f 
 
 FROM TkE SOUL 
 
 « 
 
 OF TH^^ TI'TREE 
 
 ED WIN A GEACH 
 
 1909
 
 9 
 
 THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 LOS ANGELES 
 
 B? GEOKGE 
 
 MACKANES 
 
 m^ USTRALIANA
 
 0-
 
 #
 
 The Soul of the Ti-Tree 
 
 BY 
 
 EDWINA C. GEACH 
 
 Published by 
 THOMAS C. LOTHIAN, at 226 Little Collins St., 
 
 Melbourne, 
 
 1909.
 
 Where Heaven touches Earth."
 
 
 FOREWORD. 
 
 Centuries back, in the ti-tree groves dwelled a fair wood- 
 maiden, slight and graceful of form. To and fro she moved 
 amongst the fairies and pixies and sprites who inhabited the 
 groves, and by all was she beloved, and to all went out her 
 heart in return. And in the fulness of time the maiden was 
 called to take her place amongst the children of men, and in 
 the world of men she moved, and went hither and thither, and 
 acted her part as a daughter of the world of men; but her heart 
 was ever with her kinsmen of the ti-tree, and ever and anon she 
 returned to them and passed up and down the aisles of the ti- 
 tre« by the seashore. And as she passed, the trees, feeling her 
 presence, bent towards her, and would fain have called her 
 back to them and have kept her amongst them, for they loved 
 her. And the maiden, feeling their yearning and their caresses, 
 gave them back love for love, with a love passionate and tender 
 and undying, and the gnarled and twisted trunks were caressed, 
 and held bv her, as something sacred and holy. And, as time 
 passed, the cry of the trees became stronger and stronger, 
 until at last it could no longer be resisted, and the wood- 
 maiden was fain to obey the call and to return once again to 
 her own people. Regretfully and sad.ly she went, for amongst 
 the people of the world were those whom she loved, and who 
 had need of her and loved her. But the call of the trees was 
 too urgent, and she went, as her way led, back to the peoples 
 of the tree world. After her departure there were found cer- 
 tain writings, which she had made about the world that is in 
 the midst of the ti-tree, and about the world that is the 
 world of men, and about the world that was in the centre of 
 her own being. These writings, coming from the heart of a 
 woman, true and tender and compassionate, are now made into 
 a book, so that they may be read by those who knew her and 
 Joved her, and by those who, loving the trees and the earth 
 and the sea, would also have loved this maiden from the land 
 of the ti-tree had their paths crossed hers. 
 
 1660411
 
 " Truly we are all one. It is a common 
 tongue we speak, though the wave has its 
 own whisper, and the wind its own sigh, 
 and the lip of man its word, and the heart 
 of woman its silence.'' 
 
 Fiona Macleod.
 
 INTRODUCTORY. 
 
 The contents of this little volume have been for the most 
 part taken from various MS. left unrevised by the authoress. 
 Some few of the sketches contained here have merely, hovi^ever, 
 been published in the writer's lifetime, fugitively and under 
 noms de plume. To the several journals in which these ap- 
 peared acknowledgments are made. 
 
 Fugitive, indeed, were the writings, often scribbled, and 
 left as written, in pencil, the unrehearsed and unrevised out- 
 come of a spontaneous mood. "The recurring mood makes 
 character, and indicates the soul." Thus the editors, in select- 
 ing from many these few sketches, have sought to show the 
 writer — or allow her to reveal herself — in some of the most 
 characteristic phases of her personality. Her deep and pas- 
 sionate love of nature, especially of seashore nature, is indi- 
 cated in several of the sketches; and in others her love of 
 humanity — an all-embracing tenderness — including such "as 
 fall among the thorns." 
 
 As her delicate fancy and her humanity are suggested in 
 some of these pages, so in others the writer's vein of analogy 
 and allegory is evident, and suggests the fict that her love of 
 the beautiful world about her was no mere worship of the 
 senses. To her there was infinity in the tiniest "fairy slipper" 
 of the ti-tree grove. 
 
 On Christmas morning, 1905, she passed away from the 
 Mortalities, leaving but the earnest of that which she might 
 have done. Those who knew her best are poorer for the with- 
 drawal of an unique personality, and to such something of her 
 elusive charm may be felt again in reading these fragments of 
 her pen, and it may e'en be that something of her may also 
 be felt in th«se few sketdhes by some who knew her not in life.
 
 Printed by Brown, Prior & Co., 
 at 165-171 Queen Street, Melbourne.
 
 An Elfin Land. 
 
 The Elfin Land is known of its lovers. It has no garden 
 fashioned by the hand of man ; no tape has measured the 
 boundlessness of this domain ; no impertinence of sign posts 
 is in these groves. Here only come her lovers, and they 
 cannot lose themselves. 
 
 To enter here, the mortal must put on immortality, and 
 be even the unreal — ^be a spirit, a shadow, then into the 
 strange fairyland of the groves of winding walks shall he 
 pass ; away from that outer world that lies beyond the fringe 
 of this. There is a sweet gravity, and a tender welcome in 
 the very air, as though something were weaving spells of 
 lovely thoughts ; and as though an enchanter's hand were 
 translating them for the beloved of Nature to read. The 
 beloved of Nature ! How sweet to be of these, to have wel- 
 come to her heart ; from her threshold to be drawn in, in to 
 her inmost sanctuary, to have overflowing feast of her 
 beauty and her mysticism. 
 
 How at that gateway leading to her most secret aisles 
 care falls off the earth-worn soul. How the heart softens, 
 and the bitterness of the life-draught is sweetened ; what 
 healing in those kind hands that touch the scars and wounds 
 of many failures. Oh, place apart in graciousness and 
 beauty! The last retreat on earth of those First Little Folk 
 who once possessed it all. It is enchanted, this ti-tree land ; it 
 is not human ; its people are invisible — save for the hour that 
 you become one of them. Then freely you may walk with 
 the gnomes and elves ; or, from the crevices of their green 
 houses, they look out upon you, frightened for a mo- 
 ment till they recognise you, because of the ruthless hand 
 of man, the robber of their wide estate. Rest secure, sweet, 
 wild children, in your homes ; old-world children, I love you ; 
 take me through your dim aisles and your mysterious green 
 
 II
 
 ways ! So comes the wanderer from the World of Noise. 
 
 The whole place is full of curious whisperings, and the 
 queer little faces look out at me from every tree bole — 
 quite friendly now ; queer little figures sway themselves on 
 the fronds of the bracken fern. Reverently I move amongst 
 them, along the moss-carpeted floor of the house of my 
 Little Folk. I pause and look within the parlour where they 
 dance at dawn, and where the tiny, dainty slippers they 
 danced in overnight stand still upon the floor, glistening now, 
 tipt by the peeping noonday sun. Have I not also found 
 their tables set — little round tables that spring up in a night, 
 some yellow, some white, some again deepest red; and for 
 use on rainy days, the plainer brown ? Have I not seen the 
 spiders busy spinning their loveliest webs that they might be 
 ready for the dew to turn them into diamond nets, that shall 
 suit a fairy's use? 
 
 And I have found the tender tracery of green, so fragile, 
 so beautiful in its trailing, that only fairy hands could 
 have hung it on the ti-tree. There are the strangely-curled 
 lilac flowers in low bushes ; the heather, deepest pink, that 
 holds cheery converse with its neighbours ; the shy, pale 
 green fuchsia, that scarce dares lift its white-lined leaves 
 to the breeze ; how close the green bells nestle to the stem. 
 All these are of the fairies. 
 
 And in the innermost place of all, decked with pure 
 white heather flowers, stands the altar of this sacred land. 
 This even Nature's devotees approach humbly, and with 
 reverent mien; and of the rites performed thereon I may 
 not tell. . . . 
 
 I pass into the thicker ti-tree fringe along the cliff, and 
 fling me down, with head reclined on the lap of Mother 
 Earth, to think, and gaze, and dream, but most of all to 
 dream. 
 
 Oh, beautiful trees! How long have you leant land- 
 ward, away from the stormy waters? The sea has been 
 harsh to you, and yet her rough breath has given you your 
 own peculiar grace. Or is it that she has given you secrets? 
 
 12
 
 Is it that you lean forward in your efforts to impart them 
 to the land? 
 
 When the wind is high they strive to speak something, 
 some great message, surely, for they moan with almost 
 human agony. How weirdly the twisted trunks go swaying 
 in the wind. Or is it that they pine for human sympathy? 
 Do not their arms reach out frantically toward one, as 
 though they would be one with us? Or — how dull I have 
 been — is it not that each ti-tree was once a nymph, and 
 passed from living body to living tree; prisoned thus by 
 some evil Gnome King? Ah! the cries that the wind wrings 
 from them; and there is none to face the dragon and to 
 free them ; only the innocent and faithful elves that haunt 
 the place to mitigate their doom. 
 
 But when the wind is low and soft they are happy, these 
 caged beings ; when the heather-scented breeze comes from 
 the Dandenongs, then the rhythm of the slow, swaying 
 branches is a song of happy, deep content. Their sorrows 
 are soothed into forgetfulness. No more delirium of agony, 
 till again the fierce storms howl from the ocean — then again 
 their cries and sobs. 
 
 And under all the growth of larger tree, in storm and 
 quiet, lies on the lower carpet of sand, millions of dead 
 leaves, that make a springy foot-mat. On the brown earth 
 the sunlight lies in rarest patines ; he can but filter through 
 on the wealth of brown leaf, the fallen of many years. And 
 in this land of sweet content some of the dead leaves mur- 
 mur, as they lie, at the delicate pencilled twigs above them, 
 that are green and take the golden light ; " Let the sun shine 
 stronger upon us that we may live again ; you hide him 
 from us." 
 
 And the green leaves answer, " Be at peace. Ye have 
 lived and loved ; soon the wind will kiss us roughly, and we, 
 too, will lie brown and silent on the quiet earth." 
 
 Then for that time the brown leaves murmur no more, 
 but enjoy the things that are about them. There are fairy 
 slippers there, too, oh, so elfishly small ; and under the 
 
 13
 
 round, green heath bushes that cHng, (because they love her), 
 to the brown earth, I have seen strange, gleaming lamps of 
 red. 
 
 It is when these shine out that the green leaves, 
 enamoured, cry, " Kiss us roughly, oh wind, till we go to 
 share this sweet wonder." So call the children of the earth 
 to their mother. So even in this enchanted land is played 
 the eternal drama of Birth and Death — and again Birth. 
 
 I draw a branch of the green, waving ti-tree to my 
 face. I hold it there ; and then for a space I look around at 
 my dominion. " Farewell," I breathe, " once more farewell. 
 Again and again will I come." Oh, land of silence and of 
 mystery; let me for ever learn of thee within thine own 
 invisible walls; place of feeling, thought, and dream, thou 
 ti-tree region of the shore! 
 
 15
 
 Death, the Democrat. 
 
 " Life played with the loose sand of the desert. Now she made a mound 
 heaped high. Now one, low, and laughed as she heard the pride 
 of the high, and the murmuring of the low. 
 
 "Death passed by, and the wind from his flowing robe, levelled all the 
 heaps, — and then, too. Death smiled." 
 
 — From the Arabian. 
 
 "Robert, Lord dc Hos. (1245)." 
 
 So ran the inscription round the bronze effigy which, 
 in recumbent position, lay on the pavement under the dome 
 of Old Temple Church. 
 
 A Knight Templar " devoutly stretched," clad in com- 
 plete mail, with surcoat, his head resting on a cushion, his 
 long, flowing hair thrown back fom his brow, his arms 
 crossed on his breast, and at his side his sword. 
 
 Is it that the roar of the Strand on the one side and 
 cries and calls of old Father Thames on the other, the rush 
 and strenuousness of our times, filtering into the silence 
 of the old church, gives an added value to the dignity of 
 the figure at our feet? 
 
 Did their times lend more to greatness than ours? Had 
 their lives more of dignity than ours? Surely. Else how 
 had come the calm, triumphant dignity of this crusader? 
 
 How the old names of the middle ages flood the me- 
 mory! Urban 11., Hugh de Pagains, Peter the Hermit, 
 Godfrey de Bouillon and his Brothers. All the trappings, 
 the splendour, the pomp of the Holy Wars become real, 
 as one looks at the Knight Templar, as they never had done 
 when read of under our Southern stars. 
 
 Right or wrong — good or bad — they are all sleeping, 
 
 14
 
 and so, as I leave the old Temple, I pause at the Knight 
 Templar's side. 
 
 " The war is over," I say, *' sleep well." 
 
 Through the pale sunshine of the autumn day I wend 
 my v/ay from the Temple church to the river's side. On 
 the floating platform a crowd has gathered. 
 
 Just a casual London crowd and passers by, passengers 
 awaiting their river boats, newsboys who cry their wares as 
 they run down the stone steps to the platform. In the 
 centre of the crowd, on the slow moving platform, lies a 
 man — silent in death. 
 
 His bare head rests on a folded bag. Long, scanty 
 grey hair falls back from his lined old brow, his arms are 
 crossed, and about his broad yet gaunt old form a bag has 
 been closely folded. His feet are bare. Poor, gnarled old 
 feet! pitiful to look at. 
 
 He lies before me, even as but five minutes before, 
 in the Old Temple, had lain another knight. 
 
 Every line the same. The uncovered head, with its 
 long, loose hair, resting on a cushion, the crossed arms — 
 even the old bag takes on the semblance of a coat of mail. 
 
 In life, what had he been? Sordid squalor, hideous 
 poverty had been his portion. It had pinched his face, had 
 starved the large frame, had twisted his hands and mis- 
 shapen his feet, and yet — calm, triumphant dignity wrapped 
 him as in a garment — Death had ennobled him — " one of 
 London's poorest poor " — even as it had the Knight Tem- 
 plar. 
 
 The platform swayed with the slow rhythm of the 
 water's pulse, the crowd ebbed away. 
 
 " A suicide," said someone at my side. Perchance he 
 marvelled at the strange smile which crept over my face; 
 then I bent down to the still sleeper who had reached his 
 " Holy Land " at last. 
 
 " The war is over," I said, softly, " sleep well." 
 
 His inscription thus: — 
 
 " Name unknown — workman. 1904." 
 
 16
 
 A Water Frontage. 
 
 I.— GREY OF DAWN. 
 
 Stillness of leaf and of living thing; slow, faint pulse 
 of water asleep — asleep before the dawn; headlands and 
 distant islands dim through the mists — the floating, quiver- 
 ing white mist ; yonder pale white lights gleam through the 
 grey — the lights of a city asleep. The world is spellbound, 
 somnolent, dream-like — a white page slowly, silently un- 
 rolling that Day may write thereon. What shall she write? 
 
 A ship in the offing, white too; motionless, phantom- 
 like, lifting pale, tapering arms to the white dawn ; silence, 
 mystery over all in the circle of the hills — a waiting for 
 the dawn. She comes. As pearls fall from a string, so 
 comes the creamy wavelet round the sandy curve. With 
 a long, tremulous sigh the waters are awakening. Gold 
 shafts strike Ocean's face ; gentle, peremptory, she rouses 
 herself and smiles back at the Sun. 
 
 Leaves rustle, branches curtsy to Morn on the hilltops. 
 A bird calls — ceases — calls again ; a long, thrilling call. Joy 
 is av/ake, and Sound. A whirr of wings and a wave of life 
 surges over all ; the first sunbeam has darted down into 
 the shadows of the trees ; their choirs awake, as waken the 
 throats of the cathedral choirs at the wand of the con- 
 ductor. The trees quiver, the sky flushes in the East, an 
 iridescent shell. Now the gulls — Ocean's own — wheel and 
 call ; the waters beat with quick pulsations on the sandy 
 corners of the blue iris bay and lave its " human shores " 
 with caresses. 
 
 The ship midway on the laughing waters turns a bright, 
 expectant bow to the incoming tide — a bell sounds across the 
 bays; she also is calling a welcome to the day. Triumphant 
 
 B 17
 
 day, with golden finger, traces his first mark on the fair 
 white page ; traces it in the wake of the moving ship. The 
 way of the waters is astir. 
 
 II.— PURPLE OF NIGHT. 
 
 Purple shadows on the hills ; a deeper purple where the 
 waters croon at their base. Violet-tinted waters, that anon 
 flash long, streaming gleams of gold from the nearer 
 lights, ghosts of light from the more distant 
 glitter of the city yonder. Everywhere throb- 
 bing, pulsing, purple shadows. Night, the velvet- 
 eyed goddess, has passed over the waters, and flung with 
 careless prodigality her robes on either hand; their hem all 
 'broidered with diamonds. Laughing she passes — that wild, 
 sweet, low, witching laugh of hers; she has flung her dia- 
 mond net to the heavens, and it hangs trembling there. How 
 warm and caressing is the darkness! How silent just now. 
 No sound save that, far and faint, of the ferry boat, in the 
 darkness turned to a fairy barge jewelled with ornaments 
 of red and eyes of blue, trailing through the purple waters. 
 How her lights quiver and waver and glow, ribboning out 
 like streamers of golden wistaria that hang from a charmed 
 trellis in fairyland. The boat rounds the curve of the bay; 
 magic is in her movement ; the water croons along her hull ; 
 is she real? Night on water and on hill, witchery of purple 
 shadow and of diamond gleam. High up in the heavens 
 wild swans are passing on their way to the lakes ; their 
 sweet, wild call floats down. Is it a bird-call, or that witch 
 of the sombre eyes and dusky scented hair — subtle, mys- 
 terious night — a-calling? 
 
 i8
 
 Her Hands. 
 
