A Fool There Was

A Fool There Was, by Porter
Emerson Browne

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Title: A Fool There Was
Author: Porter Emerson Browne
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A FOOL THERE WAS
BY
PORTER EMERSON BROWNE
"A Fool there was and he made his prayer-- (Even as you and I.) To a
rag and a bone and a hank of hair-- ( We called her the woman who did
not care) But the fool he called her his lady fair-- (Even as you and I.)"
ILLUSTRATED BY EDMUND MAGRATH AND W. W. FAWCETT
1909

TO ROBERT HILLIARD.

CONTENTS

Chapter.
I. Of Certain People
II. Of Certain Other People
III. Two Boys and a Girl
IV. The Child and the Stranger
V. As Time Passes
VI. An Accident
VII. An Incident
VIII. Of Certain Goings
IX. Of Certain Other Goings
X. Two Boys and a Doctor
XI. A Proposal
XII. A Foreign Mission
XIII. The Going
XIV. Parmalee--and The Woman
XV. A Warning
XVI. The Beginning
XVII. In The Night
XVIII. White Roses
XIX. Shadows

XX. A Fairy Story
XXI. A Letter
XXII. Again The Fairy Story
XXIII. Aid
XXIV. The Rescue
XXV. The Return
XXVI. The Red Rose
XXVII. The Red Road
XXVIII. The Battle
XXIX. Defeat
XXX. And Its Consequences
XXXI. That Which Men Said
XXXII. In the Garden
XXXIII. Temptation
XXXIV. The Shroud of a Soul
XXXV. The Thing that was a Man
XXXVI. Again the Battle
XXXVII. The Pity of It All

ILLUSTRATIONS.

"Beautiful, gloriously beautiful in her strange, weird dark beauty"
"Bye little sweetheart"
"I do forgive--forgive and understand"
"Can't you find in that dead thing you call a heart just one shred of
pity?"
CHAPTER ONE.
OF CERTAIN PEOPLE.
To begin a story of this kind at the beginning is hard; for when the
beginning may have been, no man knows. Perhaps it was a hundred
years ago--perhaps a thousand--perhaps ten thousand; and it may well
be, yet longer ago, even, than that. Yet it can be told that John Schuyler
came from a long line of clean-bodied, clean-souled, clear-eyed,
clear-headed ancestors; and from these he had inherited cleanness of
body and of soul, clearness of eye and of head. They had given him all
that lay in their power to give, had these honest, impassive Dutchmen
and--women--these broad-shouldered, narrow-hipped English; they had
amalgamated for him their virtues, and they had eradicated for him
their vices; they had cultivated for him those things of theirs that it
were well to cultivate; and they had plucked ruthlessly from the
gardens of heredity the weeds and tares that might have grown to check
his growth. And, doing this, they had died, one after another, knowing
not what they had done--knowing not why they had done it--knowing
not what the result would be--doing that which they did because it was
in them to do it; and for no other reason save that. For so it is of this
world.
First, then, it is for you to know these things that I have told. Secondly,
it is for you to realize that there are things in this world of which we
know but little; that there are other things of which we may sometime
learn; that there are infinitely more things that not even the wisest of us
may ever begin to understand. God chooses to tell us nothing of that
which comes after; and of that which comes therein He lets us learn just

enough that we may know how much more there is.
And knowing and realizing these things, we may but