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A Beautiful Chapter

A Beautiful Chapter image
Parent Issue
Day
12
Month
February
Year
1896
Copyright
Public Domain
OCR Text

Th lefollowing is taken from alittle volume entitled "Dreams," from the pen of Olive Schreiner, of Cape Colony, South África, the lady who lias Tecently accomplished so much in the downfall oL tlie Hon. Cecil Khodee, and in ehowing up Barney Barnato, and Ms clique of African Kaliir diamond igamhlers. Olie chapter is a beautiful one, and is especially applicable to many eouples who think they have lost the lovo they once held when it is ot-.Iv a more Bteadfast and helpful f riend : CTHB LOST JOY. All day, where the sunlight pl;iyed on the sea-shore, Life sat. All day the 6Oft wind played -with her hair, and the young, young lace looked out acroas the water. She was waiting - she was waiting ; but she could not teil for what. All day the waves ran up and up n the sand, and ran back again, and the pink shells rolled. Lire sat -waiting ; all day, with the sunlight In her eyes, she sat thei-e, till, grown weary, Bfoe laid her head upon her knee and feil asleep, waiting stlll. Then a keel grated on the sand, and then a step was on the shore- Li e awoke and heard it. A hand was laid upon her, and a great ahudder passed through her. iihe looked up, and saw over lier the strange, wide eyes of Love- and Life now knew ïor whom ehe had eat there waiting. And Love drew Life up to him. And of tliat meeting was born a thimg rare and beautiïul- Joy, FirstJoy was it called. The sunlight when it ghlnes upon the merry water is not so glad ; the rose-buds, when thy turn back their lips for the nun's first kiss, are not so ruddy. lts tiny pulses beat quick. It ivas so warm, so soft ! It never spoke, but it laughed and played in the suushine ; and Love and Life rejoiced exceedingly. Neither whi.spered it to the other, but deep in its oivn heart each said, "It ehall bo ours forever." Then there carne a time- was it after weeks ? was it aiter nionths ? (Love and Life do not measure time) - when the thing was not as it had been. Still it played ; Btill it laughed ; tstill it etained its nioutli with purple berries ; but Bometimes tlie iittle hands hung weary, and the Iittle eyes looked out heavily across the water. And Lite and Love dared not look into each other's eyes, dared not say, 'What ails our darling ?" Each heart whispered to itself, "It is nothing, it is nothing, to inorrow it will laugh out cïar." But to-morrow and to-mori-ow cam. '1 la y journeyed on, and the child played beside fliem, but heavily, more heavily. On-e day Life and Love lay down to sloep ; and when they awoke, it was tïone ; oiily, near thcin, on the gniss, sat a Iittle stranger with wide open eyes. very soft and sad. Neither lioticed it ; but they walked apart, weepiug bitterly, "Oh, our Joy ! our lost Joy ! Bhall we soe you no more forever '."' The Iittle boft and sad-eyed stranger slipped a hand into one hand ol each, and drew them closer, and Liie and Love walked on with it between them. And when Life looked down in anguish, she eaw her tears reflected in its soft eyes. And -when Love, mad with pain, cried out, "I am ■weary, I am weary ! I can journey no further. The light is all behlnd, the dark is all beïore," a Iittle rosy finger pointed where the buulight lay upon the hillsides. Always its large eyes were sad and thoughtful ; always the Iittle brave mouth was smiling quietly. When om the Bharp stones Xiife cut her feet, he wiped the blood upon lus garments, and kissed the wounded feet with nis Iittle lips. When in in the desert Ixve lay down faint (for Love itself grcnvs laint), he ran over the hot sand with his little naked feet, and even there in the desert found water in the holes in the rocks to moisten Ivove's lips with. He was wo burden- he never weighted them ; he cxnly helped them orward on their journey. When they carne to the dark ravine where the ieicles hang from the rocks -for Love and Life must pass through st range drear places - there, where all is cold, and the snow lies thick, he took tiheir freezing hands and held them against his "beating little heart, and warmed them- and softly he drew them on and on. And when they came beyond, into the land of sumshine and Ilowers, strangely the great eyes lit up, and dimples broke out upon the face. Brightly laughimg, it ran over the soft grass ; g athered honey from the hollow tree, and Tjrought it to them on the palm of its hand carried them water in the leaves of the lilly, and gatliered flowers and wreathed them roiuid their heads, eoftly laughing all the while. He touched them as their Joy had touchëd them, but his lingers clung more tenilerly. So they wandered on, through the dark lands and tlie light, always with that little brave smiling one between them. Sometimaj they remembered that iirst radient Joy, and whispered themselves, "Oh ! could we but find him also !" At last they came to wliere Eeilection site ; that strange old woman wïio has always ome elbow on her knee, and her chin in her hand, and wlio steate light out of the past to shed it on the future. And Life and Love cried out, ''O wise ome ! teil us : when first -we met, a lovely radiant thing belonged to us - gladness without a tear. sunshine without a shade. Oh ! how did we sin that we lost it ? Where shall we go that we may lind it?" And she, the wise old woman, answered, "To have it back, will you give up that which wullcs beside you now ?" And in agony Love and Li.'e cried, "No !"' "Give up this !" said Life. "When the thorns have pierced me, who will suck the poison out ? When my head throbs, who will lay his tiny hands upon it and Btlll the beating ? In the cold and the dark, who will warm my freezing heart ?" And Love cried out, "Better let me die ! Without Joy I can live ; without this I eannot. Let ine rather die, not lose it l" And tihe wise old woman answered, '0, fools and blind ! What you once had is that which you have nowl When Love and Life first meet, a radiant thing is iborn without a shaöe. When the roads begin to rougiien, wnen tlie Bhadea bcgiu to darken, vlien the days are hard, ant the nights cold and long- Uien it hegins to change. Love and Liie will not see it, will not know it- till one day they Bttxrt up suddenly, crying, 'O God ! O God ! we have lost it ! Where is it ?' tThey do not ünders laad' that they could not carry the lauighing thing unchanged int o the desert, and the f rost, and the snow. They do not know that what walks besidie them still is the Joy grown older. The grave, sweet, tender thing - warm in thO snows, brave in the drearicst deserts- its name is Sympathy ; it is Perfect Ixve."

Article

Subjects
Old News
Ann Arbor Courier