 She was a quiet little body. Her face hidden in a 
 hideous sun bonnet, but her hands always busy with her knit- 
 ting. And of all the passengers I spoke to her the least, 
 for she was not of a chatty nature, and among ship folk 
 silent people are apt to be left lonely. But I think it was 
 the ugly sun bonnet that kept me from trying to know 
 the little old face that it held, and yet, too, the hands 
 played a big part. They were not large, but coarse and 
 so grained, with discolouration that not all the waters about 
 us could have washed away, and the large joints and thin 
 fingers repulsed me, for the hands were always to be seen, 
 never resting; the sunlight striking the long, shining needles 
 seemed the only living spot about her. One day it was 
 too hot even for the ugly bonnet, and I saw a kindly old 
 face looking with bright interest on our world. Then I drew 
 a chair to her side, and I was sorry I had not done it 
 earlier ; for she grew interesting each hour, and at last she 
 gave me one of the greatest lessons of my life, this quiet, 
 little old lady with the ugly sun bonnet and uglier hands. 
 
 The day was very hot. Most people on deck were 
 drowsing the afternoon away, and then I, too, lay back in 
 my chair and watched the little lady's face ; she was watch- 
 ing the sparkling water with unseeing eyes, and for once 
 her hands were lying inert in her lap. 
 
 " What are you thinking of?" I said, slowly. 
 
 She turned a kindly, smiling face towards me. 
 
 " Of years and years ago," she said, simply. 
 
 "Will you tell me of them?" I replied. No idle 
 curiosity lay in my request, but friendly interest in the long 
 ago of the old lady. 
 
 " It is nothing great," sihe said, " just the common 
 events of an ordinary life. I was thinking of the time, 
 
 19
 
 thirty years ago, when I was on my way out from England 
 to rejoin my husband. I had the six httle ones with me, 
 and in a letter he had said it was very lonely. Would I be 
 brave enough to come out and wait till things grew better ?" 
 
 With her quick, bird-like lift of the head she turned 
 to me. 
 
 " I was too glad of the chance. I didn't write. I just 
 sold off the home and paid our passages and started by the 
 next boat. He was lonely, and I — why I was just hungry 
 to see his face. But there were a lot of us, and when all 
 was paid for, it was very little I had with me in goods or 
 money; but he was at the other end, and all would be well. 
 All that journey I pictured his joy at seeing us instead of 
 a letter; and then we arrived." 
 
 Across the years memory had power to bring a look 
 into her eyes which was half dread and half defiance. 
 
 " Six weeks before he had met with an accident, and 
 the next week he was to be discharged from the hospital, a 
 helpless cripple for life." 
 
 In the silence the boat sprung on through the laughing 
 waters ; a sleeping peace held the others near by, but I knew 
 that the little old lady was away back in the horror of that 
 penniless landing. 
 
 Then she lifted her head and smiled at me bravely. 
 
 " There was only one bright spot in that dark welcome 
 — I was there to take care of him. He was to be my com- 
 fort, and I was to work for them all. 
 
 " It was a long fight — those hungry little mouths to feed 
 and round little bodies to clothe. Even now I remember the 
 weariness of body and the mind that dare not think of the 
 future, the dread of breaking down when their need was 
 greatest. The look in his eyes when he could do nothing, 
 and yet he knew if he were not there to comfort me 
 I should have given in. Work, work — yes, we did 
 work, but we kept the wolf at bay, and the children grew 
 older." She lifted her hands up and looked at them. " But 
 you see we got knocked about a bit, didn't we?" she added, 
 simply. I could not speak for shame. 
 
 20
 
 " And now, after thirty years, we've had our first holi- 
 day. The children are all doing well," and her voice sank 
 softly, " he only left me two years ago." 
 
 Then I bent my young head to the tired old hands and 
 kissed each one tenderly, feeling I was not worthy to touch 
 them. The little old lady never knew why I often took 
 her hands into mine as though I had found some rarely 
 beautiful things. 
 
 Her life story was written on her hands. 
 
 21
 
 My Ti-Trcc. 
 
 Have you ever felt the charm and magnetism of the 
 ti-tree? If not, you cannot understand its fascination, and 
 the never-abating love it evokes. Just to see the finely- 
 pencilled twigs of a tree outlined against the sky is to feel an 
 exquisite thrill at its beauty ; and to see the whole tree, its 
 twisted, intertwined branches, that lift their tiny twigs 
 covered with the softest, tenderest leaves ever tree bore, 
 the elastic movement, not only of the topmost branches, but 
 of the swaying trunk itself, is weird, is wonderful. They 
 seem like sportive spirits turned to trees, so unlike are they 
 to all other trees in Mother Nature's family. Once a year, 
 when spring kisses them, they put on a robe of fairest white, 
 such a reckless profusion of fairy, starry flowers; tiny as 
 the leaves themselves, and fragrant-breathed. And amongst 
 all that is beautiful, and more than it all, is my own ti-tree, 
 scaley-trunked, twisted of limb, beautiful of leaf. How I 
 love it. 
 
 As I lean my head against my tree I feel as I bnce 
 felt in Rome when I leant against the horn carvings of the 
 Arc of Constantine. Then the yellow Roman sunlight 
 dazzled my eyes, and a great silence as of death lay on my 
 ears, and for the moment at least I, too, was of the past ; a 
 part of the old stone that had watched the triumphant pro- 
 cessions of former ages pass underneath. I was in the dust 
 and ashes of the past, old, but indestructible. I suddenly 
 knew my age, not as an individual — that I was no longer — 
 but of mankind in his race. I was as old as the first man, 
 be he Adam or another. The " Thou " in me was all ; the 
 " I " had ceased to be. 
 
 So I feel now as I lean bareheaded against my ti-tree. 
 I slip into the tree as a shadow melts into light. I am in- 
 corporate with it; we are one with the curious oneness of 
 
 22
 
 Nature. Long I lean there, and cannot move away. When 
 I would, (because I must), its breath draws me, its arms 
 lean toward me, it speaks soft and low, " Stay, little one, 
 stay." So there I linger against that shaggy trunk, my cheek 
 close to the rough bark, so much one with it all that I feel 
 that if there came a passer-by he would see a tree only. 
 
 23
 
 * 
 
 Arabian Sketches. 
 
 LIFE AND DEATH. 
 
 At)ul the Wise watched the children playing in the sand; 
 the little round bodies racing about in the sunshine. His 
 eyes wandered over the violet of the shadow of the hills, 
 yonder against the fast sinking sun. The children played, 
 heaping up mounds of sand, some high, some low, and 
 laughed as they ran amongst them. 
 
 Then came an Arab woman from the tents and sat by 
 the old man; in her arms she held a sleeping babe. She 
 looked from the children to the wise old man. " Why do 
 you smile, O Abul the Wise?" said she, softly. And he 
 answered : 
 
 " We are but heaps of sand on the desert, some blown 
 high, some low, by Circumstance, but the low heaps murmur 
 at the high, and ever the tall heaps look with pride and 
 scorn on the low. But Life laughs at them, even as the 
 children laugh, and there comes One among them whose 
 long, trailing robe levels all the heaps." 
 
 The woman was silent, not understanding. A tall Arab, 
 in long, flowing robe, that fluttered in the wind, came across 
 the children's heaps of sand, levelling them to the plain, and 
 stood before the woman and the Wise Man. With grave 
 courtesy he greeted them, and took the sleeping babe into 
 his arms. " Even so," said the Wise Man, " shall Death, 
 when he has levelled all the heaps, take us all one day." 
 
 The Arab's eyes looked a question, but the woman 
 smiled, this time with understanding. 
 
 PRIDE OR THE PALM TREE. 
 
 The tall palm tossed its wide arms in the breeze, anci 
 laughed in the hot sunshine. Abul the Wise sat in the 
 
 24
 
 shade, and in the silence he heard a low, low sobbing. It 
 seemed to come from the earth at his feet. He stooped and 
 listened. The tall palm rustled its leaves. It laughed 
 mockingly. 
 
 " Why do you laugh?" asked the Wise M^n of the palm 
 tree. 
 
 " Because Mother Earth calls me back to her ; but why 
 should I go back, I who toss my head in the hot sunshine?" 
 
 " And yet you will go back," said Abul the Wise quietly. 
 
 "Never," said the palm, with pitying scorn; "what 
 have I to do with the earth? I but leave my roots there to 
 please her." 
 
 " And yet I say you will go back." Abul the Wise 
 smiled as he spoke, and, taking a sharp blade from his girdle, 
 he climbed the tree and cut one long, waving branch from 
 the stem. It fell fluttering to the ground, and the tree 
 quivered with terror and amaze, for the Wise Old Man 
 struck fire into the palm leaf, and it caught in its wind-dried 
 parts till soon the fierce flame devoured it, and a little heap 
 of ash lay on the sand. The wind came softly, and the fine 
 powder mixed into the burning sand, and soon the proudly- 
 waving palm-leaf was but a memory of what had been. 
 
 The sobbing of Mother Earth ceased, and she called 
 softly, as she clung to the roots deep down in her, " You 
 will come back to me sooner or later. I can wait." Abul 
 the Wise laid his hands softly on the tall, smooth column 
 of the palm tree. 
 
 " Be not proud, oh beautiful palm tree, of your grace 
 and beauty, scorning the earth below. Be it thou, or be it I, 
 we go back at last from whence we came. All things move 
 in a circle. Aye, I, too, love the sunshine, but grieve not 
 that there comes the day when I shall blow pale ash back 
 to Mother Earth." 
 
 Then Abul the Wise sat silent in the shade. The palm, 
 lost in thought, lifted motionless leaves in the hot sunshine, 
 and from the earth came a warm sweetness. 
 
 25
 
 SAYINGS OF ABUL THE WISE. 
 
 A low, moaning sound comes through the sheen of 
 moonlight that lies on the sandhills, and covers them with en- 
 chantment. The leaves of the palm move a feathery, purple 
 plume in the clear light. A young Arab, with slow, sinuous 
 grace, moves noiselessly over the shimmering sand, and 
 pauses at the tent that is pitched below the palm. 
 
 " Abul ! Abul the Wise !" cries the young Arab, low and 
 softly, peering into the shadows within. 
 
 " I am here, my son," and the young Arab sees that 
 the Wise Old Man sits even at the tent door. Young and 
 old, the Wise Man and the young learner, sit silent awhile, 
 and the low moan of the water, coming with slow disdain on 
 the shore yonder, mingles with the rustle of the palm leaves 
 and the rare tinkle of a camel bell. 
 
 " What is Love ?" asked the young man, suddenly mov- 
 ing his folded arms in his long white robe, as ne turned his 
 dark eyes on the old man in the shadow. Abul the Wise 
 bent his narrow eyes on the young man's face, for on him 
 fell the silver light in a moving flicker when the palm tree 
 waved. 
 
 Abul smiled. " All ask that," he said, " and never is 
 one satisfied with my answer ; for but few know that I speak 
 the truth." 
 
 " Tell me," said the young Arab. 
 
 " It is as a shell picked up, perchance, on yonder shore; 
 perfect in form and colour, but lacking one half. You know 
 the pale-tinted, fan-shaped shells, light, frail, beautiful, per- 
 fect only when two fans fold to one shell?" 
 
 The young Arab drew nearer. " I have often found 
 one fan; rare, the perfect two," he said, eagerly. 
 
 " Ay, there you have Love. He that finds the second 
 half finds a perfect shell ; he that takes other than that, for- 
 ever shall they be as two separate shells that the storms of 
 Life and winds of Circumstance fling blindly and cruelly on 
 the shore, only to be sucked back again — forever two shells." 
 
 As Abul ceased speaking, a murmuring silence crept 
 
 26
 
 over the sand. The young Arab shivered, and drew his 
 flowing robe closer. " And he who finds a perfect shell?" he 
 asked softly. 
 
 " Finds that which is supremely beautiful," Abul an- 
 swered, " that which the fiercest storm cannot harm ; for on 
 the waves it will ride serene in the tum.ult — buoyant, lovely 
 thing, it will come in on the shore, and, lying safe with the 
 wet seaweed, be a joy to all beholders." The low, mono- 
 tonous voice ceased its chanting, and the old man turned to 
 the young Arab. 
 
 " Is not Love so?" he said. 
 
 And the young man smiled. " I know one pearl among 
 women," he smiled back softly, happily; " she is sweet even 
 as the attar of roses; she is lovely even as the shells on yon- 
 der marge; I have found the perfect shell, and " 
 
 The old man smiled. " Even thus," he answered, " so 
 said all the rest." 
 
 The long, low whinny of a horse was heard, and the 
 Arab rose and stood, a noble figure in his flowing robes. 
 His dark eyes flashed, and, with sudden eagerness, he bade 
 farewell to the Wise Man, and went swiftly, silently across 
 the sand. 
 
 With long, swinging stride, an Arab horse bears his 
 master steadily towards the north, till the sound of the sea 
 grew fainter, and on ahead, past the horizon, clustered a 
 company of tents. In one, a maiden — even as every other 
 maiden — let the glow of her heart steal into her dark eyes. 
 Did she not know that far over the desert came an Arab 
 horse, swinging with quick rhythmic gallop — nearer — nearer. 
 
 The perfect shell ; how many find? The Wise Old Man 
 under his tent down by the sea, smiles — and sighs. 
 
 27
 
 Fate's Answer. 
 
 " And Life stood by a sleeping babe, 
 Smiling with tender love upon the newly born. 
 ' May love be thine, oh little child,' she said, 
 And, stooping, kissed the tiny form. 
 
 " And then, across the new earth-child, s'he saw 
 The dark mysterious gleaming eyes of Fate. 
 
 " Then Life bent forward eagerly, and o'er the babe 
 
 Her hands outstretched. 
 
 ' Oh, give the child a Fate so fair, that wondering 
 
 Mortals whisper soft. 
 
 Fate is not cruel — but is kind,' she said. 
 
 " A laugh, low, bitter, was the answer made, 
 
 As Fate with wanton quickness turned unto the sleeping 
 
 babe 
 And smiled. Ah, me, e'en now that smile in eyes we see. 
 * Why should I? Some must suiter; why not she?' " 
 
 28
 
 "How I Love Trees." 
 
 How I love trees ! They attract me with a compelling 
 magnetism; they seem to be atune to all that is best in me, 
 all that is best in my most deep inner self. With their sooth- 
 ing power they whisper softly, as a mother to her child; 
 and as a little child amongst them I forget the world with 
 its joys and sorrows. 
 
 " Rest your head against us," they say, " and let us 
 pour our spirit into your veins, and we will re-vitalise your 
 world-weary heart. And so I feel my heart-beats quicken, 
 and into my dust-laden soul come the pure, sweet waters of 
 peace and beauty. I am carried on a flood of rapture away 
 from all the storm and stress. How precious a legacy, this 
 capacity to feel! How the soul life in us — their lovers — 
 rushes to meet these dear tree friends, ever true, ever the 
 same, not asking that you be great or good, nor making 
 upon you any of man's demands ; asking nothing save the 
 joy of pouring their wild, free life into your veins, and 
 making you — if only for a time — part of themselves. 
 
 Have you ever seen one of the great forest kings, bound 
 in chains, going through the city, silent and still in the sor- 
 row of death? When I see one of these grand monarchs 
 thus ignobly chained, I bow before him in spirit, awed at 
 sight of the sovereign torn from his mountain throne, and 
 carried captive to an alien land. Away from his hosts of 
 the long-reaching arms of greiv. — lis serried ranks of sol- 
 diers that did him homage and service — his own great 
 branches to fling themselves no more against the pale hori- 
 zon, catching the first sweet light of the dawning, and send- 
 ing the whisper of its coming, down, down, into the matted 
 green life at his base. The noble form that took the 
 mountain storms, or made sweet music as the sea breeze 
 swept over it. Ah ! to see such in fetters bound for another 
 
 29
 
 land. There is still a dignity about him that nothing can 
 take away ; great heroic soul going calmly to his doom. 
 
 Unnoted amid the bustling throng, I have stepped anon 
 from the pavement just to lay my hand in good fellowship 
 upon the passing forest king. It may be in mute farewell ; 
 or I may bend down and whisper, "Farewell, oh king; I, 
 too, am bleeding at the heart because of bondage. Farewell, 
 my friend !" 
 
 The weather-beaten waggon, the complaining wheels, 
 the toiling horses, the driver, careful only that his " load " 
 is right, and the chains that clang and swing. Ah ! what 
 thoughts the picture gives ; what sad thoughts and dreams 
 of liberty, lost liberty. . . . But the king has passed by, 
 and the rabble has closed in behind. 
 
