The heights of Life are fortified. They are guarded by narrow passes
where the world must go single file and where, if one slip from the
trail, he falls into chasms of awful depths; by cliffs of apparent
impassable abruptness which, if in scaling, one lose his head he is
lost; and by false trails that seem to promise easy going but lead in
the wrong direction. Not in careless ease are those higher levels
gained. The upward climb is one of strenuous effort, of desperate
struggle, of hazardous risk. Only those who prove themselves fit may
gain the top.
Somewhere in the life of every man there is a testing time. There is a
trial to prove of what metal he is made. There is a point which, won
or lost, makes him winner or loser in the game. There is a Temptation
that to him is vital.
To pray: "Lead us not into temptation," is divine wisdom for
Temptation lies in wait. There is no need to seek it. And, when once
it is met, there is no dodging the issue or shifting the burden of
responsibility. In the greatest gifts that men possess are the seeds
which, if grown and cultivated, yield poisonous fruit. In the very
forces that men use for greatest good are the elements of their own
destruction. And, whatever the guise in which Temptation comes, the
tempter is always the same--Self. Temptation spells always the mastery
of or the surrender to one's self.
Once I stood on a mighty cliff with the ocean at my feet. Ear below,
the waves broke with a soothing murmur that scarce could reach my ears
and the gray gulls were playing here and there like shadows of half
forgotten dreams. In the distance, the fishing boats rolled lazily on
the gentle swell and the sunlight danced upon the surface of the sea.
Then, as I looked, on the far horizon the storm chieftain gathered his
clans for war. I saw the red banners flashing. I watched the hurried
movements of the dark and threatening ranks. I heard the rumbling
tread of the tramping feet. And, like airy messengers sent to warn me,
the gusts of wind came racing and wailed and sobbed about the cliff
because I would not heed their warning. The startled boats in the
offing spread their white wings and scurried to the shelter of their
harbor nests. The gray gulls vanished. The sunlight danced no more
upon the surface of the sea. And then, as the battle front rolled
above my head, the billows, lashed to fury by the wind and flinging in
the air the foam of their own madness, came rushing on to try their
strength against the grim and silent rock. Again and again they hurled
their giant forms upon the cliff, until the roar of the surf below
drowned even the thunder in the clouds above and the solid earth
trembled with the shock, but their very strength was their ruin and
they were dashed in impotent spray from the stalwart object of their
assault. And at last, when the hours of the struggle were over; when
the storm soldiers had marched on to their haunts behind the hills;
when the gulls had returned to their sports; and the sun shone again
on the waters; I saw the bosom of the ocean rise and fall like the
breast of an angry child exhausted with its passion while the cliff,
standing stern and silent, seemed to look, with mingled pride and
pity, upon its foe now moaning at its feet.
Like that cliff, I say, is the soul of a man who, in temptation, gains
the mastery of himself. The storm clouds of life may gather darkly
over his head but he shall not tremble. The lightning of the world's
wrath and the thunder of man's disapproval shall not move him. The
waves of passion that so try the strength of men shall be dashed in
impotent spray from his stalwart might. And when, at last, the storms
of life are over--when the sun shines again on the waters as it shone
before the fight began--he shall still stand, calm and unmoved, master
of himself and men.
Because those things are true, I say: that Temptation is one of the
Thirteen Truly Great Things of Life.
And the man knew these things--knew them as well as you know them. In
the full knowledge of these things he came to his testing time. To win
or to lose, in the full knowledge of all that victory or defeat meant
to him, he went to his Temptation.
It was early winter when his time came but he knew that first morning
after he had returned from his vacation that it was coming. The moment
he entered the room to take up again the task of putting his dreams
into action, he saw her and felt her power for she was one of those
women who compel recognition of their sex as the full noonday sun
compels recognition of its light and heat.
