I said to my soul: “These were the revelations of a night and a morning. What deeper troubles were in the House of the Loom that you did not know?”
All through the country there had been that night what is called a black frost. By the roadside it was deep and white as the wool on a sheep. But it left things blighted and black, and destroyed the chances of the fruit-bearing trees. All the way to Mount Toxaway I met scattered mourners of the ill-timed visitation.
But the simple folly of spring was in me, and the strange elation of gratitude. My soul said within itself: “A money-claim has definite limits, but when will you ever discharge your obligation to the proud and the fine in the House of the Loom? You intruded on their grief. Yet they held their guest sacred as their grief.”
PHIDIAS
Would that the joy of living came to-day,
Even as sculptured on Athena’s shrine
In sunny conclave of serene design,
Maidens and men, procession flute and feast,
By Phidias, the ivory-hearted priest
Of beauty absolute, whose eyes the sun