Maud Menefee

“ And behold, the longing was still in his heart, and no gladness came. He only felt how weary and old he was. He thought: "There is no joy in the world; there is nothing good and perfect in the whole world!" He closed his tired eyes and leaned his head back. The lamp burned low, and the place was very still for a long time. And then there suddenly broke the most beautiful music right under his window; children were singing, and men and women, and above it all bells were ringing—wonderful, joyous bells. ”

“ When Siegfried turned he saw that the poor little dwarf was crouched trembling behind the anvil, and he stopped laughing, and looked at him.
"Why do you shake and cry and run?" he asked. The dwarf said nothing, but the fire began to glow strangely, and the sword shone.
"Do you not know what fear is?" cried the dwarf at last.
"No," said the boy, and he went over and took up the sword; and lo! the blade fell apart in his hand. They stood still and looked at each other. "Can a man fear and make swords?" ”

“ Every evening after sunset, when the most wonderful soft light is in the sky and it is very still everywhere, the old bell in the steeple chimes out over the village and the fields around. No one quite knows what the evening bell sings, but the tone is so beautiful that everyone stands still and listens. ”

“ They say a beautiful light shone from his face.
The tent was dim, and the weary king did not stir.
The boy knelt down, and stripping off the lilies, he tuned his harp and began to sing. The poet tells how he played for the mighty king; and what do you think it was? Just the tune all his sheep knew; always it brought them, one after one, to the pen door at evening. It was so strange and sweet a tune that quail on the corn lands would each leave its mate to fly after the player; and crickets—it made them so wild with delight they would fight one another. ”

“ He sang of green pastures and water [Pg 102] brooks, and the morning joy of shepherds bounding over wide pastures. The light shines in streams, the hungry, happy sheep break out, and the long golden day is to be lived!
Then he sang of the peace that comes to shepherds at evening, when the gentle sheep and sleepy, bleating lambs go home across the sweet wide meadow, and the stars come out in the serene heavens. ”

“ The feet that were meant to fly on loving errands only danced, and though it was so beautiful it was really nothing, and the real joy was not in it.
Do you not know that every little child that comes into the world has a blessed deed in its life? But with Mignon it only lay heavy on her heart, and she was more weary than any child who serves all day. And after awhile this weariness grew as deep as her life, and the poet tells us that she died. ”

“ The purest knight was chosen king among them, and led them in all high things; and they lived so [Pg 64] for many years, keeping themselves from wrong and beholding blessed wonders that the world had never seen,—miracles of light that sometimes passed above them.
But once there came an evil thought to the very king; nothing could put it away, and it was like a spear-wound in his side that nothing could heal. It was the greatest suffering; it even touched the joy of the knights, for they began to think only of what would heal the king. ”

“ It is the only antidote for the constant tendency of the teacher to sink into a dead formalism, the effect of too much iteration and of the practice of adjusting knowledge to the needs of the feeble-minded by perpetual explanation of what is already simple ad nauseam for the mature intelligence of the teacher. It produces a sort of pedagogical cramp in the soul, for which there is no remedy like a philosophical view of the world, unless, perhaps, it be the study of the greatest poets, Shakespere, Dante, and Homer. ”

“ Sometimes he would gather up all the children and take them to the meadow, and teach them about the leaves and stones, the flowers and birds and ants, as his brother used to teach him, and then they would play the very plays the wind and flowers and birds had played. So he called it his kindergarten,—his child-garden,—and he began to show to the whole world that little children must learn and grow in the same sweet way that flowers do. ”

“ These were called the Earth-dwarfs, for they grew very small and black living away from the light. But there were a great many blessed ones who lived quite free and glad in the world, loving and serving one another and not thinking very much of the gold. ”

“ And whenever they saw the bright stuff in shop windows, or a beautiful woman passed in silken robes, they looked with shining eyes. "See how beautiful!" they would say. "We helped. She needs us; the world needs us!" and their hearts were so full of gladness at the thought.
The poet tells us there was a child there whose name was Pippa, and she worked all day in this mill, winding silk on the little whirling, whirling spools. ”

“ Even little children began looking for the hidden gold as they played, and they say that Odin, a god who lived in the very deepest blue of the sky, came down and lay in the grass to watch the place where he thought it was. ”