An hour later her duties brought her to him, and, for a few moments,
they stood face to face. And the man, while he instructed her in the
work that she was to do, felt the strength of her power even as a
strong swimmer feels the current of the stream. Through her eyes, in
her voice, in her presence, this woman challenged the man, made him
more conscious of her than of his work. The subtle, insinuating,
luring, strength of her beat upon him, enveloped him, thrilled him. As
she turned to go back to her place, his eyes followed her and he knew
that he was approaching a great crisis in his life. He knew that soon
or late he would be forced into a battle with himself and that
tremendous stakes would be at issue. He knew that victory would give
him increased power, larger capacity, and a firmer grip upon the
enduring principles of life or defeat would make of him a slave, with
enfeebled spirit, humiliated and ashamed.
Every day, in the weeks that followed, the man was forced to see
her--to talk with her--to feel her strength. And every day he felt
himself carried irresistibly onward toward the testing that he knew
must come. He was conscious, too, that the woman, also, knew and
understood and that it pleased her so to use her power. She willed
that he should feel her presence. In a thousand subtle forms she
repeated her challenge. In ways varied without number she called to
him, lured him, led him. To do this seemed a necessity to her. She was
one of those women whose natures seem to demand this expression of
themselves. Instinctively, she made all men with whom she came in
contact feel her power and, instinctively--unconsciously, perhaps--she
gloried in her strength.
If the man could have had other things in common with her it would
have been different. If there had been, as well, the appeal of the
intellect--of the spirit--if the beauty of her had been to him an
expression of something more than her sex--if there had been ideals,
hopes, longings, fears, even sorrow or regret, common to both, it
would have been different. But there was nothing. Often the man sought
to find something more but there was nothing. So he permitted himself
to be carried onward by a current against which, when the time should
come, he knew he would need to fight with all his might. And always,
as the current swept him onward toward the point where he must make
the decisive struggle, he felt the woman's power over him growing ever
greater.
At last it came.
It was Saturday. The man left the place where he worked earlier than
usual that he might walk to his rooms for he felt the need of physical
action. He felt a strong desire to run, to leap, to use his splendid
muscles that throbbed and exulted with such vigorous life. As he
strode along the streets, beyond the business district, he held his
head high, he looked full into the faces of the people he met with a
bold challenging look. The cool, bracing air, of early winter was
grateful on his glowing skin and he drank long deep breaths of it as
one would drink an invigorating tonic. Every nerve and fiber of him
was keenly, gloriously, alive with the strength of his splendid
manhood. Every nerve and fiber of him was conscious of her and exulted
in that which he had seen in her eyes when she had told him that she
would be at home that evening and that she would be glad to have him
call. With all his senses abnormally alert, he saw and noted
everything about him. A thousand trivial, commonly unseen things,
along his way and in the faces, dress, and manner, of the people whom
he met, caught his eye. Yet, always, vividly before him, was the face
of her whose power he had felt. Under it all, he was conscious that
this was his testing time. He _knew_--or it would have been no
Temptation--it would have been no trial. Impatiently he glanced at his
watch and, as he neared the place where he lived, quickened his
stride, springing up the steps of the house at last with a burst of
eager haste.
In the front hall, at the foot of the stairs, the little daughter of
his landlady greeted him with shouts of delight and, with the
masterful strength of four feminine years, dragged him, a willing
captive, through the open door to her mother's pleasant sitting room.
She was a beautiful, dainty, little miss with hair and eyes very like
that playmate of the man's Yesterdays and it was his custom to pay
tribute to her charms in the coin of childhood as faithfully and as
regularly as he paid his board.
Seated now, with the baby on his lap and the smiling mother looking
on, he produced, after the usual pretense of denial and long search
through many pockets, the weekly offering. And then, as though some
guardian angel willed it so, the little girl did a thing that she had
never done before. Putting two plump and dimpled arms about his neck
she said gravely: "Mamma don't like me to kiss folks, you know, but
she said she wouldn't care if I kissed _you_" Whereupon a sweet
little rosebud mouth was offered trustingly, with loving innocence, to
his lips.
A crimson flame flushed the man's face. With a laugh of embarrassment
and a quick impulsive hug he held the child close and accepted her
offering.
