
 same apathy for work. In the philosophy of one, 
 the populous world restricted his activities ; in that of 
 the other, it restricted his leisure. The two, reason- 
 ing from diametrically opposite points of view, had 
 reached the same conclusion. Can any deduction be 
 more logically obtained? 
 
 There are few who know the delights of the re- 
 cluse, few who possess enough individuality to dwell 
 in the realm of their own personality and find them- 
 selves sufficiently companionable. 
 
 Among the untold forms of worship is a small sect 
 who call themselves " Sitters." They constitute so
 
 THE POTTER'S FIELD 157 
 
 infinitesimal a part of the human race they are not 
 reckoned with in the catalogue of religions. The 
 creed of the " Sitter " is self-adoration. In prac- 
 tice they seek retirement, and " sit " each day while 
 the sun is crossing the meridian. During this time 
 they absolve themselves from every thought common 
 to the association of their daily pursuits, and view 
 themselves in magnificent isolation against the great 
 background of creative nature. The consolation to 
 be found in a glance so retrospective, at one's own 
 personality, is known only to those strong in the 
 faith. The " sitter " is not selfish, only human. To 
 him the spark of existence that glows in his being is 
 the one thing in the incomprehensible vastness of 
 the universe that is absolutely indispensable to his 
 happiness, and he worships that spark. 
 
 When the men had reached the cabin, each, with 
 due respect to the philosophy of the other, followed 
 the bend of his own inclination. While one sought 
 the nearest resemblance to an easy chair, the other 
 got out the paraphernalia essential for preparing a 
 bachelor's breakfast; one talked loudly, freely, face- 
 tiously, incessantly ; the other, in subdued chuckling 
 monotones. Each one looked upon the other with 
 unbridled curiosity, each equally gratified in supply- 
 ing interest to the other; in fact, two affinities, that 
 must have long sought each other, originating at the 
 two extremes of human nature. 
 
 Fast was the tantalizing fragrance of frying 
 bacon and the aroma of strong coffee mellowing the 
 ordinate sympathies of each for the other's stomach,
 
 158 TAMAM 
 
 until finally, two more thoroughly congenial spirits 
 never dispensed and partook of the same hospitality. 
 
 After breakfast the guest extracted a pipe from 
 the lining of his clothes, while the host began a 
 series of leading personal questions, which were 
 answered without hesitation. 
 
 " Yes," the guest replied, he had worked, and, when 
 he did, could lay brick to the " Queen's taste." The 
 habit, though, had been easily overcome. He had 
 eaten of the crumbs that fell from the rich man's 
 table, and had dined in homes where they measured 
 time by the movement of a shadow on the puncheon 
 floor. He was fully awake to the common fancy 
 that men of his profession are imbued with a love 
 for poetry and song; in consequence, could quote 
 " snatches " from Burns. He knew how to explain 
 that " carelessness in sleeping on the weather side 
 of haystacks," etc., etc. And so the two men passed 
 a morning in the exchange of remarkable experi- 
 ences, being remarkable in that the exchange was 
 confined entirely to the experiences of the guest. 
 
 The host suggested the substitution of one of his 
 own abandoned coats for that worn by his guest, 
 which suggestion, together with the coat, was cheer- 
 fully accepted. It was well past the time for doing 
 the daily chores, and the host, extending an invitation 
 to the guest to accompany him, proceeded to lead the 
 way. What could the guest do but follow? 
 
 As the chill of the morning diminished, the host 
 removed his coat and hung it on the fence. The 
 guest felt it the part of policy to imitate in this prep-
 
 THE POTTER'S FIELD 159 
 
 aration. After a series of various duties, in which 
 the guest appeared not to comprehend what was to 
 be done until the task was nearly completed, the men 
 replaced their coats, and with the profuse acknowl- 
 edgments of each as to the pleasure the other had 
 afforded, separated. 
 
 The guest took up his endless journey, ever con- 
 sistent with his philosophy, having neither a care for 
 the past nor a thought for the morrow ; asking noth- 
 ing, with nothing to give in return, believing himself 
 a legitimate heir to the fruits of the earth, though 
 with no intention to assert his claim, if disputed; 
 recognizing himself a benefit to humanity, in that he 
 made the number one less in the entries for the great 
 race of human strife where fellow-men sought to 
 crush each other beneath the weight of their own 
 ambitions. He was satisfied to imbibe the morning 
 freshness of a care-free day, and, like the lilies that 
 neither toil nor spin but quench their thirst with the 
 spirit of Nature's bounty, he drank such of the spirit 
 of generosity as he could drain from fellow-creatures 
 through the open frankness of his appeal. 
 
 So he passes on through the world of men and 
 things, neither leaving footprints on the sands nor 
 scarring himself against the stern realities of life. 
 
 A city of to-day is remarkable in its resemblance 
 to a thing of life; with veins through which the cor- 
 puscle-like mass of humanity reach its heart; vast 
 arteries through which they surge to its uttermost
 
 160 TAMAM 
 
 parts when the brain has tired at the close of the 
 day; a nature changeable as the winds, only too 
 humanlike, charitable to excess, then mired in the 
 stagnation of its selfishness ; feverish with the ex- 
 citement of either pageant or panic, or chilled with 
 indifference as to the elements which enter into the 
 constitution of its conglomerate self ; for the moment 
 throbbing in the intensity of action, again sleeping 
 with slow and measured pulsation, pulsation even 
 more sensitive than in a creature of life. You can 
 feel the heart-beats through its innumerable arms ; 
 its intellectuality through the arm of the press ; 
 ostentation, through the arm of its fashion ; charity, 
 through the arm of its benefactions ; morals, through 
 the arm of its society ; health, through the arm of its 
 sanitariums. 
 
 Go through the labyrinth of a city's thorough- 
 fares, with its endless throng of humanity making 
 you feel afloat on a human sea, and where is a place 
 more lonely? Where is a place more hushed in the 
 stillness of its own incessant uttering of sounds less 
 familiar to the human heart? If the Babel-like dron- 
 ing of incoherent articulations stupefy and produce 
 dilemma in your brain, you will be jostled and 
 trampled by the giant myriapod with human legs, or 
 crushed by the wheels of impatient traffic. Nor is 
 there charity enough in all that sea for one wave to 
 bear you on its crest from out of the human mael- 
 strom and moisten your temple with a spray of kind- 
 ness. 
 
 In the unconsciousness of your delirium you will lie
 
 THE POTTER'S FIELD 161 
 
 as you have fallen, while morbid curiosity compels 
 the craning and elongation of necks for a glance at 
 your nostrils in their muscular contortions, instinc- 
 tively endeavoring to obtain that precious life-giving 
 oxygen which your fellowmen are stealing, as they 
 crowd around, with never a thought of a helping 
 hand. Some one, in the garb of public benefactor, 
 may notify the health department, and very soon the 
 crowd will give way before the clanging of alarms. 
 There will be no waiting to learn your name or pref- 
 erence regarding your disposition, for you have sud- 
 denly become the city's " ward ;" and, irrespective 
 of your degree of social elevation or degradation, 
 you will be lifted with that wonderful tenderness ac- 
 quired through experience, rather than sympathy, to 
 be whirled away to the hospital. 
 
 Out from the loneliness of the crowded street with 
 its noise and confusion, and never a responsive look, 
 you are ushered into surroundings where every 
 thought is for your comfort, every face one of sym- 
 pathy, and every soul your servant. 
 
 If you fail to respond, a record is made of your 
 personal appearance, and any belongings are de- 
 posited as an aid for your identification. You will 
 then be given a serial number and laid to rest in one 
 of those long, unsymmetrical rows in the potter's 
 field, those long rows the queer old grave-digger 
 makes. 
 
 Of modern inventions for the benefit of mankind 
 the hospital stands first, though for it we have a 
 natural antipathy, and its mention sends a shiver
 
 162 TAMAM 
 
 through us. With it we associate the " stretcher," 
 the surgeon's knife, the penetrating odors from anti- 
 septics, and all those dreaded appliances which, even 
 though mercifully designed for the alleviation of 
 human suffering, fill us with mortal fear. But once 
 you have been carried across its threshold, your very 
 prejudices will have made you a convert as to the in- 
 estimable value in this branch of a city's public in- 
 stitutions. 
 
 Follow the course of those who make their life- 
 work within hospital walls, and there will be revealed 
 to you a phase of character totally inconsistent with 
 the walks of life as you know them. Is it conceiv- 
 able there are those who deliberately take up the 
 work in a hospital ward, with its manifold responsi- 
 bilities and countless requirements, to battle with all 
 the idiosyncrasies possessed by human nature, to 
 stand as the strongest ally of a human life in its 
 fight against death, this in full knowledge that vic- 
 tory brings neither reward nor release, and that de- 
 feat but calls for a multiplied effort? In whom do 
 we find this remarkable form of human stamina, this 
 ceaseless vitality, this concentration of purpose with- 
 out end? Not in the boasted strength of man, but 
 in the purported frailness of woman. 
 
 The myths of the past come to us as legacies in 
 untold forms, and as their hidden meaning is revealed, 
 we wonder if the genius lies with the originator of 
 the myth or is that of our own self. At any rate, 
 we love myths, if for nothing else, for their subtlety 
 of expression.
 
 THE POTTER'S FIELD 163 
 
 Since Pandora opened the box and saw the swarm 
 of evil spirits take flight, and closed the lid in time to 
 stop only one little weak spirit who called herself 
 " Hope," since that time, at some period of its exist- 
 ence, every human life has clutched at the flimsy 
 gauze-like skirts of " Hope." And so often has the 
 mazy garment of cob web-like weave trailed on 
 through stiffened fingers, we are prone to raise the 
 lid for just one more peep, that it may perchance 
 reveal the true guise of the little self-styled spirit. 
 
 How easily we recognize the variegated garbs of 
 those who escaped ! There is " Disappointment " 
 trailing her long octopus-like streamers, as though 
 she had a hand to grasp from us the goal of every 
 ambition. There is " Age," with her flour-dipped 
 fingers and the deceitful garb of adoration, ever 
 anxious to stroke our heads. There is " Physical- 
 ills," in her myriad of diversified forms, ever flaunt- 
 ing in our faces the incomprehensibility of her tech- 
 nical nomenclature. There is " Sorrow," with the 
 shroud in one hand, while in the other she has a cup 
 of bitter tears to stain our cheek and inflame our 
 eyes until, blinded, we grope in the dark for " Hope," 
 whose slender form is so mysteriously concealed. 
 
 The world is as thoroughly familiar with those 
 spirits that Pandora released as it is unfamiliar with 
 the single one held captive, and the midnight oil of 
 reason has long been burned in a vain effort to deter- 
 mine the identity of this little spirit. But some day 
 another Pandora may come; and should she open the 
 lid, for only the least bit of a peep, she will discover
 
 164 TAMAM 
 
 the little spirit has developed a countenance wonder- 
 fully serious, responsive though resolute, tolerant 
 though deterrent, and from her presence will emanate 
 an influence seductive of our complete reliance. This 
 little spirit, " Hope," will be found to have clothed 
 herself in a garb of immaculate white, emulating the 
 spotless guise of a nurse. 
 
 Is it strange that in the confines of a hospital, a 
 place we enter with trepidation and speculative sus- 
 picion, is it strange that " Hope " has taken up her 
 abode there? Where could we need her more? 
 There, where acts of heroism are of such daily oc- 
 currence, they are merely entered in a tabulated 
 record ; where the daily display of marvelous fortitude 
 brings to us the consciousness of our own weakness, 
 there is where we need the little spirit, and once we 
 have looked into her face we know her. 
 
 There is a certain factor in the make-up of life 
 we term " sympathy." Were it necessary to give a 
 definition to this word, it could be defined as that 
 mental condition capable of being communicated be- 
 tween two natures when in a state of mutual equilib- 
 rium. There is no word in the language of tongues 
 meaning more, nor one whose meaning has become 
 more distorted. Without sympathy there would be 
 no hope; hope dwells only in the human breast, and 
 without it no breast would be human. 
 
 Hope is the richest of treasures. It is only with 
 bated breath we ask, " Has he lost hope? " 
 
 Stand by the sick bed of a loved one whose drops 
 of life-blood are ebbing; and though the bitterest of
 
 THE POTTER'S FIELD 165 
 
 anguish floods your breast, yet this very anguish 
 serves as a narcotic to hold you in complacent calm- 
 ness. But let one whisper the single word " hope," 
 and how quickly the bonds break. One scintilla of 
 hope changes your flood of despair into tears of joy, 
 until they stream down your cheek. Despair may be 
 confined to the deadliness of inward bleeding, but the 
 spring of hope in the human breast must find an 
 outlet. 
 
 Life in itself is nothing. The very multitudinous 
 forms in which it exists makes it so. It is common 
 to every form in the lexicon of the animal world. It 
 is no more to the bird of beautiful plumage that 
 soars in the blue of the sky, than to the loathsome 
 creature, in its coat of slime, that grovels on the 
 bottom of the sea. Nothing so common can be of 
 value. It is only the little trait of character called 
 " human " that lends a value to life. And this same 
 little " trait," whether it waxens to giant strength or 
 shrivels to a pygmy in size, has, since the creation 
 of man, sought its daily nourishment from the hand 
 of the little spirit that Pandora retained. 
 
 " Variety is the spice of life " is a time-worn ex- 
 pression more or less enigmatical in meaning. It is 
 a quotation ever appropriate in justification of the 
 multifarious acts of man, and serves as an apology 
 for every form of debauchery. The world of mean- 
 ing oftentimes clothed in homely slang is the result 
 of simile that has passed through the transcendent 
 steps of decapitation until the stage of aphorism is 
 reached. For this reason it becomes necessary to
 
 166 TAMAM 
 
 reclothe the thought, that its true sense may be dis- 
 sociated from its distortion. 
 
 Diversification is a cardinal essential in the superior 
 development of human life. Whether it be in the 
 sphere intellectual, or merely in the amplified forms 
 that compose the natural craving of a pent-up spirit, 
 the absence of diversity tends to a morbid condition 
 of mind and body. Rather than the spice, it is the 
 tonic, the restorer of depleted individuality. The 
 form it assumes varies with the inherent proclivities 
 of the individual. Religion is a common form of 
 diversity, and has served to alleviate the hide-bound 
 condition of mankind from its beginning. If it were 
 nothing more than diversity, religion would well 
 serve a purpose. The sentiment in our nature 
 creates a desire for secret communion. Our con- 
 science deserves a recipient for its outpouring; our 
 burdens assume such proportions they must be rested, 
 and to all purposes of human intent it is immaterial 
 whether they be deposited at the feet of a wooden 
 god or a living intermediary, or even diffused 
 through fervent appeals to the mysterious conceptor 
 of our destiny. 
 
 A deplorable form of diversification is that wherein 
 it appeals to the baser instincts of human passion. 
 Through this form, the motives of intemperance, im- 
 morality and countless dissipations find room for 
 mature growth. Such forms become more properly 
 " the spice " for an inordinate appetite. 
 
 An additional form which diversity assumes is 
 through its appeal to the nobler instincts. Here it
 
 THE POTTER'S FIELD 167 
 
 is the desire of human nature in its frailness to de- 
 velop strength through the uplifting of its fellow- 
 creatures ; to supply the deficiencies of others from 
 the scantiness of their own ; to lend to those depleted 
 in strength the whole of their own inadequate 
 amount. 
 
 Diversification is a natural desire, and that at 
 times it leads to paths of self-sacrifice, even though 
 it be to extinguish the secret fire of a smouldering 
 disappointment, it is well for mankind there are 
 those strong in heart, even though clothed in fem- 
 inine frailness, who take on the garb of immaculate 
 white, and create, in themselves, a habitude for the 
 frail little spirit, " Hope." 
 
 In the midst of the activities of a certain charity 
 hospital, where the call for human stamina on the 
 part of the nurses is greatest, there moved the post- 
 humous daughter in her garb of immaculate white. 
 
 Just how it comes that a small white cap comprises 
 part of a nurse's uniform is of no consequence. The 
 cap she wore, and the wonderful black hair that 
 laved her temples combined to produce an effect 
 suggesting the possibility, either the cap or the 
 hair had been designed, the one for the other. There 
 was always a faint suggestion she wore the cap for 
 effect. The hair never appeared to have been re- 
 cently fixed, or to need fixing, but remained at that 
 point where a stray ringlet extricates itself from the 
 combs to steal over the face so she must push it
 
 168 TAMAM 
 
 back while you watch it stealthily slide down again. 
 The softened color in the full flush of her face had 
 been fixed by the mordant time, and neither the 
 strain of activities nor the bleaching atmosphere of 
 deodorants, in which she lived, brought the blanch 
 into her cheek. This in itself appeared as though 
 for effect, for the contrast against her garb of white, 
 as she moved in the midst of colorless faces, was 
 startling. 
 
 Was the low form of the unadorned collar of a 
 nurse's uniform designed to display the classic lines 
 of her neck and throat, or was it merely a coinci- 
 dence ? 
 
 A child sees its mother first when resting in her 
 arms, is why the moulder of the feminine face 
 fashioned it from that point. As seen from there, 
 the downcast position of the eyes produces that 
 expression in the face for which the artist strives 
 when portraying " motherly adoration." So, was 
 it for effect, that as she stood at the bedside of pros- 
 trate patients, administering to their wants, if when 
 she leaned over them she chanced to rest in that 
 position where the beauty of the lines of her throat 
 and neck were most enhanced, and the depths of blue 
 were deepened by the downcasting of her eyes ? And 
 was it for effect, when in response to voices coming 
 from irritated throats and swollen tongues whose 
 words seemed to scratch as though they had sharp 
 corners, that she replied in tones wonderfully modu- 
 lated and of that marvelous quality, such that every 
 ear catching the sound would turn toward her? On
 
 THE POTTER'S FIELD 169 
 
 the whole, was it for effect, that from the slough of 
 despond, wherein smouldered the consuming fire 
 of a secret love, she sought diversification where the 
 romance of life is so thoroughly eclipsed by the 
 strangeness of its realities? If so, her conceit of 
 vanity was impelled through motives in which the 
 mental beauty was only equalled by that in her face. 
 
 Her life was of the hospital routine, which means 
 the reverse of what it implies ; for in a hospital there 
 is no routine ; only an endless sequence of changes. 
 If she gave the soul of her sympathy to a strange 
 face, before the face became familiar it would vanish. 
 The requirements of one day involved a cycle of 
 time, rather than the life of a nurse, before repeti- 
 tion. The only routine was in the ceaselessness of 
 the activities, save, perhaps, the " social hour " fol- 
 lowing tea. Here was the first mark of punctuation 
 in the daily sentence. 
 
 Feminine nature demands the exchange of con- 
 fidences, confidences which are not intended to be 
 kept, but to be passed along as such. This has 
 led to such exchanges, among women, being called 
 gossip. If it is gossip, this is what " spice " the 
 white-garbed incarnations of hope have to flavor the 
 unpalatableness of their daily mental food. One of 
 the prerequisites of a hospital nurse is the ability to 
 throw off the inevitable depression consequent from 
 a day's environment, such as comprises their lives, 
 and for the time being indulge themselves in those 
 frivolous ways which only a woman knows. 
 
 It was seldom this exchange of confidences partook
 
 170 TAMAM 
 
 of a serious nature or involved the graver episodes 
 of the day, for of these there would be no end ; but 
 the fatal termination of an " unidentified " was a sub- 
 ject always admissible, since feminine nature loves to 
 clothe mystery in romance, if its structure is but 
 strong enough to bear the weight of a garb ever so 
 light. 
 
 When the clanging of alarms prefaced the en- 
 trance into the hospital of a man who, though in a 
 state of unconsciousness, was fair in face and in the 
 prime of life, even if his personal apparel was wretch- 
 edly disheveled and his breath foul with the deadened 
 odor of liquor, there was the usual interest when 
 he had been pronounced " unknown." The infor- 
 mation accompanying was to the effect that owing 
 to his state of intoxication he had been run down 
 in the street. Could it be possible he had endeavored 
 to stop a fleeing horse which was threatening every 
 life in the path of its mad rush? There was no 
 harm in letting this speculative covering serve as his 
 shroud, for he never regained consciousness, but 
 passed through the mortal portals of this world and 
 entered upon the unknown journey beyond with no 
 designation other than a serial number. Had he 
 fulfilled no purpose in life, in his death he had served 
 to add a few cents extra to the meagre earnings of 
 the potter's field grave-digger. 
 
 While this particular " unidentified " was inter- 
 esting in his own right, what made him more so was 
 the nature of his personal possessions, among which 
 there was a small pocket note-book bearing no name
 
 THE POTTER'S FIELD 171 
 
 though written through. It was this one of the 
 nurses had gotten from the collection of his " Articles 
 for Identification " and was reading aloud to a num- 
 ber of eager listeners, who had gathered for the 
 social hour. 
 
 " When I look into the deep of the azured heavens, 
 is it the depths in the blue of your eyes that I see? 
 
 " Is each curling cloud in its phantasmic life a 
 ringlet that plays o'er your brow? 
 
 " And the soft voice of nature, in the hush of the 
 wind and the ripple of the brook, does it come from 
 your lips? 
 
 " Is each life-giving breeze, that kisses my face 
 and deposits the balm of its solace, the breath that 
 went out with your spirit? 
 
 " Is the perfume of flowers and their glory of 
 raiment but the visible fragrance of your scented 
 presence? 
 
 " Is it your call that brings me to the placid calm 
 of solitude, and at this trysting place is it you who 
 entrances me with your smile through the song of 
 birds?" 
 
 The reader paused, and the stillness which had 
 gone throughout the room was broken by the unison 
 of released breaths. An incipient flutter of excite- 
 ment was arrested as the reader lifted her voice in 
 continuing : 
 
 " With you, there is no night and its spectre-like
 
 172 TAMAM 
 
 shadows stealing through the gleaming rays of hope ; 
 no strife, jealousy, frustration of purpose; no jar, 
 turmoil, din and bewilderment ; no burdens of sorrow 
 to crush the frailness of the human breast ; no smoth- 
 ering loneliness to stifle the weakness of human exist- 
 ence; but through the folds of that nebulous veil of 
 mystery, you look into the lacerated hearts and 
 wearied breasts of those who are tossed on billows 
 of anguish, and hear the secret cry of earthly crea- 
 tures as they drain the bitter dregs of desolation 
 from their cup of sorrow, while benign in counte- 
 nance you smile in the tenderness of compassion." 
 
