She has a voice of gladness, and a smile
And eloquence of beauty, and she glides
Into his darker musings, with a mild
And healing sympathy, that steals away
Their sharpness, ere he is aware.'
"He asked for enough to live honorably upon among his fellows," continues the Fate, "and to keep his parents comfortable in their old age—a matter of a few hundreds a year—and I gave him this and thousands more. Ha, ha, ha! Silence! Look at him; he doesn't see the joke. Oh yes, you may try to tell it to him, if you like. He has no time to listen, nor ears to hear, nor eyes to see; no, nor soul to understand your language. He's 'short' on New Jersey Central or 'long' on Reading, and, bless you! he must strain every fibre if he would save himself from ruin.
"He could commune with you in your youth, you say; he had your language then. No doubt! no doubt! so did he then know his Latin and whisper his prayers at his mother's knee. The Latin has gone; his praying continues—nay has increased, for his fears and selfish wants have multiplied since he was an innocent, ignorant child, and he has much more to ask from God for his own ends, now that he is a wise man and is supposed to know much (chuckle—chuckle—chuckle).
"There is another mortal," we hear the Fate saying to the Good Fairy. "Look at her, decked out in all the vagaries of changeable Fashion; note her fixed-up look, her conventional air, her nervous, unmeaning, simpering smile—the same to-day, yesterday, and forever—something to all men, much to none. See her at home in her chamber! Why mopes she, looking so haggard, with features expressionless and inane? What worm gnaws at her heart and makes her life so petty? She, too, came into the world a bright and happy thing, and grew up fond of music and of birds, and with a passion for flowers and all of Nature's sweets; so careful, too, of mother and of father, the very embodiment of love to all around her. You should have seen her in her teens, a glorious ray from heaven—'making a sunshine in a shady place'—so natural, so hearty, with a carolling laugh like the falling of waters. In her most secret prayers she asked only for a kind lover with a fair competence, that they might live modestly, without ostentation. She was a good girl and I granted her wish and more," says Fate. "Her air-castle was small, but I sent her a magnificent one. She is courted, flattered, has every gift in my power to bestow; yet she pines in the midst of them. The fruits of her rare gardens have no flavor for her—Dead Sea fruits indeed, which fall to ashes on her lips. She has entered for the race of Fashion, and her soul is absorbed in its jealousies and disappointments. You may speak to her as of old; tell her there is something noble in that domain of human life where duties grow—something not only beyond but different from Fashion, higher than dress or show. She understands you not.
"Hand her a bunch of violets. Does she learn their lesson with their odor (which her dog scents as well as she)? Comes there to her the inner meaning, the scent of the new-mown hay that speaks of past hours of purity, of the fresh breeze that fanned her cheek in childhood's halcyon days, the love of all things of the green earth and the sense of the goodness of God which his flowers ever hold within their petals for those who know their language? 'They will decorate me to-night for the ball!' That is the be-all and the end-all of her ladyship's love for flowers.
"Show her a picture with more of heaven than earth in it, and glimpses of the light that never shone on sea or shore. If the artist be in fashion she will call it 'pretty,' when it is grand. Give her music. Is it the opera? Oh yes, she will attend. It is the fashion. But place within her reach the soul-moving oratorio (with more religion in it than in twenty sermons) or the suggestive symphony. No, a previous engagement prevents. Why, just think of it—one can't talk there! Yet this woman could once play with feeling and sing with expression, delighting her young companions. Of her one could truly say,