 30
 
 The King's Vision. 
 
 The stormy clangour 
 Of wild music o'er the earth shall cease; 
 
 Love shall tread out the baneful fire of anger, 
 And in its ashes plant the tree of peace. 
 
 —J. G. Whittier. 
 
 The King sat at the Council table. Round him stood 
 the throngs of Councillors. Some old, some young. Over 
 the heads of some, many, many winters had passed, leaving 
 them grey and weary. But among the throng there were 
 other men, who, like the King, v/ere young in years and 
 life-knowledge. These talked loudly and passionately. 
 
 The King looked at the sea of faces, and then at the 
 parchment lying on the table awaiting his sign and seal. 
 From the vaulted roof of the great hall hung numberless 
 flags; on the walls trophies and spoils of successful war — 
 glorious war. 
 
 To extend his sway, add kingdoms to kingdoms, to be 
 the greatest king on all the earth; ah! that was to live, 
 to conquer. Why listen to the grey-haired men who sue in 
 the name of peace? 
 
 They are old, and have forgotten the wild grandeur of 
 the battle song, the throb of excitement as, fort after fort, 
 the enemy were borne back and the kingdom gained a new 
 king. The triumph, the glory of war ! 
 
 The King's eyes flashed. He turned from eager pas- 
 sion, patient peace, and lifted the pen; he would set his 
 hand and seal. There should be another war. The king 
 looked down at the document on the table ; there was a sud- 
 den great silence in the place; the pen was lifted; then, 
 through the great round window came a single sunbeam, 
 
 31
 
 one long, bright Shaft of Hght. Striking down through the 
 gloom upon the parchment, there it stayed, a round, bright, 
 glowing spot in the place of the King's great seal. The King 
 saw it. Hundreds of times he had seen such bright spots, 
 and they had never given him a thought. 
 
 Now, with the Council awaiting his decree, while the 
 lives of hundreds, the homes of a nation, hung in the balance, 
 the King paused, and forgot all save to watch the sunbeam. 
 
 From the bright sun seal, the King's eyes travelled 
 along the golden shaft; past young, eager faces; past the 
 old, weary ones, up, up into the gloom of the high, vaulted 
 roof. 
 
 What was it that the King saw? Just motes in a sun- 
 beam — tiny worlds floating on, ever on. Millions of them; 
 yet there was no disorder. Easily, steadily they moved. 
 Each had a place and kept it. How beautiful it all was, how 
 bright and wondrous were those tiny worlds. Like shining 
 suns they " ran their measured course." The King was 
 fascinated. Sunbeam motes, and he had only just dis- 
 covered their beauty. 
 
 The Councillors spoke among themselves; surely the 
 King had forgot the question at issue — to be, or not to be — 
 war. 
 
 But though they spoke to him he heard them not. What 
 had come over the King? He who had been so eager for 
 a great, glorious war was watching with rapt attention a 
 sunbeam. 
 
 Slowly, one by one, the Councillors left the great hall. 
 At last the King was alone, but he knew it not. So the 
 time passed. 
 
 " How wonderful, how beautiful are they," the King 
 said, softly. 
 
 " Tell me, O King, who are beautiful ?" 
 
 At the sound of the strange, quiet voice, the King 
 turned and saw a stranger by his side. The King smiled. 
 " The motes in the sunbeam," he answered, simply. 
 
 But the stranger said, " Look again ; it is not a sun- 
 beam that you see." 
 
 32
 
 And the King saw that the Council hall with its lofty 
 roof had vanished; the sunbeam, too, had gone; instead he 
 saw the great universe. 
 
 He saw sun, moon and stars ; he saw them move in their 
 appointed places ; he heard the music of their motion as 
 they moved through space. One mighty paean the universe 
 sang. Worlds of beauty, worlds of light; small and great 
 moved they ever; no disorder, no crowding, but the way 
 clear before all. 
 
 Circle within circle, wheel within wheel, the great uni- 
 verse of worlds moved on. 
 
 The King was speechless with wonder and awe. The 
 stranger at his side, smiling, said softly, "The sunbeam; 
 the universe are but parts of one great whole." 
 
 In the wheeling of the worlds the King saw the vast- 
 ness, the immensity of space. He was troubled. 
 
 " Alas !' he cried, " what am I ; where is my kingdom?" 
 Then the stranger took his hand. " Come," he said, " I will 
 show thee thy kingdom, and what thou art." 
 
 They journeyed past great worlds until they came to 
 one smaller. '* Here will we find thy kingdom." 
 
 " But," answered the King, " the earth upon which 
 my kingdom lies is great ; this world is small." 
 
 " Even so, it is the Earth." 
 
 And the King knew that he spoke truly. His com- 
 panion showed him a small speck on the earth. " That 
 spot is thy kingdom, great King." 
 
 " My kingdom is great," replied the King, quickly. 
 " I have conquered nations ; my dominion is greatest of all 
 kings on earth." 
 
 " Yet thy kingdom is but a speck." 
 
 Then, as they drew closer, the King saw his dominion, 
 his great Council hall, his Councillors — and himself. 
 
 " You would grasp a little more of that little earth," 
 said the stranger. 
 
 The King felt rebuked; turning, he followed his com- 
 panion. How beautiful the earth was, how full of good- 
 ness ; and yet people seemed to have no time to look at it. 
 
 c 33
 
 The King saw an army of strong men fall upon a 
 weaker people; there was clashing of arms and killing of 
 men — all for a little more domain and wealth. 
 
 " I would not have done so," said the King. " That 
 was cowardly to attack the weak." 
 
 He stopped abruptly. Looking closely, he saw that 
 the place was the last domain he had conquered. Then 
 he had seen only the glory; elated with his triumph, laden 
 with the spoils of warfare. 
 
 Now he saw the other side. The music of his triumph 
 could not drown the cries of the wounded, the widows, the 
 fatherless; the wailing rose up to him until his heart was 
 rent; for the music of his triumph could not drown their 
 cries. 
 
 He saw the misery, the desolation- the greed, the 
 wrong— and through it all, himself riding with his eyes 
 flashing in the joy of triumph, with a heart swollen with 
 pride at his prowess. 
 
 " Fool, fool," cried the King, " can that cruel tyrant 
 be myself? I, who thought my soul great and wondrous— 
 that creature of a day who is puffed up because he is 
 King over yonder speck ! Am I such ?" 
 
 " It is thy kingdom and thyself," said his companion. 
 " Tell me how great thou art." 
 
 "How great?" answered the King, humbly. "I tell 
 thee I know how small I and all kings are." 
 
 " And yet all thy life thou wouldst spend in war; in thy 
 short span how much couldst thou hope to win of this great 
 universe ?" 
 
 And again the King saw the huge universe. 
 " Would not the sound of the ploughshares ring back 
 sweeter music than is beaten out by the crossing of your 
 swords? Would not the singing of the people be sweeter 
 than the wailing of the wounded and the sorrowing?" 
 
 "Tell me," cried the King, suddenly, "who art thou? 
 What is thy name?" 
 
 And the sound of sweetest music ascending from 
 many worlds answered in the one word, " Peace." 
 
 34
 
 " Peace," repeated the King, wonderingly. " Why 
 have I not heard of thee before?" 
 
 " They were my messengers," replied Peace, with a 
 smile of beauty, as he pointed toward the grey-haired 
 Councillors whom the King had not heeded. 
 
 " Thou hast heard the music of the other worlds; now 
 listen to the music of the Earth." 
 
 The King listened. " There is a strangely sweet music," 
 he said. " Ah ! I have lost it in the cries and wailings ; 
 and yet," sadly, " the strain was very sweet." 
 
 " When warfare and violence, with cruel oppression, 
 have ceased on the earth, then, only then, will earth's music 
 ring out sweet and true." Peace smiled sadly. " Ah ! it 
 is long coming. Look over the earth and tell me what thou 
 seest." 
 
 The King answered, " I see men stand face to face. 
 They are armed to the teeth — nation against nation. How 
 small they look from here. Each watches the other; eye 
 to eye they stand, ready to fly, at a word, at each other's 
 throats." 
 
 " The quarrel of the nations is very noble, dost thou not 
 think, O King? How looks it to thee?" 
 
 " Pitifully mean," the King made answer, with shame 
 and trouble. " I, for one, will war no more." 
 
 " Remember," came solemnly a voice in the air, borne 
 as from a great distance. The King started ; he was alone 
 in the great Council hall. Down through the gloom fell 
 a brighter shaft of sunlight, striking the parchment that 
 still lay before him, with a round, glowing seal. 
 
 The King smiled tenderly as he held his hand up toward 
 the many bright worlds in the sunbeam. And he remem- 
 bered, for he lifted his pen and wrote — 
 
 " Henceforth peace and goodwill to all men." 
 
 35
 
 The Sea Along the Cliff. 
 
 Oh, wondrous, laughing sea, with the gulls floating 
 silently amongst the ripples. Oh,*wild, strong sea, when 
 the wind is a hurricane. I love the storm in my place of 
 shelter equally with the dear, dreamy days of summer time. 
 
 Good it is to see the quiet and to feel it, when the waters 
 are calm. Good to feel the salt wind blowing hard, to see 
 the scudding cloud above, to listen to the beat of wave. It 
 is life. Fill me, oh sea, with your own spirit while I run 
 along the firm, salty sand, with the water on one hand, and 
 beyond the cliffs, on the other, the blue, waving outline of 
 hills, and beyond and through them each, the gateway of a 
 wide world. 
 
 Lovely crescent of silver sands all mine, washed by the 
 roll of the southern seas, as they come in, ocean-weary, to 
 fall to the feet of the cliff; or, in frolic mood, to pretend to 
 whisper the secret of the ocean to the listening sands — 
 laughing to slip back into the mother's arms. That long 
 curve is beautiful, eye-resting — one forgets that streets are 
 straight. 
 
 How human sometimes is the murmur of the sea, be it 
 speaking in soft croons, or shouting, stern and terrible ! 
 How much it suggests of life, of happiness, of struggle, of 
 ineffable longing. How like fate it is, how childishly irre- 
 sponsible ; flinging its jewels wantonly on the sands, weary 
 of their beauty — discarded and forgotten. 
 
 She gives pleasure, she gives pain, but her dominant 
 gift is peace. 
 
 36
 
 A Fantasy 
 
 The woman was happy, for sheer joy of life, as she 
 roamed over the hill. 
 
 Her arms full of yellow flowers, honey sweet, and 
 fern fronds. Now and again she let them fall in a heap 
 on the grass, and then knelt leaning over the glorious 
 profusion with wide eyes of delight. 
 
 She buried her face in the Spring sweetness. 
 
 " I love you — I love you so," she cried softly to them 
 — then she threw up her head. 
 
 " And Jie would say I was making believe — ' stage 
 effect ' — Ah ! — he is gray ash, — you " — she glanced over 
 her shoulder with grave sweetness — " you know, you 
 understand." 
 
 Then she gathered up the flowers again, her arms 
 brimming over with their fragrant load, and as she moved 
 through the long grass, began to sing, — to sing, even 
 as a bird sings, because the sun shines and the breath 
 of Spring lies all along the land. 
 
 Suddenly her song died on her lips. 
 
 She paused irresolutely, then slipped silently into a 
 low, quivering bush, all aflame with young red gum 
 leaves. 
 
 Just before her the hill was bound with a long white 
 ribbon of a road. 
 
 And a man stood there, shading his eyes with his 
 hand. 
 
 He was looking intently to the right; he did not see 
 the glimmer of the white dress so near on his left. 
 
 The woman looked at him — a long dispassionate ex- 
 amination — then she spoke softly as though to someone 
 at her side. 
 
 "You are alike," she said; "wide white brow, deep 
 
 37
 
 brown eyes, — and the mouth — are those lines about it, 
 weakness or tenderness? — and that chin — firm almost to 
 cruelty. Yes, You are alike — ^^but you'' she stretched 
 out her arm and seemed to fold her hand over another, 
 " you are the living coal of sympathy — he is gray ash." 
 
 Then even as she spoke, watching between the sway- 
 ing leaves, she sav\^ a sudden flame leap to the man's eyes, 
 and over the dead cold face swept a wave of living pas- 
 sionate tenderness. 
 
 The woman by the low bush started. 
 
 *' Ah, now he is living coal — you are alike, you, by 
 my imagination — even as he by — another woman." 
 
 For her eyes had followed those of the man on the 
 road, and she saw a woman coming slowly towards them. 
 Her grey dress fell in long straight lines, and seemed to 
 be fitting frame for the cold, unsympathetic face. 
 
 Nearer came the other woman; from the low bush, 
 unconscious of her very act, the first woman leaned for- 
 ward and watched. 
 
 Each instant seemed to add a new tenderness to 
 the man's face — the stern lines that the struggle of the 
 market place had drawn, were smoothed away — his very 
 hands seemed to cry aloud his love. 
 
 The woman in the grey dress came abreast; she 
 glanced casually at him, bowed with cold, grave courtesy, 
 which hardly seemed to reach her consciousness — and 
 passed on. 
 
 When the grey dress could no longer be seen through 
 the trees, the man turned quickly and walked away in the 
 opposite direction. 
 
 The woman's eyes grew gentle as she let the 
 branches fall together. " Gray ash I said in my ignor- 
 ance," she said softly to someone at her side. 
 
 Then she lifted her face soft with infinite tender- 
 ness. It was as though someone stood before her, for 
 as she raised her face, her hands moved up also, palms 
 outwards, as though they rested on someone's breast. 
 
 " I am a great artist," she said, her voice so low, so 
 
 38
 
 sweet hardly the flowers could hear it, — " for I created 
 you out of my own heart — and I created you truly; you 
 are his very self — ^^but your tenderness, your love, your 
 life are for me — his, all for another woman — and she 
 does not want it." 
 
 It was a gentle smile that came into her dark eyes 
 as she turned back and glanced down the wide road. 
 
 " For your sake I wish her eyes were open to your 
 love — but she is blind — even as you." 
 
 The sweet breath of Spring came a-singing over the 
 hill, the woman turned quickly from the road. 
 
 "The Ideal is dearer than the Real," she chanted; 
 " Blue hills are always blue in the land o' dreams — 
 never the gray ash, nor age — nor other woman." 
 
 Then the curious chanting ceased; she knelt in the 
 long grass and gathered the flowers into a mass. 
 
 " Come," she cried, gaily, " Take my hand and run 
 with me in the sunshine. Let us -be children — what have 
 we to do with the things of grown folks? — That means 
 sorrow, for a film hides the greatest things from our sight, 
 and we pass all unknowing — we are blind — blind — 
 blind!" 
 
 With one arm full of flowers, and the other out- 
 stretched, as though clasped by some unseen hand, the 
 woman ran with flying feet from the place where the 
 white ribbon of a road winds over the hill. 
 
 39
 
 The Choir Along the Shore. 
 
 One day in seven I am released, and fly me to the sea- 
 shore. And there for me is all I need. The quiet place — if 
 I am for silence and sweet peace — or the groves v^here the 
 choir sings and twitters. Be it hot, the choir is in the shady 
 aisles of ti-tree; or if the weather be bleak, and I am for 
 bird life to watch and to listen, then to the more ^cant 
 foliage that serves them to perch upon, yet admits the sun- 
 light, I go. 
 
 And here to my Holy Land come the birds — the minah, 
 with her quaint call; the blackbird, with his full, glorious 
 note. Here the swallow darts and wheels in shadow and in 
 shine, uttering the while its calls as it gathers its fledglings 
 on some bare tree overhanging the cliff, alternately teaching 
 them to fly and feeding them. 
 
 One glorious day I saw not less than fifty young swal- 
 lows — a sight so beautiful I never can forget it. The parents 
 circled round them, calling, enticing, tempting them to spread 
 their wings. Oh, the brave attempts. The quick, startled 
 chirps as they made the desperate venture. How I loved 
 them as I lay in the shadow of a tree, motionless, for a whole 
 hour that I might watch their pretty ways. I was richer 
 that day for that sight than for the whole week's toil. 
 
 There, too, in the deep shadows beneath the matted 
 green boughs I saw a quail, his slow, deliberating, bright 
 eyes fixed on my motionless figure, not knowing if to fear — 
 my little feathered brother ! Above, from twig to twig, like 
 brown leaves fluttering in the breeze, are the tiny brown 
 finches, wild canaries, and the clear-chirping wagtail. Even 
 the great jackass will fly with his merriment through the 
 quiet places, and sometimes — though seldom — I have heard 
 the magpie carolling forth his notes of pure joy, and have 
 felt my heart almost bursting within me with unutterable 
 
 40
 
 longing for — w'hat? Is it perfect happiness (which we feel 
 in the bird's music), that we long for, or is it envy of our 
 dearly-loved black and white songster? Exultant notes 
 gush from a wandering blackbird ; the tremulous melody of 
 a thrush falls on the ear ; they seem to sing in duet, perched 
 close together, one on a ti-tree branch, the other on the top- 
 most bough of a golden-blossomed wattle. 
 