 At the close of this paragraph the stillness was 
 so marked that the reader proceeded in tones scarcely 
 audible. 
 
 " Does the passing of an earthly life, such as yours, 
 serve but to prove the eternal fitness of things ; that 
 in the uninterpreted purpose of creation you were 
 taken from the cycle of eternity and given an 
 ephemeral existence, that you may bloom into the full 
 flower of womanhood, only to breathe out your life 
 and leave us suffused with the memories of your hal- 
 lowed presence ? " 
 
 The auditors, in their eagerness to catch every 
 word, were so rigidly fixed in their stare at the 
 reader, that to look into the face of another was 
 their furthermost thought. Had this not been, they 
 could not have failed to notice the milk-washed face
 
 THE POTTER'S FIELD 173 
 
 of one in their midst. They would have noticed her 
 fingers clutching the arms of her chair in a desperate 
 attempt to conceal a startling sense that seemed to 
 possess her. 
 
 " Nature reveals to us, sooner or later, the pur- 
 pose of her act. We may impugn her for the cruel 
 and drastic methods sometimes used, but no act ever 
 fails to broaden those most stunned by her blows. 
 She gives us love and death, each equidistant from 
 the horizon of our conception. Love without death 
 would satiate us ; death without love would satiate 
 nature. 
 
 " He who knows no sorrow is but a dweller on the 
 world's common level, and, like the shadow of an 
 idle moment, his day closes with the setting of the 
 sun. 
 
 " When the indiscernible hand of Nature tears 
 asunder the intertwined bonds of love and life, and 
 leaves us with outstretched arms and yearning 
 countenance, that same moment we are transplanted 
 into the mighty vastness of her untrammeled expanse. 
 
 " When life and the secret of its earthly passing 
 has been revealed to one near to us, who stands just 
 one irretraceable step away, we can but feel, with a 
 juncture so nearly formed, there will be imparted 
 some of the mysteries which Nature reveals only to 
 those who have relinquished their hold on the trivial 
 life we know. 
 
 " The poorest and most starved of souls, in the 
 narrowest and most cramped of human bodies,
 
 174 TAMAM 
 
 never fails to expand when nature has laden it with 
 sorrow." 
 
 After the reading of this passage a sigh of relief 
 escaped the lips of all save one. In her bosom the 
 turbulence increased, and, in a more determined effort 
 for self-mastery, she lowered her eyes to avoid meet- 
 ing the glance of others ; for all knew there would fol- 
 low a general search of faces for some expression 
 regarding the mystery of the unidentified. Much 
 to her relief, the reader continued: 
 
 " For me, the perplexities of life have resolved 
 themselves into a single disappointment. The life 
 given I shall hold as a sacred gratuity and live it 
 with open frankness, though shadowed as I am with 
 the knowledge that my death will not be the peaceful 
 passing of a spirit bathed in the incense of love from 
 those who have been nourished by the fruits of my 
 life." 
 
 The dominant stillness was broken by the plain- 
 tive tremolo of a thin, high-pitched note. In repeti- 
 tion, as it became weaker and thinner, all present 
 knew some one had fainted. Skilled hands, long in- 
 ured to such purpose, but never before ministering 
 with more expedition and sympathetic dexterity, 
 tenderly lifted the posthumous daughter. 
 
 Reflections in the mirror of self-consciousness pro-
 
 THE POTTER'S FIELD 175 
 
 duce impressions which go to form the lines of facial 
 expression. It is through these lines the secret of 
 one's heart can often be read. 
 
 When the posthumous daughter recovered she 
 mustered every resource to prevent the detection of 
 her secret. To this end she attempted to laugh at 
 her own weakness, working herself to a state border- 
 ing on the hysterical, which resulted in her relief 
 from duty the morning following. During this 
 leisure she found occasion to enter some notes in the 
 record, at which time she studied the data relating 
 to the recent " unidentified." With his serial num- 
 ber was recorded his height, estimated weight, etc., 
 and in the space for " remarks " were noted " alco- 
 holism," " run down in street," " fatally injured." 
 
 If there was a single thought in which she could 
 seek relief, it was that she had been spared seeing 
 him, the incident occurring while she was off duty. 
 The remarkable coincident seemed to fascinate her, 
 for, with lips closed, she knew there would be re- 
 vealed no evidence that would in any way lead to the 
 strangeness of his passing. Her silence meant his 
 oblivion, while the world moved on without knowl- 
 edge of his inglorious end. 
 
 Could she let his identity remain sealed, knowing 
 full well even this period-like blot at the close of his 
 life would, after a twelve month, be erased and the 
 residue of his once splendid body be raked into a 
 corner of his grave to make room for a bed-fellow? 
 Silence seemed easier, but what if she relented when 
 it had become too late! Should she keep the secret
 
 176 TAMAM 
 
 the incident would long continue a matter of interest, 
 and the very keeping of it demanded she take part in 
 such interest. As to her fainting, strange to say, 
 that had not aroused suspicion. Could she be a 
 hypocrite and join in picturing the romance of his 
 life? She felt tempted to join in the search for the 
 identity of her whose death had inspired in him the 
 appeal to her departed soul, but the thought of this 
 filled her with chagrin. At last she had learned the 
 reason for his silence. Through all these years he 
 had given his heart to another in life, and after her 
 death had given his soul, while his lonely body wan- 
 dered aimlessly among the pitfalls of the world, 
 finally to stumble at her threshold. 
 
 The secret involved no alternative ; should she keep 
 it, she must leave the hospital. Should she divulge 
 the mystery, to what would it lead? Not only the 
 story of his life, but hers, and it would appear that 
 she had given it through j ealousy . What an accusa- 
 tion! Could she be jealous of an immortal soul be- 
 cause it had not ceased to serve as the object of his 
 worship, him whose life had closed so ignominiously ? 
 Yes ! She would not trust herself. 
 
 With the secret known, she certainly could not re- 
 main at the hospital. There was, then, but one con- 
 clusion : under no conditions could she remain. Since 
 she must go, would she leave his identity or take it 
 with her? To leave it meant the exhuming of his 
 remains from the potter's field; also the exhuming 
 of her buried heart. To take it with her meant his 
 eternal abandonment to an untimely fate.
 
 THE POTTER'S FIELD 177 
 
 Leaving the hospital, as she must, it was equally 
 evident she should do so at once, and with sufficient 
 excuse. This she could find in her temporary ill- 
 ness. Her quandary as to him was weighing heavily, 
 and served to increase the effects of her nervous 
 shock. 
 
 When she retired, at the close of a weary day, 
 it was for thought, not sleep. Next morning found 
 her with throbbing temples and blanched face, but 
 strong of heart ; she had determined upon pro- 
 cedure. 
 
 After an untasted breakfast she went into the 
 streets, and by the shortest route made her way to 
 the shop of a tombstone-maker. Approaching the 
 door, her courage weakened, and she hesitated. The 
 shopman saw this and hastened to open the door; 
 and assuming his professional countenance of mourn- 
 ful dejection, and most deferential manner, he bowed 
 her in. He had often seen heavily burdened hearts 
 falter at his door, and knew it to be the better part 
 of " business " to extend a helping hand. 
 
 Trembling, and speechless with embarrassment, she 
 entered. The shopman was accustomed to this in 
 his patrons, and knew he must question her, and 
 with the least amount of information make the great- 
 est number of suggestions. 
 
 " These are our latest styles in memorial stones," 
 he began. The professional man never calls them 
 tombstones. 
 
 " Is it for a child or an adult? " he asked, in a 
 voice ranging from a high and plaintively pitched
 
 178 TAMAM 
 
 " child " to a low and sympathetically sonorous 
 " adult." 
 
 Scarcely above a whisper, she replied in one word, 
 " Adult." 
 
 " These, in marble, are very beautiful and the let- 
 tering shows up well. Some are complete, only 
 awaiting the name and dates. This design is appro- 
 priate for a lady, while that, with the wreath, is more 
 for a man. The 'marble looks better when new, but 
 the granite is more durable. Is it for a lady or 
 gentleman ? " 
 
 " Man," she replied without looking up. 
 
 " In that case," said the shopman, " granite would 
 be appropriate. We like to use granite for a man; 
 it seems to represent more strength, resembling the 
 foundation, so to speak stability and force of char- 
 acter." 
 
 She did not move her eyes, which were fixed in 
 stare at a slab of marble. Noticing this, he con- 
 tinued with no apparent interruption: 
 
 " But marble is very nice, and especially appro- 
 priate if the other stones nearby are of that mate- 
 rial. We can generally aid in selection if we know 
 the nature of the surroundings. If there are slopes 
 and much shrubbery, we endeavor to carry out the 
 same scheme and suggest rustic effects. If to be 
 used near the bottom of a slope, high and slender 
 effects look well, while on a knoll we give more 
 breadth and less height. On level ground, without 
 much shrubbery, smooth stones of medium height are
 
 THE POTTER'S FIELD 179 
 
 nice. We would be glad to visit the location and ad- 
 vise with you." 
 
 Totally oblivious, as she was, to his every remark, 
 the shopman's suggestion produced no change in her 
 expression, as it surely would had she grasped its 
 meaning. He saw her unconsciously indicate a 
 smooth, unadorned marble of medium height. 
 
 " That one is very nice," he said. " The price 
 marked is for the stone, and the lettering costs ac- 
 cording to the amount you wish done. Nice letters 
 on that stone would make it very handsome, and there 
 is plenty of room for a quotation. We have a list of 
 standard quotations with those checked that have 
 been used near here. They are arranged for all rela- 
 tives, as you see here, ' Father,' ' Son,' ' Husband,' 
 ' Brother,' etc." 
 
 That " etc.," how important it sounded ! She re- 
 called, as a child, listening to an auctioneer who was 
 quoting a large sum of money ; and, in doing so, he 
 ran through millions, thousands, and hundreds of 
 dollars in a nasal monotone to dwell in emphasis on 
 the number of cents. She had always remembered 
 the number of cents. And now the shopman's " etc." 
 was clearly impressed on her mind. 
 
 " This is our charge per letter," he said, indicat- 
 ing, " and the number of letters times this is added 
 to the cost of the stone, which also includes putting 
 it in place. Just above the center we could cut the 
 word showing what relationship," she bit her lips, 
 " as ' husband,' or * father,' or whatever the case
 
 180 TAMAM 
 
 calls for. Below is the place for the name and dates. 
 If you like that suggestion, what would go here I 
 mean how many letters? " he hastened to add. 
 
 She hesitated a moment, then replied with a trem- 
 ble in her voice, " Seven." 
 
 " Yes ! " replied the shopman after he had men- 
 tally counted the letters in " husband," with an air 
 indicating he understood all. " I will make them 
 with an extra half inch in size for the regular price," 
 using a tone of voice to show that his feelings were 
 so affected he would be impelled to give an additional 
 half inch of letter. 
 
 " You fill out these blanks for the name and 
 dates, and the instructions where the stone is to be 
 placed. We will attend to the rest." Having made 
 this suggestion, he walked to the further end of the 
 shop, apparently to busy himself. 
 
 Left alone, she did not know whether to fly from 
 the shop or force herself to act. She glanced nerv- 
 ously toward the shopman, who pretended to be 
 abstracted in the study of a design before him. 
 
 As rapidly as she could, with fingers trembling, 
 and numbed, she placed a sealed envelope on the table, 
 and fingered for the money, which in amount ap- 
 proximated two months' earnings of her busy life in 
 the hospital. 
 
 The shopman, through occasional glances, saw 
 her movements, and knowing this meant it was time 
 for him, started toward her. She quickly placed 
 the money near the envelope and staggered out into 
 the street.
 
 THE POTTER'S FIELD 181 
 
 The maker of " Memorial Stones," who believed 
 himself familiar with every form of human emotion, 
 found it necessary to increase his list by one after 
 the posthumous daughter had left his shop. Upon 
 reading the instructions contained in the envelope 
 he hurried to the door that he might observe the 
 direction she had taken. Curiosity almost forced 
 him to leave the shop, and, in the capacity of a 
 sleuth, learn something of her. But she had dis- 
 appeared too quickly, and feeling the shame of his 
 temptation, he resolved to carry out instructions 
 and say nothing. That seemed a better " business " 
 policy, to say the least. 
 
 When the posthumous daughter returned to the 
 hospital, the nurses in charge noted she had over- 
 taxed herself in her morning's walk. They saw 
 much evidence of extreme fatigue, and when the 
 languor continued there were whispers as to the ad- 
 visability of her leaving the hospital for a rest. 
 
 The next day finds her companions making their 
 way to her room in soft treads, entering without 
 waiting for a reply to their knock, pressing her 
 hand in silence, hastening out that, unobserved, they 
 may brush away an insistent tear. It is a sick- 
 room reception. The posthumous daughter is leav- 
 ing, in the wane of her strength. She must hasten 
 before it is too late. 
 
 When the old grave-digger at the potter's field 
 was called upon to locate a certain serial number 
 in one of his long ridges, and saw a real stone slab,
 
 182 
 
 TAMAM 
 
 nicely carved, he was mystified. Here was an un- 
 dreamed-of acquisition. The stone cutter helped 
 count back from the end of a ridge to find the grave 
 corresponding to the serial number he had brought, 
 and here they placed the stone in position. 
 
 The stone looked so grand that the grave digger 
 smoothed over the mound, and kept things generally 
 straightened up about it. Many hours has he 
 passed transfixed in admiring gaze at the queer 
 epitaph consisting of a single word encircled by a 
 beautifully chiseled wreath.
 
 IV 
 
 THE SEA 
 
 " So she, deep-drenched in a sea of care, 
 Holds disputation with each thing she views." 
 
 ONE thousand ocean-going ships ! 
 
 Let such a fleet pass in review, the vessels four 
 hundred yards apart, even which distance would 
 render maneuvering hazardous, and the line would 
 be one hundred miles in length. Should this line 
 of ships round a point in a smooth sea, it would, at 
 the start, incite a gentle rolling of the water, to be 
 increased by each ship in turn, such that the last 
 ship would be in a sea incredibly furious. 
 
 If lashed beam to beam, and bow to stern, such 
 a fleet would make a raft one mile square. To man 
 the fleet, every male adult in one of our largest cities 
 would be required. Should the vessels be for car- 
 riers of merchandise, five hundred million tons would 
 be a safe load. Should they be for the transpor- 
 tation of passengers, one million souls could be taken 
 aboard. Yet, every year a fleet of this size goes 
 to the bottom of the sea ! 
 
 When this fleet shakes its head of entangled rig- 
 ging, dips its prow and starts for its eternal anchor- 
 age on the ocean's bottom, it requires ten thousand 
 
 183 '
 
 184 TAMAM 
 
 souls to accompany it and stand guard. There 
 in total darkness this vestige of a crew awaits the 
 command to weigh anchor, for no rays of light pene- 
 trate the ocean depths. In the icy chill of the 
 saline water their breaths are cold as the winter's 
 blast, for there is the absence of heat. The sen- 
 tinels have no fear of invasion, for the sea, even with 
 its myriad of life forms, grotesque, fantastical, 
 mammoth, diminutive, contains not one creature 
 which can exist in the tremendous pressure, gloom, 
 desolation and abandon in the untold fathoms of 
 the great depths in the ocean. 
 
 In time the millions of tons of iron that go to 
 make this fleet become but a rust stain on the bed 
 of sand. In more time the rust stain has washed 
 out, and the fleet has passed into that conglomerate 
 and molecular mystery we call " The Sea." 
 
 Who -can comprehend the sea its vastness, its 
 strangeness, the weird shadows that lie in its depths ; 
 the endless series of peripheral waves that lave the 
 shore in affectionate gentleness, though only asking 
 time's aid to cut away adamant ; its coalition with 
 the moon to mystify us in that awe-producing in- 
 trigue, the ebb and flow of its diurnal tide? Who 
 knows the scheme of those entangling currents, 
 twisting, encircling, swirling, selfishly indifferent, 
 inconstant, inconsistent? Who knows the secret of 
 its allurements ; the abode of the Lorelei who breathes 
 out those wonderful winds of exhilarating freshness, 
 while she smiles in the glistening crest of each sun- 
 kissed wave, and sings that wonderful Song of the
 
 THE SEA 185 
 
 Sea, infatuous in the restfulness of its peaceful calm, 
 invidious in the debauchery of its intoxicated rage, 
 ever fascinating, enthralling, irresistible; that 
 Lorelei who entices men through the seductive rise 
 and fall of her bosom, only to embalm them in the 
 chilling briny ink of her depths who can compre- 
 hend the incomprehensible? 
 
 The sea gives life, which life, in turn, imparts 
 itself to the sea, lending to form a creature huge 
 beyond conception ; one minute docile, gentle, the 
 next, lashing in the fury of madness, then swallowing 
 itself in the petulance of calm, only to belch forth 
 in the nausea of its autophagous nature. So it is, 
 the sea is life, imparts life, imbibes life, imbues life. 
 
 Long, long ago, men built a ship, built it away 
 from the water, up on the ways, just as we have 
 continued to do. The ship would not move when 
 they wanted it to start for the water. It had no 
 life, no spirit. They must give it life, give it spirit, 
 invest it with a soul. Accordingly, they dashed out 
 a captive's life against the prow, his blood drenched 
 the bowsprit, and his lifeless form fell to be crushed 
 on the ways. The ship, thus personified, glided 
 down, slashed the water into ribbons of foam and 
 took up the ceaseless motion of the sea. After that 
 they built a figure-head on their ship, let it glide 
 over a captive placed on the ways and christen itself 
 with his spurting blood, while his departing soul en- 
 tered the figure-head to remain as the guardian 
 spirit of the ship, and bode, in the dreams of the 
 mariner, fair winds and safe harbors.
 
 186 TAMAM 
 
 We have continued to do the same. We give our 
 ships figure-heads, and in emulation of the captive's 
 blood, drench her prow with wine, for the ship must 
 have life, the sea demands it, and, through inherited 
 superstition, we supply it. 
 
 The sea is the very embodiment of superstition, 
 and that world of sea-faring folk who dwell in its 
 restless expanse live pervaded with a sense of awe. 
 To them the sea is one profound mystery, revenge- 
 ful for the revealing of its secret treachery, compas- 
 sionate to those who blindly surrender to its allure- 
 ments. 
 
 They who live at sea are quick to learn the de- 
 jection and smothering gloom which follow contem- 
 plation as to the mercilessness with which the hand 
 of fate may use them. To look from an isolated 
 craft into that broad expanse of nothing, the hori- 
 zon encircling as if a great bell-jar covering was 
 designing to make them drift forever; this alone 
 is enough to send shadows into the strongest hearts. 
 But the sea-faring people do not look; they have 
 learned better. Optimism is their daily strength ; 
 the pessimist has no place amongst them. Predes- 
 tination is their creed, and armed with this they 
 tread the decks with reckless care, or swing in their 
 hammocks with the sublime trust of sleeping in- 
 fants. 
 
 If a companion is lost, he is soon forgotten. They 
 must forget; the bond of sympathy among ship- 
 mates is only for the living. At sea is no place to 
 harbor an inconsolable memory.
 
 THE SEA 187 
 
 Ship crews are criticised for the indifference they 
 display toward a dead comrade; and that they 
 scarcely wait the completion of the crude burial 
 service before pushing out the plank, carrying their 
 mate bound to it with his winding-sheet ; but they who 
 criticise do not know. Sea-faring folk know what 
 is to be seen and what is not. Not one of them ex- 
 pects to escape the sea. They will return, of course, 
 from each voyage, but only to take up another, 
 well knowing when their course is run they will take 
 their place with the silent watch on the mighty fleet 
 down in the sea. 
 
 Since the first mariner left land astern, the sea 
 has been reckoned with as the graveyard first in 
 mystery. Since the first outbound ship failed to 
 return, the ocean pathways have been crossed and 
 recrossed by the most ghostly spectres to be wit- 
 nessed, the phantom ships, ships caught under that 
 bell-jar-like cover of the horizon, and destined to sail 
 forever in that lonely expanse upon which the sea- 
 faring folk dare not look. No graveyard ever har- 
 bored a ghost so mysterious as are these ghosts of 
 the ocean, the phantom ships. 
 
 By a peculiar deflection of the rays of light 
 when traversing a series of atmospheric layers 
 varied in density, the phenomenon of mirage is ex- 
 plained, in which ships are actually seen, though far 
 below the line of vision tangent to the earth's cur- 
 vature. They appear, disappear, and reappear 
 with the disturbances of the atmospheric layers. 
 Can it be wondered that a theme so realistic, a set-
 
 188 TAMAM 
 
 ting so appropriate as is that of the sea, a people 
 so bred and born in superstition as are they who 
 pass their lives by it, combine to form a mystery so 
 overpowering, so verbally indescribable as is that of 
 the phantom fleet on its endless cruise? 
 
 The caprices of the sea, witnessed by those who re- 
 turned to tell of them, are stranger than the strang- 
 est fiction ever invented. It has been seen to rise in 
 twisting columns, reaching to the low-lying clouds, 
 forming a veritable temple of fury. It has been 
 seen to take the concave form of a dish of such depth 
 and proportions that vessels plunged with frightful 
 speed into the depression, as if the earth had opened 
 to swallow a hundred cubic miles of water at one 
 gulp. But how trivial this must be when compared 
 to the spectacles witnessed by those who never re- 
 turn ! What may there be photographed on the 
 retina in the eyes of those cruising forever on the 
 phantom fleet! And even more trivial is what they 
 may have seen, when compared with that which 
 came not within the vision of human eyes. In the 
 countless ages before the creation of man, when life 
 existed in forms so huge it crushed under its own 
 weight, if left on shore by the sea, it is more than 
 probable such spectacles as the flood of biblical his- 
 tory may have occurred many times. 
 
 The least remarkable thing about this graveyard 
 is that all of its superstitions, phantasies, spectres, 
 myths, mysteries and legends are truths. 
 
