CHAPTER PAGE
[Prelude ]xi
I. [The Light-house ]1
II. [Uncle Hyacinth ]28
III. [The Creative Impulse ]82
IV. [The Man from Buffalo ]117
V. [The Lusitania Waits ]138
VI. [The Log of the Evening Star ]151
VII. [Goblin Peaches ]177
VIII. [May Margaret ]205
IX. [Marooned ]249
X. [The Garden on the Cliff ]281
XI. [The Hand of the Master ]292

WALKING SHADOWS


Prelude

Of those who fought and died
Unreckoned, undescried,
Breaking no hearts but two or three that loved them;
Of multitudes that gave
Their memories to the grave,
And the unrevealing seas of night removed them;

Of those unnumbered hosts
Who smile at all our boasts
And are not blazed on any scroll of glory;
Mere out-posts in the night,
Mere keepers of the light,
Where history stops, let shadows weave a story.

Shadows, but ah, they know
That history's pomp and show
Are shadows of a shadow, gilt and painted.
They see the accepted lie
In robes of state go by.
They see the prophet stoned, the trickster sainted.

And so my shadows turn
To truths that they discern
Beyond the ordered "facts" that fame would cherish.
They walk awhile with dreams,
They follow flying gleams
And lonely lights at sea that pass and perish.

Not tragic all indeed,
Not all without remede
Of clean-edged mirth. Our Rosalie of laughter,
The bayonet of a jest,
May pierce the devil's breast,
And give us room and time for grief, here-after.