George Agnew Chamberlain

“ Life, to me, is like this train, a lot of sections and a lot of couplings. When you're through with a car, side-track it and—yank out the coupling. Like all philosophies, this one has its flaw. Once in a while your soul looks out of the window and sees some long-forgotten, side-tracked car beckoning to be coupled on again. If you try to go back and pick it up, you're done. Never look back, boy; never look back. Live ahead even if you're only living a compensation."
"What's a compensation?" asked Lewis.
"A compensation," said Leighton thoughtfully, "is a thing that doesn't quite compensate." ”

“ Only from one other man on earth could commendation bring such a thrill. As the name of Le Brux came to his mind, it fell from his father's lips.
"Le Brux has been giving me an awful talking to."
"Le Brux!" cried Lewis. "Has he been here?"
"Only in spirit," said Leighton, smiling. "And this is what he said in his voice of thunder: 'If I had been here, I would have stood by that figure with a mallet and smashed the head of any man that raised a finger against it. What is the world coming to when a mere life weighs more in the balance than the most trifling material expression of eternity? ”

“ Lewis rose and put his hand on his father's arm.
"I'll not forget this talk, Dad," he said.
"I hope you won't, boy," said Leighton. "It's harder for me to talk to you than you think. I'm driven and held by the knowledge that there are only two ways in which a father can lose his son. One is by talking too much, the other's by not talking enough. The old trouble of the devil and the deep, blue sea; the frying-pan and the fire. Come, we've been bandying the sublime; let's get down to the level of stomachs and smile. The greatest thing about man is the range of his octaves." ”

“ I'll have to get him before I can oblige you."
"Don't bother," said Leighton. "A clever woman like you often gets rid of something she hasn't got. Look here, you don't want to marry Lew, and, what's more, you don't love him. You couldn't marry him if you wanted to. You know it isn't in you to marry any man. But I tell you, Folly, if it really was in you truly to marry Lew, I'd give in and bless you. I wouldn't have yesterday, but I would to-day; because, my dear, you are simply made up of charms. The only thing missing is a soul."
"You talk better than Lew—not so silly," remarked Folly. ”

“ He saw the Reverend Orme stalk by, bearing Shenton in his arms. For the first time in his life Lewis heard the sobs of a grown man, and instinctively knew himself the possessor of a secret thing—a thing that must never be told.
At the house, alarmed by Natalie's incoherent, excited chatter and Lalia's stubborn silence, Mrs. Leighton waited in suspense. Leighton entered with his burden and laid it down. Then he turned. She saw his face.
"Orme!" she cried, "Orme!" and started toward him, groping as though she had been blinded.
"Touch me not, Ann," spoke Leighton, with a strange calmness. ”

“ Pain comes afterward. Pain is always an awakening.
Natalie was excited at the sudden presence of Lew and at the wonder of his tale. In that galaxy of words that painted to her a climbing fairy movement of growth and achievement the single fact of Folly shot through her and away, but the wound stayed. For the moment she did not know that she was stricken, nor did Lewis guess. And so it happened that that whole day passed like a flash of happy light.
Natalie, in her wisdom, had gone ahead to warn Mrs. Leighton and mammy of Lewis's coming. ”

“ Thy path through the world is blazed as one blazes a path in the forest. He who is at thy side is before thee and after thee. Thou travelest in darkness, but thou art cursed and blessed with the gift of sight. The worlds of women are seven: spirit, weed, flower, the blind, the visioned, libertine, and saint. None of these is for thee. For each child of love there is a woman that holds the seven worlds within a single breast. Hold fast to thy birthright, even though thou journey with thy back unto the light. I have spoken."
A long silence fell upon the sand-dune. Lewis felt held, oppressed. ”

“ Lewis turned his head and looked at her. The flush was back in her cheeks, her eyes were wide and staring far away, her moist lips were half open, and her bosom rose and fell in the long, halting swell of tremulous breath.
There is a beauty that transcends the fixed bounds of flesh, that leaps to the eye of love when all the world is blind. The flower that opens slowly, the face grown dear through half of life, needs no tenure in memory. It lives. Tears can not dim its beauty nor age destroy its grace, for the vision is part of him who sees. ”

“ Even so, when the two women took him into their long embrace, he knew by the throbbing of their hearts how deeply joy can shake foundations that have stood firm against the heaviest shocks of grief.
Gip and the cart, with Natalie at the helm, whisked Lewis back to the homestead. What memories of galloping ponies and a far, wide world that ride awakened they did not speak in words, but the light that was in their faces when at the homestead gate they said good night was the light that shines for children walking hand in hand in the morning land of faith. ”