 The ingenuity of man's conception has long since 
 lost in the race between fact and fiction. The most
 
 THE SEA 189 
 
 fertile imagination is eclipsed by the preponderance 
 of possibilities. Man cannot compete with the sea. 
 Alongside its unbounded range of possibilities he 
 can only lay the diminutive strength of his own crea- 
 tive conception. Against its merciless treachery he 
 can do no more than add a few drops of the oil of 
 fragrant memory, that it may prove miscible with the 
 boundless expanse, and be carried to those resting 
 in its depths. 
 
 One day each year there is launched the strang- 
 est craft that ever goes to sea. It is a small man-of- 
 war, bristling with silent guns, wasting no powder 
 in salutes, so extensive is its cruise, so great is its 
 mission. It has orders to go around the world, 
 through all the seas ever navigated, setting a course 
 for those reefs most perilous, those currents most 
 hazardous, making for the paths of those gales most 
 fearful, ploughing through those fogs most dense, 
 avoiding only smooth seas and fair winds. It must 
 not put in shore until the cruise is finished, and the 
 cruise is not finished until the ship has touched at 
 every rocky ledge where the waves dash themselves 
 into foam, until it has sounded every hidden sand 
 bed within reach of a ship's keel, until it has deter- 
 mined the bearings of every ship that put to sea and 
 has been seen no more. 
 
 The mission is to strew flowers on every spot where 
 human life has found a grave in the turbulent bosom 
 of the ocean. The craft follows no nautical chart, 
 but like every man-of-war, lays a course in direct 
 lines from point to point. It is piloted by the only
 
 190 TAMAM 
 
 hand that knows the course, the pilot of our destiny, 
 the Hand of God. 
 
 When the craft puts to sea, so great is its cargo 
 of flowers they cover its decks, hang over the bow- 
 sprit, twist among the rigging, twine around the 
 masts and float to the breeze in long streamers. The 
 captain is a lily-of-the-valley of rest, commissioned 
 by those thousands who strain their eyes looking 
 far away into the void of their own lives, ever on 
 their wearisome vigil, waiting, waiting for the re- 
 turn of those who went to sea and are now long 
 overdue. 
 
 These crafts are launched each year on the same 
 date, the thirtieth day of May. In building, they 
 follow the same superstitions ; they have the figure- 
 head, only it is made after the form of a dove. 
 They christen the ship, just as of old, only instead 
 of the captive's blood they drench her prow with 
 tears. They call her " A floral tribute to those lost 
 at sea," and in the name of the Creator of the land 
 and the waters, cast her off. Only in this way can 
 we scatter flowers through the ocean graveyard. 
 
 There is yet another craft we should build, 
 fashion differently, more after the order of the life- 
 boat, non-capsizable, buoyant and self-bailing; with 
 decks always cleared for action, and hampered with 
 no sentimental cargo, no tinsel streamers, no figure- 
 head, but easily launched and without ceremony. 
 It is for the rescue of those adrift in the sea of 
 dilemma.
 
 THE SEA 191 
 
 How many lives are storm-tossed on this sea, sta- 
 tistics do not tell. How many weigh anchor, spread 
 their full canvas of ambition, mount the bridge in 
 command of their own ship of destiny and stand out 
 for the open sea of life, only to lose their course in 
 battling with the waves of life's quandaries? How 
 many who know not the confusing channels of life's 
 cross-purposes, who become doubtful of the lights 
 in the shore beacons, who lose confidence in the 
 reckoning of their own bearings? How many who 
 pass through life, always at sea, anchoring in shift- 
 ing bottoms, grappling misapprehensions, following 
 a compass unconscious of the hidden lodestone de- 
 flecting the needle from its true position? 
 
 The winds that come over the sea are wonderfully 
 narcotic. Saturated as they are with their own 
 soporific balm to the point of drowsiness, is it 
 strange that they who are wearied in mind and body 
 should seek the healing power of the sea? That 
 is why the posthumous daughter went to sit in the 
 sands where the ocean breezes could wash away at 
 the perplexities in her mind; where she could busy 
 herself in the idleness of day dreaming, listening to 
 the whisper of the waves, whispers tempting her to 
 unburden heart secrets to them, the truest of all 
 confidants ; where she could write in the sands, write 
 words never to be seen by other eyes, then watch the 
 friendly waves come in and leave the sheet clean,
 
 192 TAMAM 
 
 so clean, no misgivings as to the fate of her 
 thoughts ; wondering if a wave would ever wash 
 from her heart the disappointments written there. 
 
 Such a place as the sea is for musing ! She could 
 look far out to her childhood days, days now seem- 
 ing to have been lived in another world: how playful 
 the waves were, dashing each other with silver spray, 
 curling, twisting and chasing! She saw her en- 
 trance into womanhood: how buoyant the sea be- 
 came, rolling up in long, graceful waves with a 
 sweep of irresistible force, everything yielding be- 
 fore it! Again, she saw her life of unabated activ- 
 ity, forced to conceal the reading of her heart's dis- 
 appointments. Here the sea rose and hung in sul- 
 len mists, filling everything with gloom. 
 
 So it was she watched the tides come and go, each 
 tide bringing a message from out of the vast empti- 
 ness, and taking back a response to her sympathetic 
 confidant. What did she tell to the sea, and what 
 did it whisper to her? It could not have been of 
 her later life, for often a smile might have been seen 
 stealing over her face. Did each tide flood her with 
 the memories of those days when she was the un- 
 opened bud of a beautifully tinted rose, and the 
 fairyland dreams of sleep were only equalled by the 
 realities of her awakening? And did each tide, in 
 its ebb, carry out some of the bitter secrets in her 
 heart, to be buried in the ocean depths, safe ever 
 more from mortal ears? It must have done so, for 
 the flower in her cheek seemed to freshen, and the 
 soothing breezes that kissed her brow eased the ten-
 
 THE SEA 193 
 
 sion and glistening stare that had been fast fixing 
 in her eyes. 
 
 Who knows the daydreams wafted to her in the 
 drowsiness of the ocean air? One may have been of 
 her childhood's environment; how, when the smallest 
 of the little ones, she had grown into her first knowl- 
 edge of love for a little sweetheart who had been 
 chosen for her, in accordance with a custom of 
 mothers at that time of laying the paths of children 
 to verge toward a common ground of mutual affec- 
 tion ; how her path had led into that of a bright- 
 faced little lad, born under a sky of promise, and in 
 the beautiful simplicity of childhood's infatuation 
 they had trod the common path, arm in arm, be- 
 stowing upon each other the affection of infantile 
 innocence; how into romping childhood they had 
 grown together, and so generally had their pre- 
 mature mating been recognized, deference was shown 
 them, even by the children, in their games : as in 
 " drop the handkerchief," all knew when it was his 
 turn it would certainly be dropped at her back and, 
 in the chase to follow, just how much he would run, 
 dodge and squirm, then stumble and fall that she 
 might tag him ; or if playing " bow to the wittiest, 
 kneel to the prettiest, and kiss the one you love 
 best," how, when it was her turn to come into the 
 room of expectant children, she would look confused, 
 choose with much care the two first, then, as a 
 matter of course, kiss him; how on through child- 
 hood they had gone together, and in the develop- 
 ment of youth, unconsciously, each had grown into
 
 194 TAMAM 
 
 the life of the other. And what else was to be ex- 
 pected than the co-ordination of affinities? 
 
 Perchance her dream was of the days when, in the 
 strength of manhood, he had outgrown the child- 
 hood training and the results of their youth's pro- 
 pinquity, but in full recognition of the sense of 
 power in the lordship of his own rights, had again 
 found himself at her feet, on the evening she had 
 left him, a myrtle- crowned conqueror so uncere- 
 moniously dethroned. 
 
 These are the kinds of dreams the ocean winds 
 bring in, silver-lined, down-nested, and mollifying. 
 
 Those dreams that did not come from over the sea 
 were of her secret determinations, his indomitable 
 persistency, her disappointment and chagrin, his 
 pitiful end, her secret, and the withering nightmare 
 of his love for another. But the dreams from over 
 the sea prevailed, and each day she was growing 
 stronger, stronger in heart, the strength she 
 needed. 
 
 And there she sat, day after day, listening, watch- 
 ing, waiting. For what? She did not know; who 
 does, when they listen, watch and wait? All are 
 sometimes listening, listening to the stillness of their 
 own meditation; some are all times watching, watch- 
 ing against intrusion on the sacredness of their in- 
 dividuality ; but all are always waiting, waiting for 
 the wonderful fleet of ships just over the horizon; 
 that fleet, countless in number, heavily laden and 
 with the strangest of cargoes, the fruits of imagi- 
 nary accomplishments.
 
 THE SEA 195 
 
 Some ships there are among this fleet so water- 
 logged with the greed of gain they are floundering 
 rather than jettison the cargo; others tossing with- 
 out ballast at the mercy of the waves, loaded from 
 keel to yard-arms with the sponge-like cargo of vain 
 ambitions ; others speeding with decks awash, bring- 
 ing precious perfume and ointments, the perfume of 
 brotherly love for those isolated in their grandeur of 
 personal vanity, the ointment of consolation for 
 those wounded in their spirit of pride; for such is 
 the cargo of the fleet of hope, hailing from the port 
 of good fortune, each ship bound for some human 
 heart. 
 
 Many of the ships in this great fleet are always 
 just below the horizon, stemming adverse currents 
 that unexpectedly set in, but sure to arrive on the 
 turn of the tide ; others, having lost their cargo, put 
 back to reload rather than enter port not loaded; 
 while, for some, due allowance is made for delay inci- 
 dent to the caution of the crew. Some few, very 
 few, come in sight but " keep off," waiting for 
 " off-shore " winds that they may land in safety. 
 Many are the delays and difficulties that befall the 
 great fleet ; but well for the spirit in mortal breasts, 
 still fewer, if any, are ever hopelessly lost. 
 
 Such is the fate of the fleet for which all are 
 waiting. For those flushed in the possession of 
 worldly fortune, as well as they who spend their lives 
 in the passive languor of day dreaming, are always 
 listening, watching, waiting, " waiting for their 
 ship to come in."
 
 196 TAMAM 
 
 Was the posthumous daughter waiting for her 
 ship? In all that fleet was there a crew, sturdy and 
 strong, battling with the storms of indecision, in- 
 trepidly laying their course in accordance with the 
 needle that pointed to her heart? Or, had her ship 
 reached port, dismasted, barnacled and listing with 
 wounds in the hull, cargo gone as salvage for the 
 saving of her crew? No; somewhere there must 
 have been sailing, under her flag, a stately ship, 
 folded in clouds of white canvas stretched to the tone 
 of kettle drums by the fair winds on her quarter, 
 her prow cutting the water into fountains that 
 curled over her bowsprit, leaving in her wake long 
 strings of pearly beads, while continuous sunshine 
 formed rainbow-like halos of the silver spray that 
 flew from her. There must have been a princely 
 captain on her bridge, a crew bronzed in the golden 
 wealth of the sea, and a cargo of fragrant spices 
 spice for a new life, spice for a new world, spice for 
 a new suitor. So much for the healing breaths that 
 come from over the sea. 
 
 And there she sat, listening, watching, waiting ; 
 each day bringing with it a bit of freshened life, 
 just enough to carry her through its course. 
 
 It was a charitable act of Providence that divided 
 time into daily intervals, else what would they do 
 who must sit and wait? The very counting of time's 
 daily pulsations serve to alleviate the mental con- 
 gestion arising from forced inactivity. Watch the 
 sun emerge from the sea, with a face so shining it 
 seems every sand of the shore must have been used
 
 THE SEA 197 
 
 in the polishing process of its daily ablutions ; watch 
 that mighty pendulum lift the last of its periphery 
 from its morning bath, to begin one more swing in 
 the measure of eternity, and you can make one count 
 in the immeasurable number of those pulsations 
 which go to make time, and each count brings re- 
 newed interest. 
 
 Time is a great wheel of fortune at which we play 
 the game of chance called Life; and so infectious 
 is the game that mankind has become hopelessly 
 addicted and irretrievably lost in the delusion of its 
 fascination. All are delirious with excitement in- 
 cident to the possibility of defying the arithmetical 
 laws of chance and making a winning play. On the 
 great wheel there are countless failures for each suc- 
 cess, and numberless sorrows for each joy. As it 
 turns, we watch the prizes pass to others, and the 
 blanks fall to us ; but no matter, who stops in a los- 
 ing game of chance? Certainly no one in the great 
 game of life. The human heart is, instinctively, too 
 strong for that. There may be some whose stake is 
 small and played with trembling hands, and there 
 may even be some who hold but the single number 
 which they inherit with the right of human existence ; 
 but with the dawn of each day every human being 
 scans the prize numbers indicated by the wheel of 
 time. Some there are who play the game in fear- 
 less openness, even defiance, staking their all on 
 the number offering the greatest odds, while others 
 play in the meekness of secrecy, carefully search- 
 ing out the numbers where the ratio is lowest; but
 
 198 TAMAM 
 
 all are possessed with the mania for gambling at the 
 great wheel of time. 
 
 Some play their stake for worldly fortunes, and 
 when the blanks fall, beat their breasts as they swal- 
 low the bitter draughts of disappointment, strip 
 themselves of the last farthing, after which they sell 
 their souls for just one more stake, ever trusting in 
 their ability to eventually recoup their losses 
 through a winning play. Some, with hearts swollen 
 from the suffering of blighted happiness, play the 
 wheel for renewed life, ever trusting in time as the 
 great healer of all sorrow, confident the future 
 holds in store a prize of healing ointment for the 
 wounded heart ; and as the seared blanks of anguish 
 fall, inject into their hearts the antitoxin of de- 
 spair and search their lives for just one more ray 
 of hope that they may play, again, on the great 
 wheel. 
 
 Others, impaired in body, play their stake for 
 health; and as, day after day, they draw the pale 
 blanks of physical pain, while the golden prize of 
 health passes to others, they cease not in the gamble, 
 but prey upon their weakened bodies and, like 
 leeches, sap the final drops of their life's blood, if 
 only they can play the trivial stake at the great 
 wheel once more. 
 
 Who are so distantly isolated in the strife for 
 worldly fortune, so heavily laden with their bur- 
 den of sorrow, so emaciatingly worn by the ravages 
 of pain that they have lost interest in the rev- 
 olution of the wheel? What will the day bring
 
 forth? that is the stimulus in the game of life. 
 To lose means indomitable persistency to win ; to 
 win means a determination to win once more. 
 
 The posthumous daughter was playing at the 
 great wheel and watching the blanks fall. What 
 was her stake, and for what did she play? There 
 was her birthright inherited from a sturdy ances- 
 try. Surely the winds that came in, laden with 
 the life of the sea, were not fickle when they tempted 
 her to play for the prize of health. The softening 
 of the hectic flush in her face was a small winning; 
 would it tempt her to play a stake for happiness? 
 Was there a flickering ray of hope she could stake, 
 that the wheel might some day dislodge one of its 
 hoarded prizes and so break the monotony of the 
 stream of blanks that had long run to her? To 
 search for this hope was but to flood her heart with 
 bitterness. The deadliest essence of feminine frail- 
 ties is the excretion arising from an unreciprocated 
 love. If the golden years of her life had been spent 
 in waiting for him, he whose life was grafted in her 
 heart, and his return was but to lay at her feet the 
 secret of his wasted life and lonely death, after 
 which the mystery of his silence was to be revealed 
 through the faithfulness of his love for another, and 
 nay, more, had indited to that soul, in the epitome 
 of his life, the climax of the thought she, herself, had 
 expressed when she conceded him to be the myrtle- 
 crowned conqueror of her own heart; if she even 
 dared to play the wheel for the peace of mind so 
 long sought, where could be found a tiny ray of
 
 200 TAMAM 
 
 hope she might use as her stake? What cruel spirit 
 of the sea was concealed in its winds to tempt her 
 look for happiness on the merciless wheel of time. 
 
 Time must not trifle with woman. The climax 
 in her life is when maturity is on the meridian and 
 she glows with the effulgence of new-born woman- 
 hood. In the post-meridian of feminine life resort 
 must be had to the adroitness of feminine conceit 
 for removing the fingerprints which Time may, in 
 idle indifference, leave upon her face. In the ob- 
 taining of the state of coveted feminine felicity, 
 woman does not want the handicap of time. On no 
 brow does it sit more heavily than on hers. 
 
 In the language of woman, there is nothing so 
 cruel in meaning as the word " atrophy." This 
 word implies the reverse of growth. The growth 
 of anything abounds with interest, and nowhere can 
 it be observed to better advantage than in the human 
 body. From birth to maturity there is the constant 
 expansion of framework to be later filled in by the 
 formation of tissue, until the whole forms a con- 
 tour symmetrical and smooth. In the feminine face 
 this development continues and attains its degree 
 of rhythmical proportions with the maturing of the 
 bloom of womanhood. Through this period there is 
 serenity of mind in harmony with the beauty in the 
 thought of growth. But nature knows no state of 
 rest, no line of inviolable conditions ; with her all 
 life is more or less in a parabolic curve. Just so 
 soon as the rounding out of the curves in a beauti- 
 ful face has been completed, she gives us but a
 
 THE SEA 201 
 
 momentary glance before sentencing it to the 
 leprosy-like, lingering death, as implied by the word 
 " atrophy." 
 
 In the face is where the results of atrophication 
 are first shown, the most perceptible demarcation be- 
 ing in those lines extending from the sides of the nose, 
 diagonally down, and outward. Sometimes we are 
 compassionate enough to call them lines of expres- 
 sion, and so they may be, expressing, as they do, 
 arrival at the period of life's serious intent. After 
 this, atrophication, in various degrees of activity, 
 begins anywhere until, finally, the face, once so beau- 
 tifully rounded, has become sunken and angular; 
 while the skin, in conforming to the new conditions, 
 may fill the face with wrinkles, or become so drawn 
 as to distort the features. Age is but the result- 
 ant product of time and the enzym-like action of 
 atrophia humanus. The atrophia finds less resist- 
 ance in the delicately constructed tissues of woman's 
 face, and there its ravages are most fearful. 
 
 It was when the posthumous daughter displayed 
 callous indifference to the blanks from the wheel of 
 time that atrophia stole into her face, and she real- 
 ized the zenith of her wondrous beauty had passed. 
 She came to feel differently toward the sea, to dis- 
 trust the sleep-giving winds, to harbor a suspicion 
 of their treachery. They had inveigled her to sit 
 and wait, when she should have been up and doing, 
 while her sun was on the meridian. She had over- 
 looked the possibility that the " Sea of Life " may 
 have its " Davy Jones."
 
 TAMAM 
 
 THE LEGEND OF " DAVY JONES " 
 
 That every sailor who disappears beneath the water 
 to be seen no more has " gone to Davy Jones' 
 locker " is a euphemism the world over. This 
 " Jones " can trace his origin to the earliest super- 
 stition in the history of the world. While to-day 
 the encyclopedia of " Universal Knowledge " gives 
 his history in the single phrase, " the sailor's bug- 
 a-boo," it is nevertheless true his genealogical se- 
 quence can be traced to the days of Jeroboam. 
 
 Long, long ago, before the invention of time and 
 its allied complications, there were created three 
 great kings. One, Chamrosh, was to be ruler over 
 everything that lives in the air ; another, Behemoth, 
 over all the creatures that inhabit the land; while 
 the third, Leviathan, was king of the waters. As 
 neither Chamrosh nor Behomoth is responsible for 
 the " Jones " in question, no further mention will be 
 made regarding them, their existence being cited 
 merely to illustrate the extreme exclusiveness of 
 Jones' ancestor in the selection of his associates. 
 
 Leviathan was the greatest of the three kings, 
 because he had greater territory over which to rule. 
 The lesser kings had to be created of the hugest 
 size conceivable, that they might be commensurate 
 with their duties. This necessitated Leviathan's be- 
 ing so inconceivably large that it was deemed wise 
 not to give him a mate, else the multiplying of his 
 species would overrun and devour the world. Since 
 Leviathan was to have no lineal descendants, he was
 
 THE SEA 203 
 
 clothed with a kind of sub-creative power, in which 
 power we have the origin of Davy Jones. 
 
 According to the midrash of Johannon, Leviathan 
 was a mile in length. If angered through hunger 
 or other cause, he could breathe forth a heat so 
 intense as to boil the waters of the deep and throw 
 the sea into a tempest. From his eyes there came a 
 light so strong it can yet be seen in the so-called 
 phosphorescence of the water. The odor from him 
 was so stifling that should he put his head into Para- 
 dise it would destroy every living creature, and 
 from him came all the pestilence of the world. He 
 lived in the Mediterranean Sea, and there could flow 
 into his mouth the waters of the Jordan. Levia- 
 than possessed two great horns, on the points of which 
 were balls of violet and green-colored fire. The balls 
 would play about the horns, jumping from one to 
 the other, as St. Elmo's lights of to-day play from 
 mast to mast on ships destined to be visited by 
 calamity. 
 
 Contemporary with Leviathan was a fish, Cetos 
 by name. Now, Cetos lived under conditions not 
 conducive to happiness. While himself a princely 
 fish, and a natural successor ,to the throne of Levia- 
 than, yet Cetos had no comfort of mind, for he was 
 the sworn enemy of Leviathan, who had promised to 
 devour him on sight. 
 
 It was during this time there lived a certain man, 
 lonas by name. lonas was a lawful prophet dur- 
 ing the reign of Jeroboam ; and, owing to his hatred 
 for a certain people of the land, refused to go
 
 204 TAMAM 
 
 among them and prophesy their destruction, as he 
 had been ordered, since such an act on his part would 
 give them opportunity to repent from the wickedness 
 of their way, and then possibly escape punishment. 
 To avoid punishment for his own disobedience, lonas 
 found it necessary to flee, wherefore he took passage 
 on a ship ready to sail for a distant country. While 
 on this voyage a great tempest arose, so frightening 
 the sailors that, in accordance with a custom of that 
 time, they began to cast lots to determine who should 
 be thrown into the sea that the fury of the tempest 
 might be satisfied. While so casting they discov- 
 ered this same lonas, who had taken passage with 
 them, had failed to come up, whereupon they made 
 search and found him snoring in the bottom of the 
 ship. This so angered them they cast him into the 
 sea, after which the tempest subsided and the ship 
 went on its way. 
 