“ T [Pg 31] here was a boy whose name was Siegfried, and though he lived with an Earth-dwarf in the deep forest, he knew nothing of the magic gold or the world. He had never seen a man, and he had not known his mother, even, though he often thought of her when he stood still at evening and the birds came home. There was one thing she had left him, and that was a broken sword. Mimi, the Earth-dwarf, strove night and day to mend it, thinking he might slay the dragon. ”

“ Friedrich Froebel—"Little Friedrich," they called him long ago. Is it not strange to think that the great men who bring the beautiful deeds to the world were once little children? Do you know how these children grow so great and strong that they can do a loving deed for the whole world at last? They do little loving deeds every day.
This gentle Friedrich loved more and more things every day that he lived. But when he was a little boy he was very lonely sometimes, because he had no playmates except the flowers in the old garden. It seemed to him these flowers were always playing plays together. ”

“ Always he was growing older and wearier, but he did not think of that; he only knew that the strange longing was growing in his heart, [Pg 48] and that he was never any happier than before. But he would say to himself, "It is because there is something I have not learned. When I know everything, then surely the joy will come to me."
One night he shut his book and laid aside the strange glass, and sat quite still in the dim room. He had found that there was nothing more to be learned; there was nothing of all the mysteries that he did not know perfectly. ”

“ A view of the world is a perpetual stimulant to thought, always prompting one to reflect on the immediate fact or event before him, and to discover its relation to the ultimate principle of the universe. ”

“ He went through the wilderness, and even through the dry desert; but his heart was singing and the thought of the promise was there like living water.
Now the king's servants saw him afar off, and they ran out to meet him and knelt at his feet; for when they saw the light on his shining hair, and the harp with living lilies, they thought, "It is God's angel!"
But he said to them, "I am only a loving [Pg 101] boy; I am David, a shepherd, and I have come to King Saul." He smiled into the wondering faces, and passing among them he came to where the king was, and stood in his very presence ”

“ Whatever sadness they may have felt about their life, they forgot it entirely when they stood before the people in their spangled suits. Then it seemed to them quite the greatest thing to make a whole village stare. They walked about very proudly, and talked in very deep tones. Sometimes they allowed one or two of the largest boys to help make ready for the show. In one of the villages, the shoemaker's lame Charlie had helped lay the carpet on which the strong man stood when he did his part.
Among these people who went about there was a child. Her name was Mignon ”

“ The most beautiful, shining morning; people were pouring out of all the houses, smiling and singing, and bowing to one another; little children were going together with flowers in their hands, singing, and answering the tones of the great bells; and one little child, as it passed, looked right up at the great Doctor Faust, and held out its white lily. The bells chimed, and the singing grew sweeter and clearer.
"If there is something joyful in the world, surely some one will tell me," said the man ”

“ Hansei thought, "They are trying to tell him they want the [Pg 90] light, and he does not understand." Hansei's mother knelt where she stood, and he crept down beside her. He heard her saying the words he did not know. He only said softly: "Light, light for them all!"
An old woman knelt near him; not far off a lame boy and a mother with a sleeping child in her arms knelt also, and there beyond, a woman. ”

“ Long, long ago—so long that no one can tell whether it really happened or whether the old German folk only dreamed it—there was a band of knights who went away and lived together on a beautiful high mountain, far above the world, where no evil might ever come to them ”

“ Once a man had gone bearing a burden. Another time, as Hansei and his mother gathered up their fagots at evening, a man and woman passed together; the sunset light was on the woman, and she sang as she went. Again, men in dark robes and hoods passed by ”

“ The true light, which lighteth every man that cometh
into the world.
—St. John.
[Pg 80]
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By Antonio Allegri da Correggio
THE HOLY NIGHT
THE HOLY NIGHT.
[Pg 81]
In the far-off places of the world where men do not pass often, it is nothing to be poor. Little Hansei and his mother were poor, but that was nothing to him. They lived on the side of a great hill, where, save their small black hut with its little gauzy curl of smoke, there was no sign of life as far as eye could reach. And it seemed to Hansei that the whole world was theirs, and they were the whole world. ”