 Through the sparkling blue, arrows shoot unceasingly. 
 It is the swallows and others of their tribe, swift of wing, 
 gleaming of feather, sweetest of sweet twitterers. Energy 
 made visible. And beneath the wheelers the restless wrens 
 hop ever from branch to branch of the low scrub. The 
 harsh note, mellowed by distance, of the old jay — that Cin- 
 derella of the house of kingfishers — as I pass alonj; the 
 green aisles comes not amiss on my ear. Later, as I come 
 beneath his tree, he cocks his head sideways in sage medita- 
 tion, and the round, simple eyes seem filled with wonder 
 and something like pity. Perhaps it is pity for that curious, 
 slow-moving thing that, with creeping feet, glued ever to 
 the earth, goes by. Then, with a burst of laughter at the 
 sight — a triumphant shout — with a glorious sweep he is 
 gone, and silence for a space comes back. 
 
 I see the sheen on the jewelled neck of the wood 
 pigeons as they pass with a whirr of wings overhead. I 
 watch the tiny, brown-feathered songster that flits elfin-like 
 from bracken fern to ti-tree branch, rising with sudden 
 bound, to fall with sidelong sweep to hide from my eyes in 
 the undergrowth. 
 
 And the last note of my choir is the cry of the seagull 
 that wheels beyond the cliff top, never far from his beloved 
 sea. His cry fits for contrast of the peace within my quiet 
 aisles, and the loud voices and eternal restlessness of the 
 great sea so near. Visible and invisible singers in that 
 choir, how dear are you all to me ! And the sea, what shall 
 I say of the sea? Nothing. She has a thousand tongues, 
 speaks all languages, and knows the way to all hearts with 
 her murmurs of mystery. 
 
 41
 
 Love. 
 
 An Allegory. 
 
 In a poor little room they lay, little sleeping children, 
 the sound of their first cry but a few days old, and the 
 mother was filled with love and glad reverence for the little 
 strangers. 
 
 " Oh, Father ! bless my little ones," she cried. 
 
 Into the poor little room came two bright angels ; they 
 lingered by the baby faces and kissed the sleeping eyelids. 
 
 " We will come again, little ones, to bear God's greatest 
 gift to thee," said the angels. 
 
 And the mother heard the echo of their words in her 
 heart, and saw the smile on the little one's faces, and she 
 said, " the angels are guarding my own." 
 
 So it was that the little ones came; so it was that they 
 grew. One of them had eyes lit with the blue of heaven; 
 the other, deep, dark brown, like the warm, soft light of a 
 fawn. 
 
 The little ones grew until their feet stood on the path- 
 way called life, the way before them. 
 
 Hand in hand they wandered on, coming to an open 
 door, then entered. In the vaulted nave the clouds of in- 
 cense still hung, and through the shadowy arches the low, 
 sweet music crept. With slow, noiseless steps the children 
 move, on to where the flowers are smiling in the rich, soft 
 light, on towards the place where the Beloved One stands, 
 where the sunbeam floods the altar with glory. 
 
 " Sister, 'tis a holy place !" said the blue-eyed child. 
 Then, hand in hand, they knelt and prayed, though they 
 hardly knew. Then, as they knelt, from the sunbeam came 
 two angels, so beautiful their shining faces, and in their 
 hands two rare flowers. 
 
 42
 
 The children were silent with wonder, yet, when the 
 angels smiled, the little ones answered with glistening eyes, 
 and moved towards them. A sweet, soft voice was heard. 
 
 " My little ones," it said, " we give unto you that which 
 is God's greatest gift ; let it accompany you through life, 
 and, as you journey, you will learn its name." 
 
 And to each child the angels gave a lovely flower. No 
 flower of earth so beautiful ; no scent so full and rich ; like 
 healing balm. " My little children, let none ask of thee 
 for the beauty of your flower and be denied; give unto all 
 that need. The flowers may be watered with thy tears, 
 but as thou givest of thy flower so shalt thy flower grow 
 and live. Now thou canst not comprehend all these things, 
 but when the Way of Life seems hard and weary, thou 
 shalt know their meaning. Little ones, never cast thy 
 flowers away; there is none greater." 
 
 Then, even as they gazed, the sunbeam seemed to cover 
 the angels with such dazzling light that the wide-open 
 childish eyes were blinded. When they saw again they 
 said — " The angels have gone up the sunbeam to God !" 
 
 And the children grew. Now maidens, looking out 
 on the world with sweet, pure eyes. Still fast they hold 
 their holy flowers; still hand in hand they walk the way 
 of life. 
 
 Lying by the wayside is a little child; it looks with 
 eager, famishing eyes at their beautiful flowers. " Give 
 me ; oh ! give me," it cries, holding out its weak arms. The 
 maidens pause. Give their flowers away? What had the 
 angels said — " Let none need and be denied." The blue 
 eyes look into the brown eyes of her sister. " If we give 
 our flowers we will have none for ourselves. No, no! 
 I cannot spare mine. I have only one." 
 
 But the stranger child only cried — " Give me ; oh ! give 
 me." Then the brown-eyed maid was filled with sorrow. 
 Tears fell from her eyes and her voice trembled. 
 
 " Sister, the angel also said, ' As thus givest, so shalt 
 thy flower live.' Poor little stranger! I will give thee 
 my flower and I will remember its perfume," and she picked 
 
 43
 
 the flower from its stem. Then, bending down, kissed the 
 child and placed her flower in the thin, small hands. 
 
 Then they journeyed on; and strange! from the place 
 where the flower had been another lovelier grew; and the 
 heart of the child sang with joy. 
 
 The maidens grew. They were women. No longer 
 could they walk hand in hand. The Way was changed; 
 flowers gave place to thorns; the peaceful meadows became 
 the busy crowd, and in the hurry and struggle the sisters 
 were divided. 
 
 The woman with the blue eyes kept her flower to her- 
 self; she cared not that others should see its beauty or 
 breathe its rich, sweet scent. None knew she had the treas- 
 ure, for she said, " If I give my flower, I may not get 
 another; besides, a stranger would not value it as I. No; 
 I will keep it in its beauty with care." But her sister, as 
 the crowd thronged about her, learned to mark with delight 
 the joy in another's eyes when they breathed the strange, 
 sweet perfume which surrounded her flower; for as often 
 as she picked the flower another grew in its place, and 
 each one lovelier than the last. She was not afraid now 
 to give a flower, for she knew another would come. How 
 different from the one who had had the same chance, but 
 drew back, afraid that she might have none. 
 
 The Way would have been hard and weary, but if the 
 brown eyes closed with weariness, one to whom she had 
 given a flower would say, " Oh, loved one, rest your heart 
 on mine; let my hand guide you in love, let my eyes see 
 for you, let me give a little of that great love which thou 
 hast given me!" They would crowd around her and 
 silently bless her, and gently kiss her hand which held the 
 flower. 
 
 Then she knew the flower's name was Love, The 
 day was dying. Soon the Pathway of Life would end at 
 the Great Door, the Portal of Eternity, and at last the 
 sisters met again. 
 
 The blue eyes were hard and bright, the face worn and 
 weary, and there was no joy or peace thereon. The flower 
 
 44
 
 she still carried ; she had grown used to it, but its beauty had 
 faded, it was shrunken and shrivelled, and the perfume 
 had utterly died away. Into the hard blue eyes the warm 
 soft brown eyes look ; she reads there all the weary sadness 
 of that selfish life, the life that gave nothing. 
 
 "Hast thou found the flower's name, oh, my sister?" 
 she asks, softly. 
 
 "No; hast thou? See! the flower is miserable; It 
 hardly lives; yet I was filled with care for it. I did not 
 give a single leaf from it, that I might not spoil it. I 
 have kept it just as the angels gave it, but it is almost dead." 
 
 With her soft voice trembling with love her sister 
 answered — " The flower's name is Love ! sister mine. I 
 learnt that I must give of it, that it might live. I have 
 done so. See! my flower is as lovely as when the angel 
 gave it to me. Take it, take mine in your hand; only a 
 few steps more and we will need it no longer. Let me 
 hold your hand. I am old. Life did not teach you that 
 Love out of a pure heart is the greatest of all, and to him 
 that hath, more shall be given." 
 
 She placed the flower in her sister's hand, the bright, 
 living flower next the dull, dying angel-gift; but, with a 
 quick sob, the blue eyes turned to the brown. 
 
 "No, no; I must not take yours! Take your flower, 
 dear sister; take it!" she cried; and as she pressed the bright 
 flower back into her sister's hand, lo, sudden life had 
 thrilled through her own and it was beautiful even as the 
 other. At last she had returned love to another, even though 
 only one, and at the end of life. 
 
 Then they entered the Holy Place, once again hand 
 in hand ; they moved, with feeble, weary steps, towards the 
 place where the Beloved One stands ; they saw the flowers 
 smiling in the golden glory of the bright sunbeam; then 
 they knelt again, very old and very feeble, and down the 
 shadowy aisle soft, sweet music crept; high in the vaulted 
 nave the incense hung. 
 
 Then softly, so tenderly, the message came, and up the 
 broad, bright sunbeam two angels carried the world-weary 
 souls to God, the " Perfect Love." 
 
 45
 
 "On Each Side." 
 
 On each side and behind me all was shadow. Deep 
 and dark rose the cliffs of the Unknown Country. I knew 
 that I was dead. In Life there is no silence lies so sweet 
 on tired ears. I had reached the Hereafter, that I knew ; 
 but how ? I looked about me. Strange the shadows, but 
 stranger still that silence. At my feet tideless grey waters ; 
 mysterious, still, grey waters — and beyond? 
 
 That other shore? Lights flashed and gleamed, and 
 lay like white arms outstretched on the still waters. I 
 saw red lights of Love, green light of Hate, and the steady 
 gleam of the white lamps of Hope. Forms passed and re- 
 passed. Surely that faint echo that came weirdly across the 
 dim water was the hum of laughter and of music. 
 
 Even as I looked came one solemn, deep-throated clang 
 of a bell, loud, imperative. It startled the shadows and 
 pulsed slowly, slowly across the wide waters. 'Twas like 
 the call of relentless Fate claiming the souls of men. 
 
 I saw something stir upon the shore called Life; it 
 moved slowly, silently, and came nearer — a strange barge 
 of curious build — and in it I saw the moving forms of men. 
 Nearer and nearer it came, as though impelled by some 
 unseen, inexorable force from the shore of shadows. No 
 lap, lap about its bow, no crooning of waters along its keel; 
 it seemed hardly to move, so slowly it came. No sound of 
 keel on the sand, no sound of feet on the shore; but I saw it 
 touch the shadowland and its passengers disembark to van- 
 ish from sight in the greater shadow of the cliffs. 
 
 Even as the last passenger leaves the barge it moves 
 off again on its unceasing journey across the grey waters 
 towards that faint, echoing music and the lights that gleam. 
 For that Bargeman wearies not. 
 
 46
 
 A Dream. 
 
 "The world is full of sin; there is no good in it," I 
 cried in my bitterness. Then I turned my face from the 
 light of the stars and slept. And, lo ! I dreamed. 
 
 I stood on the summit of a great mountain; the chill 
 night wind was moaning in the trees around me, and I was 
 alone, alone. In the valley far below, lay the world of men 
 and darkness ; deep, impenetrable darkness enwrapped it as 
 a garment. I laughed bitterly. 
 
 " It is meet that darkness should enfold it. There is no 
 good in it." A voice fell on my ears, a sweet, soft voice. 
 " Poor little mortal," it said. I turned, and at my side stood 
 a beautiful being. Calm, pitiful eyes were looking into mine. 
 
 " Poor little mortal. Why cry in your blindness? 
 ' There is no good.' Little one, I am here to show you the 
 world with the eyes of the All Loving." 
 
 And the beautiful being at my side gently took my hand 
 in his, and I saw with immortal eyes. 
 
 Lo ! the world was no longer a dark mass ; stars, tiny, 
 sparkling stars, shone in myriads all through it, casting a 
 radiance so beautiful that it was transformed. Was that 
 the dark, sinful world I had known? That beautiful place? 
 Then I said, wondering to myself, " Beautiful stars can have 
 no place in the world of sin. Why are they there?" 
 
 The beautiful being, with a wonderful smile, answered 
 me: " Little, wondering soul, the stars which yoti see shining 
 amid the world's darkness are the self-sacrifices, the kindly 
 deeds, the helping words, and the good returned for evil of 
 man to man, of brother to brother ; forgotten or unnoticed 
 by the world, but in the light of God the shining stars which 
 you see. Look at the stars and say if thou can'st, ' There is 
 no good in it.' " 
 
 47
 
 The shining stars lit the great darkness beneath. I 
 bowed myself before the sweet presence, and the gentle re- 
 buke of my wild unreason sank into my heart. Then I lifted 
 my eyes. I was alone on the great mountain, the wind was 
 moaning in the trees, and a great darkness hid the world 
 below from my sight ; but my soul saw the stars. A deep 
 sigh burst from my heart, and I awoke in peace. 
 
 48
 
 A Ramble. 
 
 " Hoiv near to good is what is wild." — ^Thoreau. 
 
 Not a score of miles from the city is a " holy land," that 
 Thoreau, White of Selborne, or Richard Jeffries would 
 have sauntered through with exquisite delight, and through 
 this holy land the road, like the river, winds. 
 
 Far on our left stands a belt of virgin scrub — a dark, 
 eye-resting green cliff', tov/ards which the green paddocks 
 flow, undulating Iiills, and grassy hollov.-s, and dotted about 
 — careless and picturesque — are the tall gum trees; 
 
 " From whose scant foliage is made 
 A ragged penury of shade." 
 
 In the paddocks, the children of the great trees dance 
 into life. Here, there, everywhere, all sizes and shapes — 
 long, slender, pointed leaves, tinted to palest green, while 
 the lavender-frosted patines are crowned with pinkest buds. 
 But everywhere colour and movement of delicate twigs and 
 branch. \ oung stems blood-red, others again like absinthe, 
 but each leaf a thing of beauty. The glory of the gum 
 leaf ! Dame Nature has writ it large all over our great land, 
 and needs not mere mortal praise. 
 
 Nature has made of this place a lovely retreat, and 
 man, perhaps influenced unconsciously, has not laid a devas- 
 tating hand upon its loveliness — he has but added a human 
 note to the scheme. Old orchards sweep to the very road, 
 and, as we saunter along, we see dim vistas of pale, shim- 
 mering green under the gnarled old apple trees ; a shadowy 
 unreal light haunts the depths of these old orchards, that is 
 neither kith nor kin to the golden sunlight that plays above, 
 and in that unreality, strange fancies play hide and seek 
 about the misshapen trunks and low, branching boughs . 
 
 About the cottages, built in the early days, the quinces 
 
 I) 49
 
 hang like pale lanterns awaiting the dusk, and, close by, 
 arrogant young apple trees turn rosy-cheeked, sweet-smelling 
 fruit to the passers-by. 
 
 The road winds all the way. On one side the deep bed 
 of the creek — dry in summer, but, from the grasses and 
 trees growing on its sides, a raging torrent in the winter — 
 for they, poor things, in some cases are still lying as the 
 waters swirled them. On the other side of the road the 
 paddocks are not so clear. But from the carpet of fragrant 
 grasses the great white boles of the gum trees rise up to 
 the blue sky — like shining pillars in the aisle of a great 
 cathedral — so here, with the blue above for a roof, and slen- 
 der, delicately-poised young trees, like maidens, for the con- 
 gregation, we come unaware upon a service. Then the wind 
 plays on the trees, and as the music creeps up the aisles, the 
 young trees flush and bend in a dream of joy, and lift their 
 plumed heads that the wind, their lover, may kiss them — 
 carelessly, I ween, alas ! — as he passes. 
 
 The road winds on — fruit gardens unfold themselves 
 on the hillside, and flow down into the uncultivated ground 
 along a creek bank, and newly-turned mould lies like a for- 
 gotten robe upon the earth. 
 
 Our way is flecked with gleaming gold, a tracery of 
 light on the moving shadows of the trees. Overhead bril- 
 liant, sparkling blue depths, in which white, wonderful 
 clouds trail like a laughing band of children towards the 
 north. A day to be glad in, an ideal day to saunter through 
 holy lands. 
 
 There is a gleam, a quiver, a swaying in every blade of 
 grass, in each twig and branch of the young trees on either 
 side of the road, their leafy crowns shine through a silver 
 halo, as the sunshine plays on their pointed leaves. 
 