 Now it was never intended that lonas should so 
 easily escape the punishment which was to be meted 
 out to him for his disobedience, therefore, when he 
 was cast into the sea, Cetos appeared and swallowed 
 him. Cetos was sufficiently large in throat to per- 
 mit lonas to pass into him with ease, and continue to 
 live. Inside of Cetos was suspended a huge pearl 
 that not only lighted up the fish, so that lonas could 
 see, but the light shone through the body of Cetos, 
 such that the sea was lighted. Cetos informed lonas 
 that he himself, Cetos, was to be swallowed by Levia- 
 than, lonas agreed to save both of them from the 
 fury of Leviathan, and also said they would be able
 
 THE SEA 205 
 
 to slay him. For this kindness on the part of lonas, 
 Cetos took him through all the mysteries of the 
 deep, and by the light from the pearl, lonas was 
 shown the great abyss that lies beneath the sea, and 
 the stalactitic pillars upon which the earth rests. 
 Here the darkness was so intense it was solid like 
 soot ; and the great stalactites, which had been 
 formed by the dripping of the waters through the 
 bed of the sea, extended to such depths that even 
 Cetos had never seen the bottom of them. Here it 
 was Leviathan came, when he felt the need of sleep ; 
 and sometimes, when he snored, the earth would 
 tremble and great clouds of darkness would break 
 through the crust of the earth and go up to cover 
 the face of the sun. 
 
 lonas was also taken over the path used by the 
 children of Israel in their march through the Red 
 Sea. It was here they chanced upon Leviathan, who 
 became furious, and boiled the water until Cetos 
 was exhausted and could not escape. It was then 
 lonas displayed the seal of Abraham, which so as- 
 tonished Leviathan, he shot away a distance of two 
 days. For this act on the part of lonas and Cetos, 
 Leviathan made use of the sub-creative power that 
 had been given him, and caused lonas to prove 
 nauseous in the stomach of Cetos, whereupon Cetos 
 spat lonas to dry land, a distance of nine hundred 
 and sixty-eight parasangs. When lonas was thus 
 spat out, his spirit ascended to be judged, after 
 which it immediately returned to the mouth of Cetos. 
 The evil in lonas' spirit caused the death of Cetos,
 
 206 TAMAM 
 
 and Leviathan made the body shrink into a homely 
 shape, leaving the once symmetrically shaped tail 
 with the unsightly taper of a lizard's. The well- 
 formed back of Cetos became filled with lumps, his 
 scales were made to drip with oily slime, his mouth 
 was so filled with crooked teeth it could not be closed, 
 which gave him the appearance of continuously 
 grinning, while on his head was planted a pair of 
 ill-shaped horns. From his nostrils came a heated 
 smoke laden with pestilence, so foul that all crea- 
 tures of the sea would seek to avoid him. 
 
 The spirit of lonas was made to dwell in this 
 shrunken and distorted body, and the new creature 
 assigned as chief of all the evils, pestilence and hor- 
 rors of the sea. In time it became known as " Duffy 
 lonas " the ghost of lonas. The etymological 
 constrictions of latter-day usage give us " Davy 
 Jones." 
 
 In the early days of sailing ships, when passages 
 were slow and navigators were not provided with 
 maps and charts, there were long and trying days 
 and weeks spent, sometimes in storms, sometimes in 
 calms. During these occasions sailormen were very 
 apt to become morosely suspicious. Unfamiliar as 
 they were with currents and tides, it was not strange 
 if, after long weeks of calms, they found themselves 
 nearing unknown lands, they attributed their re- 
 markable predicament to hidden influences, and 
 thought that such influences must have a cause, else 
 they would not be provoked to such extremities. 
 This logically led to a search for the cause, until
 
 THE SEA 207 
 
 almost any conceivable condition on board ship, or 
 anything associated with its building, naming, 
 launching and such things, would be ascribed as the 
 reason for any undesirable plight in which they 
 found themselves. 
 
 This was the birth of superstition among sea-far- 
 ing folks, and so lustily has it grown that to-day 
 there is catalogued in the " Encyclopedia of Super- 
 stitions " more than one thousand well-recognized 
 omens, good and bad, by which the sailor is guided. 
 So firmly rooted are these superstitions of the sea, 
 that our modern-day customs regarding ships and 
 shipping are to a large extent guided by them. 
 
 The penalty of the sailor's violation of his numer- 
 ous superstitions is the presence of " Davy Jones," 
 who will be seen sitting in the rigging, or in any one 
 of the many ways he may select to manifest his 
 presence. 
 
 As forerunner of all the disasters and horrors of 
 the sea, the ocean is universally known as his 
 " locker ;" and all who fail to return from the sea 
 are, presumably, in his safe-keeping. 
 
 Of the things ridiculously pathetic, painfully ludi- 
 crous and harshly incongruous with the sensitiveness 
 of human nature, there is nothing comparable with 
 that of an elderly woman who has conceived the idea 
 she may be the subject of the amorous thoughts of 
 a man ; and yet more painful than this, of a man 
 very decidedly her junior; then goes so far as to
 
 208 TAMAM 
 
 delude herself with the thought that Time has not 
 had that success as a purloiner of feminine charms 
 so notoriously accredited to him. 
 
 When a woman is sufficiently well advanced in 
 years to accept the queenly crown of age, and real- 
 ize that the difference between maidenhood and old 
 age is the difference between the coupled adjectives, 
 " tall and slender " and " short and fat "' ; but 
 rather than accept the crown graciously, endeavors 
 to defy the power of time by applying to her face 
 the mechanical elixir of life and tightening the lash- 
 ings in the fish-bone girdle of her rotundity, she sug- 
 gests an old piece of creamy lace that has been 
 washed, bleached and starched, or a Chippendale 
 table that has had its eagle claws and glass balls 
 replaced with ball-bearing rollers. 
 
 It was the old widow who had tripped in her path 
 of dignified complacency, when one morning she 
 looked into the mirror, toyed with the little cork- 
 screw curls that played on her temples, gave a few 
 vicious pinches at the crow's-feet that spread from 
 the outer corners of her eyes, and emptied her lungs 
 while glancing at the space between the finger-ends 
 as she spanned her waist line. She found herself un- 
 able to walk in anything less than a quickstep move- 
 ment, which imparted that swinging motion to her 
 skirts indicative of the vivacity of youth and the 
 sauciness of unconquerable independence. How 
 trivial the cares of housekeeping suddenly became, 
 and how rapidly the duties of the morning vanished 
 before the strength resulting from the stimulating
 
 THE SEA 
 
 thought of renewed youth! Like the milkmaid of 
 fable lore, what visions she saw of herself, gowned 
 perhaps in the crinoline stiffness of fresh linen and 
 the renewed importance of her early matron days. 
 She had a secret if only she could keep it. That 
 strangely interesting tenant of hers was in love, and 
 that is not telling the half. He was not only in love, 
 but in love with her own dear self. It was now plain 
 why he had so persistently avoided the traps that 
 had been set for him. That frantic rush through 
 the pole beans, in evading two jabbering girls, ap- 
 peared to her in a new light. That vacant stare, 
 and that occasional listless manner which always 
 vanished with a flush in his bronzed face when un- 
 expectedly coming upon her, and the remarkable 
 change to his cheerful drollery and extraordinary 
 gallantry when in her presence all these things had 
 but one meaning. Now, if she chose, she could 
 answer those gossips as to why he remained so 
 rigidly exclusive. They who thought him unneigh- 
 borly, and suggested it would be good for him to 
 mingle with people, perhaps younger than his land- 
 lady, or spitefully dubbed him an incurably bashful 
 churl, did not know. And, bless her own soul, she 
 had been at sea as much as any of them, innocently 
 unconscious of the fact that, in her, he found the 
 companionship and mental compensation sufficient 
 for his needs. All the unseemly actions charged 
 by her neighbors had been cleared by his confession 
 on the previous evening, made to her, and now with 
 what pride she could exonerate him!
 
 210 TAMAM 
 
 On the evening in question, the widow was sitting 
 in her doorway watching the fading of the day and, 
 with it, the awakening of nocturnal life. That sub- 
 division of the animal world which elects to remain 
 dormant through day and appear with its disap- 
 pearance, was breaking its silence. The katydids 
 were scratching away at their " dids " and " didn'ts," 
 the tree toads were whistling like an army of small 
 boys who have just discovered the art but are unable 
 to get beyond the stage of " fits and starts," while 
 the crickets meekly chirped in whenever the others 
 stopped for a breathing spell. It was the hum in 
 the quiet of eventide, the change from the " day " to 
 the " night-shift " in the insect world. She always 
 sat in her doorway at this time, and was never 
 startled at the sound of boot-heels on the pavement 
 that led from her door around the corner of the 
 house, so regular had the habits of her tenant be- 
 come. 
 
 On this particular evening she knew he was com- 
 ing long before the accustomed sound on the pave- 
 ment. Katydids cease in their scratching when one 
 passes under the tree they are in. With this knowl- 
 edge she could trace him through the woods, and as 
 the wake-like hush neared the house she knew the 
 moss-rose that grew near the end of the walk would 
 soon brush his boot-tops. 
 
 She was aware of a recent and decided change in 
 manner from his ordinary light-heartedness, and, for 
 this reason, refrained from her usual greeting when 
 the swish of the bush was heard, but waited for the
 
 THE SEA 
 
 clatter on the pavement. He responded in a voice 
 so low, she quickly craned her neck that she might 
 see if there were any possibility of a mistake in the 
 identity of her visitor. There was none, but this 
 was so quickly followed by an unprecedented oc- 
 currence, the widow was at a loss to account for the 
 meaning. For the first time in their acquaintance 
 he had nothing to say or, better expressed, said noth- 
 ing, and seemed to await a remark from her. She 
 was so accustomed to being the listener, merely 
 crowding in a nod edgewise between his rapidly 
 spoken sentences and disconnected remarks, that to 
 be unexpectedly called upon to open the conversation 
 took her completely by surprise. He stood, rolling 
 the brim of his hat while gripping at it with the 
 tension of nervous embarrassment. The seconds 
 seemed hours, and in her confusion the widow said 
 the one thing she had schooled herself to avoid. 
 And what made it worse, endeavored to check her 
 remark in its midst, which effort always gives em- 
 phasis. She had asked him to sit down, then im- 
 mediately attempted to divert his attention from 
 what she had learned to feel was a very rude remark, 
 when, to her consternation, he sat down on the steps. 
 It was an uneasy position, his back not resting 
 against the upper step, while his feet remained 
 drawn up ready for rising. But the.re he was, sit- 
 ting down, the first time she had ever seen him off 
 his feet. The widow was now prepared for any- 
 thing, and leaned forward, speechless with expecta- 
 tion. He did not look into her face, but, fixing his
 
 SI 2 TAMAM 
 
 glance on the hat he held, continued in the same low 
 tone of his greeting. 
 
 " I thought to-night I would tell you the secret of 
 my life and ask you to join me in its keeping. 
 
 " When I came to live with you I was a fugitive, 
 not from justice, but from the haunts of a disap- 
 pointed love. I believed I was man enough to create, 
 for myself, a new life. I intended to make it a 
 selfish life, sharing what peace of mind might come 
 to me with no one, live for myself only, and draw on 
 all the unused resources of nature's world for diver- 
 sion. I felt, burning in me, the spirit of retalia- 
 tion ; not individual hatred, but a sense of pride in 
 the ability to live within myself. I wished to show 
 my scorn for dependence not show it to the world, 
 only to myself. All of this I wanted to do in return 
 for a wound received in the heart of my youth. I 
 was fortunate in coming to you, for here I have 
 found that solace and contentment most essential to 
 my needs. The trivial acts of kindness I have done 
 for you*were, at first, my pleasures ; but now I have 
 come to feel the doing of them is, with me, a neces- 
 sity, and were the privilege denied me it would be 
 to smother the glow of hope that has kindled in my 
 heart. 
 
 " It is to you only I can unburden myself and tell 
 of the secret fires of love by which I have been con- 
 sumed. You and I have not been perfect strangers 
 to each other. We found the bond common to those 
 who have suffered some of the many disappointments 
 of life, and the bond has grown strong enough to let
 
 THE SEA 213 
 
 me open my heart and feel I will not be rebuked for 
 insolence. The disparity in our ages is of no con- 
 sequence; some young hearts are old and some older 
 hearts are young, while an entire life is but a period- 
 like dot without dimensions. All who ever ferreted 
 at the mystery of love can meet on common ground, 
 and talk as man to man. 
 
 " Only recently has the spark flared up and shown 
 me the fire has burned continuously. 
 
 " Veritably, a voice from Heaven has spoken words 
 which flooded me with such peace as the most long- 
 ing soul could wish. Since then I have not lived 
 on earth, but have dwelt in the strangeness of an 
 existence hitherto unknown. The bitterness of my 
 life has changed to a spirit of forgiveness, and I 
 want to live, from now on, for a new purpose. I 
 want to repay myself for the injury I have suffered 
 from my own misinterpretations. I have been the 
 frustrater of my own life's intent. I owe myself a 
 great debt, and have decided to undertake the pay- 
 ment. I will do this by throwing off the old disguise 
 of happiness, which has been nothing more than the 
 froth of affectation, and let the ebullition of my new 
 life bubble over, if it will, and tell, in words of truth, 
 of the contentment that has at last come to me. I 
 tell you this that you may, if you will, share in my 
 joy in the possession of this true peace, while you 
 are sharing, with me, the keeping of its secret. 
 
 " I have loved and suffered, and lived to see the 
 gates of Heaven open and show to me there is, really, 
 truth in life. If the future holds for me no other
 
 TAMAM 
 
 purpose than that of living to forget the past, I 
 shall be well provided for, and ask only to live in the 
 quiet here. 
 
 " She who has my heart and life now looks down 
 on me, and through the twinkling of the stars I see 
 the gleam of light that shines from the window of 
 her soul's abode." 
 
 He arose with a quick movement, as if seized with 
 a desire to apologize for being seated in her pres- 
 ence. The series of unexpected happenings was not 
 yet terminated. For the fourth time he violated all 
 precedents when, for the first time, he took her hand 
 and looked into her face. In tones which had grown 
 in softness and in the rich vibrant quality of 
 male voices as he progressed in his narrative, he 
 said: 
 
 " You have the secret of my life I know I can 
 trust you with its keeping ! Good-night ! " 
 
 Again she traced him through the woods by the 
 insect stillness that followed his way ; and when she 
 knew he had reached his door, she went to the upper 
 window and watched for the gleam of light that 
 would come from his cabin. When it appeared, she 
 lighted her lamp and placed it on a table near the 
 window. She watched until his was extinguished, 
 then lowered the curtain in front of her own. 
 
 It was the morning following this that she had 
 twisted the little curls on her temples, put back her 
 " scolding locks," powdered her nose and put on a 
 well-starched dress that had been laid away for many 
 days. Taking up a basket of eggs, she got into her
 
 THE SEA 215 
 
 phaeton with such elasticity of movement that the 
 horse seemed to scent a strangeness in her actions 
 and started off before she had gotten well seated, 
 which had a tendency to jar the widow, to say noth- 
 ing of the eggs. This furnished sufficient excuse 
 for her to give him a sharp cut with the whip, and 
 away they went. The small boy, whose duty it was 
 to run behind and see her through the gates, felt the 
 spirit of animation take root in him, making him 
 kick the dust into a cloud, until it appeared she was 
 going much faster than in reality. Indeed, so pre- 
 occupied had she become, and invigorated with the 
 idea of putting new life into everything, that she 
 continued, unconsciously, to jerk the reins and use 
 the whip until the horse broke into an ungainly 
 gallop. In checking this she brought him to a sud- 
 den stop, which proved to be the " last straw," so 
 far as the eggs were concerned. 
 
 Upon reaching the gate of the home she intended 
 to visit, she was greeted by two young women, who, 
 having seen her hurried approach, were excited as to 
 the possibility of some one at her place having been 
 injured, and the widow's mission being to solicit aid 
 in the care of that person. 
 
 " I came over to bring you the eggs you wished," 
 said the widow, when it became necessary she should 
 explain her mission. 
 
 The young women looked at the powder on her 
 nose, at the lisle-thread " half-handers " which she 
 was wearing, and glanced at each other. 
 
 " We intended coming over for them," replied one,
 
 216 TAMAM 
 
 in an injured tone which clearly expressed her dis- 
 appointment. 
 
 " I thought I could save you that trouble," the 
 widow replied, with an effort to conceal her exult- 
 ance in having so cleverly avoided the intrusion, as 
 she now felt their presence would have been. " And, 
 besides," she continued, " I wanted to ask you for 
 the pattern of your new dress." 
 
 What on earth does she mean? thought one young 
 woman, almost loud enough to be heard. 
 
 " Do you mean mamma's pattern ? " queried the 
 other young woman. 
 
 " Oh, no ! " replied the widow, " I am going to 
 dress differently from heretofore. My clothes are 
 much beyond those for a woman of my age, and as 
 I am going out of mourning, I think I ought to be 
 more careful in the selection of my styles and then, 
 there are other reasons ;" and she tossed her head in 
 a very knowing manner. 
 
 The two young women were so completely routed, 
 they could think of nothing to say ; whereupon one 
 suggested she would get the pattern. 
 
 When this was handed her, the widow remarked, 
 " I will bring it back when I have finished ;" after 
 which she started on her return. 
 
 The young women pushed back their sun-bonnets 
 and looked into each other's face for the meaning 
 of all this. 
 
 " Did you take in the eggs ? " asked the one who 
 had gone for the pattern. 
 
 " No," replied the other, " she forgot to leave
 
 THE SEA 217 
 
 them. Did you take in that powder rag she had 
 tucked in the corner of the seat, and that white 
 linen skirt she was wearing? " 
 
 Approaching home, the widow spied her tenant, 
 and timed her speed that she might reach the house 
 just as he chanced to pass, knowing he would stop 
 and greet her. 
 
 When within calling distance he addressed her 
 with the remark, chiding in tone, that the neighbor- 
 hood was aroused as to her action, and had made 
 inquiry if her fast driving indicated trouble of any 
 kind? 
 
 Her reply was to the effect that she had merely 
 gone to take some eggs, so " those girls " would not 
 be coming over for them, with which remark she 
 gathered her skirts preparatory to leaving the 
 phaeton. 
 
 It was then she recalled her failure to leave the 
 eggs, and immediately released the folds, allowing 
 her skirt to cover the basket, and settled back as if 
 she had concluded to drive elsewhere. 
 
 " I must do another errand," she explained, at the 
 same time taking up the fallen reins and hastening 
 to turn around before he should discover the egg 
 basket. 
 
 " Going to take eggs again ? " he called out. 
 " Better go slower, it might be safer for the eggs. 
 And ii*any one inquires about your hurry I will tell 
 them you are ' renewing your youth,' ' : ' and he 
 laughed with the spirit of one who is truly at peace 
 with himself.
 
 218 TAMAM 
 
 The widow felt cut to the quick. Had he seen the 
 eggs, and was it a jibe of cruel sarcasm? 
 
 She urged the horse, as she felt the tears start 
 down her face ; and knowing they would soon mix with 
 the powder, took off the lisle-thread half-handers, 
 which he had not even seen, and rubbed her face 
 with them to be sure there would be no powder 
 left. 
 
 The taunt he had given stung her until she felt 
 the vehemence of feminine hatred fill her breast. 
 
 " How dare he talk to me in such a manner, and 
 the first time since his confession of love for me last 
 night ! " 
 
 But ah! those words of last night were such that 
 even now they were a balm to her wounded heart, and 
 perchance he did not intend his jibe should be so 
 cruel as it seemed. Her heart lightened, and she felt 
 for the powder rag, resolving to take his remark as 
 a familiarity due to their new relation. Once more 
 her face wreathed in smiles, and wrinkled in powder. 
 She turned, hoping to reach home unexpectedly while 
 he was away from the house. Arriving, she hurried 
 out of the phaeton, taking with her the basket from 
 which trickled yellow strings of broken eggs. 
 
 But he had seen her turn back, and accordingly 
 retraced his steps, making the house as she disap- 
 peared through the doorway. In the same laughing 
 spirit, he asked her, " Did you forget the eggs? " 
 
 She pretended not to hear, and remained inside, 
 watching him through the partly open door. 
 
 Picking up two articles left on the phaeton seat,
 
 THE SEA 219 
 
 he called to her, saying she had forgotten more than 
 the eggs. Innocently, he examined the pattern and 
 the powder rag as he carried them to the door. 
 
 She hurried to her room, and did what women do 
 when they must give vent to the same harnessed feel- 
 ings a man releases when he swears. 
 
 His words of the evening before continued to ring 
 in her ears, and the balm in them had not ceased to 
 be effective, even now. She soon emerged, arrayed 
 in the freshness of her dream of youth, and the same 
 well-starched skirt, thoroughly imbued with the 
 sweet spirit of forgiveness. But some kind of an 
 ill wind seemed blowing for her that day. 
 
 While bringing in the articles left behind he had 
 observed the trail of eggs from the phaeton to the 
 door, and upon her reappearance he broke into a fit 
 of laughter. 
 
 Rather than laughter, she had expected a com- 
 pliment, and feeling the blood in her veins grow hot 
 with indignation, she cast her eyes downward and 
 discovered the horrible streaks of yellow on her white 
 skirt just as he, having the phaeton in mind, said, 
 " I noticed you brought some of the eggs home with 
 you." 
 
 What could she do? She had gone in before, had 
 had her cry, and forgiven him. What else can a 
 woman do? She decided quickly, and it was she 
 would now do neither. How dare he tamper with her 
 feelings ! Henceforth they would be strangers. 
 
 A diet of nectar, fed by the hands of Hebe and 
 Ganymede, would prove satiating, if continued with-
 
 220 TAMAM 
 
 out interruption, and how much more so is it with 
 eggs. 
 
 It was smears of egg the widow now saw over 
 everything. There sprung in her heart a wish that 
 she might never again so much as hear the cackle 
 of a hen. 
 
 Composing herself to the uttermost, she replied by 
 the venomous hiss of silence, and went into the house, 
 leaving him thoroughly mystified. 
 
 Her beautiful dream of love had proved a night- 
 mare, and all caused by too much egg. 
 