Then he went quickly upstairs to his room.
It was sometime later when the man began to prepare for the evening to
which he had looked forward with such eagerness and all his fierce and
driving haste was gone. The mad tumult of his manhood strength was
stilled. He moved, now, with a purpose, sullen, grim, defiant. The
fight was on. While he was still vividly conscious of the woman whose
compelling power he felt, he felt, now, as well, the pure touch of
those baby lips. While he still saw the light in the woman's eyes and
sensed the meaning of her smile, he saw and sensed as clearly the
loving innocence that had shown in the little girl's face as it was
lifted up to his. Upon his manhood's strength lay the woman's luring
spell. Upon his manhood the baby's kiss lay as a seal of
sacredness--upon his lips it burned as a coal of holy fire. The fight
was on.
The man's life was not at all an easy life. Beside his work and his
memories there was little to hold him true. Since that day when he
stood face to face with Life and, for the first time, knew that he was
a man, he had been, save for a few friends among the men of his own
class, alone. The exacting demands of his work had left him little
time or means to spend in seeking social pleasures or in the delights
of fellowship with those for whose fellowship he would have cared,
even had the way to their society been, at that period of his life,
open to him. He told himself, always, that sometime in the future,
when he had worked out still farther his dreams, he would find the way
to the social life that he would enjoy but until then, he must, of
necessity, live much alone. And now--now--the testing time--the crisis
in his life--had come. Even as it must come to every man who knows his
manhood so it had come to him.
The man was not deceived. He knew the price he would pay in defeat.
But, even while he knew this--even while he knew what defeat would
mean to him, so great was her power that he went on making ready to go
to her. With the kiss of the little girl upon his lips he made ready
to go to the woman. It was as though he had drifted too far and the
current had become too strong for him to turn back. Thus do such men
yield to such temptations. Thus are men betrayed by the very strength
of their manhood.
With mad determination he waited the hour. Uneasily he paced his room.
He tried to read. He threw himself into a chair only to arise and move
about again. Every few moments he impatiently consulted his watch. At
every step in the hall, without his door, he started as if alarmed. He
became angry, in a blind rage, with the woman, with himself and even
with the little girl. At last, when it was time to go, he threw on his
overcoat, took his hat and gloves, and, with a long, careful look
about the room, laid his hand on the door. He knew that the man who
was going out that evening would not come hack to his room the same
man. He knew that _that_ man could never come back. He felt as
though he was giving up his apartments to a stranger. So he hesitated,
with his hand upon the door, looking long and carefully about. Then
quickly he threw open the door and, down the hall and down the stairs,
went as one who has counted the cost and determined recklessly.
[Illustration: Two dimpled arms went around his neck]
The man had opened the front door and was about to pass out when a
sweet voice called: "Wait, oh, wait."
Turning, he saw a tiny figure in white flying toward him.
The little girl, all ready for bed, had caught sight of him and, for
the moment, had escaped from her mother's attention.
The man shut the door and caught her up. Two dimpled arms went around
his neck and the rosebud mouth was lifted to his lips.
Then the mother came and led her away while the man stood watching her
as she went.
Would he ever dare touch those baby lips again he wondered. Could he,
he asked himself, could he face again those baby eyes? Could he ever
again bear the feeling of that soft little body in his arms?
At the farther end of the hall, she turned, and, seeing him still
there, waved her hand with a merry call: "Good-bye, good-bye."
Then she passed from his sight and, in place of this little girl of
rosy, dimpled, flesh, the startled man saw a dainty maiden of his
Yesterdays, standing under a cherry tree with fallen petals of the
delicate blossoms in her wayward hair, and with eyes that looked at
him very gravely and a little frightened as, for the shaggy coated
minister, he spoke the solemn words: "I pronounce you husband and wife
and anything that God has done must never be done any different by
anybody forever and ever, Amen." By some holy magic the kiss of the
little girl became the kiss of his play wedding wife of the long ago.
