It ain't the way I should run the
universe, but I'm thundering glad I 'ain't got the job!"
Courtland walked on through the busy streets, thinking that sentence
over. He had a dim current of inner perception that suggested there
might be another way of looking at the matter; a possibility that the
wicked old reprobate had yet something more to learn of life before he
went beyond its choices and opportunities; a conviction that if he were
called to go he had rather be the little child in his purity than the
old man in his deviltry.
The sudden cutting down of this lovely child had startled and shocked
him. The bereavement of the girl cut him to the heart as if she had
belonged to him. It brought the other world so close. It made what had
hitherto seemed the big worth-while things of life look so small and
petty, so ephemeral! Had he always been giving himself utterly to things
that did not count, or was this a perspective all out of proportion, a
distorted brain again, through nervous strain and over-exertion?
He came presently to a well-known undertaker's, and, stepping in, felt
more than ever the borderland-sense. In this silent house of sadness men
stepped quietly, gravely, decorously, and served you with courteous
sympathy. What was the name of the man who rowed his boat on the River
Styx? Yes! Charon! These wise-eyed grave men who continually plied their
oars between two worlds! How did they look on life? Were they hardened
to their task? Was their gentle gravity all acting? Did earthly things
appeal to them? How could they bear it all, this continual settled
sadness about the place! The awful hush! The tear-stained faces! The
heavy breath of flowers! Not all the lofty marble arches, and beauty of
surroundings, not all the soft music of hidden choirs and distant organ
up in one of the halls above where a service was even then in progress,
could take away the fact of death; the settled, final fact of death! One
moment here upon the curbstone, golden hair afloat, eyes alight with
joyous greeting, voice of laughter; the next gone, irrevocably gone,
"and the place thereof shall know it no more," Where had he heard those
words? Strange, sad house of death! Strange, uncertain life to live.
Pages:
50
51
52
53
54
55
56
57
58
59
60
61
62
63
64
65
66
67
68
69
70
71
72
73
74