 She felt thoroughly tired from the day's happen- 
 ings, and after discarding the egg-stained skirt, re- 
 sorted to that rest derived from meditation. Unin- 
 tentionally she fell asleep in her chair, and it may 
 be her dream was of the Elysian days of youth, when 
 nature painted her cheek with a pomade of holly- 
 hock scarlet and the cream of buttercup. Whatever 
 it may have been, she was awakened by the clatter 
 of heels on the pavement, to see two young women 
 standing at her door-step. 
 
 Her greeting was perfunctory, and coupled with 
 it she extended the borrowed pattern, explaining she 
 had concluded, after all, the style would not suit 
 her. 
 
 " We came for the eggs you forgot to leave," was 
 all they could say in reply. 
 
 The " breaking of home ties " is a theme that has 
 long appealed to imaginative and constructive tern-
 
 THE SEA 
 
 peraments. It is a theme dealing with the future, 
 and future means promise. It glitters with incen- 
 tives and the possibilities for toning. 
 
 There is another theme, cold, unpopular and 
 avoided. It relates to the plain realities of the 
 past. Here the speculative is dimmed, and concep- 
 tions are confronted with facts. Facts are devoid 
 of plasticity, no fit material for moulding purposes. 
 
 The return to the old home of one shorn of prom- 
 ise of the future, and burdened with the facts of 
 the past, is a theme difficult of illumination. 
 
 The posthumous daughter was again at " Forest 
 Retreat." She had essayed in the glare of pride 
 in determination, only to return in the silence 
 of the vanquished. The restful quiet of the place 
 seemed but to accentuate the hum of foreign sounds 
 that lingered in her ears, and she suffered the tor- 
 tures of those who are thrown from a life of activity 
 into the sluggish calm of idleness. This, coupled 
 with the resultant despondency due to apparent fail- 
 ure, which in turn was coupled with the burning 
 secret of its cause, seemed likely to bring about the 
 undoing of the hidden force that had buoyed her 
 through the sea of doubt she had so long known. It 
 seemed her cup of sorrow must be full; and as the 
 most bitter draughts, under continued administra- 
 tion, diminish in their nauseous effects, was it pos- 
 sible she had suffered all? There is consolation in 
 the belief that the acme, even in despair, has been 
 reached, for this brings with it the promise of im- 
 munity from future suffering.
 
 222 TAMAM 
 
 These thoughts were dwelling in her mind when, 
 as though a bit of the nebulae in the skies had 
 agglutinated and fallen in her path, a garland of 
 roses reached " Forest Retreat," bearing his name 
 as the sender. 
 
 Were the cold marble of a Pygmalion to actually 
 fill with the warmth of life, the apparition would in 
 itself prove stupefying to our comprehension, and 
 produce a reflex action of the brain, such that it 
 would appear to us as a foreseen possibility. In the 
 same sense, a voice actually coming from the grave 
 would not disturb our state of normal composure. 
 So it was, the garland spoke to her as a matter of 
 course, a voice always expected and impatiently 
 awaited. 
 
 She accepted it as a salutation from a long-ab- 
 sent one, and lapsed into that dazed state one does 
 when confronted with the inability to disentangle 
 one's own mental confusion. She acknowledged the 
 receipt of the garland in a matter-of-fact way, which 
 had brought about the immediate announcement that 
 he would visit " Forest Retreat." 
 
 And in the calmness of relief obtained, when the 
 cause of the bewilderment is no longer sought, she 
 awaited him. 
 
 One of the many artful devices of Nature is to 
 disassociate growth from things that may have at 
 some time formed the subject of our mental impres- 
 sions. When we meet the stern face of one not seen 
 since childhood, we feel a sense of resentment that the 
 laughing child we knew should deceive us by wearing
 
 THE SEA 223 
 
 a mask streaked with the lines of age and the serious- 
 ness of purpose. 
 
 The posthumous daughter knew him only as the 
 one she had left myrtle-crowned in the graveyard 
 years before. When he came, it was as the meeting 
 of perfect strangers who have one common thought 
 they have known the same two people who knew 
 each other, years before. 
 
 " How did you know I was here ? " she asked in 
 the tone of one who feels their acts have been ob- 
 served in secrecy. 
 
 " Have you not always been here? " he replied. 
 
 She felt chagrined that her life had been of so 
 trivial consequence to him, and remained silent, won- 
 dering what it all meant. She thought it appro- 
 priate to ask why he had sent the flowers, and did so, 
 making it clearly evident, through the inflection of 
 her sentence, as to the state of her feelings. 
 
 Of the thoughts that ran through his mind, of 
 the words he might have spoken, of the peace each 
 had so long sought and which might come with the 
 kindling of a single ray of warmth in his eye, it 
 seemed not one of these could be tuned to the har- 
 mony of strangeness that had invaded their rela- 
 tions. 
 
 Why had he sent the garland? The question 
 assumed a spectre-like form and appeared to stand 
 before him demanding satisfaction. He waited, 
 wondering if the spectre could be satisfied by his sug- 
 gestion as to a fitting use for it. He thought of a 
 happy life, known long, long ago, before the morbid
 
 224 TAMAM 
 
 pallor of disappointment spread over his counte- 
 nance. A life long since but a faint and lingering 
 spark that could not be smothered, either by the 
 plunging of himself into new environment teeming 
 with changed conditions, or from the starving of it 
 through philosophical abstinence in meditation. 
 How persistently the spark had held on, finally to 
 flare up in what had proved to be the consuming 
 of false hope as a fuel. The new hope was, after 
 all, but the death-throes of that life, the muscular 
 contraction that follows the long stillness and im- 
 mediately precedes dissolution. That life had now 
 been consumed, and could not the flowers be placed 
 on its grave? Or, could he admit the interpreta- 
 tion he had made from the sending to him of that 
 strange diary, and frankly say the flowers had been 
 intended for her grave? The spleen of retaliation 
 almost forced him to suggest them as a tribute to 
 the memory of the life he had once known in her. A 
 flood of thought filled him, but the silence remained 
 unbroken. He knew he must answer the direct ques- 
 tion she had put. His reply was prefaced by 
 pointing to a large aspen tree, not many feet away, 
 that had never ceased to tremble in its watch over the 
 sleep of those resting in its shade. 
 
 " Near that tree there once sat a little girl with 
 uplifted face, and in pleading tones begged a small 
 boy, who was climbing it, not to go so high. But on 
 he went, until the height was reached where the 
 branches became slender and swayed with the winds. 
 The little girl's uneasiness increased with the height
 
 THE SEA 225 
 
 of his climb, but he was strong-hearted, and her 
 tears were an inspiration to him. Out on one of the 
 branches he went, and as it bent and swayed, he 
 rocked on the sea of pride that rolled about him, 
 while the little girl buried her face and moaned in 
 piteous fear for his safety. Finally he came down, 
 and in reply to such scolding as she could give be- 
 tween her sobs, pointed out the initials of her name 
 carved on the very topmost branch. That little 
 girl and that little boy live no more. In the grave- 
 yard of childhood the breath of the poppy gives 
 them sleep, while they dream of the things that hap- 
 pen only in the world of little people. We knew 
 them. Let us place the flowers on their graves." 
 
 "And I have been dead to you since then? " she 
 asked immediately. 
 
 He searched his heart, and replied, with that in- 
 flection which indicates perfect assurance as to the 
 truth of a statement, " Yes, for a time." 
 
 When she spoke the white imprint of teeth in her 
 feverishly crimsoned lips gave evidence as to the 
 torrent of emotion that filled her. 
 
 " Likewise, I have placed flowers on your grave," 
 and a smile, nearly akin to that of perfidy, played in 
 her face as she thought how true were the words 
 she had spoken, and how his ignorance of her 
 meaning would make them sting as his had stung 
 her. 
 
 " Then we have been dead to each other," he sug- 
 gested, implying his was in a symbolical sense, as 
 had been his interpretation of her allusion.
 
 226 TAMAM 
 
 " Yes," was her response, being equally drenched 
 in the same sea of dilemma. 
 
 Would that the life-boat, strong and sure, so 
 needed on the treacherous seas of misconstruction, 
 could be launched and the hand of fate prove timely 
 for the rescue of these two souls, fast sinking and 
 grappling each other with the clutch of drowning 
 men, as the crest of each wave breaks and smothers 
 them in the foam of its fury ! 
 
 " It remained for you to taunt the living flesh 
 of the dead spirit," she began ; " and though the sole 
 right to break silence was yours, yet your first shaft 
 came from ambush. It reached home, and poisoned 
 with sarcasm though it was, faith in the strength 
 of my own self proved an antidote to its virulence." 
 
 With the delivery of this reproach, she handed him 
 the letter once rumpled in a fit of anger, and whose 
 creases had been smoothed in the compassion of her 
 after-thought. She waited, in the same triumphant 
 spirit of the days gone by when in their passages of 
 wit she had scored. 
 
 His reply was in tones submissively measured, as 
 if each thought were being carefully considered. 
 
 " I wrote this, but I did not send it. I could not 
 have sent it, and wrote it to prove this to myself. 
 It was done in an idle moment, and but the unbur- 
 dening to myself of what was in my heart. It could 
 not have been intended for other eyes than mine, 
 which thought developed in me a hatred of myself, 
 and, to be candid, of you. In idleness, I attempted
 
 THE SEA 227 
 
 to reconcile myself. I believed the letter was de- 
 stroyed." 
 
 It was a confession in which he had shown no 
 mercy for himself, and left him with the advantage 
 of one who outwits his opponent by pleading guilty. 
 
 " May I ask," he continued, " why you sent this 
 to me? " and he handed to her the mysterious mes- 
 senger that had played between them, the pocket 
 diary. 
 
 As soon as she could get the four words formed 
 into a sentence, she asked: 
 
 " Have you read it ? " 
 
 The inaudibility of his reply made it known to 
 her that he had. 
 
 It may be she would have had him answer as he 
 did. No heart ever bleeds that would always have 
 its lacerations concealed. Every entry made in the 
 secret journal of the heart's longings is instilled 
 with an inborn faith in the transmission of mental 
 impressions, and a fugitive hope that fate may de- 
 cree the discovery of the entries at the crucial 
 moment, and under the desired conditions of psycho- 
 logical importance. 
 
 She was transported back to the days that fol- 
 lowed his leaving, when she had lived strong in the 
 faith of his eventual return. Her reply was in 
 tones showing self-composure of remarkable force. 
 
 " I did not send it. I could not send it. It was 
 not the thought of an idle moment but the deliberate 
 unburdening of my heart, under calmest reflection.
 
 It could have been for no eyes other than mine, 
 though I would have had you read it after mine had 
 been closed forever that you might know I had suf- 
 fered. It was written with my life blood, and every 
 thought was a truth. I longed for words to express 
 their real depths. The book was lost. I prayed it 
 might never be seen by human eyes, and that in my 
 eternal sleep I should dream the message was carried 
 to you." 
 
 He felt himself fill with pride in having so thor- 
 oughly acted in accord with what she had just said, 
 when on that night he had read what he believed to 
 have been intended for no other eyes than hers. He 
 realized she had again outwitted him. While his 
 confession had been more nearly a compromise, hers 
 was a clean breast of sincerity. His thoughts re- 
 verted to the evening in the graveyard, the laughing 
 indifference she had shown, all since explained 
 through the mysterious messenger. And she, too, 
 had suffered, like himself, and had borne her suffer- 
 ing without harboring the hatred that had come with 
 his. He wished he had spoken the full truth, and 
 told her the message had come to him as a voice from 
 Heaven ; but then he would have found himself in the 
 position of standing before one with flowers in hand 
 to lay on one's grave. He remained silent, ponder- 
 ing heavily. 
 
 Silence is not always golden, and it was during his 
 that her mind dwelt on the thought he had be- 
 queathed his soul to one now abiding in the peace of 
 Heaven. She felt he meditated on his declaration to
 
 THE SEA 229 
 
 that soul, the knowledge of which had been revealed 
 to her in a manner so strange she dare not let the 
 thought linger in her mind. That he had loved 
 another was in itself enough to stifle her sense of com- 
 prehension, and she did not care to rehearse the 
 ordeals attendant upon its revelation. 
 
 Feeling she was in possession of the situation, she 
 continued, " I have not been here always. I went 
 to search among those who live only in the memory 
 of a grateful nation to find you," and her words 
 trembled. " I found you, but not there." 
 
 He waited to catch her first utterance in explana- 
 tion. 
 
 She felt he was considering the most compassion- 
 ate way of breaking to her the information she pos- 
 sessed in secret. 
 
 " I have not told you," he began 
 
 Could she let him speak the cruel words and watch 
 her writhe like a singed worm? No, it was better 
 that she tell him, and as if his words had gone un- 
 noticed, she continued: 
 
 " I knew that your heart and life were given to 
 another. You have read the sacred pages of my 
 life," and she glanced at the diary, whose leaves she 
 was fingering. She said something further, but he 
 did not hear it. The sentence, " I knew your heart 
 and life were given to another," echoed in his ears. 
 There flashed through his mind how ridiculous was 
 the situation in which the widow could have placed 
 him, and the possibility of some malicious distortion 
 having preceded him to " Forest Retreat." The
 
 230 TAMAM 
 
 absurdity of the widow's egg episode completely oc- 
 cupied his thought. 
 
 It may have been the psychological moment of 
 importance in the unheard narrative, or the crucial 
 interval of silence that followed, but at her pause he 
 prefaced the continuation of his interrupted words 
 with a smile. 
 
 As though a poignard had been thrust in her 
 heart, she buried her face, and the long-tried lash- 
 ings that had weathered so many tempests on her 
 sea of life broke. 
 
 Her released emotion assumed a hysterical form, 
 and between the convulsions produced by the burst 
 of bitter anguish she pleaded, in the voice of a sup- 
 plicant for mercy, that he leave her. What to do 
 he did not know. His words fell as though on one 
 bereft of the sense of hearing, and he lingered in 
 speech and step. 
 
 Feeling he had left her presence, she rose, and, 
 finding him yet waiting in mute astonishment, she 
 commanded all the reserve strength in her body. 
 She faced him in silence, raised one arm, not with the 
 upturned palm of pleading, but hand closed with 
 the intensity of determination, save the index finger, 
 which was extended. Like one of the " Furiae " she 
 stood, defiantly immovable. For a moment he 
 waited, looking at her, magnificent in her wrath. 
 
 The wondrous depths of blue in her eyes changed 
 from the azure warmth of summer skies to the soul- 
 less cast of winter. The raven black hair, still like 
 a weighty fold of silken turban, hung about her fore-
 
 THE SEA 231 
 
 head, but now entwined with threads of pure silver, 
 far more artistically intricate than any save the 
 hand of Nature could produce. Her chiseled fea- 
 tures had the blanch of marble, and were it not for 
 the rise and fall of her breast, which came with her 
 labored breathing intermingled with a partially suc- 
 cessful effort to control the convulsive sobs that filled 
 her, she would have been a statue wonderfully perfect, 
 and classic in the interpretation of " Marshalled Re- 
 serve Force." Her voice, still limpid in inflection and 
 liquid in tone, was hushed to his ears, while the point- 
 ing hand spoke volumes. He obeyed and turned 
 away. Had he looked back he would have witnessed 
 the transformation of " Defiance " into " Grief," 
 with the same pose, but the extended arm turned 
 backward to bury the face. 
 
 When he had returned from " Forest Retreat " the 
 " sea of dilemma " had lost none of its turbulence. 
 The widow was fairly strangling in the drenching 
 of its fury, so unaccountable had his actions be- 
 come. Just as she was regaining prestige in the 
 matter of his confidence, after her heroic and suc- 
 cessful effort to return to the even tenor of her way 
 and bide the time when he would again broach that 
 very tender subject, love, his movements became more 
 mysterious than ever. She had of course noted his 
 absence. She noted everything, and nothing could 
 be more conspicuous than his being away from home. 
 
 A characteristic of some people is their ability
 
 TAMAM 
 
 to ingratiate themselves into the existence of dumb 
 animals. They who possess this power are able to 
 exercise much of control over the animals' habits and 
 dispositions, particularly domestic animals. The 
 widow's tenant was endowed with this property. If 
 information were obtainable through no other source, 
 the disturbance in the life of that small portion of 
 the animal kingdom comprising her possessions would 
 have made known to the most casual observer the 
 absence of some one. 
 
 It was with intense interest she had awaited his 
 return. When the horse ceased in his grazing with 
 head toward the gate, and the dogs awoke from their 
 stupor of indifference, she knew he was at home, 
 though she had not seen him. 
 
 Suspicious as he had become regarding the widow, 
 and the possibility of her having betrayed his con- 
 fidence, he could not arouse in himself the courage to 
 face her immediately upon his return. To the 
 widow this was ample verification of her belief that 
 his absence could be attributed to remorse of con- 
 science, consequent to his treatment of her. She 
 pictured another twilight and its fall of softened 
 shadows, the sweep of insect stillness through the 
 woodland and the mystic charm of the gloaming. 
 These were the conditions before, and she remem- 
 bered this period of the day had always been con- 
 ducive to loquaciousness in him. 
 
 But this was a time of strange happenings ; and 
 when he approached her while the day was in the full 
 vigor of its life, though himself filled with lassitude,
 
 THE SEA 
 
 she knew he had spent a sleepless night. That he 
 had something of importance to say was evident; 
 furthermore, it was plain there would be no repeti- 
 tion of the embarrassing silence that had occurred 
 on a previous occasion. He told her, in very few 
 words, that he had decided to leave. The widow was 
 not surprised. She would not have been had he 
 thrown his arms about her neck and kissed her. 
 Nothing could surprise her longer; she had lost all 
 bearings in the " sea of life." At the least, she was 
 relieved in mind by knowing one thing definitely, 
 even if it was that he no longer cared for her. 
 
 While she could not be properly characterized as 
 stolid, yet the very absurdity of her own interpreta- 
 tions designated her as belonging to the class of 
 medium intelligence. In consequence, the fires that 
 had been so readily kindled in her heart were as 
 easily extinguished; and with slight effort she was 
 able to take up the thread of life where she had 
 dropped it, the day he had presented himself as an 
 applicant for tenantship. That she regained her 
 buxomness and ability to carry eggs in safety, 
 and will continue through happy years in the per- 
 formance of this simple pleasure, is a safe specu- 
 lation. 
 
 There was no such strong hand as had been 
 reached out to the widow to lift him from the seeth- 
 ing waters, and the buffeting of life's waves had 
 made him insufferably sore. After a decade of 
 storm-tossed existence his first anchorage the 
 widow's farm place and her simple companionship
 
 234 TAMAM 
 
 had been over a false bottom. He would never again 
 pin his faith to mortal being. 
 
 Memories are the flavor of life's fruits. And like 
 the fruits of the earth, the fruits of life are char- 
 acterized by their flavor. Fruits in themselves are 
 nothing, the earth is covered with them ; some are pro- 
 lific in yield, though devoid of flavor; some gor- 
 geously colored, bitter and astringent-like ; some 
 homely in hue, scanty in yield, but filled with nec- 
 tar, palatable and gratifying. So are the fruits 
 of life : some gross and characterless ; some nau- 
 seous with the bitterness of disappointment ; some 
 deliciously sweet and wholesome. 
 
 It was after an inventory of his storehouse that 
 the nature of his harvest was revealed. He had 
 never thirsted for the huge yields of a characterless 
 life, any more than he had expected the golden de- 
 ciduous fruits that abound in youth to become peren- 
 nials. He had trusted to be able to fill the modest 
 coffers of his wants with fruits of a flavor that would 
 make them an appetizing diet for the winter of life. 
 But some unseen larva had always secreted itself, to 
 later gnaw at the heart of his purpose and thwart 
 his honest intent, until the granary contained only 
 a scant supply, and of homely hue, with a weevil 
 safely ensconced in every kernel. 
 
 Like St. Paul, he might say, " I have fought a 
 good fight." But could he view himself, in the per- 
 fectness of manhood, filled with the strength that 
 matures with the prime of life when youth has been 
 cultured with moral purity ; could he look at the un-
 
 THE SEA 235 
 
 blemished graciousness that God had lavished in the 
 making of his body, and say, " My course is run? " 
 
 That tenacity of purpose which had served as 
 king-pin for the craft in which he had braved the 
 " sea of life " had weakened to the point of rupture, 
 and the rigging on his ship of destiny was an en- 
 tanglement of frayed cordage. Henceforth he would 
 navigate in stilled, unfrequented waters, not as a 
 regular vessel listed in the registers of social recogni- 
 tion, but a " tramp ship." 
 
 Since the morning that his tramp guest, that 
 diametrically opposed counterpart of his own per- 
 sonality, had passed through the gateway and be- 
 come absorbed in the foliage that grew by the road- 
 sides^ he had inwardly mistrusted the strength of his 
 own philosophy. What if the tramp was right in 
 his theory that the inconsistencies of life could be 
 avoided by merely declining to face them. 
 
 A picture was fresh in his mind of the departing 
 tramp with visage wreathed in smiles and body 
 wrapped in the warmth of a coat that had been his 
 own. The happy vagabond was right, and he would 
 find him that he might tell him. He would seek him, 
 out in the vastness of Nature's freedom ; search 
 among the sweet-scented blossoms where the tireless 
 bee is the only worker, and the " lily that toils not " 
 reigns supreme; follow along the course of the idle 
 rambles of brooks and rills whose waters reflect the 
 gleams of sunlight that penetrate, like fire-tipped 
 darts, the sheltering foliage of the swaying trees; 
 look on some grassy slope, where the eye could feast
 
 236 TAMAM 
 
 
 
 on the symmetry of Nature in the rise of her hills 
 and the slope of her valleys, where the soul could be 
 satisfied through the music of birds that blend their 
 song with the voice of Nature, where thirst could be 
 quenched by the drinking of perfume vapors distilled 
 from the richness of Nature's fragrance by the 
 warmth of her sunshine. At some of these places 
 he would be found, selfishly isolated, nursing the wis- 
 dom of his philosophy. 
 
 Little do we know of the true perspective in our 
 mental pictures. Who could have discerned that this 
 hapless wanderer had unknowingly been the bearer 
 of a fateful message to the posthumous daughter, 
 delivered with his life, and whose mutilated body now 
 rested in the potter's field, shielded from further dis- 
 turbance by a tombstone bearing an epitaph of one 
 word encircled by an olive wreath? 
 