 What a throbbing note of colour the briar berries bring 
 — ^they are everywhere, tossing their brazen red up against 
 the bhie ; one almost hears their laughter as they sway in 
 the wind, and nod with impudence born of their riotous 
 colour. The duller red of the hawthorn berry is shamed 
 into hiding behind the leaves. On all the briar bushes only 
 
 50
 
 one rose did I find. The last rose of summer, looking up with 
 sweet, wild shyness in its wide eye. Dainty fairy, the last 
 to follow the fair sisters flitted with the spring. How faint 
 and sweet its perfume; it lingers almost as a memory of that 
 spring time, when the air palpitated with the scent of thou- 
 sands of elfin roses. Dear, wee rose-mother of queenly 
 daughters of a later day, how you draw our love for your 
 very simplicity and charm. Surely you sweet wild thing 
 cannot be kin to these red, flaunting berries? It seems 
 more meet to think of you as the fluttering, white-winged 
 butterfly that settles an instant on the ground beside us, then 
 is wafted across the grassy paddocks. Your petals and but- 
 terfly wings — but red berries? 
 
 It is good to lie in the grass just off the road, and listen 
 to the wind in the trees (so like the ripple of the wavelets 
 that break on a shelly beach), and, lying close to earth, our 
 eyes see its little people. How the ants gleam in the sun- 
 light — one with wings comes slowly towards us, then it stops, 
 it seems to be struggling, we look closer, its almost phan- 
 tom feet are working feverishly at its wings, one wing falls, 
 then another, more struggling, and then, with utter uncon- 
 cern, the little creature continues on its way ; its shed wings 
 move in the air and catch the light, a gleam, and they have 
 passed. No more the intoxication of the winging creature 
 now ; for the " ever " of its existence it must creep. No 
 more the swift, soft beat of wings. There, in obedience to 
 an unwritten law, the little creature left the ethereal blue 
 for the earth, for narrow, swarming galleries, wherein work 
 is never ceasing. Spiders hang from their web and pounce 
 on the unwary fly, and, fascinated by the beauty of the web, 
 I cannot destroy it to give the fly its liberty — " beauty is its 
 own excuse for being," and ease my conscience therewith. 
 
 Oh, good, good, good, to lie still, dreaming dreams, 
 while the impossible becomes the accomplished, the ideal — 
 the real. Mother Earth croons us her own unfathomable 
 song. She pillows our heads on her bosom, and the soft 
 fingers of her beauty smooth the lines of care from our 
 brows. How the silence steals into our work-weary brains, 
 
 51
 
 and her own spirit of serenity into the fretted, troubled 
 heart. Gone the dust of the week, the tide that ebbed begins 
 to flow again — a joy that is beyond words throbs through us 
 — Mother Earth has given us of her hfe blood again. 
 
 Slowly the pageant of the hours passes. A kindly- 
 faced Hebe at the house on the hill gives us of her best — 
 cream, rich and fragrant; rosy apples that vie with each 
 other, and those things necessary for the body, though not 
 the soul. Then again we saunter over the grass, but though 
 the hours pass slowly, 'tis surely, too. The birds are calling, 
 the shadows are lengthening, and the earth sends up the 
 incense of departing day. 
 
 As we saunter back along the way we came, we watch 
 the birds. The fantail, with its laugh-compelling move- 
 ments, slewed this v/ay and that by its all-important tail. 
 It regards us with friendly eyes, hopping quite close, now 
 running swiftly after some unfortunate insect that has 
 sought safety close to the ground, now, with whirling flight, 
 springing from branch to branch, its pale, whitey-grey breast 
 revealing its whereabouts, which its head, back, and tail 
 would fain hide. How long one remembers its quaint, 
 pretty call. 
 
 More birds come twittering, darting, flashing here and 
 there into the trees. The blue of the gaily-painted wagtail 
 flutters about, like a loose blossom blown in the wind, and 
 as its shadow the sober-garbed, faithful mate. A flash of 
 vivid crimson, a moment seen, then hidden beneath wings of 
 quaker drab, and a little head turns bright eyes upon us. 
 The little fellow sits unafraid on the old grey post, and waits 
 for us to pass — that vivid red back, like hibiscus petals, he 
 will not show again. Tiny green fellows flit from twig to 
 twig, the "peek peek" of their call ringing like fairy bells 
 a-chime. 
 
 Ground larks run swiftly through the grass, or rise 
 lightly to catch an insect on the wing. 
 
 From the standing scrub across the paddocks comes the 
 evening carol of the magpies and the laugh of the jackass. 
 
 The clouds are soft, pale pink that deepens towards the 
 
 52 —
 
 heart of the sunset into fullest rose and gold. The sun is 
 sinking behind the great cliff-like belt of scrub, and the deep 
 green of the day now turns to deepest purple in the shadow. 
 What marvellous colours, changing each second — here a 
 long, dazzling shaft of light breaking through a cloud of 
 purple, golden rimmed ; there a deeper tone to the pearly 
 string of cloudlets ; again a deeper value to the purples — the 
 whole heavens one pageant of marvellous glory, and the 
 earth reflects the glory in every blade of grass and quivering 
 leaf. The scattered houses are gilded, and the windows are 
 Midas-touched into burnished gold — it was a golden flood of 
 life, and bathed the whole country side in its tide. " When 
 we reflected that this was not a solitary phenomenon, never 
 to happen again, but that it would happen for ever and ever 
 an infinite number of evenings, and cheer and reassure the 
 latest child that walked there, it was more glorious still." 
 
 The sun has set, a sudden whisper stirs the leaves with 
 a strange rustle, and a hush of expectancy lies on hill and 
 hollow — not a " weird expectancy," but serene. 
 
 Everything softens, the calls of far-off children, the 
 twitter of birds close at hand. In the dusk the red glow of 
 the apples burns out, and the lanterns of the pale quinces 
 become luminous, and slowly, as though afraid it is too 
 early to venture forth, a trembling star twinkles in the pale, 
 high sky, but its sisters hasten, and soon " night has its 
 thousand eyes." 
 
 So we have sauntered through the holy land. And 
 yonder the lights of the city gleam. 
 
 53
 
 "Gran' ma." 
 
 Everyone seemed to have forgotten her — even death. 
 But why should anyone remember her? Her son's wife 
 was kind in a way — but it was a forgetting way. Alec's 
 wife had so much to think of every day to make herself 
 the picture she always was. Gran'ma had taken all the 
 care of the babies off her shoulders in the early days; that 
 was but one of the things forgotten. Meanwhile they grew 
 up — her dead Alec's children. 
 
 Tlie little old lady was the slave of the three children. 
 Strong young Alec the Second she doted on, and to prove 
 her affection he let her do all his errands, hunt for every 
 missing article, and even take the blame for his misdeeds 
 whenever she could. As for Tess and Nell — well, they 
 never thought that Gran'ma was there for anything else 
 but to fetch and carry for them, or spend hours working 
 on dainty needlework till her old eyes ached. 
 
 So she had worked for them all through the long years 
 — scarcely noting how the frost of time had crowned her 
 head and leadened her feet. She was just Gran'ma. 
 
 To-day they were all away — a round of visits. Gran'ma 
 had run about for them while they dressed, and promised 
 to get all their mending done and see that the maid had 
 things ready for tea. Her head grew dizzy trying to re- 
 member all. Then they went, and Gran'ma soug*ht her old 
 chair in the garden. She sat resting, her worn hands lying 
 idly in her lap ; a vague wonder came stealing into her 
 mind, and the dear early dream time came back. John — 
 her John— 7that she had waited for all her young years while 
 he fought his fight against odds — and bested them — and the 
 years of peace and gladness that followed till he died. The 
 lined face grew beautiful as the memory grew clearer, and 
 the tired hands folded themselves with tremulous gladness 
 
 54
 
 in the sunshine — John, whose eyes smiled fondly from out 
 the past. Theirs had been so different a life from every- 
 one else's about her — even Alec her son and Helen his wife 
 — but the little lady hushed the rebel thought. Alec was 
 dead too, and his memory was growing faint. 'Twas John's 
 that stood out the clearer now, and the children — why, they 
 were her's and John's — and John was away. 
 
 The little lady looked around. All was peace beside 
 her — a half-finished muslin dress of Tess's waiting some 
 fine sewing; Alec's cricketing coat with a rent in it; Helen's 
 torn ruffles ; and Nell's gloves lay there too. 
 
 Gran'ma was tired; she did not know how tired — 'twas 
 the long tiredness of years of work for others, long after 
 she should have been resting and young feet flying on er- 
 rands for her. 
 
 She felt a strange pain, too — not the first time. Once 
 she had spoken to Helen of it, and Alec's wife had said 
 casually, " Oh, that's all right, Gran'ma ; it will go away !" 
 You see it didn't do to take too much notice. Helen did 
 not mean to be unkind — 'twas only just Gran'ma's aches 
 and pains. 
 
 Gran'ma sat on while the sun crept around to the west — 
 she was smiling happily and thinking tenderly of the chil- 
 dren. She would do the mending in a few minutes. 
 
 Then a strange thing happened. John was bending 
 over her — just the dear, tenfler John of old. His arm 
 stole around her with tender, protecting care, and the little 
 lady felt suddenly that she had longed to be cared for in 
 that old way — how she had missed it ! It was so long since 
 such care had been taken of her. " Jennie," he was saying 
 softly, " I've come back for you!" 
 
 " John, dear," the old voice quavered, " I'm so tired. 
 I'm so glad you've come." 
 
 She laid her tired, old grey head on his shoulder, and 
 catching his hand in hers pressed it against her heart as 
 though to still the pain. Then she breathed deeply once 
 or twice and closed her eyes contentedly. 
 
 The sunlight flashed from the blue waters, and the 
 
 55
 
 birds flew about the garden with the chirrup of sunset hour, 
 and hopped on the grass close to the silent little old lady. 
 
 When the long shadows had crossed the grass to her 
 very feet, home came the children and their mother. 
 
 Nell — laughing, merry, selfish Nell — darted across the 
 grass to see if her gloves were finished; but ere she reached 
 she stopped abruptly. " Gran'ma asleep at this hour — why 
 
 —why " Nell felt the silence ; she went closer ; and 
 
 then into her eyes came a fear, and she ran into the house. 
 
 "Gran'ma ill?" Helen said, crossly. "She's sleeping 
 — and nothing seen to in the house. What can she have 
 done all the afternoon?" 
 
 Helen turned in her pettish annoyance and saw Nell's 
 face. 
 
 " Well," she began ; but without another word let her 
 hat and gloves fall on the table and followed Nell to the 
 garden. 
 
 Aye, Gran'ma was sleeping so sweetly. Her hands, 
 worn and thin, were lying palm upwards in her lap, and 
 her grey head was resting back on the cushion, her face 
 turned up as though she had lifted it to someone bending 
 over her. 
 
 " I never saw a look like that on Gran'ma's face be- 
 fore," said Nell, softly. But Helen wished she had been 
 more kind all through the years. 
 
 56
 
 Civilization. 
 
 " 'Life is wonderful — glorious.' 
 
 ' Life is a delusion ; an illusion — a farce.' 
 So spoke a wise man and a fool ; which said each ? 
 
 — From the Arabian. 
 
 Once Upon a time children played in the sunshine, and 
 when they were hungry they trapped fish, fur and feather. 
 So generations passed. 
 
 . Then a woman came among them. Her hands were 
 full of strange things, and her voice cast a spell. While 
 she talked in low, sweet voice, the playthings fell from the 
 children's hands, and a new intentness crept into their 
 hitherto happy, careless faces. 
 
 When she began to move slowly on, they followed, 
 unconscious that they did so. The beautiful woman, with 
 the witch eyes and luring voice, altered their sight and cast 
 a spell over their hearts and souls. Aye, her voice told 
 them of wondrous things to be. Away yonder she would 
 build a great citv ; she would teach them how to make won- 
 derful things ; they should spend their lives in so doing; and 
 to them it sounded great, grand. 
 
 At her bidding they built the city, and took their places 
 at the treadmills of commerce. They slaved for the beauti- 
 ful woman night and day. They saw their lives slipping 
 away, but they had no time for play, for rest, for enjoy- 
 ing the sunshine ; for she urged them on. The wonder- 
 ful thing they were weaving was worth millions of such 
 little lives as theirs, and they shouted back to her their 
 fidelity to her name. 
 
 If the woman laughed at their struggles they did not 
 hear her; for she had sealed their cars with the wax of 
 use and wont and covered their eyes with the veil of neces- 
 
 57
 
 sity, and they obeyed her faithfully, with eager, panting 
 hearts. When weary feet faltered, younger ones poured 
 into their places; hands grown frail and trembling yielded 
 their work on to the white, untried hands of youth. They 
 pressed eagerly on, urged by the siren voice that cried, 
 " Work on, work on ; just ahead is the wonderful thing." 
 
 So ever the vision of things to be, dances on ahead of 
 the things that are. 
 
 " Aye, life is grand and good," these children said 
 to each other continually. So spoke their lips — but their 
 eyes 
 
 Some — the fools — asked questions : Who was the lovely 
 siren? They looked her steadily in the face, past those 
 sparkling eyes and luring mouth, past the glamour of her 
 smile and witching voice. 
 
 " Who arc you ?" they asked, coldly. 
 
 " Civilisation," she laughed back at them, serene in her 
 power. 
 
 " And our debt to you ?" the fools asked, bitterly. 
 
 " Is boundless," the woman smiled strangely. 
 
 " And the wonderful thing you promise us in return 
 for the life-blood of generations?" 
 
 " Commerce." 
 
 "Is that all?" 
 
 Civilisation smiled. Only fools ask such questions; 
 and she called Hunger to whip them back to work. 
 
 Outside the great smoky cities of Civilisation were 
 heaps of refuse — such rubbish as worn-out workers and 
 starved children ; weak women, who could no longer keep 
 up with the strain of existence and do the day's work at 
 Civilisation's wages ; old folks who belonged to no one in 
 particular, and over whom the crowds had trampled. There 
 were young lying there also, and men and women in middle 
 life — victims of diseases which followed in the wake of the 
 siren woman. There were also such odd ends as broken 
 hearts that belonged to living people in there in the city — 
 the dust of once-strong, reliable wills that the mills had 
 ground too fine ; and as to the ills — why, there was a whole 
 
 S8
 
 pack of them. But what is the dust-heap of the city to 
 the glory of the city itself! 
 
 Out there are the plains of Barbarism. From the city 
 the folks look curiously at them. Now and again a stray 
 one goes out and is never heard of again. " He was a 
 fool," they say, as they ohey the shrill call of the factory 
 whistle, the clarion of the market, or the daily treadmill 
 of commerce in the stony streets and dull spaces enclosed 
 with four walls. The strange horror of some dread possi- 
 bility that seems in the very air they breathe, but makes 
 them turn the mills faster; in the noise they may drown 
 the still, small call from the wild yonder. 
 
 But who shall say which is the fool and which is the 
 wise man? 
 
 59
 
 While She Waited. 
 
 The man looked down at the girl pacing the deck be- 
 side him. " She is like you," he said, " and she's a regular 
 brick. Kas taken all the trouble of the house off her 
 mother's hands since the dad died." The flower-like face 
 of the girl became sympathetic. 
 
 " How long have you been away?" she asked. 
 
 " Just eight years." 
 
 " It's very hot up there, isn't it?" with seeming incon- 
 sequence. The man laughed heartily. " You have not lived 
 in North Queensland to ask that." The girl laughed, too. 
 Then, for no reason at all, she suddenly became silent. After 
 they had gone three times round the deck she spoke again. 
 " Are her eyes blue?" 
 
 " As blue as yours. You are like her. Her hair shines 
 when the sun is on it. Allie is very pretty." He was glad, 
 confident, why not? He was going home to marry the 
 dearest, prettiest little girl in the States — Allie that he had 
 dreamed of for eight years over in South Africa. 
 
 As they arrived at the wharf there stood little groups 
 of people awaiting the boat. One little lady scanned the 
 ship's deck closely, eagerly, now and then taking off cheap, 
 clumsy glasses to ease the strain of the glare of the water on 
 her pale, tired eyes. She was dressed in last year's fashion, 
 well enough, perhaps, for " Up North," but to anyone 
 coming fresh from the dainty maids of fashion " down 
 South " But it was a brave little face, even if its com- 
 plexion had grown weary of the heat and toil. Presently 
 she drew a long, deep breath of joy ; into the faded blue eyes 
 sprang gladness ; the pale, thin cheeks flushed ; she waved 
 to the man on deck. 
 
 " Someone is waving to you," said the man to the girl 
 beside him. 
 
 60
 
 " Do you mean that little old dowdy with the glasses? 
 
 I don't know her, but " — a horrible suspicion crossing 
 
 her mind in a flash — " do — do you think she is beckoning to 
 you?" 
 
 "To me !" the man laughed. " Certainly not. I'm 
 looking for little Allie." 
 
 The girl turned abruptly away ; she had feared it — now 
 she knew. Eight years, eight years of hard struggle in a 
 hot country washes blue from the eyes and pink from the 
 cheeks. She did not want to see the man when he, too, knew. 
 He continued to look down with amusement on the dowdy 
 little figure that was almost within speaking distance. At 
 last something in the wistful joy in the plain, thin face ar- 
 rested him. A horrible possibility became conviction. " My 
 God! Allie!" broke from him. He half turned to fly from 
 the spot. That Allie, whom he had left, pretty, sweet, and 
 twenty? He had forgotten the years that the waiting had 
 eaten. 
 