Very slowly the man went up the stairs again to his room; there to
spend the evening not as he had planned, when he was in the mastering
grip of self, but safe in the quiet harbor of the Yesterdays where the
storms of life break not or are felt only in those gentle ripples that
scarce can stir the surface of the sea.
The fierce passion that had shaken the very soul of him passed on as
the storm clouds pass. In the calm of the days that were gone, he
rested as one who has fought a good fight and, safe from out the
turmoil and the danger, has come victoriously into the peace that
passeth all understanding.
In the sweet companionship of his childhood mate, with the little girl
who lived next door, the man found again, that night, his better self.
In the boy of the long-ago, he found again his ideals of manhood. In
his Yesterdays, he found strength to stand against the power of the
temptation that assailed him.
Blessed, blessed Yesterdays!
* * * * *
It was the time of the first snow when, again, the woman sat alone in
her room before the fire, with her door fast locked and the shades
drawn close, even as on that other night--the night when her womanhood
began in dreams.
In the soft dusk, while the shadows of the flickering light came and
went upon the walls, and the quiet was broken only by the tick, tick,
tick, of the timepiece held in the chubby arms of the fat cupid on the
mantle, the woman sat very still. Face to face with her Temptation,
she sat alone and very still.
For several months, the woman had seen her testing time approaching.
That day when, looking into her eyes, the man of authority had so
kindly bidden her leave her work for the afternoon, she had known that
this time would come. In the passing weeks she had realized that the
day was approaching when she must decide both for him and for herself.
She had not sought to prevent the coming of that day. She had
knowingly permitted it to come. She was even pleased in a way to watch
it drawing near. Not once, in those weeks, had he failed to be very
kind or ceased to make her feel that he understood. In a hundred ways,
as their work called them together and gave opportunity, he had told
her, in voice and look and the many ways of wordless speech, that the
time was coming. He had been very careful, too--very careful--that, in
their growing friendship, the world should have no opportunity to
misjudge. And the woman, seeing his care, was grateful and valued his
friendship the more.
So had come at last that Saturday when, with low spoken words, at the
close of the day's work, he had asked if he might call upon her the
following evening; saying gravely, as he looked down into her face,
that he had something very important to tell her. And she had gravely
said that he might come; while her blushes to him confessed that she
knew what it was of importance that he would say.
Scarcely had she reached her home that afternoon when a messenger boy
appeared with a great armful of roses and, as she arranged the flowers
on her table, burying her flushed face again and again in their
fragrant coolness, she had told herself that to-morrow, when he asked
her to cross with him the threshold of that old, old door, she would
answer: yes. But, even as she so resolved, she had been conscious of
something in her heart that denied the resolution of her mind.
And so it was that, as she sat alone before her fire that night, she
knew that she was face to face with a crisis in her life. So it was
that she had come to the testing time and knew that she must win or
lose alone. In the sacred privacy of her room, with the perfume of his
roses filling the air and the certainty that when he came on the
morrow she must answer, she looked into the future to see, if she
might, what it held for her and for him if she should cross with him
the threshold of that old, old, door.
He was a man whose love would honor any woman--this she knew. And he
was a man of power and influence in the world--a man who could provide
for his mate a home of which any woman would be proud to be the
mistress. Nor could she doubt his love for nothing else could have
persuaded such a man to ask of a woman that which he was coming to ask
of her.
Beginning with her answer on the following evening the woman traced,
in thought, all that would follow. She saw herself leaving the life
that she had never desired because it could not recognize her
womanhood and, in fancy, received the congratulations of her friends.
She lived, in her imagination, those busy days when she would be
making ready for the day that was to come. Very clearly, she pictured
to herself the wedding; it would be a quiet wedding, she told herself,
but as beautiful and complete as cultured taste and wealth could make
it. Then they would go away, for a time, to those cities and lands
beyond the sea that, all her life, she had longed to visit. When they
returned, it would be to that beautiful old home of his family--the
home that she had so often, in passing, admired; and in that home, so
long occupied by him alone, she would be the proud mistress. And
then--then--would come her children--their children--and so all the
fulfillment of her womanhood's dreams.
