[Sidenote:  The Wanderer’s Rest]

We tread upon earth and revile it, forgetting that at last it hides our defects and that through it our dead hearts climb to blossom in violets and rue.  Death is the Wanderer’s Rest, where there is no questioning, but the same healing sleep for all.  In that divine peace, there is no room for regret, since the earthly loves are sure of immortality.

[Sidenote:  While the Dream Seemed True]

As much as is vital will live on, unchanging, changeless, and taking on new sweetness with the years.  That which is not wholly given, which is ours only for a little time, will fade as surely as the roses in the marble hands.  Death has saved many a heartache, by coming while the dream still seemed true.

In a single passage, Emerson has voiced the undying beauty and the everlasting truth which lie beneath the perplexities of life.

“Oh, believe as thou livest, that every sound which is spoken over the round world, which thou oughtest to hear, will vibrate on thine ear.  Every proverb, every book, every byword which belongs to thee for aid or comfort, shall surely come home, through open or winding passages.  Every friend, whom not thy fantastic will, but the great and tender heart in thee craveth, shall lock thee in his embrace.  And this, because the heart in thee is the heart of all; not a valve, not a wall, not an intersection is there anywhere in nature, but one blood rolls uninterruptedly an endless circulation through all men, as the water of the globe is all one sea, and, truly seen, its tide is one.”

[Sidenote:  The Everlasting Love]

Sometimes, into two hearts great enough to hold it, and into two souls where it may forever abide, there comes the Everlasting Love.  It is elemental, like fire and the sea, with the depth and splendour of the surge and the glory of the flame.  It makes the world a vast cathedral, in which they two may worship, and where, even in the darkness, there is the peace which passeth all understanding, because it is of God.

When the time of parting comes, for there is always that turning in the road, the sadness is not so great because one must go on alone.  Life grows beautiful after a time and even wholly sweet, when a man and a woman have so lived and loved and worked together, that death is not good-bye, but rather—­“auf wiedersehen.”

The Consolations of Spinsterhood

[Illustration]

The Consolations of Spinsterhood

[Sidenote:  “A Great Miration”]

The attached members of the community are wont to make what Uncle Remus called “a great miration,” when a woman deliberately chooses spinsterhood as her lot in life, rather than marriage.

There is an implied pity in their delicate inquiries, and always the insinuation that the spinster in question could never have had an offer of marriage.  The husband of the lady leading the inquisition may have been one of the spinster’s first admirers, but it is never safe to say so, for so simple a thing as this has been known to cause trouble in families.