 His companion of the deck glided to his side. She 
 looked at him with wisdom surpassing her years. " Eight 
 years is a long time to wait," she said, softly, *' but you will 
 repay her? Good-bye." 
 
 The man hardly heard her, and did not notice her go 
 swiftly down the deck. He was trying to know that odd 
 little figure on the wharf before she came aboard. " Eight 
 years," he repeated over and over again, " eight years, eight 
 years." 
 
 6i
 
 "The Place." 
 
 " The sentence of the court is that you be taken from 
 this place to that from whence you came, to be hanged by 
 the neck until you are dead — and may the Lord have mercy 
 on your soul." 
 
 Then the crowds in the court melted silently away, and 
 I, the judge, gathered my robes about me, and moved slowly 
 from that house of justice. 
 
 The doomed, a murderer, was safe in his cell, safe 
 under lock and key. 
 
 Then came to me the man who should mete to the 
 doomed the extreme penalty of the law. 
 
 He said, " Show me the place whereon I must hang the 
 doomed." 
 
 And I replied, " It stands where it has long stood." 
 
 Then a strange thing happened; the power, the pomp, 
 the machinery of the law faded, and I saw a great plain, 
 whereon stood three people — the doomed, the executioner, 
 and I, the judge. 
 
 " Where is the place, O judge? Show me, that justice 
 may be appeased," said the hangman, looking from the 
 shrinking, terror-stricken figure, with fastened hands, to 
 me, in the glory of judicial robes. 
 
 And I, the judge, pointed towards the north. " It is 
 there," I said, firmly, and stepped forward. 
 
 But even as I did so, came a voice from the north : 
 
 " Not here; not here is the place. This is the place of 
 Reason — calm, lifting Reason. But vengeance of brutes 
 — it is not here." 
 
 At that, I, the judge, turned hastily. " It is in the 
 south," I said, " that we shall find the place." 
 
 Then, as we turned about, and faced the south, we saw 
 a woman. From her great, dark eyes came a light that 
 
 62
 
 shone steadily. There was no trace of anger, passion or 
 hatred on that broad, thoughtful brow. 
 
 " Oh, ye little mortals," she said, slowly. Yet I felt 
 surely the very ends of the earth must hear the clear tones 
 of that voice of marvellous clearness and gentleness. 
 
 " Oh, ye little mortals," she said again, with sad serious- 
 ness," " how have ye forgotten me, that ye look for that 
 place in the south? Know ye not that, though ye have built 
 great courts to my name ? Do ye know me ? Come closer, 
 look deep into my eyes, learn the sound of my voice. That 
 place is not here. Yet ye shall surely find it. Eye shall 
 surely find it." 
 
 As 1 turned from the woman I saw the Vv'hite, drawn 
 face of the doomed. It was brutalised. Had it ever a trace 
 of humanity? I shuddered. Truly, he were better dead. 
 I turned with sudden loathing from him. 
 
 "It is in the east," I said, coldly; and moved quickly 
 across the plain. 
 
 " Yes, truly, this time have we found the place," said 
 the hangman, calmly, " for I see a shadow lying over the 
 plain ; yet a long way ofif, and " 
 
 Then he paused, for we saw that which cast the shadow. 
 
 It was a wondrous seat — so long it lost itself on either 
 side of the immense distances; so broad, that the other edge 
 was hidden also. And, standing upon it, Mercy; her eyes, 
 filled with pity, were fixed upon the doomed. 
 
 " What would you ?" she said, gently. 
 
 Then I, the judge, spoke sternly. " We seek the place 
 where justice is appeased. Where shall we take the life of 
 this man, the doomed?" 
 
 And the doomed man trembled, and around liim saw no 
 way of escape, for the hand of the hangman was on his 
 shoulder. 
 
 The shadow deepened in her eyes, and Mercy came a 
 step nearer. 
 
 " It is not here," she said, " for here is that mercy you 
 pray the Lord to grant, and deny yourself. The place is 
 not here." 
 
 63
 
 Then, again, we turned. The doomed turned last of all, 
 for his gleaming eyes of hate had fastened themselves on the 
 soft tenderness of the eyes looking down on him, and for an 
 instant hate paled, and for that space of time I saw a dif- 
 ferent look in them. 
 
 " It must be in the west," I said, gravely, for some 
 strange feeling was at vv'ork in me. 
 
 The light of the setting sun lay along the plain. Every 
 blade of grass cast a long, soft shadow ; but no other shadow 
 fell on the soft, radiant light that almost seemed to warm 
 into human likeness the face of the doomed. 
 
 But in all that western glory of light we could see no 
 gallows against the sky. 
 
 Across the bowed, trembling, doomed man the eyes of 
 the hangman sought mine. " Where is the place ?" he asked 
 me, mutely. 
 
 And then before us, in the west, we saw a man ad- 
 vancing, A light gleamed from His eyes, and His whole 
 being seemed so majestic that the doom.ed sank down 
 on the earth, and I bowed my head in shame for I knev/ 
 not what. 
 
 " You look for that place." The voice rang clear, yet 
 each word dropped like balm on troubled hearts. " It 
 is not in the west, for here humanity to m.an alone is found. 
 What has he done?" 
 
 And I, the judge, looked up eagerly; now I could jus- 
 tify myself; but even as I opened my lips to utter his crime 
 I became mute. 
 
 " Thou shalt not kill," the glorious Man was speaking 
 again. " Shall his be the only ears to hear it ? Thou shalt 
 not kill; and I say it unto you also, judge and hangman of 
 men's laws." 
 
 " You have looked for that place in the north. It is not 
 there, for there Reason has her place. I? it calm, human 
 reason, in a life for a life, or survival of 'brute instincts, 
 which has doomed this man ? 
 
 " Ye shall not find it in the south. True Justice seeks 
 not revenge, and are your laws higher than his? Do ye 
 
 64
 
 not unto the doomed, in calm decision, just that which he, 
 in fury of passion and ignorance, meted out to his victim? 
 In the east ye have found Mercy, and do ye not say, ' That 
 is the Lord's, not ours?' " 
 
 Then a quiver crept into the grand voice. A subtle 
 radiance breathed from Him. " In the west ye found me. 
 Humanity, that knows not the shadow of that place ye seek; 
 for I would lift up, not sink also, myself, unto that man's 
 level. It is not here — north, south, east, west." 
 
 And even as He spoke, anguish welled up into the beau- 
 tiful voice. Over the broad, high brow came a cloud of 
 awful sorrow. His hands were stretched in greatest yearn- 
 ing towards the city we had left. Then, again, His voice 
 came ringing, and every word rang with truth — 
 
 " Would you find ' the place ' you have built ?" He cried. 
 " Look into the heart of yonder city ! See the ignorance, the 
 crime, the misery, the festering sores that break out in such 
 vile deeds ! You ! you ! the virtuous, with your lives laid in 
 pleasant places ; what heed do you pay to the cries and the 
 temptings of your fellow men? Are you even one brother's 
 keeper? Does your heart's indignation burn up even one 
 of the miseries ? Ye see the causes and wonder at the effect, 
 and doom such as he." 
 
 Then a silence followed the burning words. I, the 
 judge, stood silent, also, even as the doomed. 
 
 " It is not here," came the voice, again. " In your cities 
 ye have built that place; with souls ye have driven its nails 
 firmly ; the steps that lead up to it are ignorance and sordid- 
 ness of lives. Until you lead them from out its shadow, will 
 you find them stumbling up those steps to their "shameful 
 death, under the law." 
 
 We looked towards the city, with its domes and spires 
 lifting up into the golden light, and knew of the shadow 
 below. 
 
 Tiien Humanity spoke again. " I speak with the wis- 
 dom of the ages, not of a single mortal's span of life. Where 
 the place stands, let the sunshine stream in. Where the 
 shadow now falls, turn up the ground and plant the flowers
 
 of strength, beauty, truth, honour and love. Take away the 
 planks of ignorance that lie rotting there, and build the 
 temple of true knowledge. My little children, what came 
 ye out to seek? There is no ' place ' except ye build it, and 
 who are you to dare?" 
 
 And I, the judge, am thinking. 
 
 66
 
 At The Portals. 
 
 The woman was tired — tired ere her prime. " I want 
 rest, rest," she said. I looked at the worn face ; young in 
 years, that should have been glowing. I felt a sudden rush 
 of loving sympathy. I wanted to fold her close, and give her 
 that which life had failed to bestow — a little time to rest the 
 weary body, and allow her soul to breathe and expand. 
 
 That was in the morning, and at night another weary 
 woman came to me. " I am tired, tired," she said. I had no 
 word, I could not speak, but from my heart the flood gates 
 rolled back. Oh! that I could lift the burden that is crush- 
 ing her down ; could give the dainty little head a resting-place 
 from the storms that beat, beat upon her frail form. 
 
 This life struggle ; why do we struggle, why do we not 
 lay the burden down ; what is this conspiracy of Nature's 
 that drives us on, on, though we long for rest? She is so 
 dainty, so tiny, so frail, but the wind beats as harshly upon 
 the pale azalea as upon the strong poplar's fluttering 
 branches. 
 
 When I awoke next morning, I thought of these two of 
 the day before. How many more are carrying that dead 
 burden beneath smiling faces and bravely-moving limbs? 
 To-day I met another. I noted the care that concealed, and 
 the moment's half abandonment that revealed. She chat- 
 tered brightly about her work, present and to be ; she hoped 
 
 to do good work some day when . It was then that I 
 
 suddenly saw the worm at the root of her life, the struggle 
 for a living, the dread of the time coming when she would 
 be less able. 
 
 Neither spoke. Into our woman's eyes flashed the 
 understanding. What woman does not know that lurking 
 terror which lies crouching at the portals? When does the 
 
 67
 
 first fear of it come? I cannot tell; we seem born with it — ' 
 a spectre — call it what you will — ^that dogs our steps. 
 
 What she said, that friend of mine, after that matters 
 little. I had read all then — the desperate little ways and 
 means, the attempts to save, the brave struggle to make a 
 margin. Night by night the putting of a single drop into a 
 cup, gathered to cool and appease the starving throat of 
 those far-off years. Ashamed at having laid bare her heart 
 and mine, she threw up her head and laughed. Though it 
 did not ring true, I knev/ the bell was pure gold. Come 
 what would, here was a brave fighter, who would fight to a 
 finish, not for love of life, but because she was alive. 
 
 Is this weariness of the struggle growing? Is this all 
 that civilisation gives us ? These three are types, not weaker 
 or stronger than most. Had you looked once into their eyes 
 you had known their strength ; but are not circumstances 
 stronger than an army? Is any woman strong enough to 
 overcome for ever, each successive wave that dashes on the 
 beach of her life? 
 
 Let us reach out our hands. Be kind, oh, my sisters, 
 because of that which crouches at the portals. Be more than 
 kind to every wayfarer, because of that which crouches at 
 the portals. I feel as I contemplate the individual woe, as 
 the Christ must have felt when He looked upon that city. 
 Would that I could gather each one of you into my arms, 
 and give you rest — only rest, and then ah thins^s would be 
 added thereto. 
 
 Rich woman, poor woman, beggar, match seller, mother 
 with her little crowd about her ; old, sitting with clasped 
 hands, the time of doing over, the time of being nearly over ; 
 joyous young flower in full glory; fading, lonely woman. 
 God, hov.^ I love them ! I want to take their hands in mine. 
 Dear ones, each one of you, even you who pass outcast in 
 the street, I know and love you all ; I want to give you some- 
 thing, somehow to help you — how I know not, but somehow. 
 
 I remember that crouching at the portal, and my heart 
 goes out to you each and all. 
 
 68
 
 "The Moving Finger." 
 
 The woman lay in a happy dream ; the firelight flicker- 
 ing over her face saw the sudden smiles that crept about 
 her lips and soft-closed eyes. Her arms moved gently in 
 her dream. In her dream she sat in a sunny little room; 
 in her arms a laughing baby played. With passionate ten- 
 derness she gathered the child close to her, kissing the baby 
 curls, the soft little feet; pressing the little pink hands 
 against her lips. Then Adam, dear Adam (in her sleep 
 her smile grew), threw about them both his loving arms and 
 drew them close. With a low laugh of pure joy the woman 
 awoke. She lay silently happy, watching the dancing fire- 
 light. The depths of her nature v^ere also awake and thrill- 
 ing to the touch of the dream. Then again she slept and 
 dreamed 
 
 This time she stood in a long room. All that loving 
 care could devise lay about her, and as though merely a 
 spectator, she saw herself — this time years older — standing 
 by a table, one hand pressed heavily on its polished surface, 
 as though to support her trembling frame. She saw her 
 own face turned with strained anguish toward a door at 
 the far end of the room. The door opened and a man 
 came slowly in. And the dreamer knew that the man was 
 Adam. When he saw her by the table a sudden tenderness 
 flashed over his stricken face. The woman by the table 
 did not seem to move ; only her eyes fastened on his with 
 an intensity that turned them to coals of fire. Without a 
 word he folded her in his arms. 
 
 In her sleep the woman stirred; a sigh broke from her; 
 in the silence of her dream her husband spoke. " Be 
 brave," he said. She saw the woman that was herself shud- 
 der. " Tell me, is it the worst?"' 
 
 He bowed his head. " It is the worst ; our child is 
 
 69
 
 insane — insane." The woman of the dream hid her face 
 while the man spoke on. 
 
 " I cannot understand why our child should be — I can- 
 not understand " He broke off; his stricken face bowed 
 
 itself lower. 
 
 The dreamer saw the woman of the dream with sudden 
 violence fling herself from the man's arms. With stream- 
 ing eyes she heard herself laugh the wild laugh that comes 
 from the broken-hearted. 
 
 " I lied to you," she said. '' I have always known . . . 
 it is in my family . . . but I could not give you up . . . and 
 after I would not . . . and then I hoped and prayed . . . 
 I prayed . . . oh, Adam " 
 
 Her own cry of anguish awoke the sleeper; she lay 
 still. The fire had vanished behind grey ash, and the pale 
 dawn was stealing into the room. Henceforth for her the 
 grey ash. " Dare I forget the warning . . . dare I attempt 
 to frustrate Fate . . . dare I . . . dare I ? My God, I dare 
 do nothing ... oh, my laughing baby." 
 
 " The Moving Finger writes, and having writ 
 Moves on." 
 
 70
 
 Before the Altar. 
 
 So weary! so weary of struggling! Thus I thought, 
 this bright summer afternoon, as I paced along in the sun- 
 shine. 
 
 After the week's care and worries, Sunday came like a 
 blessing. Yet — ah, yet the six day's worry cast a shadow 
 over the seventh, and my thoughts strayed on the coming 
 week, which seemed to promise no better outlook. 
 
 Just then I paused before an old-fashioned, bluestone 
 church, almost covered with a beautiful mantle of green 
 ivy. — " St. Mary's." The old porch seemed to welcome 
 me in. 
 
 Slowly I passed through the churchyard and ascended 
 the three steps, then noiselessly and with reverence entered 
 the sacred house. 
 
 Far in the distance stood the beautiful altar; a bright 
 ray of light through the stained window threw a rich crim- 
 son band over the gleaming white marble and glittering 
 silver. 
 
 The marble steps were flecked with radiant colours, as 
 though set with jewels. The white lilies seemed to take a 
 sudden glory in the right light — so beautiful, that my heart 
 went out in impulsive adoration. Then like a magnet the 
 beautiful altar drew me on. Down the long shadowed aisle 
 I moved towards the glory, even unto the altar rails. Then 
 I knelt before the shrine, wrapt in the dream of beauty. 
 
 As one dreaming I watched the crimson sun-ray as 
 slowly, slowly, it grew over the altar piece, touching all 
 with singular beauty. 
 
 My eyes followed the sunbeam until it reached the 
 beautiful figure of Christ, the soft light playing on the 
 calm, sweet lips, throwing shadows in the loving eyes, light- 
 ing with strange radiance, the broad, thoughtful brow. 
 
 71
 
 Then I said reverently, " Jesus Christ." 
 
 I said it softly, yet with loving reverence, and, even 
 as it died away on my lips, I saw that into the sweet eyes 
 seemed to come life; the lips moved as if breath was flut- 
 tering on them. 
 
 Surely I must be mistaken ! 
 
 No! For gently the hand which had been raised in 
 blessing fell softly to His side, the stiff marble robe became 
 gently undulating, and into the rigid figure came breathing, 
 pulsing life. Then, as I gazed speechless in my wonder- 
 ment, Christ descended and came towards me. His eyes 
 were lit with surpassing love, and before His majesty I 
 was dumb. 
 
 " Child of earth, why art thou cast dozvnf" said He to 
 
 As I heard Him speak, and felt in my inmost being the 
 wondrous thrill of magnetic sympathy in His voice, I knew 
 how He had drawn the multitudes of old. 
 
 I answered not, only lifting my weary, troubled eyes 
 to the face above. 
 