But the woman's face, as she looked into a future that seemed as
bright as ever woman dared to dream, was troubled. As she traced the
way that lay so invitingly before her, this woman, who knew herself to
be a woman, was sad. Her heart, still, was as an empty room--a room
that is furnished and ready but without a tenant. Deep within her
woman heart she knew that this man was not the one for whom she waited
by the open door. She did not know who it was for whom she waited. She
knew only that this man was not the one. And she wished--oh, how she
wished--that this was not so. Because of her longing--because of the
dreams of her womanhood--because of her empty heart--she was resolved
to cross with this man, who was not the man for whom she waited, the
threshold that she could not cross alone. Honor, regard, respect, the
affection of a friend, she could give him--did give him indeed--but
she knew that this was not enough for a woman to give the man with
whom she would enter that old, old, door.
Rising, the woman went to her mirror to study long and carefully the
face and form that she saw reflected there. She saw in the glass, a
sweet, womanly, beauty, expressing itself in the color and tone of the
clean carved features; in the dainty texture of the clear skin and
soft, brown, hair; and in the rounded fullness and graceful lines of
the finely moulded body. Perfect physical strength and health was
there--vital, glowing, appealing. And culture of mind, trained
intelligence, thoughtfulness, was written in that womanly face. And,
with it all, there was good breeding, proud blood, with gentleness of
spirit.
This woman knew that she was well equipped to stand by this man's side
however high his place in life. She was well fitted to become the
mistress of his home and the mother of his children. She had guarded
well the choicest treasures of her womanhood. She had squandered none
of the wealth that was committed to her. She had held it all as a
sacred trust to be kept by her for that one with whom she should go
through the old, old door. And she had determined that, to-morrow
evening, she would give herself, with all the riches of her womanhood,
to this one who could give her, in return, the home of her dreams.
While her heart was still as an empty room, she had determined to
cross, with this man, the threshold over which no woman may again
return.
Turning from her mirror, slowly the woman went to the great bunch of
roses that stood upon her table. They were his roses; and they fitly
expressed, in their costly beauty, the life that he was coming to
offer to her. Very deliberately she bent over them, burying her face
in the mass of rich color, inhaling deeply their heavy fragrance.
Thoughtfully she considered them and all that, to her, they
symbolized. But there was no flush upon her cheek now. There was no
warmth in the light of her eyes. No glad excitement thrilled her.
There was no trembling in her touch--no eager joyousness in her
manner.
Suddenly, some roisterer, passing along the street with his
companions, laughed a loud, reckless, half drunken, laugh that sounded
in the quiet darkness with startling clearness.
The woman sprang back from the flowers as though a poisonous serpent,
hidden in their fragrant beauty, had struck her. With a swift look of
horror on her white face she glanced fearfully about the room.
Again the laugh sounded; this time farther down the street.
The woman sank into her chair, trembling with a nameless fear. To her,
that laugh in the dark had sounded as the laughter of the crowd that
day when she was forced so close to the outcast women who were in the
hands of the police.
"But those women," argued the frightened woman with herself, "sell
themselves to all men for a price."
"And you," answered the heart of her womanhood, "and you, also, will
sell yourself to one man, for a price. The wealth of womanhood
committed to you--all the treasures that you have guarded so
carefully--you will sell now to this good man for the price that he
can pay. If he could not pay the price--if he came to you empty
handed--would you say yes?"
"But I will be true to him," argued the woman. "I will give myself to
him and to him only as wife to husband."
"You are being false to him already," replied her woman heart, "for
you are selling yourself, not giving yourself to him. You are planning
to deceive him. You would make him think that he is taking to himself
a wife when, for a price, you are selling to him--something higher
than a public woman, it is true--but something, as true, very much
lower than a wife. What matter whether the price be in gold and silver
or in property and social position--it is a price. Except he pay you
your price he could not have you."