 Parting with the widow and her farm place was 
 nothing; simply one laugh, perhaps, though, a hys- 
 terical laugh of derision, or a Mephisto jeer! 
 
 Through the same gateway he went; and as he 
 saw in the distance where the foliage appeared to 
 form a solid mass across the roadway, he hastened 
 that he might reach it and become absorbed. From 
 the treacherous channels of life he sought harbor in 
 the peaceful folds of oblivion. 
 
 Shall we go through the foliage for just one 
 glimpse of him while in the fullest enjoyment of that 
 peace of mind to which he is so justly entitled; to 
 hear his laugh echoed in the laugh of the brooks and 
 rills he had sought? Will he grudge us this jot of
 
 THE SEA 237 
 
 satisfaction, or is he selfishly isolated in the nursing 
 of his new-born philosophy? 
 
 The kingfisher, that flies, arrow-like, up and down 
 the winding course of the rill, and the Indian hen, 
 that wades in the shallow water along its edges, flew 
 up with a scream. This caused the air to become 
 filled with the whirr of wild fowl that lived in har- 
 monious relationship by the waters that reflected the 
 flight of the fire-tipped darts. 
 
 There had been a pistol shot, followed by a 
 splash and the subsequent gurgling of water as the 
 bubbles of air carried into it escaped. 
 
 Not many days later the body of a man, in the 
 prime of life, swollen and discolored, too far advanced 
 in the stages of decomposition to admit of identifica- 
 tion, had floated away from the quiet of the rill into 
 a more frequented vicinity. When it was dragged 
 ashore, all traces of the self-inflicted wound were 
 obliterated. Men, each with one hand serving to 
 muffle his nose, rolled it into a crude box and hurried 
 away to the ridges where the counted countless sleep. 
 
 The kingfisher and the Indian hen have since re- 
 turned to their sentinel duties and the wild fowl are 
 quiet, sleepily watching the fire-tipped darts that 
 
 penetrate the foliage. 
 
 # # # * # 
 
 " Forest Retreat," are the sons who have fed on 
 the fruits of your rich soil, those sons whose birth- 
 right was the heritage of that spirit which enabled 
 the old master to snatch you from the hand of the
 
 238 TAMAM 
 
 red man, and, out of your pristine ignorance and 
 wildness, evolve a seat of culture; are those sons 
 shirking? Is this why the shrewd " tobacco- 
 grower " has been able to obtain so many little 
 " strips " " on the shares," until it became necessary 
 to bring in the outer fences? Can there be a secret 
 larva gnawing at their hearts? Or is there retro- 
 gression in the one-time great community of condi- 
 tions that made your atmosphere teem with thrift? 
 
 The odors from " curing " tobacco that hung in 
 the great new barns and overflowed to every out- 
 house on the place were in no sense gratifying to the 
 undaunted spirit though weakened flesh of the post- 
 humous daughter. And doubtless the great aspens 
 that stood in the graveyard shivered many times 
 at the thought of old Major Nicholson being left in 
 sole possession of that sacred spot, when some purse- 
 inflated magnate would have bought for himself a 
 heritage. 
 
 Once more the posthumous daughter made her way 
 to the graveyard. No young man followed her: 
 only a faithful family servant, who carried a chair, 
 that the daughter could rest at frequent intervals. 
 The servant halted at the gate, then wandered down 
 toward the great fields of tobacco so threateningly 
 near. The posthumous daughter did not go to the 
 mound, for she had no surplus strength, but cau- 
 tiously moved through the entanglement of myrtle 
 vines that matted over the ground, until she reached 
 her father's grave. There she sank down midst the 
 folds of her sombre-colored skirts, rested her fore-
 
 THE SEA 239 
 
 arms on the pedestal of the headstone and buried her 
 face between her hands. 
 
 Again the stillness of the graveyard was broken, 
 though by faint muffled tones that escaped between 
 her arms as she spoke. 
 
 " Father ! look down upon your child : she whom 
 you have never seen, save through the starry eyes of 
 Heaven ! Tell me what I have done, that I must 
 suffer the smothering of a bleeding heart ! 
 
 " I came into this world, half orphan, deprived 
 of the precious influence of your love, the shielding 
 protection of your arm ; born only to kiss away the 
 tears from a widowed mother's eyes. To be the 
 living embodiment of the cause for which you died, I 
 have endeavored with all my strength. Like you, 
 why could I not have died on the firing-line where 
 my life-blood would have leaped forth in the glory 
 of some earnest purpose, or some simple cause, or 
 even just some poor little trivial act of insignificance, 
 if nothing better? Why am I humiliated in life, 
 without hope in death? You, having seen all, know 
 the truth. 
 
 " Open your arms to your own fatherless 
 daughter! Fold me to your bosom! Tell me the 
 mysteries of life ! " 
 
 And then the faithful servant supported the 
 daughter as she passed with faltering footsteps along 
 the path that led through the garden. 
 
 The trail of the country doctor's buggy never 
 fails to arouse interest. Men in the fields stop with
 
 240 TAMAM 
 
 uplifted tools ; mothers with screaming infants in 
 arms crane their necks through partly open door- 
 ways ; children in the roadside school-houses cease in 
 the droning of their studies to peer over the tops 
 of their books, all to watch the course of the doc- 
 tor's buggy. They note the speed of his horse, the 
 duration of his visit, and watch again for his return 
 that they may catch a glimpse of his face. 
 
 When the doctor's buggy turned in between the 
 stone gate-posts that marked the entrance to " For- 
 est Retreat," and remained until after nightfall, the 
 neighbors did not have to search the doctor's counte- 
 nance to learn as to the gravity of the case. And 
 when the curtains remained drawn one morning they 
 knew the doctor had made his last visit to that 
 patient. 
 
 As the light of a summer's day softly fades into 
 the calm of night; as the dew of night noiselessly 
 lifts from the petals of the rose ; as the breath of the 
 rose passes into the ethereal blue of the skies, so 
 passed the life of the posthumous daughter ; an 
 euthanasia, gently lifted into the arms of her father, 
 rescued from the " Sea of Doubt." 
 
 God had noted the scream of the kingfisher and 
 answered her prayer: 
 
 "If he should die while yet I sleep, 
 I pray the Lord his soul to keep, 
 And ere the time I should awake, 
 My lonely soul He, too, will take."
 
 OBLIVION 
 
 " Oblivion, may thy languid wing 
 Wave gently o'er my dying bed." 
 
 WERE the moon inhabited, and should those in- 
 habitants train a telescope of sufficient power to en- 
 able them to scrutinize life and its resultant crea- 
 tions on earth, and the observer could sweep north- 
 ward and southward while the earth revolved on its 
 axis, thus presenting the earth in its entirety, he 
 would probably train his instrument on the small 
 town of El-Geezeh as presenting a structural work 
 of greatest interest. From this place, for a distance 
 of fifty miles along the western border of the Nile, 
 is the necropolis of the dead past in the world's his- 
 tory. Herodotus, the first chronicler of human 
 events, even five centuries before the birth of Christ, 
 was no nearer the solution of the mysteries hidden in 
 this graveyard than are we. 
 
 Through thousands of years have the tombstones 
 in that graveyard kept step with the march of time; 
 and when the cycle of civilization's advancement will 
 have been completed, and the earth encircled with its 
 trail, the pyramids of Egypt will continue to stand 
 as the mightiest work of man. 
 
 241
 
 243 TAMAM 
 
 El-Geezeh is the promontory of this strange bury- 
 ing-ground, containing nine of the thirty-nine struc- 
 tures constituting a barricade against which the 
 world's material and contemporary history of the 
 phases of human accomplishments can make no ad- 
 vance. Among these nine there stands one which is 
 not only the largest but probably the oldest. Cheops 
 lays claim as the first of the existing works of human 
 hands ; not through tradition, for it had been silent 
 three thousand years before the birth of tradition ; 
 but through a study of Egypt's topography, Cheops 
 is seen to stand as the focal point of the empire, 
 equidistant from its shores, and a harbor light for 
 the great Sahara on whose border it is placed. 
 
 Stand at the base of Cheops and marvel. Moses 
 stood there; so did Cleopatra and Napoleon. How 
 trivial seems the name of Napoleon in this connec- 
 tion, the comparison of mushrooms to mountains, 
 yet, a Human Pyramid of the Living Present 
 would more nearly describe Napoleon. Our might 
 hurled against that impenetrable breastwork of 
 the past is but the pelting of granite with snow- 
 flakes. 
 
 The actual seeing of these structures invariably 
 proves a disappointment to those who previously 
 formed mental pictures. Nor is this surprising: for 
 the mind has greater capacity for insight than has 
 the eye for material comprehension, since the eye 
 merely possesses the property of comparison, and 
 nowhere on earth is there anything comparable with 
 the pyramids.
 
 OBLIVION 243 
 
 The form of these structures, their mammoth pro- 
 portions, and the relative proximity of their loca- 
 tions suggest the true point of perspective is miles 
 from them. And standing as they do, outlined 
 against the terrible blankness of the desert, they ap- 
 pear to take on the vibrant nature of its atmosphere, 
 until one sees them as the most weird of spectres, si- 
 lently wending their way on their mission from the 
 unknown past to the equally unknown future, con- 
 temptuously oblivious of the present. 
 
 Nothing so quickly lends a prosaic color to poetic 
 conceptions as does the suggestion of dimensions. 
 Yet, in this age of degenerate temperaments, facts 
 serve as the foremost agent in the marshaling of our 
 appreciation. The builders of Cheops displayed 
 marked ingenuity in their efforts to dispel any tend- 
 ency to associate mensuration with their work. This 
 is seen in their chosen design, for in no style of archi- 
 tecture is there less opportunity for display than in 
 the pyramid. 
 
 Let those of an artisan turn of mind consider. 
 The base of Cheops covers thirteen acres, its apex 
 being nearly five hundred feet above. The same 
 material arranged in the equally simple form of a 
 cube would have been many times more conspicuous, 
 and correspondingly less durable than is the pyra- 
 midal form, which form of architecture possesses the 
 greatest resistant qualities to the weathering effects 
 of climatic agents. Here is the suggestion of an 
 attempt to withstand time, rather than produce an 
 overpowering presence.
 
 244 TAMAM 
 
 Preparatory to the erection of the structure a 
 mountain of stone was hewn down to the form of a 
 base, and the hewings removed. Stones, some of 
 which are eight yards in length and three yards 
 square in section, were presumably brought from the 
 Arabian mountains, five hundred miles distant, for 
 use in its building. 
 
 What historians say regarding the pyramids is of 
 no consequence, for no one can know ; but what they 
 do say is, that it has been more than four thousand 
 years since Surid, afterward known as Chufa, and 
 later, Cheops, came to rule over Egypt ; that he was 
 a despicable monarch and a great oppressor of the 
 people, making them labor for him, to the number of 
 one hundred thousand, for sixty years in the con- 
 struction of the three great pyramids ; and when the 
 work was completed he issued this proclamation : 
 
 " I, Surid the King, have built these pyramids and have 
 finished them in sixty-one years. Let him who comes after me, 
 and imagines himself a king, attempt to destroy them in six 
 hundred. It is easier to destroy than to build. I clothed them 
 with silk, let him try to cover them with mats." 
 
 It has been said the pyramids are the riddle of the 
 ages. Who built them, and for what purpose, are 
 questions that may have been asked by Abraham, 
 who doubtless gazed upon them in all their glory. 
 
 The first part of the riddle will never be answered. 
 The second was answered a thousand years since, 
 when it was discovered that some time in the past a 
 poor, selfishly human soul had hurled defiance at 
 Time and attempted to throttle its shrouding of his
 
 OBLIVION 245 
 
 earthly existence in the folds of oblivion. But Time 
 was victor and robbed him of the very marrow of his 
 conceit, using the great mausoleum to serve as a 
 mile post in its trail. 
 
 To-day, Cheops, Chufa and Surid are but imagin- 
 ative echoes lingering in the corridors of time, while 
 the mightiest work of man has proved but a pinnacle 
 for Oblivion, where she sits, enfolding in her gar- 
 ments the mystery of his dead past. 
 
 The builders of the pyramids made a heroic strug- 
 gle. Will our era, in the cycle of history, reveal 
 one of equal courage? one who will set up a second 
 mile-post in the trail of time? 
 
 To comprehend something of the term " Oblivion," 
 consider a human being the combination of inert 
 substances made into form, evolving heat, develop- 
 ing power of movement, possessing psychic qualities, 
 queer beyond conception. Then conceive of the im- 
 portance of that human being, if looked at with its 
 own eyes in the head of another. Bear in mind, it 
 is improbable if any two human beings were ever 
 cast in the same mould; if any two minds ever re- 
 corded the same impression ; if any two pathways, 
 from the cradle to the grave, have ever coincided. 
 Is it then not true that every human being is a 
 world within himself? And it is three hundred bil- 
 lions of these separate and distinct creations that 
 Oblivion has absorbed, nor is her hunger satisfied. 
 Some day we will have served our purpose in having 
 aided toward the appeasing of her craving. Our 
 material self will have been metamorphosed into
 
 246 TAMAM 
 
 those inert substances of which we are constructed, 
 and the fact of our having existed will have vanished. 
 
 Contrasted against Oblivion, death is the restful 
 sleep in life from which there will be a happy awaken- 
 ing. That we will die is a natural consequence of 
 our having lived. We are born with the stipulation, 
 the expectation, the right to have death come to our 
 relief. We are but temporal and shall die ; but must 
 we be forgotten? 
 
 Earthly existence is primarily the birth of that 
 life we live after death; an opportunity for us to fix 
 ourselves in the memory of others that we may live 
 again. So long as we are remembered, we live; we 
 could be called Thanatosians : they who live in death. 
 The life of the Thanatosian may be fleeting, or 
 more than temporal, possibly perpetual within the 
 sense of human comprehension. The Thanatosian, 
 being possessed with life, becomes subject to death. 
 His existence is absolutely at the mercy of his crea- 
 tor. We who create him must maintain him. His 
 death is his passing into oblivion to join the three 
 hundred billion. 
 
 Of the great world of oblivion we know nothing; 
 but of Thanatosia we are qualified to speak. That 
 land, with its galaxy of characters obtained through 
 the gruelling process of selection employed by time 
 and its ally, death, constitutes, in fact, the only 
 world with which we are familiar. And a strange 
 galaxy it is : patriarchs who have come down to us 
 through ages until their lives appear more symboli- 
 cal than real, illustrious beyond our conceiving that
 
 OBLIVION 247 
 
 they ever lived in human bodies ; steadily illuminating 
 that world, after others who have flashed with 
 meteoric incandescence across the heavens, faded to 
 the modest light of a glow-worm. These, and they 
 who left our own arms, robed in our promise of per- 
 petual remembrance, make up the concourse. 
 
 Under strange conditions, strange wherein every 
 wrong has been righted; where the past and the 
 future is the present ; where time has no flight, there 
 dwells this heterogeneous body of Thanatosians. 
 Among them are little children who never grow up, 
 but live in the wonderful child-world through which 
 we have passed. There are youths in the freshness 
 of life, full of flowers and the promise of fruiting, 
 though never dropping a petal of their bloom. 
 There are maidens in the rose-bud stage of life, with 
 cheeks immune to atrophia. There is the strength 
 of maturity, remaining at the flood-tide of life, 
 static in equilibrium. There is the age of Wisdom, 
 the pinnacle of life, with its soft diffusion of retro- 
 spective light that is not becoming dimmer. And 
 finally, those who have passed through all that life 
 afforded; whose sun has set and left them resting in 
 the peaceful twilight before a night that never comes. 
 These compose the heterogeneous body that inhabit 
 Thanatosia, the immutable land. And there our 
 loved ones dwell, and exercise an influence over our 
 lives so long as they live in our memory. 
 
 It is manifestly a human impossibility to retain 
 for any length of time true mental pictures even of 
 those who were nearest and dearest to us. After a
 
 248 TAMAM 
 
 while they become symbolical: beautiful visions that 
 unconsciously guide us : a light that brightens as 
 time increases the focal distance of the picture. 
 They are disseminated into an influence that sur- 
 rounds us until we scarce believe they could have 
 been on earth, but were the teachings of some in- 
 spiration. 
 
 Is it bold to suggest that some of the creations in 
 fiction may have reached the lofty height of living 
 embodiment until they too are disseminated into an 
 influence? If they are given life, death must await 
 them. Then must they pass into oblivion? Can 
 there not be one grand assemblage, comprising the 
 great creations of man, living in our memory just 
 as do they that were of flesh and blood? 
 
 In Thanatosia many are the days that have been 
 spent in the exchange of reminiscences between Cap- 
 tian Shelton and the courtly old Major, who came 
 to him from out of oblivion. Each is ever a ready 
 listener to the other, each knowing the other knew 
 he exaggerated every time the story was told, but 
 neither caring. In how many daring acts they may 
 have participated with imaginary Indians ; how 
 many hair-breadth escapes against fearful odds ; 
 how miraculous were the conditions that saved their 
 scalp-locks from dangling at the belts of some 
 treacherous red-skin, they only know, and care to 
 tell no other. For who could prove so responsive a 
 listener, so capable of giving those sympathetic nods
 
 OBLIVION 249 
 
 of approval, while the narrator glowed in the excite- 
 ment of his story, as they, each the one for the 
 other? 
 
 And long since, with what feeling has the fearless 
 Major Corbin explained to the friendless Jim, who 
 is no longer friendless, but a devoted servant of the 
 Major, and filled with pride in the ancestry of his 
 adopted master hearing no more of the despised 
 cognomen, " Guinea nigger " ! And with Jim safely 
 protected against the piercing of innocent jests, the 
 Major continues to follow his blooded fox-hounds, 
 whose noble tails have not again curled between their 
 legs, but stand straight out in the excitement of the 
 chase. 
 
 The Smallwood sister has never ceased in her en- 
 joyment of the joke she perpetrated on the sleeping 
 keeper of the vigil with her lifeless body ; while the 
 long, lean, lank, freckle-faced boy continues to gloat 
 in the notoriety achieved by him in being the first 
 among that great audience to note the absurdity in 
 the heroic blast of the king's herald. 
 
 The forgiving spirit of George Washington 
 Parke Custis has arisen from his forgotten grave, 
 and marveled at the number of strange bed-fellows 
 partaking of his hospitality. Upon their awaken- 
 ing he will doubtless ask them to visit his mansion in 
 the skies, where his " Doric " columns will again 
 make shadows in the moonlight to screen those 
 couples who steal away from the glare of innumer- 
 able candelabra, that there may be an exchange of 
 whisperings, and who knows what else! With the
 
 250 TAMAM 
 
 " Squire," these stranger sleepers may gather in his 
 graveless woodlands to view the merinos, now de- 
 veloped until their coats are clouds of fleece with a 
 lustre of pearl. And so long as his spirit may live 
 in our memory he will no more contract those in- 
 firmities of age that compelled him to go in search 
 of companionship. 
 
 And of the new master! He has walked with 
 Washington. They have talked regarding the con- 
 ditions that created a contention between brothers, 
 that grew to the seriousness of strangeness between 
 them, that led to the fierceness of war, that made 
 empty sleeves and filled breasts with anguish, that 
 made fatherless homes and homeless mothers and 
 children, that laid waste the fields and burdened the 
 nation with debt. They have weighed the cause of 
 the brothers and righted the wrong of each with the 
 forgiveness of the other. 
 
 The Lieutenant guest who one time paced the 
 portico in silence has rectified his error and been 
 absolved. And the immortal Prelude is heard no 
 more at the grave, but the intoning of its supplica- 
 tion, by the arborescent choir, is for those in the 
 world of flesh and blood, they who are undergoing 
 the sentence of mortal anguish and know nothing of 
 the ineffable life beyond the grave. 
 
 The sexton must have given up his former voca- 
 tion, for the flowers no longer wither. It may be 
 he is kept busy by the encroachment of the patriotic 
 golden rod, or the blazoned dandelion, or of the 
 stealthy creeping of the guileless honey-suckle. He
 
 OBLIVION 251 
 
 is certainly neither denied admission to the grounds 
 nor permitted to construct geometrical flower-beds. 
 
 The potter's field grave-digger, too, has seen his 
 foundlings romp in their child games, and they have 
 sympathized with him in Ihis loneliness. He has 
 heard from the lips of the same tramp he buried 
 that one's surprise in finding his own grave so zeal- 
 ously guarded by that solitary tombstone with its 
 monomial epitaph. 
 
 For of such are the ways in Thanatosia, where 
 mysteries are revealed and enigmas become trans- 
 parent; where the instigating motive of every act 
 committed in the world of flesh and blood has been 
 able to establish its justification; where the promise 
 of absolution we should look for in death is fulfilled. 
 We know so trivial a part of the nature of things in 
 real life; of the reason for throwing about us con- 
 ditions so markedly varied; of the giving to us of 
 intellects apparently so unjustly distributed; of the 
 clothing of two souls, one in the well-moulded body of 
 a man, the other in the shrunken and distorted form 
 of a dwarf. We know so little of these things, we 
 are compelled to resort to imagination. 
 
 Of life, we know but one thing: we know we 
 live, which condition necessitates a cause. The 
 cause of our existence can only be attributed 
 to a creator, which term, whether used in the 
 abstract, poetic or sacred sense, is the same. 
 We have some, though little, conception of the 
 three hundred billions that have gone before us. 
 We know our approximate duration in this life, and
 
 252 TAMAM 
 
 that against time it is infinitesimal, incalculable. 
 We are entitled to the belief that no higher form of 
 development exists than ours. Can we jumble our 
 great ignorance with our small intelligence, our 
 lack of comprehension with our knowledge of limita- 
 tions, our poetic fancies with our cold facts, and de- 
 duce from this a logical sequence that there is, or, is 
 not, a life beyond the grave? Our abstract, poetic or 
 sacred creator must have given consideration to this 
 question, and has either made us, like May-flies, born 
 to flutter in the sunshine of a single day, or our 
 earthly life is an inconceivably small interval in the 
 cycle of existence. 
 
 When one makes the startling announcement, he 
 knows there is eternal life, he profligates the very 
 intelligence with which he is invested. Should the 
 entire world unite in believing there is life beyond 
 the grave it would no more establish a fact than 
 could the transmutation of metals be effected by the 
 concentration of thought as the agent. 
 
