Anna Alice Chapin

“ She had a sting of revolt as she stared at the boy's beautiful face in the flickering candlelight. He was better and braver than she had thought; and yet—and yet—— Was she disappointed to find, at the test, the poet and dreamer melt like mist wreaths, leaving simple man? Suddenly he seemed all man—elemental, working man, who knew by tradition and inheritance that, if man does not live by bread alone, neither does he live on visions or raptures.
A knock sounded at the door, and mechanically Olaf Nilsson went to it and opened it. ”

“ He will find his castle in the air crushed, and his dreams dispelled. Could my wretched and unfinished existence know a higher destiny of fulfillment than to save him in the hour of his failure? And, for the rest, I want nothing more of life myself. I have proved that happiness is not for me. But, hand in hand with this dreaming boy, is it not possible——”
But Olaf Nilsson's eyes were full of pain—haggard and tragic in his young, white face. It dawned slowly and strangely on Pippa that he was less utterly and weakly a boy than she had thought. ”

“ He kissed the exquisite hands, and then stood—waiting.
“You see,” said Philippa gently, “I have come. I had to come.” She broke off irrelevantly, looking with a curious content at the one little candle. “I am so glad,” she said, as if talking to herself, “that you have just a candle! I love candles.”
Still he did not speak, but gazed at her, his soul in his eyes.
“Have you ever thought,” she said dreamily, “how much lovelier the idea of candlelight is than lamps, or gas, or anything else? ”

“ Olaf Nilsson smiled at her with the divine assurance of a child.
“Ah, yes!” he said. “But with me, it is different. Doubtless they—those great composers—wrote very fine symphonies. But there is no symphony like mine. The Herr Direktor he is a great and a wise man, a true musician. He will know. He cannot fail to know that there could be only one such symphony!”
Pippa could not find it in her heart to tell him that every young composer in the world thought just this of his first big composition. ”

“ Pippa shook her head. There was a curious bitterness in her voice as she answered: “No! I am only offering you—myself.” Olaf Nilsson did not understand.
“It is—too much,” he muttered huskily.
“No,” said Mrs. Carpenter quietly, “it is not too much. It is all that I have to give, but that is not—too much. It is quite possible that it is not enough.”
The boy looked as if he could have knelt. His blue eyes were wide and remote with their passion of dreams. ”

“ Or flutter off and blank as first.—Pippa Passes.
VERY few beautiful things came into Olaf Nilsson's life—very few beautiful real things, that is. His violin gave to him many lovely illusions born of the delicate tones that a great German master had taught him how to produce. And the poet's soul, unquenchable within him, showed him other fair things—a glimpse of sunset red over the gray and smoke-wreathed roof tops on which his window looked; a spray of fresh green in the square just a block or two beyond; sometimes a flight of birds; on hot nights the cooling splendor of the moon. ”

“ It isn't just that the light itself is softer—it's the association, the poetry.”
“In Norway,” said Olaf Nilsson, “candlelight meant—home. My mother spinning, my sister sounding the kur, to call down the cows from the upper slope.”
“Candles for merrymakings and marriages, and night vigils, and altars,” said Pippa, staring at the one little flame that flickered in the draft, “and corpse candles for the dead. Oh, no wonder nearly every one loves candlelight!” ”

“ She was always seeking out obscure sisters who were in precarious situations, and giving them the one little tug needed to keep them from going fairly over the precipice. She had come to the dingy lodging house on one such errand. ”