“ Leighton was silent for a moment. The children looked up expectantly into her face, but she was not looking down at them. Her gaze was fixed upon the afterglow.
"Why," she said at last, "it's a painting of heaven and earth. You see the black plain that stretches away and away? That's our world, so dark, so full of ruts, so ugly; but it is the rough plain we all must travel to reach the shore of light. When life is over, we come to the end of night—over there. Then we sail out on the golden sea."
"Are those islands?" asked Lewis, pointing to the suspended cloudlets. ”

“ Art is the ensnaring of beauty in an invisible mesh. Art is the ideal of common things. Art is a mirage stolen from the heavens and trapped on a bit of canvas or on a sheet of paper or in a lump of clay.' And so on and so on."
Lewis smiled.
"As a matter of fact," continued Leighton, "those things are merely the progeny of art. Art itself is work, and its chief end is expression with repression. Remember that—with repression. Many an artist has missed greatness by mistaking license for originality and producing debauch. ”

“ I want to live just once in a house that has had more than one life."
Day after day the ship moved steadily northward on an even keel. Upon mammy, Natalie, and Mrs. Leighton a miracle began to descend. Years fell from their straightening shoulders. At the end of a week, Ann Leighton, kneeling alone in her cabin, began her nightly devotions with a paean that sounded strangely in her own ears: "Oh, Thou Who hast redeemed my life from destruction, crowned me with loving-kindness and tender mercies, Who hast satisfied my mouth with good things so that my youth is renewed like the eagle's!" ”

“ Lewis reached out slowly and took her hands. How he remembered that good-by, every bit of it! Natalie's hands gripping his shoulders, his arms about her twitching, warm body, his face buried in her fragrant hair! But to-night her hands were cold and trembling to withdrawal. He felt withdrawal in her whole body, so close to him, so far away. Why was she so far away? Suddenly he remembered yesterday—the moment when the stranger woman had looked out at him from Natalie's eyes. She was far away because they two had traveled far from childhood.
His own hands were hot. ”

“ Which is beauty? Irving's placid pictures of light, or Hawthorne's dark portrayals of the varying soul of man?" He turned to Lewis. "What's your idea of a prude?"
"A prude," stammered Lewis—"why a prude's a person with an exaggerated idea of modesty, isn't it?"
"Bah!" said Leighton, "you are as flat as a dictionary. A prude is a far more active evil than that. A prude, my boy, is one who has but a single eye, and that in the back of his head, and who keeps his blind face set toward nature. ”

“ For weeks the name of Lewis Leighton had been whispered about the house, first by the grown-ups and finally, when the Reverend Orme and his wife had come to the great decision, by the children. The children knew nothing of the great decision nor did they know the sources of their sudden joy. Their spirits were reaching out to clasp this new thread in life at an age when all new threads are golden. ”

“ Years in the tropics never do deal kindly with women. Mammy had grown old and thin. Her clothes, frayed, but clean, hung loosely upon her. Her hair was turning gray. She wore steel-rimmed glasses. Mrs. Leighton's face, while it had not returned to the apathy of the years of sorrow at Nadir, was still deeply lined and of the color and texture of old parchment. The blue of her eyes had paled and paled until light seemed to have almost gone from them. To Natalie had come age with youth. She gave the impression of a freshly cut flower suddenly wilted by the sun. ”

“ The love that comes to youth is like the dawn of day. There is no resplendent dawn without a sun, nor does the flower of a woman's soul open to a lesser light. The tenth woman," she repeated, "the one woman. To her awakening comes with a man, not through him. He is part of the dawn of life, and though clouds may later hide his shining face, her heart remembers forever the glory of the morning."
The tears welled from her eyes unheeded. Lewis leaped forward with a cry. ”

“ Lewis was frightened, too. He was frightened lest he should find the strange woman when he needed just the oldest pal he had in the world.
"Nat," he blurted out, "dad is dead."
When a man thinks he is being clumsy and tactless with a woman, he is generally making a master stroke. At Lewis's words, so simple, so child-like, the conscious flush died from Natalie's cheeks, her heart steadied down, and her eyes filled with the sudden tears of sympathy.
"Dead, Lew? Your dad dead?"
She put her arms around him and kissed him softly; then she drew him to a low rock. They sat down side by side. ”

