WEST SHORE.
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5 -i f . Joa t- V
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BYEU.AH10WNSON.
Tif II'Mf" itfD THE DEAD,
Blackness, wetness, and rain and wind on the roof,
And the owan healing the shore,
And now and again a ihaking of window panel,
And a rattling of the door.
Twilight dying, ihadowt npon the wall,
Ghonliih ahadowa and gray ;
Lonely, heartsick, I reach my hand in the dark
For the hand that hu gone away.
The dead 1 The dead t 0, God ! do they tarn in their gram,
On a wind-bared night like this,
And stretch their arms, and yearn for the light of the hearth,
And the passionate warmth ot a kiss ?
When It Is easy to be simple and natural and unassuming, one can not
but stand amazed before the many, many people who affect an importance
that they have not, save in their own glowiDg Imaginations. A good many
ambitious women who are not at all sure of either their own " polish " or
positions make such snobs (there is no other word that will express it) of
themselves that one can not help pitying them, because they so unintention
ally betray the insincerity of their own standing. The social snob always
toadies to some woman whose position ti secure; imitates her in dress,
manner, language, style; never dares to accept an Invitation until she has
ascertained whether her " leader " has done so; and you cannot spend five
minutes with her without having " my friend, Mrs. So-and-So," dinned
into your weary ears as many times. The woman whose position is secure
can afford to be agreeable to the very lowest. There is no need for her to
toady to the rich, and you will usually know her by the sweet, gracious
manner in which she sets all, from the highest to the lowest, at their ease
in her presence. The snob is either stiff and uncomfortable in her efforts
not to be agreeable, or fulsomely flattering in her attempts to be specially
charming. Once I had a little friend whom, for courtesy's sake, I will name
Mrs. Brown. Her husband was president of a bank and a very wealthy
man; but she was sweet, simple and merry, unassuming in manner and
plain of attire. One day, while calling upon a friend, she was Introduced
to a Mrs. DeSnob, an elderly woman in gorgeous raiment, who put np her
eye glasses and stared until my little friend blushed, after which she delib
erately turned her back npon Mrs. Brown and tried to monopilize her
hostess's attention. She failed in this, and was forced to see Mrs, Brown
treated with marked deference; so presently she turned upon her, and
fixing her with pne terrible look, she said : " What does your husband do
for a living? " There was a moment's amaied silence; then Mrs. Brown,
with a mischievous twinkle in her eyes, replied: " He he works in a
bank." The verb settled It; Mrs. DeSnob did not again look at or address
the woman whose husband worked. But when Mrs. Brown arose to take
leave of her hostess, she came up quite close to Mrs. PeSnob and bending
graciously she said, with an irrepressible smile : " My dear Mrs, DeSnob,
I have been trying to remember where I first met you and I have just suc
ceeded in recalling the time and place. Some five or six years ago you kept
a little variety shop In a back street in P , and I used to buy needles,
pins, patterns and such odds and ends of you. I was one of your best cus
tomers In those days, because I was sorry for you, and nsed often to go
blocks out of my way to patronise you; and I remember, also "-smiling
sweetly and gravely" that in those days yon were uniformly agreeable
and amiable to uie, for which I now thank you gratefully. Rejoicing In
your apparent present prosperity, I wish you good afternoon." Now, who
shall say that Mrs. DeSnob did not deserve that severe and cutting rebuke?
What shall Washington's sobriquet be? 0, 1 do wish with all my heart
that it might be the " Sunset " state I I am well aware that sunsets gener
ally have been written down and painted down to the very verge of desper
ation ; but tell me, where Is there a land In which the darkest day of winter
flings her dull coverings at evening and lays the pure, flaming gold of her
heart over the whole country, sea and mountains as it does on Puget sound ?
Every land may occasionally have a gorgeous sunset; and then, when one
does stray in unexpectedly, how the whole country comes out and stares at
it, and how the newspapers rave over it, and how they all look at each other
and trot out that old, weary " Talk about Italy," until our ears and eyes
and nerves fairly tingle! But think-only think 1 of a land where each
evening from six o'clock until ten in summer and from four till six in win
ter the whole western sky ai.d the sea that dances beneath are one flaming,
tremulous, dauling glow of blended and blending gold, purple, scarlet,
orange, green, blue, opal and pearl shifting, fading, melting, burning, until
one's breath almost fails In a very testacy of passionate admiration of it.
