The Choir Invisible | Page 3

this requires that
you do not remove, alter or modify the etext or this "small print!"

statement. You may however, if you wish, distribute this etext in
machine readable binary, compressed, mark-up, or proprietary form,
including any form resulting from conversion by word pro- cessing or
hypertext software, but only so long as *EITHER*:
[*] The etext, when displayed, is clearly readable, and does *not*
contain characters other than those intended by the author of the work,
although tilde (~), asterisk (*) and underline (i) characters may be used
to convey punctuation intended by the author, and additional characters
may be used to indicate hypertext links; OR
[*] The etext may be readily converted by the reader at no expense into
plain ASCII, EBCDIC or equivalent form by the program that displays
the etext (as is the case, for instance, with most word processors); OR
[*] You provide, or agree to also provide on request at no additional
cost, fee or expense, a copy of the etext in its original plain ASCII form
(or in EBCDIC or other equivalent proprietary form).
[2] Honor the etext refund and replacement provisions of this "Small
Print!" statement.
[3] Pay a trademark license fee to the Project of 20% of the net profits
you derive calculated using the method you already use to calculate
your applicable taxes. If you don't derive profits, no royalty is due.
Royalties are payable to "Project Gutenberg
Association/Carnegie-Mellon University" within the 60 days following
each date you prepare (or were legally required to prepare) your annual
(or equivalent periodic) tax return.
WHAT IF YOU *WANT* TO SEND MONEY EVEN IF YOU
DON'T HAVE TO?
The Project gratefully accepts contributions in money, time, scanning
machines, OCR software, public domain etexts, royalty free copyright
licenses, and every other sort of contribution you can think of. Money
should be paid to "Project Gutenberg Association / Carnegie-Mellon
University".

*END*THE SMALL PRINT! FOR PUBLIC DOMAIN
ETEXTS*Ver.04.29.93*END*

Transcribed for Project Gutenberg by Susan L. Farley. Project
Gutenburg/Make A Difference Day Project 1999.

THE CHOIR INVISIBLE
by James Lane Allen

"O may I join the choir invisible Of those immortal dead who live
again In minds made better by their presence. . . . . . feed pure love,
Beget the smiles that have no cruelty, Be the sweet presence of a good
diffused And in diffusion evermore intense. So shall I join the choir
invisible Whose music is the gladness of the world."
GEORGE ELIOT
THE middle of a fragrant afternoon of May in the green wilderness of
Kentucky: the year 1795.
High overhead ridges of many-peaked cloud--the gleaming, wandering
Alps of the blue ether; outstretched far below, the warming bosom of
the earth, throbbing with the hope of maternity. Two spirits abroad in
the air, encountering each other and passing into one: the spirit of
scentless spring left by melting snows and the spirit of scented summer
born with the earliest buds. The road through the forest one of those
wagon-tracks that were being opened from the clearings of the settlers,
and that wound along beneath trees of which those now seen in
Kentucky are the unworthy survivors--oaks and walnuts, maples and
elms, centuries old, gnarled, massive, drooping, majestic, through
whose arches the sun hurled down only some solitary spear of gold,
and over whose gray-mossed roots some cold brook crept in silence;
with here and there billowy open spaces of wild rye, buffalo grass, and

clover on which the light fell in sheets of radiance; with other spots so
dim that for ages no shoot had sprung from the deep black mould;
blown to and fro across this wagon-road, odours of ivy, pennyroyal and
mint, mingled with the fragrance of the wild grape; flitting to and fro
across it, as low as the violet-beds, as high as the sycamores,
unnumbered kinds of birds, some of which like the paroquet are long
since vanished.
Down it now there came in a drowsy amble an old white bob-tail horse,
his polished coat shining like silver when he crossed an expanse of
sunlight, fading into spectral paleness when he passed under the rayless
trees; his foretop floating like a snowy plume in the light wind, his
unshod feet, half-covered by the fetlocks, stepping noiselessly over the
loamy earth; the rims of his nostrils expanding like flexible ebony; and
in his eyes that look of peace which is never seen but in those of petted
animals.
He had on an old bridle with knots of blue violets hanging, down at his
ears; over his broad back was spread a blanket of buffalo-skin; on this
rested a worn black side-saddle, and sitting in the saddle was a girl,
whom every young man of the town not far away knew to be Amy
Falconer, and whom many an old