The Glory of the Conquered | Page 3

heart had closed the channel
between the two?
And then they went to New York and Ernestine began her study of art.
A great light seemed turned back over it all tonight. She understood
much now which she had lived through wonderingly. She seemed now
really to know that girl who went to New York with all the dreams of
all her years calling upon her for fulfillment. She knew what that girl
had dreamed when she dreamed she knew not what; knew what she
thought when she thought the undefined. She smiled understandingly,
tenderly, at thought of it all--the bounding joy and the stubborn
determination, the fearing and the demanding and the resolving with
which she began her work. She was a great deal like a child on the
long-promised holiday, and much like the pilgrim at the shrine.
Somewhere between those two was Ernestine that first winter in New
York.
It was after the second year, after that strange mixture of things within
her had unified to fixed purpose, and after it had become quite certain
her dreams had not played her false, that the other big change had come.
Her mother slipped away from the life which had never held her in the
big grip of reality. She had been so long a longing looker-on from the
outer circle that the slipping away was the less hard. Ernestine stopped

work in order to care for her, reproaching herself with never having
been able to give to her mother with the unrestraint and bounteousness
she had given to her work. During those last weeks she often found her
mother's eyes--sombre, brooding eyes--following her about the room
like the spirit of unrest.
"Try to be happy, Ernestine," she said, when about to leave the house in
which she had ever been a stranger. "Life is so awful if you are not
happy."
She took her back to the little town and put her away beside the man
with whom her soul had never been at peace. That first night she
awakened in the dark hours and fancied she heard them quarreling. The
hideous fancy would not let her go to sleep, though she told herself
over and over that surely death would bring them the peace life had so
long withheld.
She went back to her work then with a new steadiness; loneliness
feeding the fire of consecration. Often when alone in her room at night
she felt those disappointed eyes following her about, heard again that
plaintive: "Try to be happy, Ernestine. Life is so awful if you are not
happy." She had many times opened the book in which her mother
copied the poems written at intervals during the years, but always
would come the feeling of their holding something at which it would be
hard to look. To-night, with her new understanding, this wondrous new
touchstone, she took them from her trunk with eagerness. She longed
now to know the secret of her mother's life; she would know why
happiness had passed her by.
There was tragedy in those little poems--a soul's long tragedy in their
halting lines, in the faltering breath with which they were sung. Indeed
they were not the songs of a poet at all; they were but the helpless
reaching out of an unsatisfied, unanchored soul. The blackboard had
never given back what it should; the crayon would not write. Was it
true there were countless souls who went away like this--leaving unsaid
a word they had craved to say?
"For our souls were not in tune"--was a line she found in one of the

verses and which she sat a long time pondering. Was not the secret of it
here? This the rock which held the wreckage of their lives?
She left her room and went out of doors. The night was very still. A
tender peace brooded over the world. She lifted her eyes to the
stars--her soul to the great Wonder. Enveloping her was Life--drawing
her straight to the heart of things was Love. Doubts and speculations
and ominous memories seemed blown away by the breath of the night.
The years had no lesson to teach save this--One must love! All that was
wrong in the world came through too little loving. All that was great
and beautiful sprang from love which knew not doubts nor fears. What
was a "point of view" when one throbbed with the memory of his
good-bye kiss!
There was a force which moved the world. She was in the grip of that
force to-night. All else was but the tiny whirlpool against the mighty
current. And she was not afraid. Love would deal kindly with her own.
She lifted her soul to the great Mother and Father of the world. "Oh
take me and teach