good Pascal says, one must die alone." And he got up to go, sure at least of his next meal.

On mourra seul!"

My companions came out of the church, swinging their kodaks.

I

MY THOUGHTS

ALAN D. MICKLE

WATCH the clouds drifting solemnly, dreamily, mysteri

ously by before the gloomy mountains. And to the touch

of, to me, invisible and impalpable forces, I see them change their shapes. And then, though the day is a grey and wintry one, I think of a perfect morning in the south of Italy and a ragged old shepherd I once saw there lying upon the green grass. And I think of the strange tune I heard him play upon a pipe as he watched his sheep. And I know of no reason why I should think of these things. My thoughts just form and change and drift mysteriously by like the clouds before the mountains.

T

OUR VENTURE IN LOVE

T. B.

HIS evening, for the first time in months, as we were walking home arm-in-arm, my wife danced her old lilting hoppity-hop. Coming now again after a long cessation, it is my final assurance that she has actually returned to me-after our venture in love.

II

Through the years of late boyhood and early manhood, there swelled up within me the growing passion for a son. I see now that in all my early sweet-hearting, my mind tacked and veered as I unconsciously considered the requirement of motherhood. God forgive me for not more seriously going about the improvement of my fitness for fatherhood, though indeed occasions were by no means infrequent when in an agony of abasement I doubted my right to risk the mirroring of my strong weaknesses in the hope of bestowing my weak strengths.

Those years passed and I fell in love. It is still impossible for me to say whether she drew me first as a potential wife or as a potential mother. The consciousness that she was as satisfying in the one rôle as in the other was almost a unit. After a long "herb moon," occupied in working and waiting, we were married.

III

More than a year had passed when in the golden early autumn our venture in love began.

The mystery and magic of the months that followed formed a book of charm more fascinating to us than Sindbad or Ali Baba or Jason or the whole world of romance had ever offered. Each day new beauties appeared in her face, new tones in her voice, new graces in her mind. Always a poet, she now found beauty

in "the mud and scum of things "; always sympathetic, she now sent out tendrils of interest to the obscurest waif in the newspaper; always a wit, her mind now flashed and sparkled, illumining every point of contact. Life was higher, deeper,

broader to her-and to me.

IV

We talked and planned freely for "him," never doubting it was a man-child we "had gotten from the Lord." He was a real presence, an actual son; he made a third in our circle from the first quickening movement until his birth—and death. And well for us that we had him with us during those months, for he did not stay; and had we waited to possess him he would have remained a mere episode, a hope, a glance of ten minutes' duration. For he was left on the shore of the Ocean of Life, and some have pitied us for that our ship so eagerly expected should have been lost,-some who know nothing of the rich cargoes that survived across those dark waters, some who cannot imagine the unvalued pearl that the black receding tide left at our feet.

They have intimated that we were too presumptuous of our coming joy, and God in wise rebuke took the cup from our lips. Very well! But the cup was at our lips for a long, sweet draught.

V

I cannot recall that time without pain and joy of transcendent poignancy. She who had always joined the head of a woman to the heart of a child came daily nearer the dawn of life and in her eyes shone all the spectra of the beautiful young Apollo about to trail upon us with his "clouds of glory." clouds of glory." In looking upon her and cautioning, warning, rallying, loving her, the wonder is, not that I lost some husks of self-concern, some sheath of complacency, but that I did not become a transfigured, hyacinthine god. A gleam of the divine in the presence of a good woman quickened to motherhood reveals to her husband the

high destiny of the race, the exalted beauty of generation, and the profound obligation of parenthood.

These are things that the biologist and the psychologist wot not of. The father knows. If he thereafter defames woman or flouts little children or travesties the ways of love, let him be damned in the deepest hell!

So the time went by, and our son's life pervaded the lives of each of us and the life of both in such a way that it seems now a foolish and ignorant fancy that some of our friends show in supposing that he lived only ten minutes and that his mother never knew him.

VI

Then came the night eagerly, trustfully, never fearfully awaited the threshold of a new stage of life for our boy-a wonderful and terrifying time which only love could make triumphant. Came the dark hour when the mother spent her life jubilantly and riotously to give him freedom-the pitting of son and mother-sixty hours of waking agony for the father-the interposition of an inexplicable "brute " fact that cost the boy his life and carried the mother to the very verge of the flooda moment's response to a stern chemical command when the sparkling eyes and flushed cheeks created a perfection of beauty beyond the range of earthly imagination-the immediate and death-like change whose pallor and quiet stopped the watcher's heart-the wordless disposition of the little tenement of our son -then the slow, sometimes heart-broken, but always courageous climb up the slope to the plateau of life again.

And now, this evening, for the first time in months, as we were walking home arm-in-arm, my sweet wife danced her old girlish hoppity-hop.

VII

She went bravely and beautifully into our venture; she came bravely and more beautifully out.

We went down with arms laden with gifts and hearts aching to be filled. We have come up with empty arms indeed, but with hearts filled to aching.

B

THE TWO FLAMES

ELOISE BRITON

EHIND my mask of life there lies a shrine

Wherein two flames are burning. Day and night

I tend these leaping treasures that are mine,

These lambent loves, the red one and the white,
While, priestess-like, I hang at either glow,
For each is perfect. And to each I bring
The oil of pure emotion, hottest so,
And draw new strength from my own offering.

The first of these my loves burns as a star
That lifts its keen, white glory into space
With virgin fervor, lavishing afar
Its vivid purity: and in the face

Of changeful worlds it glows unaltered still.
So burns my flame of friendship. In its sight
All things are silvered with a new delight
And beauty's self strikes deeper, till the thrill
Of mere existence vibrates like a string.
Then life is grown so taut that it must sing,
And all the little hills must clap their hands.
The soul is free as never bird on wing
To bathe in friendship like a sea of light:
And ever as it mounts the sea expands
In new infinities, and each new height
Grows keener than the last, until the mind
For very dizziness sweeps downward then
To simpler things, the cadence of a voice,
Or sweet, low laughter, idle as the wind,

Or fleeting touch of hands that quick rejoice

But ask no more and do not touch again.

With this white flame there comes a strange new peace,

A deep tranquillity unknown beside,

Where all my life's cross-currents shift and cease

Like runways in the sand before the tide.