 When one states his belief in a future life, he 
 has emphatically advanced his hope: nothing more. 
 And this hope of the future has ever been the food 
 of the present. The mind of man is adorned with 
 a speculative faculty, and since he can neither specu- 
 late on the past nor the present, the future is the 
 only thing remaining. The birth of this hope in 
 a future life is an armament against the throes of 
 anguish to which our mortal existence is subject. 
 
 When we train the little child to kneel and pray 
 in his innocence of our own ignorance, we do so in
 
 OBLIVION 253 
 
 the spirit of arming him against the day when he 
 will have arrived at the milestone in life from which 
 the figures have been erased, and some vandal has 
 inscribed the word " doubt." 
 
 Prayer is the sublime of conditions attainable by 
 the mind. It is the introspective review we make of 
 our secret motives as they file by, in the solemnity of 
 isolation; for judgment at the hands of the good 
 instincts that lie within us. It is primarily a con- 
 fession : the recognition of our inferiority : an ac- 
 knowledgment of ignorance : the confiding of hope. 
 The postures .of upturned face, bowed head or kneel- 
 ing are admissions of helplessness, and serve to 
 augment the attitude of the mind. That prayer is 
 helpful, wholesome and natural, is the testimony of 
 the Christian era. So we should teach the child to 
 pray : to kneel and pray ; and in so doing we instill 
 into his life the value of communing with his own 
 conceptions. And all of this will be to him the slow 
 unfolding of the existence of a mystery hopelessly 
 unfathomable. 
 
 The most exalted of human thought is, not that 
 we shall live again, but that they whom we love will 
 continue to live after passing from our midst. The 
 question as to our own future life should be of no 
 concern to us : it has to do with others. A hero 
 throws himself in the path of danger to accomplish 
 the rescue of some one imperiled. He gives no 
 thought to himself, thinks only of the one imperiled. 
 
 If it were desirable to formulate a universal creed 
 of faith, a creed coincident with the loftiest hope in
 
 254 TAMAM 
 
 the human breast, it would be our belief that they, 
 who in life so endeared themselves to us, will have be- 
 come immortalized and continue to live and influence 
 us so long as they live in our memory. Their per- 
 petuity is of no importance whatsoever, when we have 
 forgotten them. 
 
 Our right to existence beyond the grave may then 
 become conditioned absolutely on the mercy of those 
 we leave behind. Then what a realm that unknown 
 land becomes and what a power it makes of us ! To 
 those we love we give life throughout the eternity of 
 human conception; while with a spirit. of vengeance 
 we hurl others into the yawning abyss of oblivion. 
 
 We arrive now at the purpose of mortal life; the 
 opportunity to win for ourselves life beyond the 
 grave, and enter upon the real purpose of our crea- 
 tion. And how appropriately does this conform to 
 the regulations which we, as the body politic, have 
 formulated, when we refrain from inscribing the 
 name of a living person on our roll of honor. We 
 infer that no one can be unquestionably great while 
 yet alive. In the test of resilience applied to a 
 piece of steel it is not how far will it bend, but how 
 truly will it return to normal after flexion. So we 
 prefer to await the completion of the life-test of our 
 illustrious ones, when the strain of flexion may be 
 recorded. As in the steel, so in life the condition 
 of molecular disruption cannot be determined until 
 the strain is completely removed. Death then be- 
 comes a thing to live for, and life an opportunity to 
 rehearse for the great drama.
 
 OBLIVION 255 
 
 Things that are universal are natural. Things 
 that are natural are for our good. Death is uni- 
 versal. The assuming by it of such varied forms 
 confronts us with an enigma of serious moment. We 
 have seen the passing of beautiful lives, while their 
 mortal bodies were undergoing muscular contortions 
 of agonizing horror ; and we have seen the life of a 
 worthless wretch pass with the smile of innocence 
 playing about his mouth. We do not know why 
 this is. If on earth things were as they should be, 
 we should have nothing upon which to speculate ; 
 therefore, nothing for which to live. Among the 
 probabilities, one is that, physiologically, in all its 
 forms, death entails no personal suffering, being 
 nothing more than the carrying out of the stipula- 
 tion given with our birth. 
 
 The three words most expressive in the dictionary 
 of human thought are, life, death, and forgotten. 
 Of the two first we can give no definition. Of the 
 third, we know all. It means everything. And the 
 conclusion of the whole matter is, live to die, and die 
 to live. 
 
 The attainment of Nirvana is a conception of 
 Buddha, defined as the entering of the soul into a 
 condition of perfect equilibrium. Buddha's concep- 
 tion, however, admitted of this attainment only after 
 death. Is there no human possibility of Nirvana 
 during life? Is it beyond our power to live in a 
 state of equilibrium; where every passion is counter- 
 poised with moral courage; where every selfish 
 thought is, in the ultimate, a generous motive;
 
 256 TAMAM 
 
 where every ambition is appeased with an earnest 
 effort? 
 
 Nirvana in life, and, in death, life in the memory 
 of those we leave, would be a rounding out of the 
 most elevated thought to which the heart can aspire. 
 
 Buddha was selfish. So is every one who chooses 
 to live again in himself, rather than in the memory 
 of those whom he leaves in the bondage of earthly 
 life. 
 
 It was in the strange land we are calling Thana- 
 tosia where gathered, one day, the most remarkable 
 assemblage within the mind's conception. 
 
 There were old people beautified by the halo of 
 time, and young people glowing with perpetual 
 youth. There were sages hand in hand with the 
 golden curls of childhood's wiseacres, the dogmas 
 of one answered in the nursery lore of the other. 
 
 There were heroes of great wars wars for hu- 
 manity's sake whose faces beamed as they watched 
 platoons of small boys in paper cocked-hats, under 
 the leadership of shrill-voiced captains. And these 
 shrill-voiced captains beamed, in turn, on still smaller 
 boys who commanded squadrons of tin soldiers. 
 
 There were heavy-browed, serious-minded phi- 
 losophers who had learned to smile, and light 
 hearted, frivolous jokers whose faces were not al- 
 ways devoid of dignity, but were able to command 
 the recognition that, with them, existence was not 
 one flippant jest. The jokers could discuss the
 
 OBLIVION 257 
 
 philosophers' creeds, and the philosophers took 
 nizance of the unquestionable logic in the punster's 
 play upon words. 
 
 There were classic poets and doggerel rhymsters 
 vying in their ability to quote, each, the other's 
 verse; just as two kindred spirits of great com- 
 posers can improvise in duo, where one weaves in 
 a theme of the other's composition, while that one 
 struggles to obtain some cadenza effect, after which 
 he will throw his contemporary into juxtaposition by 
 substituting a theme of his opponent's construction 
 for that of his own. 
 
 There were great masters of painting, grouped 
 among worshipful students, conceding the impor- 
 tance of these same students' criticisms ; and master 
 artisans who saw in their ambitious apprentices the 
 embryo of future rivals. 
 
 And, to think of this ! There were immortal 
 authors accompanied by the equally immortal char- 
 acters of their own creation. Some of the charac- 
 ters jibing their creators for having made them so 
 fearfully absurd, others imploring to be clothed in 
 less dignity; some in the grotesque garb of their 
 creator's construction, absolutely refusing to lay it 
 aside; some explaining and apologizing to their 
 created companions, always pointing to their creator 
 as the excuse. Picture Bunyan and Christian com- 
 ing to this gathering! And against this contrast 
 of author and character was the character who had 
 overshadowed his creator; and lastly, that creation 
 so great as to have become vague in the matter of
 
 258 TAMAM 
 
 his origin, until we know not if he ever had the breath 
 of life, or was a sublime conception of man. 
 
 There were children nudging among the char- 
 acters they had learned to love in the nursery rhymes, 
 like the " Soap-fat Man " and the " Dish that ran 
 away with the Spoon." Little girls carried sawdust 
 dolls that wriggled and squealed, and little boys rode 
 on hobby horses that were supple and glossy, and 
 pranced and shied and pricked their ears, always 
 fearfully wild though thoroughly under control of 
 their excellent riders. 
 
 There were orphan children and childless parents, 
 each so filling the void in the other that no little feet 
 wandered aimlessly about the strange land, and no 
 mother languished in the thought of her children 
 left on earth. 
 
 There were entire families happily reunited, and 
 these were aiding separated ones to bear in patience 
 until the harmony of their soul music would be 
 completed. 
 
 These, and all of those any of us know and love 
 and keep alive in our memory, were gathered to cele- 
 brate the meeting of a father who had never seen his 
 ' own child, with a daughter who had never known 
 the meaning of the word " father." And when the 
 posthumous daughter ceased to be fatherless, and 
 the father was no longer childless, all the people of 
 that strange land were weeping tears of joy. What 
 a feast there must have been as these two souls let 
 their long pent-up love pour out ! When he felt her 
 safely in his arms, after the soft shadows had closed
 
 OBLIVION 259 
 
 around her earthly life, and she had looked into the 
 face she had waited so long to see, there must have 
 been those same golden moments of silence we have 
 on earth, when love has no words but stands trans- 
 fixed in speechless adoration. 
 
 What a story he had to tell her! How, when the 
 bullet had pierced his breast and he realized there 
 was to be no recoil from the shock, and while await- 
 ing the passing of the few fleeting moments that 
 remained of his mortal life, how his thoughts had 
 centered on the unborn child, and his prayer for its 
 safe delivery, that the mother and the child might 
 go through life each a bearer of the other's burdens, 
 a refuge for the other's sorrow, a fountain of the 
 other's joy. 
 
 And he could have told her how, through the gates 
 of heaven, he had seen the widowed mate of his life 
 go alone down into the valley of shadows and pass 
 between the lurking places of death, and when, 
 through fear for her safety, he turned away until 
 the voices of watching angels had fallen on his 
 ear, shouting in one grand chorus, " A child is 
 born ! " 
 
 And he must have told her how the mother had 
 brought the babe to the grave of his mortal body, 
 and there, beneath the shade of the aspens, bedecked 
 the little one in the gorgeous splendor of fresh 
 flowers, that as the little Princess of Fragrance she 
 could be lifted up by the winds, that he might have 
 a glimpse of their child. 
 
 He may have told her of the lullabies the mother
 
 260 TAMAM 
 
 sang, telling the little one of the father who awaited 
 them, and how each time, when the angels of sleep 
 had stolen her away, the mother would search the face 
 for any lines of expression resembling his. 
 
 He could have told how the mother concealed her 
 sorrow from the child, as it merged from babyhood 
 into the age of curls and fluffles, that the sky of the 
 child's life should not be overcast with the mist of 
 tears. 
 
 And only think of the things she must have told 
 him! First, of the mother teaching her the child's 
 prayer, " Bless father and mother," and how me- 
 chanically she said it until father became a common 
 word in her daily vocabulary, a word of the queer- 
 est meaning, sometimes being one of the men who 
 roll the thunderbolts and flash the lightning; and 
 how laughingly she must have told him that, at 
 other times, her childish conceit made him a drug- 
 store man who sold tears, in funny little bottles, for 
 people to put in their eyes to make them glisten 
 and look pretty. 
 
 Then she would have told him of the dolls with 
 which she played, they too having only a mother; 
 but that she always taught them to pray, " Bless 
 father," just as she had been taught. And of the jolly 
 tea-parties had at his grave, where the dolls had such 
 times sipping tea out of " butter-cups," while they 
 nursed their precious pussy-willow babies, or rocked 
 them in their burr furniture cradles, which the 
 grandmothers had made, in addition to chairs, sofas 
 and tables, all that the mother-dolls might play
 
 OBLIVION 261 
 
 " keep house." And what a quiet, motherly time 
 they would have, each mother and her family of 
 dolls living at some grave for a house, until a group 
 of Indian warrior boys, stained into grimacing 
 demons with the juice of the pokeberry, would climb 
 over the wall, making the party break up in con- 
 fusion as the mothers caught up their children to 
 flee for their lives ; and finally, after amicable rela- 
 tions were once more established, how the stained- 
 face warriors would sit around his grave, because 
 his tombstone had a sword and a row of stars on 
 it ; while the captive mothers would bring them 
 sweetened water in the cups from their dolls' china 
 closet. 
 
 What peals of laughter there must have been as 
 the father listened to the story of the happy days 
 of her life when his grave had entered into their 
 play, and himself a component part of the child- 
 world in which she lived. 
 
 With what sympathy he must have listened to her 
 recital of the difficulty she had found, in mature 
 life, in picturing him as her father ; how hard it 
 was for her mind to grasp any conception of what 
 his love would be, and that only the ceaseless and 
 silent adoration her mother had for his memory 
 served to help her grow into the realization that his 
 had been an actual existence, and not always a dis- 
 seminated influence. 
 
 And these two! How they must have united in 
 their praise of the mother who had so successfully 
 fostered in an unborn child the growth of love for
 
 TAMAM 
 
 its father, since the grim reaper Death had har- 
 vested this father even before the embryonic stage 
 was past ; and only through her constant dwelling 
 in the thought had this love been developed in the 
 prenatal life of the child. 
 
 And if we care to believe it, all of this happiness 
 was theirs, and the joy that came to these two was 
 worth many times the cost of all her suffering in 
 life. Every misconstruction, every disappoint- 
 ment, and even the birth of atrophia in her face, 
 had been compensated. And when that soldier father 
 fell on the firing-line, and his lifeless body had im- 
 peded the onrush of his fellow-comrades, so mad- 
 dened in the fury of internecine strife they scarce 
 avoided trampling him; and as the numbness of his 
 extremities extended toward his heart, and the knowl- 
 edge of death's nearness sent through him those pros- 
 trating shudders, even while the agony of dying 
 thirst seized him, with never a hand to moisten his 
 lips, though his glazed eyes still caught fleeting 
 glimpses of the fury surrounding him ; and the swell- 
 ing of his tongue until the air passages to his lungs 
 had been stopped all of his suffering had been 
 reconciled through a single glance into the face of 
 her whom he had at last folded in his arms as his 
 child. 
 
 Could each one of them again start from the 
 cradle, is there one event in the lives of either they 
 would have erased? Would they for any reason 
 disturb the sequence of conditions that had been 
 thrown around them? Would they avoid the paths
 
 they had taken, and risk themselves over the pit- 
 falls in any other? Would they question the reason 
 for the existence of any link in the chain that had 
 been forged from their lives? Had not every mo- 
 ment of suffering lent to the joy that was now 
 theirs? Would they care to risk curtailing it in 
 the slightest? 
 
 Can we not interpret something from the suffering 
 with which life is entailed? Is it not idle to presume 
 that we are created after the manner of individual 
 preferences ; and that the pleasures of the world are 
 to be borne by a select few while the vast majority 
 shoulder its burdens? Will the few nondescript 
 inanities who encumber the earth inherit what we call 
 " the kingdom of God? " We do not know, but we 
 can believe whatsoever we wish. In the strange land 
 where live those whom we, their earthly creators, 
 keep in life, we can adjust all differences within the 
 scope of human perception ; and as for the rest, what 
 matters it? There is the name Surid living with us, 
 but it means nothing. 
 
 For those we love we can believe in conceptions 
 beauteous to the very depths of our soul's conceits ; 
 and it is these conceptions that react in our lives 
 and make us what we are. What better tool could 
 be given us for the carving of our own destiny? 
 
 When the kingfisher screamed his note of warn- 
 ing, was the character we had known to pass into 
 oblivion? When the finny scavengers of the rill
 
 264 TAMAM 
 
 that had darted away as, with shattered brain, he 
 pitched into their midst, and had returned to nibble 
 at his flesh and, like mourners, follow his body in its 
 drifting that they might drink of the putrid water 
 in its trail, was he to become no longer deserving 
 of our thought? In this act of suicide had he dis- 
 played unpardonable cowardice? Did it mean that, 
 after all, he was a weak-kneed, faint-hearted crea- 
 tion, unworthy of the designation " man " ? 
 
 Self-destruction is not, necessarily, the result of 
 an unbalanced mind. It is not given to us to know 
 the nature of such dire extremity in which one finds 
 one's self, when resort is had to this means of relief. 
 Were we acquainted with this we too would be sui- 
 cides. Suicide is death while life yet lingers in the 
 body. From the moment of determination to de- 
 stroy one's self there must be the consciousness of 
 suffering the spirit to remain in a domicile obnoxious 
 to it; or the reverse, the consciousness of a broken 
 heart mortifying in a serviceable body. The pre- 
 dominating instinct is to sever all relation between 
 the abstruse thing called spirit, and the concrete 
 body. As soon as this dwelling together becomes 
 inharmonious, it must develop every agony to which 
 mortal existence is heir. 
 
 As to the train of conditions that lets one de- 
 termine on self-destruction, it must be inevitable, 
 else it would not exist. It could be no matter of 
 choice. But, confronted with a state of persona 
 non grata to one's own self, there is no alternative. 
 Hence, self-destruction being a relief, any desire for
 
 OBLIVION 265 
 
 relief is natural, and whatever is natural is for our 
 good. 
 
 Then have we the moral right to yield to what is 
 nothing more than a selfish motive? No man ever 
 took his life that it might advance the happiness of 
 another. Any provision that may have been in- 
 tended to ameliorate the suffering of those left be- 
 hind is made in the incipient stages of unrest, and 
 not after the victim of self-hatred has arrived at 
 his determination. When this crisis is reached, he 
 is virtually a sufferer of whatever death means in 
 all of its interpretations. 
 
 Anything so absorbing of thought as is death 
 means that during the final moments a state of 
 supreme isolation is probably reached. A traveler 
 waiting at the gateway of an unknown future, into 
 which he is about to journey and from whence he 
 will never return, would be so absorbed that recog- 
 nition of those he is leaving would be a triviality. 
 
 Death is neither less nor more to the mortal who, 
 in life, has sunk into oblivion, than to the one who 
 is stricken while on the pinnacle of success. If all 
 men are born equal, it is consistent to assume they 
 die equal. 
 
 There is no gainsaying it requires courage to com- 
 mit the act of suicide. It may be a courage sur- 
 passing any we know. Among our instincts one is 
 to hold our own life at all hazards. Should this be 
 followed, there would be no heroes, no martyrs, no 
 suicides. The hero yields his life at some hazard, 
 the martyr at every hazard, and the suicide at none.
 
 266 TAMAM 
 
 The hero's life goes for a risk, the martyr's for a 
 cause, and the suicide's, for naught. It must require 
 courage to give something for nothing. 
 
 To be the premeditated agent of self-destruction 
 is reserving to one's self the extreme in service, man 
 has ever requested of his truest friend. Socrates took 
 the cup of hemlock from the hand of the man who 
 loved him most. But Socrates reserved for himself 
 the act of placing the cup to his own lips, that with 
 him the words " death " and " courage " should be 
 synonymous. 
 
 This granting condemned persons the privilege of 
 administering their own death cup was a test ap- 
 plied with the purpose of humiliating the one who 
 lacked in courage to accept the offer. A similar dis- 
 tinction is found in the unwritten law prevailing in 
 certain nations wherein a defeated commander is 
 expected to terminate his existence with his own 
 hand; that through such an act he can dispel any 
 possible assumption as to a lack of courage. Such a 
 death, supposedly, re-establishes him in the eyes of 
 his followers. On one of less courage the death 
 penalty is frequently inflicted. 
 
 If life be shorn of its poetry, there remains the 
 unvarnished fact that he who possesses it can in no 
 way impart it in the least degree to another. We 
 must recognize in it an asset of such decided indi- 
 viduality that it cannot be entailed. And should 
 an asset of such a restricted ownership prove value- 
 less to its possessor, he could believe himself justified 
 in the disposing of it. A life that is worth nothing
 
 OBLIVION 267 
 
 to its holder can be worth little more to any one 
 else. Far better that it be not a thorn festering in 
 the flesh. 
 
 When the kingfisher screamed, it was a strong 
 heart that had ceased in its pulsation. No other could 
 have turned from a previous determination to give 
 full play to life in all its freedom and fancies. The 
 life was his to have and to hold. He had put its 
 qualities to the test. The train of conditions that 
 led to his state of mind had not been his choice. Life 
 was too serious to make of it a toy. He would 
 yield it up to the all-consuming thirst of Oblivion. 
 The body, the world, was out of harmony with his 
 spirit, his existence. 
 
 Had he the courage to commune with his own 
 gloomy thoughts in the shaded seclusion of the rill 
 where there was no hand to stay his action? When 
 he looked at the levity in Nature's face, her laugh- 
 ing waters, her dancing sunbeams, and then turned 
 his face toward the yawning abyss Oblivion, did it 
 require courage for him to choose? When he looked 
 into the clear and placid water of the rill, filled with 
 light and the shimmer of life, did it require courage 
 to ruffle its surface and fill it with the murkiness of 
 blood and the shudder of death? When he looked 
 up into the blue of the sky with its maze of shell- 
 tinted fleeces, parading in pomp and splendor like 
 a grand spectacular flotilla in an ambient sea, and 
 then looked down into the muzzle of a pistol, did it 
 require courage to send the verdigris-stained bullet 
 into his brain?
 
 268 TAMAM 
 
 Was the termination of his life a fitting climax to 
 the succession of failures that had composed it? 
 Or was it the crucial test in a life that had been 
 the very portrayal of courage? Was his courage 
 and success? or was it cowardice and failure? 
 
 What may be the meaning of these words cour- 
 age and success? We know courage to be an attri- 
 bute of the mind. It is the balance-wheel, so to 
 speak, of our nervous system. It is the faculty 
 sufficiently strong to retain its presence of mind, 
 when the rest of our senses are in a state of panic. 
 Courage holds the martyr at the stake. It is that 
 force which enables one to carry to a successful con- 
 clusion, irrespective of consequences, whatever may 
 constitute his determination. 
 
 When he had determined upon self-destruction the 
 one indispensable requisite for his putting it into ef- 
 fect was courage. 
 
 Then what is success? The word has so strong 
 a ring of mercenary timbre that we see nothing but 
 a countenance wrinkled into lines after the form of 
 a dollar-mark. He who gives little for much is 
 successful ; but not he who gives much for little, as 
 the world views this word. Ethically, a success ex- 
 ists where one has not failed in an undertaking. 
 
