—————
SUNSHINE and Daylight had one day a serious difference of opinion about
a rocky waste, over which their course led them.
* Reprinted from "Excelsior."
"I am not severe," said Daylight, fixing her clear, generalising
gray eyes on the Rock. "If I cannot, like some people, see nothing
but what I wish to see, no one ever accused me of blackening any
one's character. I have known that old rock more years than I care to
mention; not a jagged edge, nor a whimsical cranny, but I am intimately
acquainted with, and I do not hesitate to say, that a more barren,
unmitigated rock I seldom meet with. I do not slander it. I only say,
it is nothing more or less than a rock."
Sunshine said nothing, but peeped round the shoulder of her cousin's
gray cloak, until the smile of her soft eye met the eye of a little
blue violet, which, by dint of hard living, had contrived to obtain
a secure footing in a crevice of the old rock; and a flutter of joy
passed through the blossoms and leaves of the violet, and communicated
itself to a tuft of dry short grass, which had ensconced itself behind.
The red and gray cups of some tiny moss and lichens, which had crept
into corners here and there, next drank in her kind glances, and
fancied themselves wine-cups at a feast. Here and there specks of
colour and points of life revealed themselves, and, as they looked,
expanded.
By this time, Sunshine had folded Daylight to sleep on her warm breast.
Many weeks had passed, when, one quiet afternoon, Daylight again came
that way, and glancing critically around, she murmured to Sunshine,
"Where is the old gray rock you were so sanguine about?"
Sunshine was silent: her motto being, "Not 'in word, neither in tongue;
but in deed and in truth.'"
And at length, Daylight's quiet eyes awoke to the fact, that the grassy
knoll where flowers—tiny rock-plants indeed, but still flowers—and
mosses lay dozing unawakened by her sober tread, was none other than
the rock she had known of old. And she said, meekly, "Truly I find that
one way to create beauty is to perceive it."
Then an angel, who was hovering near, on his way back from some message
of mercy (for the angels never linger till their messages are given),
sang softly, "Love veileth a multitude of sins."
And the old Rock answered in a chorus, through its moss-threads, and
lichen-cups, and leaves, and blossoms, "And under the warm veil spring
a multitude of flowers."
Wanderers and Pilgrims.
—————
A LARGE tract of country lay spread before me; upland and lowland, hill
and plain. The whole land seemed stirring with perpetual movement, all
in one direction;—from the bright hills at its commencement, to the
dark mountains at the end. Earth and sky seemed moving, as when an
enormous flight of migratory birds is passing by, but earth and sky
were really stationary. This movement was one constant tide of human
life, ceaselessly streaming across the land.
It began on a range of wooded hills, with their sunny southern slopes,
forests and flowery banks, and grassy and golden fields. Down these
slopes, joyous bands ran fast. As I looked closer, I saw the movement
was not incessant in the case of each individual; only the ceaseless
passing of the great tide of life made it seem so. Merry groups paused
on the hill-sides, and made fairy gardens, and twined leafy tents where
they would sit a little while and sing and dance. But only a little
while! No hand seemed driving them on; it appeared only an inward
irresistible instinct. Yet soon the bright groups were scattered, and
moved down again over the hills, often never joining more.
"Why do you hasten away from these sunny slopes?" I said. "There seems
nothing so pleasant in all the land besides."
"Perhaps not," the travellers replied, with a slight sigh; but it ended
in a snatch of song as they danced gaily on. "Perhaps not, but we are a
race of Wanderers! We cannot stay; and perhaps better things await us
in the plain."
"Whither are you going?" I asked.
"We know not," was the answer; "only onward, onward!"
In the plain were buildings of more solid construction, houses and
cities. And here I observed many of the travellers would have gladly
lingered, but it could not be. Homesteads, and corn-fields, and
vineyards, all had to be left; and still the tide of life streamed on
and on.
"Why?" I asked.
"It is the doom of our race," they said, sorrowfully; "we are a people
of Wanderers."
"Whither?" I inquired.
"We do not know," was the reply; "only onwards and onwards to the dark
mountains!"
Slower and slower grew the footsteps of the Wanderers, more and more
regretful the glances they cast behind. Slower, yet with fewer pauses.
The strange restless impulse drove them steadily on, until, wearied and
tottering, they began the ascent of the dark mountains.
"What is on the other side?" I asked.
"The sea," they said, "the Great Sea."
"How will you cross it, and what is beyond?"
"We know not," they said, with bitter tears. "But we are a doomed race
of Wanderers—onwards, onwards; we may not stay!"
Then first I perceived that, among these multitudes of aimless
Wanderers, there was one band who kept close together, and moved with
a freedom and a purpose, as if they journeyed on not from a blind,
irresistible impulse, but from choice. Their looks were seldom turned
regretfully behind them, or only on the dark mountains. They looked to
something higher.