Column on column of amethyst and pearl pile up and stand toppling, ready
to fall, in the clouds; and in the far distance of the rainbow-tinted tunnel
one sees the sun one great wheel ot flaming gold lay his trembling rim
upon the low purple line of the hill whereon tall, graceful fir trees reach
upward quiet arms until each fine, spicy needle stands out, cleitr and deli
cate, against that luminous background. And many and many a time while
the west is lit with sunset fires, into the clear, blue east rises slowly the
harvest moon silver and cool and large whitening and softening every'
tiling before her. Sometimes, too, when there is a mist brooding uion the
bosom of these blue waters, all the tinted sun and cloud rays sinking through
it, touch it to life and vivid color, till It seems one vast distance of trembling
thistle-down, blown this way and that by the strong, salt sea-winds. The
"Sunset" state 1 There Is temptation to the lover of beauty and who
does not love beauty ? in the very name. I have seen the laborer, tolling
with bared breast and swelling muscles at the huge walls ot rock cliffs with
pick and mallet, pause and turn wondering, wistful eyes across the spark
ling waves to the glory of the dying day ; I have seen the true artist Bland
with dim eye and hushed breath speechless awed into insignificance be
fore the painting that God has swung before His children, and said : " Come,
the rich and the poor; the young and the old; the strong and the feeble;
the saint and the sinner come, one and all I " Here is a painting traced on
heaven, such as no man can copy and no man buy. The veriest beggar
that crawls on the earth may drink in the glory of this scene, side by side
with the king, if he only has the simple love of beauty and of nature's Ood
in his heart, It is free-free for the gold of the earth can not buy the gold
of heaven I 0, you who love this land let it be our own " Sunset " state t
Once when I was a little child I heard two dear, old-fashioned ladles
talking about a young women who had recently lost her husband, and
whose grief had at first been uncontrollable. "How la she bearing It now,"
asked one. " Oh," was the reply, with a great deal of tender thankfulness
in it, " I think she Is getting reconciled to her grief." How I pondered over
that homely expression I What could they mean by It? I had a horror of
being laughed at because of my Ignorance, so instead of asking what they
meant, I used to slip out under my old apple tree, and try to punle out
what being " reconciled to grief " could possibly mean. And the pale,
young widow who used to pass with closed lips and sad eyes, and who some
times, when I looked at her very wistfully, smiled faintly and gently at me
0, how I used to look at her and study her, and wonder why she seemed
different from other women. Alas I life has taught me what those old
women meant. Sometimes, now, on a street crowded with gay, smiling
people, I come suddenly upon some one who passes silently with unsmiling
lips and unseeing eyes, and a great hush seems to fall upon my heart, for I
know instantly that she has looked into the eyes of sorrow; has shrunk
from her violently, and beaten out her heart In passionate rebellion against
her; until, at last, worn out In body, mind, and soul, with the struggle, she
has sunk down, prone, exhausted, helpless, In the arms of sorrow, and been
" reconciled " to her; so that now and forever hereafter, she must go about
sad eyed, pale-browed, calm-lipped, hand In hand with that grim shadow
that leaves her never.
Right in the middle of his beautiful and sensible criticism of Tolstoi's
" Kreutter Sonata," Robert Q. Ingersoll stops and gives this little " fling "
at a woman who Is known as a noble writer and thinker a pure woman
who standi out like a white statue of true womanhood against the back
ground of our nation : " Only a little while ago an article appeared In one
of the magazines In which millions of refined and virtuous
wives and mothers were described as dripping with pollution because they
enjoyed dancing and were so well formed that they were not obliged to
cover their arms and throats to avoid the pity of their associates.
What a curious opinion dried apples have of fruit upon the tree I " This Is
so ungenerous and so childish that It reminds me of the two young girls,
one of whom was lovely and witty and sensible, the other envious, dull and
malicious. A discussion coming up at an evening party as to the propriety
of ladles wearing sleeveless gowns, the pretty girl reasoned sensibly and
earnestly against It ; whereupon the other, being unable to bring any origi
nal or sensible opinions to the opposite side of the question, venomously
exclaimed: " Well, miss, If every one knew, as well as I do, how brown
and thin your arms are, they would not py much attention to your views
on the subject 1 " Such a display of bad taste, however, might be excused
In an Ignorant school girl ; but In a man of the world, ntvtrl
The man whose rank gives him the right to pass In first to dinner may
bring np the rear at the gates of heaven yea, there may be dosen of
God's lowliest poor ones before him.