“ Will you come or stay?"
"I'll come if it's London," said Lewis, smiling.
"London first, of course," said Leighton, gravely. "To-day is Tuesday. Say we start on Thursday. That gives us a day to go over and say good-by."
"One day isn't enough," said Lewis. "Make it two."
"All right," agreed Leighton.
For that afternoon Lewis and Natalie had planned a long tramp, but before they had gone a mile from Aunt Jed's a purling brook in the depths of a still wood raised before them an impassable barrier of beauty. By a common, unspoken consent they sat down beside the gurgling water. ”

“ Men shouted hoarsely, unaware of what they were crying out, and women for once clapped to make a noise, and split their gloves. A youth, his hair disordered and a hectic flush in his cheeks, rushed straight for the stage, crying, "Who is she?"
Lewis stuck out his foot and tripped him. Great was his fall, and the commotion thereof switched the emotions of the throng back to sanity. Conventional, dogged clapping and shouts of "Bis! Bis!" were relied on to bring the curtain up again, and relied on in vain. Once more Mrs. Ruttle-Marter was surrounded and beseeched to use her best efforts. ”

“ Finally his eyes came around to Hélène, and with a quick smile and the old toss of the head with which he was wont to throw off a mood, he brought himself back to the present.
"With time and patience," he said, as he sat down, "anybody can get a grip on a personality, but a mighty impersonality is like the Deluge or—or a steam-roller. Do I look flattened out?"
"You do, rather, for you," said Hélène. "Tell me about it from the beginning." And Leighton did. It took him half an hour. When he got through, she said, still smiling, "I'd like to meet this Folly person." ”

“ The unaccustomed tears welled up in them and trickled down the cheeks that had known so long a drought. They rained on Natalie's head.
"Mother!" cried Natalie, looking up—"Mother!" Then she buried her face again in Ann's bosom, and together they sobbed out all the oppressing pain and grief of life's heavy moment. Not by strength alone, but also by frailty, do mothers hold the hearts of their children. Natalie, hearing and feeling her mother sob, passed beyond the bourn of generations and knew Ann and herself as one in an indivisible, quivering humanity. ”

“ No mere argument could have led the old man to such a concession. It was love—love for these strangers that he had cherished within his gates, love for the gloomy man whom he had seen young and then old, love for Ann and Natalie and mammy, with their quiet ways, love for the very way of life of all of them—a way distantly above anything he had ever dreamed before their coming, that drove him, almost against his will, to speed their parting. ”

“ Lewis gulped in dismay at seeing his kid demolished, but not so
Leighton. He had noted the glint of interest. He turned on Le Brux.
"You'll take no pupil, eh? All right, don't. But you'll take my son. You shall and you will."
"I will not," growled Le Brux.
"Maître" began Leighton—"but whom am I calling Matre? What are you? D'you know what you are?" He shook his finger in Le Brux's face. "You think you're a creator, but you're not. You're nothing but a palimpsest, the record of a single age. What are your works but one man's thumb-print on the face of time? ”

“ To your sentimentalist that straw looks heroic; to anybody that knows the difference between bathos and pathos it simply looks silly. The river of life is bigger than that of any nation. We can't stop it, but we can swell it by going with it. Did you ever see a mule drink against the current?"
"No," said Lewis, his eyes lighting with memory of a thing that he knew.
"Did you ever see free cattle face a gale?"
"No," said Lewis again.
"Out of the mouths of the dumb come words of wisdom," said Leighton. "Go with life, Boy. Don't get stranded on a snag. You'll only look silly. ”

“ No sooner had Lewis called the mule for sale than bids rained on him from every side. One after the other, in rapid succession, the animals were sold; but no more went for a penny.
His pockets stuffed with notes and silver, the stranger pushed his way through the crowd, suddenly grown silent. On the way to the river he paid off his men. He climbed into the canoe, and Lewis followed. The boatmen shoved off.
The wag, leading Lewis's pony, had followed them to the river-bank.
"Show me thy hoof, partner," he shouted, laughing, to the stranger. "Thou shouldst deal in souls, not in horses. ”

“ As they stood under the light of the outer hall Hélène turned to Lewis.
"When are you going?"
"To-morrow."
She held up her lips to him.
"Kiss me good-by, Boy."
He kissed her, and for a moment gripped her wrists.
"Hélène," he said, "you've been awfully good to me, too. I—I don't forget."
"You don't forget," repeated Lady Derl. "That's why I kissed you. Don't be hard on your little pal when you find her. Remember, you've gone a long way alone." ”