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TO

R.H. LOINES

"For the Debatable Land, being that portion of ground which, lying between two countries, belongeth to neither, does of all regions abound most in disturbance, adventures, even legends, and, as men say, in warlocks and witches. Thus the astute German, Hermantius, significantly calleth the region of youth a debatable land, and seeketh to illustrate time by space."—The Dictionary of Devices.

[Contents]

PART I
CHAPTER PAGE
I."Hinter die Kirche blühe die blaue Blumeleft der Zufriedenheit"[3]
II. Of Thaddeus Bourn and his Purposes[11]
III. Of Morgan Map and his Purposes[24]
IV. In which Thaddeus uses the term "Moral Justification"[32]
V. Introducing Hamilton and Saint Mary's Organ[41]
VI. Introducing Gard Windham and the Brotherhood of Consolation[56]
VII. Introducing Moselle and Mavering[71]
VIII. Of Mrs. Mavering, and of the Philosophy of the Individual[85]
IX. Of Estates in Happiness[99]
X. Of Spring in Hamilton—Of Thaddeus's Opportunity to be Candid[118]
XI. The Whirlpool—Mr. Paulus's Reminiscences of Women[135]
PART II
XII. Antietam[149]
XIII. In which Appears a General of Division, and one of "the Brethren"[164]
XIV. In which Mavering Concludes that Cavalry Officers as a Class are Eccentric and Deep[181]
XV. Treats of the Distribution of Tracts in the Valley of the Shenandoah[192]
XVI. Which Discloses one Daddy Joe, and Disposes of an Evangelist[207]
XVII. On the Question of the Exact Location of the Divinity which is Ultimately Called Worth While[223]
XVIII. In which there is Discovered a Compunction[235]
XIX. In which Windham Drops Out of the Fight—and Mavering Remarks on Human Adaptability[253]
XX. Treats of Further Incidents in the House with the White Door[264]
XXI. In which We Go Down the River and Return[274]
XXII. Of Mavering, who Disappears—Of the Gray Poet—Of Morgan, Who Appears Once More[286]
XXIII. The End[307]

Part I

"The Debatable Land"

[Chapter I]
"Hinter die Kirche blühe die blaue Blume der Zufriedenheit."—Meister Eckhart.

Widow Bourn's house stood behind the church, and blue flowers grew contentedly on the sloping green, shy fancies of a maiden spring that never lasted out a summer's experience. New England churches have not that air of nestling comfort which seemed to Meister Eckhart so sweet a symbol. They crown the hills with square frames and sharpened steeples, churches militant, plate-mailed in clapboards, with weather-vane aimed defiantly into the wind. Their doors are closed, their windows shuttered against all days of the week saving one. But Widow Bourn found the proximity comfortable. The church militant faced the issues of the spirit for her, and subdued them. She plodded through her Bible, drawing contentment from texts that meant no such matter, seeing in the ecclesiast's despondency only reflections connected here and there with sermons. "It is a pleasant thing to stand on the shore when other people are in the floods," the melancholy Roman poet remarked, meaning that it would be, because it was something his ever-journeying spirit in the waste seas of thought rendered impracticable for himself.