 Again Christ spoke: " Thou shalt see three visions, and 
 then tell me if thou hast any sorrozvs like unto these." 
 
 Even as Christ spoke, the beautiful altar with the white 
 lilies bathed in golden glory faded slowly from my sight, 
 until nothing but a mist remained. 
 
 "Look on another's woe!" 
 
 And I beheld — a tiny room, so bare, cold and miserable 
 that I shivered. Then I saw the room held two human 
 beings — one a woman, who, with trembling fingers, was 
 sewing some heavy stufif, and by her side, lying in an old 
 '>roken box, was a babe, its little face pinched and haggard, 
 it^ hands like tiny claws, so thin ! In the corner stood an 
 open cupboard, but it was empty. The mother was trying 
 to hush the wailing babe to sleep, and at the same time go 
 on with her work. But the baby only wailed more pitifully. 
 On the faces of the mother and child I read starvation. As 
 I looked on their misery the mother rose wearily to soothe 
 the child, when suddenly a cry, a wild, heart-broken cry, 
 
 72
 
 rang through the room, and the mother fell by the child 
 — dead. 
 
 The babe, hushed at the wild cry, then wailed on 
 piteously — alone. 
 
 I could bear it no longer, that cry rang in my heart. 
 I covered my face. And I heard the sweet voice saying, 
 in tones of deepest sadness : 
 
 "And yet J said in the beginning, 'Feed my lambs/" 
 
 No reproach ; only such sadness, such sadness. 
 
 " Look again," said Christ. 
 
 It was a hospital ward, and slowly we moved through 
 it. Oh; the world of pain and suffering. Their white 
 faces and pain-dulled eyes filled my heart with sorrow. As 
 we passed each patient, some who were raving suddenly 
 quietened ; a pain-racked sufferer smiled in a minute's ease 
 from pain ; some gently murmured in their sleep — for Christ 
 was passing by. We came to the end of the ward, and 
 there, reflected in a large mirror, I saw myself in the full 
 pride of health and strength. And I had murmured against 
 my lot ! 
 
 " Look yet again," said the loving voice. A beautiful 
 room was before me, so perfect in its artistic beauty that 
 I held my breath in wonder. At the end of the room was 
 a bed with richest hangings. At the foot of the bed knelt 
 two persons, a man and a woman, with bowed grey heads. 
 I could not see their faces, they were hidden in the white 
 silken coverlet. A grey curl has escaped from restraint, 
 and hung over the woman's shoulder with a pathetic loneli- 
 ness. Convulsive sobs shook the aged couple. I said 
 softly, " Why do they weep?" 
 
 Then tlie hangings fell back, and lying on the bed I 
 saw a man in the prime of life : a strong, manly form, with 
 noble face. 
 
 But it was the face of the dead. Who now would close 
 the lonely parents' eyes for their long last sleep? I thought 
 of my brave, strong boy, and I wept with the bereaved. 
 
 The vision faded, and the altar came back, the light still 
 played on the lilies, and Christ was speaking. 
 
 73
 
 " Hast thou not enough to eat, and priceless health? 
 Thy dearest are ever with thee. All these thou hast, and 
 yet thou grozuest zveary when the road of life is hard and 
 thorny." 
 
 My troubled eyes looked into the eyes above. 
 
 " Give of thy love and thou shall have a thousand fold. 
 Feed the little ones and the widozv; comfort the mourners; 
 those zvho are sick heal, and help to hear their cross, and in 
 so doing tkine shall he lightened." 
 
 Slowly He raised His hands over my head and blessed 
 me — " Peace he zvith you." 
 
 New strength entered me, a burst of heavenly music 
 filled the sacred air. I arose and 
 
 The light had faded from the altar; the lilies were 
 gleaming purely white in the shadowy evening light ; and 
 Christ was standing with raised hand as before. 
 
 The music was real, for from the old church organ a 
 master hand was drawing tones of penetrating sweetness. 
 
 Had I dreamed? or had Christ really spoken to me? 
 
 I know not! Only still I hear that wondrous voice 
 blessing me, and see the tender eyes beaming with love. 
 
 Then I arose from the altar steps, and reverently left 
 the sacred place as the music rolled on through the darken- 
 ing aisle, on, on to the beautiful altar and Christ. 
 
 74
 
 At Last. 
 
 In the silver of his years, this, the great desire of his 
 Hfe, had come to pass — he was a great artist at last. 
 
 The world rang with his name, and, with wondering 
 worship, crowds stood silent before his masterpiece, which 
 hung " on the line " in the place of honour. 
 
 They — the world who understood such things — said, " It 
 is a masterpiece, a thing of beauty for ever." 
 
 That little canvas — once worthless — was now priceless 
 by the marvellous v/ork upon its surface — a sunset, with 
 the light shining across the rippling water. 
 
 And he — the artist? When the crowds had gone their 
 ways, he went silently to the great salon and stood before 
 the picture. 
 
 He raised his old, life-lined face to its glowing beauty. 
 A light of exultation filled his eyes, and joy overspread his 
 face, so that it looked almost young again. 
 
 " My picture, my work!" he said, softly, tenderly. " It 
 will live for aye. My life has been well spent, with this as 
 its crov/n." 
 
 And soon — he slept. His life work finished. 
 
 Over the tumbled waters the last gleam of sunset 
 flashed. Away against the glowing, gleaming west, the wide, 
 dark sails of a ship were spread. The wind had only 
 strength to move with soft rustling the ti-tree scrub along 
 the shore, and lift, with merry play, the breaking crests of 
 the laughing waters, so that, as they rose, they fell again in 
 sparkling showers. Oh! beautiful, laughing, living world! 
 
 Along the sands two children ran. The quivering sun- 
 light and dying kissed their bright, glad faces, and played 
 in their streaming hair. Their sweet, childish trebles made 
 
 • 75
 
 music, ere day died, with peals of merry laughter, as they 
 danced with bare little feet where the rippling waters 
 stayed. And my heart was glad in their glee. 
 
 Then the children went away, and silence came back. 
 Where they had played a purple shadow was stealing to- 
 wards the low ti-tree. The light died in the west; the tiny 
 waves sank, with low sobbing, back into the great mother 
 heart of gray. Over the waters, with wild, plaintive cry, 
 a lonely seagull flew and passed, with quick, winged flight, 
 on into the darkening night. 
 
 The pink had gone, the blue was changing with quick, 
 silent mystery, into deepest ebon, and the stars in myriads 
 came glinting out. There, by the ironstone cliff, the slow, 
 deep sound of the pulse of the waters, and over the dark, 
 moving plain, a quiet as of sleep. There, where the sands 
 curve into a miniature bay, the tide rolls up with its own un- 
 fathomable song. 
 
 And, last, a silver crescent hangs low in the starry 
 depths, and night, silent, beautiful night, has come. 
 
 O, beautiful world, ever changing ! In your great space 
 and exquisite life, where are the few inches of canvas-paint 
 man lives his life to make? Enough for me the beauty 
 which lasts but for an hour. 
 
 His life was over. The whole world sorrowed. Ten- 
 derly, reverently, they carried him to rest in their great 
 Temple of Death, and princes walked beside him. Their 
 voices were hushed, 
 
 " He painted a great picture — a joy for all time," they 
 said softly, " and after much toiling he was crowned at 
 last." Then they added sadly, " His sunset ! who will paint 
 us another?" 
 
 And to each day is given a sunset. It lasts but for a 
 breathing space and passes away. Man alone paints — for 
 aye. 
 
 76
 
 Ncaring the Gate. 
 
 His face was thin and haggard, a fear yet not terror, 
 looked out from his eyes, for he was uncertain. She came 
 slowly; her grave clothes all white and clinging, her eyes 
 weary but serene. 
 
 Life lay behind the misty curtain that hung at the end 
 of the path that led to the great gate yonder, and a strange 
 stillness filled the air. The man had just emerged from the 
 wavering curtain of mist when the woman drifted through. 
 She looked into the man's eyes, then in the silence she 
 stretched out her hand ; he took it in his, and together they 
 moved along toward the gate. Though the woman moved 
 with slow weariness, from her whole form a strange 
 radiance gleamed. 
 
 Still with his hand in hers she spoke softly, " Tell me 
 ere we reach the gate has Life given all that you desired; 
 has your heart held as truth all that your lips said when 
 young ?" 
 
 The man's face quivered, but his voice was low and 
 steady. " I have ever tried to live to my conception of the 
 truth ; for that I loosed your hand from mine when your 
 love was the very joy of my life." 
 
 " A curious smile of tender pity crept over the woman's 
 face. "Aye, be not unequally yoked. I remember you had a 
 creed that was not mine, though I endeavoured to make my 
 life beautiful, true to the end. I was not worthy to walk the 
 way of mortality with you." Then the stern voice suddenly 
 melted into the tenderness of love. " Oh, little soul, you 
 doubted the boundlessness of God's love. You feared to 
 link your life with mine — me, whom you judged by your 
 human standard, not by God's." Her hand rested lovingly 
 on his arm. " You put me out of your life, but the love re- 
 mained ; your fireside was lone; no child brightened it with 
 
 17
 
 love and laughter. Know you not that that love which you 
 sought to root out — that beautiful love — was the most God- 
 like thing of your whole life?" 
 
 The nsan trembled; the lonely years flashed over him, 
 and one line of his creed had stood between them. His com- 
 panion smiled softly as she turned her eyes toward the gate 
 they neared. " Tell me what lies beyond?" 
 
 " I know not " 
 
 " And I know not." 
 
 Their eyes met steadily. They moved on ever closer 
 to the great gate. 
 
 " You believed Life," she said, " and I thought that 
 Sleep awaits us there ; meantime we loved truth, and each 
 other," A wave passed over her tired face, and slowly she 
 continued. " Now we shall know, but I fear nothing. 
 Sleep and rest if it be. Rest were a boon. The 
 world was cruel and stormy. It has so buffeted me that, 
 before the allotted span, I am weary, weary, and am com- 
 ing home to rest. At the worst there's rest." 
 
 " But," he said, " you have doubted." 
 
 She bowed her head. " As my sin, so let my punish- 
 ment be. Yet have I believed in Humanity, for it have I 
 laboured ; my hand has stolen out to help it while you knelt 
 in prayer — while your church rang with praise to God I lis- 
 tened to the deep undertones of a great city." 
 
 '* Works cannot save you," the man answered — so he 
 had spoken all his life. Before the woman could reply 
 some strange force separated them. And near the first gate 
 they had seen there was a second. Alone the woman reached 
 that one at the end of her path. Her true spirit shone from 
 her eyes, sweeter became her voice : " Through the gate of 
 Death each must go alone, and for each soul its own gate." 
 
 She leaned her tired head lovingly against the gate ; her 
 arms clung tenderly to its heavy bars ; as ivy clings against 
 the wall so leaned she trustfully against the great gate, her 
 life in the lines of her face, the sweetness in her eyes. 
 
 At his gate the man stood. At the last moment had 
 6ome the thought, " How dared I judge, and under my 
 
 78
 
 man's judgment affix the seal of my God?" In that instant 
 he realised. " Forgive me, oh woman, and my God !" he 
 cried, entreatingly. 
 
 Again his eyes and the woman's met, and the trium- 
 phant gladness from hers flashed upon him. She, with her 
 unbelief held firmly in her hands, asking justice, would re- 
 ceive mercy — and that not man's. In that thought a gran- 
 deur encircled him ; he smiled a farewell and entered at the 
 gate that opened before him. 
 
 At her gate, with wide eyes of peace, of love for the 
 world behind her, the woman paused a moment longer, then 
 softly the gate swung wide for her, and she passed through. 
 
 79
 
 The Lily and the Rose. 
 
 The Master looked round at his children, and, taking 
 two beautiful souls in his hands, called Life to him. " Take 
 these two souls to earth," he said, " and let Sorrow know 
 them, so that when thy twin brother. Death, shall hring 
 them back they may have gained added beauty." 
 
 Sorrow drew near as Life took the lovely souls from 
 the Master. She came so silently, in her sandals of pain, 
 and a deep, sweet seriousness shone from her eyes. She 
 looked at the Master; then at the two sleeping souls soon 
 to be human, and she grew pitiful. " Little ones," she said, 
 softly, to the sleepers, " forgive me if I seem cruel in 
 the days to come, for it is written ' through Sorrow only 
 shalt thou become wise and noble.' " 
 
 Even as Sorrow, the silent one, ceased speaking, a rush 
 of gladness came through the air, and laughing Joy stood in 
 shining glory before the Master. 
 
 "Oh, Master, give one of these souls to me; let me 
 make it wise and noble." 
 
 But the Master smiled gently. " It may not be ; how 
 can a mortal become noble if Sorrow, thy twin sister, touch 
 him not?" 
 
 Then Joy, of the shining eyes, took her sister by the 
 hand and smiled into her deep, dark eyes. " Sister mine, 
 give but one soul to me. Let me teach it through happiness 
 how to rise to its highest self. Let me unfold all the buds to 
 the perfect flower. Ah ! surely Joy can make beautiful as 
 well as Sorrow." 
 
 Joy was so lovely, her laughing voice trembled so ear- 
 nestly that Sorrow took her twin sister's hand in hers, and 
 kissed the high, white brow. " Master, let it be even as my 
 sister begs. Let her give joy, full and pure, through all the 
 life of one of these two souls, and when the end shall come 
 
 80
 
 let us again stand before thee with the flowers of their lives 
 in our hands — each as moulded by Joy and by Sorrow; 
 then shall we know whether Joy or Sorrow gives the greater 
 beauty." 
 
 " Have then thy wish," said the Master. 
 
 Life took the two souls to earth — little human buds. 
 The lot of one was cast in high places; the lot of the other 
 was lowly. One laughed through life, making sunshine 
 wherever her feet trod. Sick faces lit up at sound of her 
 voice; sad hearts leapt at clasp of her hands. Everywhere 
 she taught the gospel of gladness. 
 
 When she saw sorrow, the happiness within her rushed 
 forth, gushing over to relieve, and the great gladness within 
 made her pitiful, for she said, " There is much sorrow; let 
 me bring my gladness to these fainting hearts." The lamp 
 of her sweet eyes lit the darkness of the world, and that 
 the cries of pain should cease she taught mortals to sing and 
 laugh. Life she made joyous, slipping everywhere her sun- 
 shine into the drear domain of Sorrow, save into the one 
 young soul especially commended into Sorrow's keeping. 
 Her she visited not. 
 
 Sorrow stood steadfastly by the side of the soul com- 
 mitted to her care. Gently she moulded it to perfect form. 
 Tears that fell, and sighs that came from that sad heart, 
 shaped the life to perfection. All who looked on that sweet 
 face marvelled at its beauty, and said, " She is an angel of 
 goodness; her tears flow with ours; she knows our trials 
 and sorrows. How rare her soul." 
 
 Sorrow and Joy stood before the Master, each holding 
 the perfect flower of a human life in her hands. Laughing 
 Joy held her rose of life toward the Master. " Behold, Mas- 
 ter of all; see the beauty of this flower. With joy did I un- 
 fold each curling leaf, and with gladness did I colour it. 
 Surely Sorrow cannot mould aught more beautiful?" 
 
 F 8i
 
 The Master gathered both flowers, and looked at them 
 long and lovingly — the Lily and the Rose. 
 
 " Thou art right, oh, Joy of Life. Henceforth thou 
 shalt share with thy sister Sorrow in the making of all 
 that is truest and best in humanity." 
 
 Then the twin sisters clasped hands — Sorrow, with the 
 silent footfalls of pain, and Joy, with the winged feet of 
 gladness — and sped back to the little earth whereon men 
 live. 
 
 82
 
 Grace. 
 
 An Allegory. 
 
 The long, sad day is over, and night has come at last; 
 night with its stillness, its beauty, and peace. I sit at my 
 open window, and look out into the moonlight. Close up to 
 my little garden gate run the sands, and I look over the 
 silent, glittering sea. 
 
 In a numbed kind of way, I noticed the long ribbon of 
 sand, stretching away in waving lines so white and smooth. 
 The water scarcely seemed to move, only the moonlight 
 threw a soft sheen over it. I saw the quiet beauty of the 
 scene, yet I could not rejoice in it, for on my life had fallen a 
 cloud so thick and black that everything was shadowed. 
 
 What to me was the beautiful world? A low, bitter cry 
 broke from me. I threw back my tumbled hair from my 
 brow, and leaned from my window into the cool, quiet air. 
 Then a soft, fresh breeze came lightly across the quiet 
 water; it kissed my hot, throbbing brow with cool gentle- 
 ness, and seemed to whisper, " sleep! poor weary, sorrowing 
 soul. Sleep!" 
 
 " Sleep!" I murmur. I cannot sleep, when so close to 
 me is a quiet room, where One is sleeping a quiet sleep, and 
 I am left here alone. " Sleep ! Ah, no, unless it be the same 
 quiet sleep." 
 
 And the breeze passed on in sad murmuring for my 
 sorrow, but I still sat looking out at the beautiful night, the 
 shining sea, with the bitter anguish in my heart for my 
 lovely dead, my lost beloved. 
 
