And then comes peace—to tell us we are old—
Desire of joy and tears—ah, gifts of gold!
Theodosia Garrison.
ON LOVE TOKENS
By Frank S. Arnett
Recent excavations outside Pompeii’s Stabian gate brought to light the bodies of a hundred hapless fugitives smothered two thousand years ago within actual sight of the fleet that came to save them. Necklaces were still borne on the charred but once beautiful necks of the women, and bracelets encircled their slender wrists. Thrice around the skeleton arm of one wound a chain of gold, and priceless stones were set in rings that still clung to the agony-clinched fingers of those that there had faced the fatal fumes of Vesuvius.
As one reflects upon these discoveries, he is at first inclined to philosophize on the slightness wrought by time in woman’s nature. For were not all these blazing gems and precious metals but proof that the jewel madness that burns in her veins to-day has coursed through woman’s veins throughout the ages?
But such a reflection is only partly correct. Among those bracelets, chains of gold and sparkling rings were many that proved no love of luxury, no mere desire for barbaric bedecking. Surely some were tokens of love, seized at that last moment when a hideous death approached; seized, too, when the choice lay between objects of far greater intrinsic value and these precious trinkets—precious because speaking with silent eloquence of long gone throbs of ecstasy, and of a bliss such as these women, even had they escaped, could never again have known. Glance around the room in which you are now seated, and, whether you are gray haired and dignified, or with youthful happiness are anticipating to-night’s cotillion, dare you deny that the supposition is probable? Is there not somewhere near you, in sight, where occasionally your hand may touch it with regretful love, or hidden in some secret drawer whence you rarely trust yourself to take it—is there not a jewel, a scented glove, a bit of ribbon, a faded violet, or a lock of hair? Whatever it is, in time of a catastrophe—hastened flight—would it not first be seized in preference to your costliest treasure?