And what, thought the woman, what if--after she had crossed the
threshold with this good man--after she had entered with him into the
life that lay on the other side that door--what if, then, that other
one should come? What if the one for whom her empty heart should have
waited were to come and stand alone before that door through which she
could not go back? And the children--the dear children of her
dreams--what of them? Had not her unborn children the right to demand
that they be born in love? And if she should say, "no," to this
man--if she should turn once more away from the open door, through
which he would ask her to go with him--what then? What if that one who
had delayed his coming so long should never come?
And then the woman, who knew herself to be a woman, saw the lonely
years come and go. While she waited without the door that led to the
life of her womanhood's dreams, she saw the beauty that her mirror
revealed slowly fading--saw her firm, smooth, cheeks become thin and
wrinkled, her bright eyes grow dim and pale, her soft, brown, hair
turn thin and gray, her body grow lean and stooped. All the wealth of
her womanhood that she had treasured with such care she saw become as
dust, worthless. All the things of her womanhood she would be forced
to spend in that life that denied her womanhood, and then, when she
had nothing left, she would be cast aside as a worn out machine. Never
to know the joy of using her womanhood! Never to have a home! Never to
feel the touch of a baby hand! To lay down the wealth of her woman
life and go empty and alone in her shriveled old age! With an
exclamation, the woman sprang to her feet and stretched out her arms.
"No, no, no," she whispered fiercely, "anything, anything, but that. I
will be true to him. I will be a faithful wife. He shall never know.
He shall not feel that he is cheated. And perhaps--" she dropped into
her chair again and buried her face in her hands as she
whispered--"perhaps, bye and bye, God will let me love him. Surely,
God will let me love him, bye and bye."
Sometime later, the woman did a strange thing. Going to her desk,
softly, as a thief might go, she unlocked a drawer and took from it a
small jewel case. For several moments she stood under the light
holding the little velvet box in her hand unopened. Then, lifting the
lid, she looked within and, presently, from among a small collection
of trinkets that had no value save to her who knew their history, took
a tiny brass ring. Placing the box on the dresser, she tried,
musingly, to fit the little ring on her finger. On each finger in turn
she tried, but it would go only part way on the smallest one; and she
smiled sadly to see how she had grown since that day under the cherry
tree.
Turning again, she went slowly across the room to the fire that now
was a bed of glowing coals. For a little she stood looking down into
the fire. Then, slowly, she stretched forth her hand to drop the ring.
But she could not do it. She could not.
Returning the little circle of brass to its place among the trinkets
in the jewel box, the woman prepared for bed.
The timepiece in the arms of the fat cupid ticked loudly now in the
darkness that was only faintly relieved by the glowing embers of the
fire.
With sleepless eyes the woman who had determined to give herself
without love lay staring into the dusk. But she did not see the
darkness. She did not see the grotesque and ghostly objects in the
gloom. Nor did she see the somber shadows that came and went as the
dying fire gained fitful strength. The woman saw the bright sun
shining on the meadows and fields of the long ago. She saw again the
scenes of her childhood. Again, as she stood under the cherry tree
that showered its delicate blossoms down with every puff of air, she
looked with loving confidence into the face of the brown cheeked boy
who spoke so seriously those childish vows. Again, upon her lips she
felt that kiss of the childhood mating.
The soft light of the fire grew fainter and fainter as the embers
slowly turned to ashes. Could it be that the woman, in her temptation,
would let the sacred fire of love burn altogether out? Must the
memories of her Yesterdays turn to ashes too?
The last faint glow was almost gone when the woman slipped quickly out
of her bed and, in the darkness, groped her way across the room to the
desk where she found the little jewel case.
And I think that the fat cupid who was neglecting his bow and arrows
to wrestle with time must have been pleased to see the woman, a little
later, when the dying fire flared out brightly for a moment, lying
fast asleep, while, upon the little finger of the hand that lay close
to her smiling lips, there was a tiny circle of brass.