 If his undertaking had been to follow the dic- 
 tates of an unbiassed conscience ; to dwarf the in- 
 stinct of selfishness by the giving unto others more 
 than he would have them give unto him ; to live in a 
 spirit of humanity for humanity's sake, and love 
 his neighbor as he loved himself, then the king-
 
 OBLIVION 269 
 
 fisher's scream marked the close of a successful life, 
 full of courage to the last. 
 
 It is not what a man was, so much as what in 
 our memory he is. If a life has been so silhouetted 
 against our sky-line that it leaves an impression of 
 countenance palatable to our memory and disposes 
 in us the adaptation to our lives of any trait of 
 character, ennobling, or even the love of one; if 
 it suggests to us a higher appreciation of the deli- 
 cate tints of personality with which the sombre color- 
 ing of life may be illumined; if it leaves with us the 
 reverberations from a single chord played in the 
 symphony of life, such that it behooves us sound our 
 own souls as to the depth of melody there ; if, in 
 short, it stimulates us to one act of self-betterment, 
 that life has been a success. 
 
 If the three hundred billions that have gone be- 
 fore had each bequeathed one elevating thought to 
 posterity, we would be fairly scintillating in our 
 wealth of gems. 
 
 Few of us could be cajoled into the belief that 
 our imperfections do not constitute a majority. It 
 is charity that magnifies our small minority of good 
 points. They who love us forget our weaknesses. 
 
 Can we forget the petulances, the idiosyncrasies, 
 the impassioned stoicisms distributed through the 
 life that terminated on the banks of the rill? Can 
 we blot from memory the picture we saw through 
 the vista made in the foliage? we should not have 
 followed him. Can we dismiss the thought of blood 
 gushing out, and water gushing in, at the mouth,
 
 270 TAMAM 
 
 and look for the smile in his silhouette? Cannot the 
 weakness of human judgment have made him a 
 martyr to his cause of pertinacity and unswerving 
 adherence to conviction? If so, can the creator 
 of these weaknesses ask for him a lowly place among 
 those who live in the memory of all who accept the 
 tenet of faith in life, " To err is human ; to forgive, 
 divine," that he may ascend to the realm where all 
 wrongs are righted? 
 
 When he and she met, let us believe there was no 
 gathering of the people to witness, no idle curiosity- 
 seekers standing round the corners that, unnoticed, 
 they may watch these two come together. We would 
 have the time when every one else was preoccupied, 
 the place where no one else was present. We can 
 dwell in thought, for a moment, on the flush of 
 startled surprise that would be in her face; on 
 the light in her eyes, dissolving from a ray of 
 searching quality to a gleam of softened warmth. 
 We can see his sudden stop, poised in thought, and 
 the lowering of his eyes as his glance of recognition 
 was confirmed. She too has stopped. The pause is 
 short but it means worlds. The sound of a timidly 
 advanced footstep falls on his ear, he lifts his eyes 
 to meet hers, and the nebulous veil of the heavens 
 
 falls around them. 
 
 * # * * * 
 
 There are graveyards in Thanatosia, though they 
 serve but one of the purposes for which they are
 
 OBLIVION 271 
 
 used on earth: their higher purposes. And equally 
 proper, it is, that these graveyards have ghosts. 
 The ghost is as indispensable to the graveyard as 
 to the play of Hamlet. 
 
 Thanatosia is no fictitious place of alabaster piles 
 and glittering streets, crowded with people wearing 
 shrouds and sanctimonious expressions. It is a 
 simple world of shaded nooks and sunlit expanses, 
 verdant slopes and flowering glens, fragrant breezes 
 and restful stillness. We may, if we choose, dot the 
 landscape with gatherings of intermingling spirits, 
 and have always just what we know and like, the en- 
 vironment we would throw around our dear ones, that 
 they would not be living in strange conditions, for- 
 eign to our conception. 
 
 Explanations are not in order in Thanatosia ; 
 they go without saying. When they met, these two 
 had nothing to rehearse. Everything was as it 
 should have been, and once more they are sitting in 
 the shade of the trembling aspens at " Forest Re- 
 treat." But the aspens are now trembling with the 
 responsibility of their sentinel duties they watch 
 over the living now, no more over the dead. The 
 pines moan, but theirs is a warning of the shudder 
 they will send through the soul that would intrude 
 upon the occupancy of these two ; and the screening 
 hedge of lilacs is so dense with bloom that no dis- 
 turbing influence can penetrate. The tombstones 
 are all there, though why no one knows, unless for 
 the sake of the children who in life had played about. 
 There is the mound, but its existence is explained in
 
 272 TAMAM 
 
 a way similar to that of the tombstones. And the 
 myrtle with its tiny blue flower, and the modest 
 violet, all for a purpose, though it is hardly probable 
 they were made into wreaths. We make wreaths 
 when it is necessary to keep our hands occupied, 
 that it may hold our thought from wandering. 
 These two needed no occupation. Not even was it 
 necessary for her to pick at the hem of her hand- 
 kerchief, or for him to finger the little blue flowers 
 that grew about them. She probably rested against 
 the mound, and he may have partially reclined before 
 her, his head resting in his hand, his forearm, with 
 elbow on the ground, forming a support. 
 
 There are many things he could say, but it is prob- 
 able the spoken words were few. Speech is only the 
 froth of thought, the dross of idea, and a wretchedly 
 poor carrier for the conveyance of feeling. Making 
 love with words, like building castles of air, is using 
 material that is too cheap. The heart has far more 
 use for the eyes than the mouth. It thickens the 
 tongue against speech, while sending a tremor of 
 feverish tinge to the lips that tell much. It pumps 
 the blood from the extremities, to send it coursing 
 in scarlet waves of meaning across the cheek, reveal- 
 ing its impulses in no unmistakable way. When love 
 is in its glow, it knows but the one word: silence. 
 
 As he must have looked up under the partly lowered 
 lashes of her eyes, when she would have lifted them 
 for the moment that her glance might meet his, she 
 would know he had said, " You have my heart, will 
 you give me yours? " And when a series of scarlet
 
 OBLIVION 273 
 
 expressions played over her cheek, and her lips trem- 
 bled with embarrassment as a quickened breath es- 
 caped between them, he would know she had said. 
 " You have it now." And love would laugh at 
 words. 
 
 She probably was the first to speak being a 
 
 " There is but one thing I would have you ex- 
 plain to me." 
 
 He would immediately display intense interest and 
 summon everything in his memory to be in readiness. 
 
 Did there rush into his mind the scene of their 
 parting on earth, when she had refused him that 
 single sentence in explanation, the one clause which 
 Destiny held in her rapacious grasp that would have 
 meant so much to both ? Or was it the thought that 
 he would be able to tell her of the little book he too 
 had carried, and whose pages contained the outpour- 
 ing of his soul, his frantic effort to commune with 
 her in her heavenly abode; and how, when this little 
 book had disappeared in a way so mysterious as to 
 have remained unsolved by him, he had prayed it 
 might never be seen by human eyes, though when he 
 had learned of his mistake he would have had her see 
 it, when his eyes had been closed in eternal sleep. 
 
 And as she looked into his all-serious face, she 
 would have felt the sense of feminine timidity come 
 over her, and perhaps qualify her question by a 
 preliminary pleading that he would not laugh but 
 answer, that it might put a stop to the curiosity 
 that had so long burned in her. Of all the mysteries
 
 274 TAMAM 
 
 that had wrapped their impenetrable folds around 
 her life, there was but one that had continued un- 
 solved, and this she would now ask. And while she 
 was asking the question she would have lowered her 
 eyes and fingered with the hem of her handkerchief, 
 and a smile would have drawn her mouth and chin 
 into such dimples as never before so tortured the 
 thirst of man, and the graveyard would not have 
 been filled with the melody of her voice, but there 
 would emanate a series of hesitating words, so hushed 
 and inarticulately delivered that the tombstones 
 would have held their breath as she spoke. 
 
 " You once asked me why was a tree with a broken 
 limb like a lame duck, and I made you promise not 
 to tell me the answer until I ' gave up.' I now ' give 
 up.' " 
 
 The aspens must have shaken and the pines must 
 have groaned, the tombstones must have fallen down 
 and rolled over, and he must have buried his face in 
 the myrtle carpet upon which he lay, and the screen- 
 ing hedge and stone wall must have echoed, back and 
 forth, the peals of laughter in his reply: 
 
 " I'll be blest if I ever knew." 
 
 And what an amber tint to the honeyed sweetness 
 there must have been in the moments Time was re- 
 cording as these two sat there ; these two, born in 
 the virgin thoughts of their mothers to satisfy the 
 craving in Nature's poetic love; these two, entwined 
 in the innocence of infantile love, when scarce out of 
 their swaddling clothes ; these two, who had mingled
 
 OBLIVION 275 
 
 a fragrance from their bloom of youth, most ac- 
 ceptable of any incense ever made, in offering to the 
 god of love; these two, who had driven each other 
 down the most tortuous of routes to the graves of 
 their earthly lives ; and now, these two, in whom em- 
 bittered love has sprung in recoil with multiplied 
 force to its natural path, and carried with it the 
 rapture known only in reconciliation ! 
 
 As to the intensity of the happiness which was 
 theirs, all who have ever staked their lives in the 
 game of love will care not for the use of words to 
 express it. They who have never known what love 
 means would only find in the words the mockery of 
 emptiness. 
 
 And while they sat there the twilight fell. Love 
 waxes strong when with its culture there is used 
 the life-giving warmth of decaying day. 
 
 It was the same kind of twilight that had fallen 
 around him once before when he had sat there alone. 
 The same diffused rays of light that had enhanced 
 the spectre-like pallor of the tombstones when they 
 had begun that awful ghost-dance again filled the 
 graveyard, and could it be the tantalizing demon of 
 memory was to take possession of him, to make his 
 frame quiver with the mournful echoes of that night? 
 
 He lifted his face from out of the verdant carpet 
 that he might learn the effect his answer had pro- 
 duced in her expression. He found her face fixed 
 in its stare at some object in the direction of the 
 tombstone that was adorned with a sword and some
 
 276 TAMAM 
 
 stars. Could she have seen a quiver in the tomb- 
 stones? He did not take his eyes from her face 
 until he had seated himself beside her, and then, to 
 fix them squarely on the tombstone adorned with a 
 sword. He would defy it to move the distance of a 
 single hair's breadth. 
 
 From out of the dead silence there came the slight- 
 est sound of rustling, and he knew her hand had, 
 spasmodically, moved toward his. In the shortest 
 of time's intervals his had met hers, and her fingers 
 were enclosed in his palm, while for never an instant 
 did the eyes of either leave the tombstone adorned 
 with a sword and stars. 
 
 The latent capacity in the sense of touch is sec- 
 ond only to that of sight. In the finger tips there 
 is a highly organized system of nerve centers which 
 serve as the faithful transmitters of impression, not 
 alone to the brain, but to the heart. 
 
 As they sat in the stillness of the twilight, in the-* 
 sacred seclusion of the graveyard, he with her fingers 
 in his palm, were the transmitters of impressions 
 that served in their finger tips ever more active? 
 How swiftly must have flown the magnetic impulses, 
 impulses long closeted in hearts that now threw open 
 their doors and let them, like fleeting spirits un- 
 leashed for the chase, bound away with mad-like 
 swiftness. How surely must every pulsation of his 
 heart have sent waves of power into his hand until 
 his pressing of her fingers let her find excuse to move
 
 OBLIVION 277 
 
 them also, and send back to him those ecstatic thrills, 
 those jewels in the divine sense of touch. And this 
 in the silence, with the eyes of both riveted on the 
 tombstone adorned with a sword. 
 
 The twilight thickened, and as the eyes of day 
 grew heavy with sleep a firefly lifted its wings and 
 left in its trail a golden thread. Another of the 
 little insects saw it and tried the effectiveness of its 
 glow on the screen of dusk. Then another and 
 another and another, until there hung in the air a 
 cobweb of golden threads ; and through it these two 
 saw the reflection of its sheen on the ashen pallor 
 of the tombstone adorned with a sword. 
 
 Off to one side a shadow moved. He was alert 
 for any emergency, and turned suddenly. Dare a 
 tombstone budge? She felt his startled movement 
 and nestled a trifle nearer him. And through the 
 sense of touch each knew the other had noted the 
 stealthy shadow. 
 
 The cobweb lifted a moment as some hungry bat 
 darted through it, and this disturbed their attention, 
 their eyes following the swirl in the folds of golden 
 thread. When again they were turned toward the 
 adorned tomb, they noticed the surrounding tomb- 
 stones seemed to be undergoing some stage of trans- 
 formation: to be shrinking in size; to be assuming 
 forms fantastical, though not grotesque. And no 
 sense of uneasiness filled him. 
 
 While they watched, a little figure, as though it 
 may have left the grave of a child, appeared to be 
 pirouetting over the myrtle carpet. This was fol-
 
 278 TAMAM 
 
 lowed by another, just as the fireflies had come. Ap- 
 parently every tombstone in the yard was coming 
 forth for the same purpose. To the rhythmic sway 
 of the lilacs they kept time, now going through the 
 intricate steps of the caprice, now slow like the 
 stately minuet, now cavorting about in the " cut- 
 ting " of the pigeon-wing. Again she nestled nearer 
 him, though no sense of uneasiness filled her. 
 
 The phantasy of the ballet of tombstones had so 
 absorbed their attention they had failed to notice the 
 transformation taken place in the adorned tomb- 
 stone, and as of one thought turned to it, now evolved 
 from the stage of cloud-like folds to the well-defined 
 form of a man in faultless marble. Rapidly was the 
 marble losing its pallid cast, and the glow of life 
 filled the cheeks as these two looked on. The pirouet- 
 ting figures seemed to form in line on the two sides 
 of the way as the transformed marble passed be- 
 tween. And her father stood before them. 
 
 The two arose from the mound, and she, having 
 withdrawn her fingers, started forward. The father 
 took her hand and reached for that of the one who 
 had remained at the mound. In this hand he placed 
 hers. The golden cobweb descended, and settling 
 on her head, trailed like a veil down her back, while 
 the glint of gold in her raven-black hair was fairy- 
 like. 
 
 And what is the use of fairies if they cannot bring 
 all of the creatures of that strange land into the 
 phantasy? So straightway the air was filled with 
 the tiny tinkle of bluebells, while from a corner of
 
 OBLIVION 279 
 
 the yard there came a Jack-in-the-pulpit, clad in 
 robes of splendor second only to those of the lily that 
 toils not. 
 
 The little minister looked away up into the bridal 
 blushes that filled her face, and called out, in his 
 shrill, piping voice, " Who giveth this woman in mar- 
 riage? " The father came forward, and with eyes 
 swimming in tears tears of joy stood as sponsor 
 for his daughter. To the questions, would she take 
 him for her wedded husband, to love and to cherish? 
 and would he take her for his wedded wife? there had 
 been replies in the affirmative, he holding her fingers 
 in his palm. And how the pirouetting figures that 
 played about them did laugh and hug each other for 
 joy! Then the shrill voice of the minister piped 
 out in the most stentorian tones he could command, 
 " If any one knows why these two should not be 
 joined forever, let him speak now, or forever after 
 hold his peace." 
 
 The pirouetting figures became motionless, the 
 bluebells ceased in their tinkling, and every cricket 
 within reach of the minister's voice hushed. Not a 
 sound came from the pines, and for the first time 
 ever known the aspen leaves were still. Silence 
 reigned supreme, and the hush that wrapped the 
 place seemed as though it would linger through an 
 interminable time. And through all of this her 
 fingers were held in his palm. 
 
 The minister again turned toward the two, and 
 lifted up his face to speak, but paused as a far-away 
 sound fell upon the reigning silence. It resembled
 
 280 TAMAM 
 
 that of approaching wind; at first very faint mur- 
 murs, then increasing to a distinct roar. Soon there 
 could be heard the rustle of nearby trees, and upon 
 this the aspens took up their tremble and the pines 
 began their moan. All were in breathless suspense, 
 when there came scurrying through the lilac hedge 
 a rift of dried leaves in their frantic effort to escape. 
 The pirouetting figures scampered to their respec- 
 tive stations in the graveyard, threw off their fan- 
 tastical forms and resumed their solemn duties. The 
 golden cobweb was caught up by an air current and 
 for a moment swung out like a wild streamer with 
 one end fastened to her hair. The frail streamer 
 broke from its fastening and went into a myriad of 
 pieces, appearing as a cloud of dust with each par- 
 ticle heated to incandescence from the friction of the 
 air. 
 
 Four strong arms were sheltering the daughter 
 from flying dust and twigs as a mass of folds 
 bounded over the hedge and stood before them. 
 When the rush of wind into the created vortex had 
 ceased all was quiet. 
 
 " I am Oblivion," spoke the mass of folds, " and I 
 come to learn on whose authority you are to be 
 joined forever. The three of you will some day 
 surely be mine. I know this, because in my abyss 
 there are three hundred billion who once breathed this 
 same life you now enjoy. Know you not, that in 
 Thanatosia life is the one ephemeral flower? Who 
 are you that believe yourselves exempt from service 
 in my domain? It is true my folds are not absorb-
 
 OBLIVION 281 
 
 ent so long as even the lowliest of earthly humans 
 may give you a thought; but nothing is more fickle 
 than human nature, and the easiest of all things is to 
 forget. 
 
 " There are very few living here for whom I have 
 made no preparation. Some others struggle for a 
 while, but I sleep not, that I may catch off guard 
 the unwary mortal who keeps them alive ; and when I 
 do, how fondly I embrace the poor struggling things ! 
 And mark you this, many pass to me with the close 
 of the final chapter in their lives. 
 
 " There is no resurrection for those put to sleep 
 by my hypnotic power. Not one of the three hun- 
 dred billion has ever moved from the position in which 
 I placed them. There is no source conceivable 
 through which their sleep can be disturbed by a liv- 
 ing creature. I am all-powerful over the forgotten. 
 In my domain is the only place where the meaning 
 of the word ' forever ' is known. There the past and 
 the future are the same ; for I have those who repre- 
 sent to you the past, while with them you have not 
 yet come into existence. This makes eternity move 
 in a circle ; but understand I am the one that has been 
 able to conceive of the end of this circle. It is 
 through supremacy in comprehension that I hold in 
 my keeping the past and the future. 
 
 " I care naught for the present, because there is 
 no such thing. Should it ever assume existence my 
 power will cease, and the three hundred billion escape 
 me. But think not I fear of losing my realm. I 
 have prepared for untold millions yet to be born and
 
 TAMAM 
 
 forgotten by all save me ; and not one of these will I 
 overlook. When man is forsaken, deserted, dead and 
 forgotten, I come to the rescue; I, the only one who 
 never forgets. 
 
 " This is my authority for coming here on learn- 
 ing of the minister's pronunciamento, ' If any one 
 has reason why these two should not be joined for- 
 ever, let him speak now, or ever after hold his peace.' 
 What hope have any of you for life? I may even 
 have you with the close of this day, and its twilight 
 cannot live much longer." 
 
 The three stood in silence, with lowered faces and 
 released hands. 
 
 " I have hope," spoke one, " in her whom I left 
 on earth to give birth to my child. Through long 
 years has she kept me living in her memory, and no 
 one can rob her of it." 
 
 " Did you say ' no one ' ? " asked Oblivion. " Have 
 you forgotten the power of Death? If she is your 
 only hope then I shall take you the instant Death 
 claims her. You will be sleeping in my abyss when 
 her spirit reaches here. 
 
 " To keep you in life here your memory must be 
 handed down as a trust; as an inheritance to be 
 cherished, preserved and passed on to posterity ; a 
 memory-chain in which every one who has been told 
 of you must obligate himself to tell another. These 
 memory-chains are the only things with which I have 
 to contend. Some of them have gone into many 
 branches, but not one of these branches is ever over- 
 looked by me. Just let one cease to grow, and how
 
 OBLIVION 283 
 
 fast Death aids ! In this way I get back to the main 
 part of the chain, and after that I do not have long 
 to wait." 
 
 The daughter clutched her father's arm, and trem- 
 bled as he again spoke. 
 
 " I fought and gave my life for a cause, and are 
 there not thousands who remember it? " 
 
 " Yes," replied Oblivion, " so you did ; but your 
 cause was lost, and no lost cause has ever lived, even 
 though it may have been ever so righteous. They 
 say on earth ' might makes right ' ; therefore your 
 cause was wrong. All who are remembering your 
 cause are doing it in silence, and silent memory- 
 chains are like plants that are trying to live without 
 sunlight." 
 
 " Then," spoke a second one of the three, " I 
 fought for a cause that was not lost; and a glorious 
 cause it was Humanity's cause ! The world ap- 
 plauded, and will not forget it." 
 
 The daughter's fingers found their way into his 
 hand. 
 
 " But," replied Oblivion, " they will not remember 
 you. You did not give your life in the accomplish- 
 ing of it. What matter it how valiantly one fights 
 for and wins a cause most just, the world only uses 
 his memory like a sentimentality. They live for 
 themselves so much in the cause, that they scarce 
 have time to think of those who died to win it for 
 them. You were forgotten even while you lived 
 among them. You have not so much as a slab in 
 the long symmetrical rows they decorate once a
 
 284 TAMAM 
 
 year. How came Death to you that this has been 
 overlooked? " 
 
 He released her fingers, and hung his head in 
 silence. 
 
 Then spoke the daughter. " I tried to do for the 
 world what I thought was the greatest service a 
 woman can render. It was to give my life in aid to 
 those who suffer. And though I failed in my effort, 
 yet there are some who will remember me for the 
 attempt." 
 
 " Ah ! but you failed," replied Oblivion. " My 
 abyss has in it millions who did everything but suc- 
 ceed. The one word for me is failure." 
 
 The three remained in silence, while Oblivion 
 waited. 
 
 The daughter looked far back into her memory. 
 There she saw the sea of faces in the busy world be- 
 low. Some of these had known her; had laughed 
 with her in her joys ; had gone with her through life's 
 disappointments ; had sorrowed with her in her sor- 
 rows. Is there among them one in whose memory 
 she dare covet a place? 
 
 " There's rosemary, that's for remembrance ; pray you, love, 
 remember." 
 
 TAMAM
 
 C SOUTHERN REGIONAL L BRARY AGILITY 
 
 A 000046214 3