Mitchell Starrett Buck

“ Among the faintly tinted throng there is one who never smiles and who speaks no word . . . How many years ago she lived! How many years ago lived the youth who loved her! . . .
The temple of my goddess is racked and broken. Few people are seen here, now. And I, an old man, a servant of the gods, would spend an hour dreaming of dead days . . .
There was one mortal woman, only, in my life. In this mad age wherein this arid land blooms with a sinister and pulsing growth of women's flesh, certainly the remembrance of one woman only is strange enough. ”

“ Often there comes to me the thought that the mission of woman to man is less to comfort than to wound. Many a noble man, greater than I, would gladly live in quiet, with his wife, the years allotted to him. Yet, how often such men have been shocked into action and a search for greater things by the faithlessness of the mortal woman held most dear! Even a woman taken as the plaything of a day, may do this great but thankless thing. ”

“ He is the spirit of youth renewed; thy son and thine heir.
See, he sleeps, dreaming of mighty deeds. He will grow, as thou didst grow; he will become strong and beautiful and brave. He will bear thy name, as those after him will bear it, and will revere thee. The sons of his sons will revere thee through long ages. ”