“The message of a tender soul,” said my friend Annabel Lee, “is a
thing that will go far, oh, so far, and lose nothing of itself.
“When all things in the world are counted the beautiful things are
in the greatest numbers. And when all the things in the world are
counted the message of a tender soul counts greatly more than many.
“A tender soul receives back no gratitude for its message, and looks
for no gratitude, and does not know what gratitude means. And the
tenderness of the message is all unmade and all unknown, but is
felt for long, long years.
“The message of a tender soul goes over the sea into the lonesomeness
of the night and nothing stops it on the way, for all know what it
is and bid it godspeed. And it goes down and around a mountain to
a house where there is woe, and if before it came that house had
turned away charity and love and friendship and good-will and peace,
and had sent a curse after them all, still it opens wide its doors
for the message of a tender soul. For its coming is not heralded,
and the soul that sends it does not even know its tenderness,
and the hearts of all in that house where there is woe--they are
deeply, unknowingly comforted. And it goes upon the barrenness of
a countryside where there is not one green thing growing, and the
barrenness is then more than paradise, had paradise no such message.
And it goes where lovely flowers grow in thousands, where sparkling
water mingles with sparkling water and quenches thirst, where the
long gray moss hangs from birch-trees, where pale clouds float--and
itself is more beautiful than all these. Have you felt all those
tender things that go down into the depths? They bring comfort,
but also they bring tears into the eyes and pain into the heart.
The message of a tender soul--what does it bring but ineffable
comfort to the heart? You do not feel that it is a message, you do
not feel it to be a divinely beautiful thing. There are no sudden
salt tears. Only the message is there--only it does that for which
it is sent. Have you gone out and done all the work that you could
do, and done it faithfully and asked no reward--and have you come
back and cried out in bitterness of spirit? Then, it may be, came
wondrously beautiful things from over the way to tell you, Take
heart. But there was no ‘take heart’ for you. Then it may be there
came from that way which you were not looking, the message of a
tender soul. Then there was comfort, and with no tears of pain and
no bitter, bitter tears of joy. There was deep comfort so that you
could go out and work again and for no reward. There is work that
has no reward. For those that work for no reward there can be no
comfort in all the vastness except the message of a tender soul.
Have you gone out and done all the evil you could do, in cruel ways,
and taken away faith in some one from some one--and have come back
and suffered more than any of them? Then it may be there came the
message of a tender soul--and many, many other things faded from
your heart. And still there were no tears. And if there is too much
for you in living, and if the countless things near and far in the
world crowd over you and fill you with horrible fear, then, if
the message of a tender soul comes, one by one they step backward,
and in your heart is comfort for the long, long years.
“There have been those that have had happiness that was more than
the world, but in the end there was no comfort, for their happiness
brought with it tears of joy and emotion that had limitless source.
“If you have wanted happiness and have hungered and thirsted, after
there came the message of a tender soul, you were content with a
branch from a green pine-tree.
“If you have felt a thousand tender things and have drunk from a
thousand cups and then have been about to write it in black lettering
that all, _all_ have failed you--if then there came the message of
a tender soul, you have written instead that nothing has failed
you, and you have turned back your footsteps and have tried it
all again.
“If for you and me to-day there should come over frozen hills and
green meadows from a far country the message of a tender soul,
should we shiver when it is dark and should we dread the coming of
the years, and should we consider what would bring weariness and
what would bring rest, and should we measure and contemplate? But
no. For the message of a tender soul is a message from one that has
found the quiet and is absolutely at peace, and has gone so far
toward the stars and so far and wide over the green earth that she
has indeed reached the truth, and her soul gives of its tenderness
without thinking, and without knowing, and all in the dark.
“And when we should feel the message, all without knowing, there
would come again that long-since faith, and that fullness of life,
and that sense of realness, and the shining of the sun would be of
new meaning.
“It may be,” said my friend Annabel Lee, “that we will have to go
still farther into the wilderness before the message comes, and it
may be also that it will not come for many years.
“But it is in all ways comforting to know there is such a thing.”
More than I considered the message that might come, I considered
the voice with no hardness but with softness, and the lily face of
my friend Annabel Lee.