 In the quiet which followed, I felt as though I could 
 think no longer, my strength was exhausted, my weary head 
 fell upon my folded arms and I slept. And in the deep 
 sleep, there came to me a dream, strangely real, like some 
 
 83
 
 rare, beautiful blossom floating from some unknown world, 
 and alighting on a torn and bruised heart. 
 
 In my dream I was walking along a sandy beach, and 
 listening to the low murmur of the lapping waves. Over 
 everything streamed the glorious, golden, shining sun. The 
 world was awake with marvellous, beautiful life. My heart 
 was light, and my soul poured forth a joyous song, spon- 
 taneous as the carol of the lark. Ah ! I drew my breath with 
 delicious gladness at my very life. 
 
 Then in the distance, on the bright, moving waters, I 
 saw a boat coming towards me. There was something won- 
 drously beautiful about it; the sail was the colour of a rare 
 pink rose, soft and lovely; and the glistening sides of the 
 boat seemed like unto transparent, gleaming, mother o' pearl. 
 
 As the boat sped towards me, I saw standing on its 
 prow a woman. Even at a great distance I could see her 
 face, and, as I watched it, she seemed to grow into my very 
 being. 
 
 As the boat glided over the dancing water, I waited for 
 her, where the laughing waves kiss the sands. Nearer and 
 nearer she came, and a great silence fell over the world, but 
 I was as one who is created and awaits that which is to give 
 life. 
 
 The boat was near, so near that I heard the keel touch 
 the loose, pebbly bottom, with musical clinking, and then 
 she stood before me. Her face was illumined with a great 
 light, such as to me was never on woman's face before ; and 
 her very soul seemed to gaze from those deep, beautiful 
 eyes into mine. 
 
 I smiled, and held out my hands towards her. Then she 
 sprang lightly from the boat, and caught my hands in hers. 
 A radiance was over the world; a something I had not 
 imagined could be. At her touch life came, and I was com- 
 pleted. 
 
 Then she spoke in low, sweet tones, ** Beloved ! I have 
 
 84
 
 sought thee long. Over great seas I have sailed, looking, 
 looking for thee, and I have found thee, oh, my beloved !" 
 
 And my only answer was a soft echo of her words, " I 
 have found thee, oh, my beloved !" 
 
 Then we turned, and walked hand in hand along the 
 golden sands. How beautiful was the world! The shells, 
 lying wet and glistening by the water's edge, were lovelier 
 as my beloved held them towards me in her hands, their 
 delicate beauty more beautiful. I caught the fragile sea- 
 weed as the ocean drew it back, and held it to my beloved. 
 Was ever simple seaweed so lovely before? Along the sands 
 we wandered, pouring out our heart and soul in perfect 
 
 communion. 
 
 it 
 
 Oh, gentle one!" I cried in my joy, " thou hast made 
 my life perfect. The world is lovely, but I love it not, for I 
 love thee before all the world !" 
 
 " Beloved !" she answered, sadly, " Ah ! I had forgotten 
 the world. You are my world; where thou art I would be." 
 She softly smiled as she wound her arm in mine. 
 
 " Hush !" I whisper, " We will stay here in the beauty, 
 away from the world, with its harsh, jarring chords, its hard 
 duties and troubles. We will stay here in the beauty, where 
 everything harmonises with our love." 
 
 We watched the sun as slowly it began to set, then we 
 sat down on the sands, and watched the banks of pinky 
 clouds, the deep gold of the setting sun over the tinted, 
 sparkling, golden water. The west was a magnificent glow 
 of colour, and the great sea but reflected the glory. A grey 
 gull flew screaming across the vivid sky, and settled on the 
 cliff above. That was the only sound, save the low mur- 
 muring of the tranquil sea. 
 
 We were silent. In the twilight, which was creeping on, 
 we cared not to break the peace of beautiful, changing 
 nature. 
 
 When the last quivering gleam of colour had vanished, 
 and, over the world evening shadows were descending, and 
 tiny stars peeping out shyly in the sky above, I felt something 
 become silent. In the silence it was as though we had been 
 
 85
 
 talking aloud and suddenly paused, and yet we had spoken 
 no word. 
 
 I looked at the face of my beloved, and I saw she was 
 sleeping softly, with a calm, quiet smile on her face, as 
 though she had closed her eyes in a beautiful thought. I 
 knelt at her side on the warm, soft sand, and took her head 
 in my arms, gently smoothing the dark hair from her broad, 
 white brow. Then I forgot the rippling sea, and the evening 
 star shining before me, for I watched my sleeping one. 
 
 " Watcher ! I say unto thee watch no longer !" 
 
 I looked up, and before me stood a stranger. He was 
 very, very old, yet firm and strong, and over the lined old 
 face was a kindly smile ; there was a peculiar gentleness 
 about him as though he could touch a child (of any age) as 
 softly as one rose, swinging on its bough, touches another. 
 
 I felt no fear of this stranger, for his face was one of 
 trust ; only I wondered why he should say, " Watch no 
 longer !" 
 
 I saw on the sea a boat, pure white and clear as crystal, 
 with masses of white flowers filling it. 
 
 I knew he must have come in that boat. 
 
 My beloved still slept, so I held up my hand : " Hush ! 
 she sleeps ; do not wake her !" 
 
 But the stranger gently took her in his arms, and I was 
 powerless to move, while he carried her to his boat and laid 
 her among the beautiful flowers. 
 
 Then I sprang forward, saying: " Let me go with you 
 also. I cannot leave my beloved, who has but just found 
 me. Thou shalt take me too." 
 
 A strange smile crossed the kindly old face: "Child, 
 dost thou not know me yet ? 'Twas not for thee I came, but 
 for thy beloved. Thy time is not yet." 
 
 The boat was moving gently on the water, and I fol- 
 lowed in the cool, sparkling foam, but I found I could not 
 move beyond ankle deep, and I cried in my distress : " Who 
 art thou ? Why dost thou take my beloved ?" 
 
 86
 
 " Ye mortals call me Death. See ! the life of this soul 
 lies around her ; the white blossoms of a blameless life, of 
 good deeds, pure thoughts, kindly love to all, they pillow her 
 head in beauty. Perchance, if thou wert called now, would 
 such flowers as these enfold thee?" 
 
 He looked gravely into my eyes, but sorrow for my love 
 filled me, and I cried to him : " Oh, spare me my love ! Take 
 all else, and I will be such as mortal never was before. But 
 if thou takest my life, my love, what is left? A void which 
 never can be filled, and a sorrow greater than man ever had, 
 greater than I can bear !" 
 
 I held out my arms for my beloved beseechingly, 
 tremblingly, though I knew I could not change the grim, 
 kind face before me. 
 
 " It cannot be," Death said quietly, and I could answer 
 not for the great pain in my heart. 
 
 The boat was gently gliding away from me. Through 
 the crystal side I could see my sleeping love smiling, as 
 though she had not left me alone, and then I heard a kind, 
 grave voice saying : " Mortal ! once thou saidst ' all the world 
 was not to thee as thy love !' Now I say, thy love has left 
 thee, and the world must take her place. For even as thou 
 art to the world, so will thy love he to thee. Thy love will 
 not return until thou lovest all the world. Go back, for only 
 from it shall comfort come. Go! thou art happier, for thou 
 hast known love. And your beloved, hush ! do not wake her 
 with thy grief. See! she is sleeping, she is happy. Do 
 you not grieve, but comfort those whose sorrows are greater 
 than yours ; for I say there are heavier sorrows to bear than 
 thine, for she is safe in my keeping, and my keeping is in 
 love. Go! do that which is before thee, that thou mayest be 
 ready when I come." 
 
 It was the cool breeze which wafted to me the last 
 words, for the boat was far out on the beautiful sea, and was 
 fading from my sight. 
 
 " Oh ! beloved, to have known thee, and to lose thee !" 
 And, with a bitter cry, I threw myself on the sand, and 
 
 87
 
 buried my face to shut out the shining sea, with the moon- 
 Hght turning it to silver, from my gaze. 
 
 I awoke from my dream. I turned from the window 
 and the starlit sea, and fell on my bed; the dream had 
 brought my love so vividly before me, for in the dream my 
 love was the same as she who lay sleeping so near me. It 
 only made clearer my great loss, and my heart cried out for 
 some help to bear its pain, to bind the broken life. Out of 
 the darkness of the room came no answer, and I lay there 
 trying of the old life to find that wherewith to take up the 
 new grey life, which would begin on the morrow. And then 
 I slept, and again I dreamed. 
 
 I had left the sparkling sea with its lovely world, its 
 dream of love and sorrow, and it was through the world of 
 men I walked. 
 
 There was a blank within me, which seemed to deprive 
 me of sight, so that I passed many sorrows, which I might 
 have healed. 
 
 When some people spoke to me, I turned my stricken 
 face to them, and, pointing to my robes of grief, I asked 
 sadly, " Why do ye talk to me, see ye not that I sorrow 
 for the dead? What interest hath this world for me? I 
 am only waiting for death to call me also. Trouble me 
 not!" And they shrank back. 
 
 Even the little, laughing babies stayed in their mirth as 
 my shadow crossed them. I was wrapt in myself and 
 grew dead, even though I lived. 
 
 But once, as I sat alone brooding over my loss, sud- 
 denly my name was called, softly, lovingly, even as she had 
 spoken. I turned. Standing at my side was a woman; a 
 glory beamed from her eyes, and a great light radiated above 
 her. 
 
 " Why sittest thou here in grief?" she asked of me. 
 
 " Ah !" I answered, sadly, " thou must surely know. 
 
 88
 
 Since all the world is dead, for she is dead, my love is dead, 
 there is nothing but to wait until I go to her." 
 
 '•' And, thinkest thou that thou wilt be worthy to go 
 to her if thou stayest here bound in self?" I looked at 
 the bright, sweet face, but sadly shook my head. Such 
 brightness could not understand my gloom. " Thou under- 
 standest not ! 1 have no one in this great world to love 
 me, none to love me. There is no sorrow like unto my 
 sorrow. I must sorrow alone." 
 
 But, unlike others, she did not leave me to my grief. 
 Instead, she took my hand and said quickly, " Come with 
 me ! let me show you sorrows which are not like your sor- 
 row, for they are greater and harder to bear. Come ! and 
 then when thou hast seen thou shalt return to thy sorrow 
 and thy grey robes — if thou wilt." And with her I went. 
 
 Our wanderings would take long to tell. But the 
 sorrows I witnessed seemed to hold me in some terrible 
 spell. Aye, I saw love also, but sometimes it was so hidden 
 that I felt it was not there at all. Then love was given to so 
 many in such different aspects, and sorrow, I found, was 
 all through the world. Some sorrows had a bitterness 
 which death could not bring. 
 
 I saw the tottering, grey-haired father as he gazed on 
 his only child, the son of his dead, dear wife; I saw the 
 agony which rent his heart as the prison gates closed behind 
 his boy, and he tottered on, in life doubly bereft. That 
 sorrow v.-as not like to mine ; there was bitterness of shame 
 in it. 
 
 I saw a mother's grief for her first-born. I heard her 
 agonised cry, "Why?" As it burst from her heart my 
 companion glided to her side and whispered softly, " So he 
 givcth his beloved sleep." And a peace seemed to settle 
 upon her. That sorrow was as heavy as mine. And I 
 knew that others sorrowed even as I did, that I was not 
 alone, also that some had griefs which were heavier to 
 bear than mane. Like a light the selfishness of my life 
 flashed on me. "Oh!" I cried in shame, "my sorrow is 
 a joy! Forgive my plaint. Let me help the sorrows which 
 
 89
 
 are heavier than mine. Let me use my light to brighten 
 others. Let me bless that I may be blessed. You are 
 right! I want not to return to my grief. Aye, let me, 
 also, weave a garland. Let me love those who need me." 
 
 I turned my face towards my friendly guide, my heart 
 so earnest, longing to do something in love. And lo, even 
 as I looked on her face I saw the face of my beloved; her 
 bright, beautiful eyes were glowing into mine; she was 
 standing, glorified, before me. 
 
 " Beloved! thou hast come for me!" I cried in joy, and 
 moved towards her. 
 
 " Not yet, not yet," she answered me in her pure, sweet 
 voice. " Tis this which has brought me. Oh, my beloved, 
 in loving the whole world thou hast not lost me. It was 
 when thou didst love me alone that thou lost me. In the 
 work of love that thou dost I shall always be with thee. 
 Out of the eyes, from which thou hast dried the tears, my 
 eyes will smile on thee; the mouth which thou feedest will 
 be mine, for my voice will thank thee, and what thou givest 
 in love, it shall be as to me thou gavest. 
 
 " Oh, my beloved, I tell thee the whole law of life is 
 love ! Love in a pure heart ; love which is all for all ; love 
 in which self is forgotten; love, perfect, beautiful, is the 
 beginning and end of all things." 
 
 Her voice grew softer, dying away like some strain of 
 heavenly music; and her soulful eyes were looking lovingly 
 at me. 
 
 For a moment I gazed at her. Her voice, lingering in 
 my ears, was sweeter than earthly music. And then, as I 
 tried to answer, the dream vanished and I awoke. 
 
 The grey dawn was breaking. I arose and bathed 
 my face in the cool, fresh water. Then from the rose bush 
 at my window I culled some rare white buds and dainty 
 full roses, their perfume sweet and faint. Then I opened 
 her room door, and crossed to her side. I looked at the 
 beautiful face, but no longer with bitterness and sorrow in 
 
 90
 
 my heart ; for to me it seemed to take the radiant, glorified 
 look she had worn in my dream, and as I should always 
 think of her. 
 
 I kissed her gently, and laid the flowers on her bosom. 
 Then I said softly, " The law of life is love; love in a pure 
 heart ; love which is all for all ; love in which self is for- 
 gotten; love perfect, beautiful, is the beginning and end of 
 all things. Father of all, help me to live that love !" 
 
 In the soft morning light, when all things were waking 
 to another day, I gave one long, long look at my sleeping 
 one; then turned away and left her with " Our Father, Who 
 art in heaven." 
 
 91
 
 Through the River 
 
 You ! you to damn me — you, a man — 
 
 Have left me thus — Hate you? 
 
 / could kill you — ^but my soul is black enough. 
 
 God! I am drinking- — drinking — Is there any deeper gall? 
 
 All the bitterness I have drunken, 
 All its blackness I have known — 
 Every hand is shut against me — 
 Every heart my blackness sees, 
 
 I, a woman, and am fallen — Oh, the hatred of it all. 
 
 Can there be light without a shadow? 
 Or a night without the day? 
 Can the world that made me, spurn me? 
 Turn from me its face away? 
 
 God, and mother ! man and woman ! 
 I alone know what I did. 
 Who are you that dare to judge me? 
 Help me — ah ! you shrink away. 
 
 To you all I bid defiance, 
 
 I am but what I was made — 
 
 Did you try to 'bring me backwards? 
 
 Did you try to say me nay? 
 
 Nay, I, a woman, and am fallen, 
 
 So you say I am outcast. 
 
 Thing accursed, thing defiled — 
 
 Oh, great God, I ask Thee, hear me, 
 Wherefore came I here — and whence — 
 Oh, great God, above me, hear me. 
 Why, was I beset, 
 With the passions that have cast me 
 Into everlasting earthly hell? 
 
 92 .
 
 Why — oh, why — am I unholy? 
 Answer me — oh God, I hate Thee 
 For the life that Thou didst give- 
 Take it back ! unholy ? maybe 
 Judged by standards men have made, 
 But before Thee, I stand wholly 
 Naked from my sins, and pure. 
 
 Judge me now — not outcast sinner — 
 
 But a woman, who has lived — 
 
 In the struggle she was beaten, trampled, and undone — 
 
 Enough — the bitterness has gone — 
 
 Alike the greatest sufifering and joy have passed me 
 
 through — 
 In the still, deep, gleaming river. 
 Through the darkness, gleams a face — 
 Mother, mother, do you quiver 
 With great joy? — or as one abased? 
 I am coming, loving mother, 
 Through the river, through the dark, 
 Once, ah once, will rise — to thee. 
 Mother, fold your little lassie. 
 
 Fold her in your arms so true, ^ 
 
 All the sinning — all the sorrow — 
 All the trials — all the pain. 
 Hush! I'm coming — 
 
 I, your little loving lassie. God! my mother — . 
 I am pure again. 
 
 93
 
 Chloroform. 
 
 Strange overpowering breath, 
 
 A god in a vapour: 
 Sleep-giver kinder than Death. 
 
 " Curious, strange, that contraction of pain 
 
 The Doctor speaks soft — 
 " I have seen it again and again." 
 
 Slowly the room fades away — 
 
 (Hold the cap closer) — 
 I sleep — laugh at pain's sway — 
 
 Silent and still and serene; 
 
 Living yet dead — 
 I shall be as tho' it never had been. 
 
 Strange overpowering breath, 
 
 A god in a vapour: 
 Sleep-giver kinder than Death. 
 
 94
 
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