Memphis daily appeal. [volume] (Memphis, Tenn.) 1847-1886, 1883-01-24
FROZEN FANCIES.
For the Memphis Appeal

For the Memphis Appeal
Having occasion TO pass through Court
Square quite early on a recent very cold
morning, I was attracted by the novel ap.
pearance Of the pretty fountain which
adorns our little park. An unbroken fringe
of long, glittering icicles encircled the rim
of the upper basin, whence, under normal
conditions, the water falls in a free, bright
shower, with a low, pleasant murmur, as of
thanks returned for the biessedness of exist
ence. The stone feet of the BASIN were en-
crusted in ice, which in the CHANGING sun.
light took on prismatic splendors. In the
| muddy water nearer the fountains head two
sluggish streams gurgled and spouted feebly
upward toward the imprisoned waters of the
basin, only to drop back again in helpless,
despairiug acknowledgment Of their power
lessness TO break the icy letters that kept the
dancing waters in a cold, still, deadly en-
brace.
Forgetful Of the hurry that had made me
take this short CUT to my place of destina-
ton, stood with folded hands absorbing
thi. sermon in stone" (stupidly enough, l
grant you, dear Messrs. Gradgrind, but it is
astonishing what an incredibly short space
OF time ID required to set a woman's wits to
wool-gah ring), until heard a voice be.
bind me saying: "Real purity, now, amt it.,
Miss? Them icicles is real ornamental:
looks fur all the world like the Peabody
chandeliers" turned with unreasonable
wrath upon this commentator, saying, audi
bly,: Eyes have ye, and yet see ye not"
Tor was wroth that my sermon should have
been 30 rudely intruded upon, aud / turned
away from this type of 30 many lives, with
their froz;n possibilities, their i'm prisoned ann
billions and thwarted power, deeply imbued
with the pathos of that ice-bouud fountain.
Fancy ran freer than those stilled waters,
conjuring up pictures that did not compare
we'll with the dray -loads of cotton, the men
in shaggy ulsters and muddy arctics, the be.
spattered street cars and all the other access
series to the busy reality that was before my
body's eye. | called mind youth once
had known. When he started out in life the
possibilities OF his future seemed almost
bouudless. To bright intellect and Joy
Gus temperament be added an amount of
ambition to excel, which made the fact of his
Pre-e seem only question of time
Intellectual effort was to him pastime, and
he bade far 10 scale the glittering nights OF
fame BY rapid and easy gradations. The
loss OF fortune and the suicide of a father,
the only friend who had ever urged him on
ward and upward, threw the whole response
bility OF large and helpless family on his
shoulders. To bear patiently with the quer-
ulous complaints of weak mother, 10 edu.
cate the younger boys and girls, to work
without resting to supply the daily needs of
them all was the crown Of thorns which he
took up as he laid aside his laurel
wreath. He succeeded on this dead
level OF existence, and people called
him fine names and said he had done
we'll. But when / thought of the patient
look of his dulled eye, and recalled the
paihos of his strapgled hopes, his smothered
ambitions, when ! bethought me Of how sud-
denly the bright, quick current of his days
had been siilled by the icy hand OF destiny,
L thought Of the frozen fountain with its fet-
tered and motionless upper current, and its
slow, throbbing inward pulses.
As this picture dropped from Fancy.
stereoscope, a noble form and face arose be-
fore it. 1t was of one whose life's current
had run with q smooth .sviftness until he
had mounted we'll on toward the goal OF his
ambition, to be suddenly and forever stilled
BY the hand Of a faithle.s wife. Sluggishly
the routine OF duty is performed, indifer-
emily the future, with all its frozen possibili-
ties, is regarded. OnIy the past is real to
him-,he past with its bright, dancing, Joy
Gus waters, and the present with the feeble
pulsing at the fount aims head that has in it
no promise Of freedom from bondage; only
bitter suggestion Of helplessuess and Of
vain effort.
And the alhirdly" OF my sermon in stone
took on the form of woman. A WON n
Who had looked wonderingly out upon the
world in the insolent days of her youth,
swing in her foolish heart: "Some great
thing will / do 10 prove to mankind that
despite the fatal drawback of sex some good
can c,me out of womapkind.n She laughed
to scorn the warnings Of those who had
drained the cup of dlsappointmeut to its Bit
ter drees. The theory Of fate or blind chance
she classed with the inventions OF the evil one.
The talen,s which the Lord had entrusted
to her keeping, she believed we're meant for
use and not 10 rust. The current OF her
days sparkled and rippled into the bright
anticipations of that great thing she was
one day TO do. Bot there came into her life
one who took those talenn into his own uu-
wise keeping, and, folding the napkin of
oblivion tightly about them, laid a cold
hand upon the bubbling waters of that
sparkling fountain, and they were stiIled.
S.illed in the upper basin where the bright
snticipations, and leaping ambitions, and
fzncies of those fantastic
days bad glinted and shimmered 10 the sun.
light, but a. the heart of the fountain slow
and sad the choked waters still struggle up.
ward impotently but involuntarily, only 10 |
fall back into the muddy waters of the lower |
basin filed TO quench lie thirst of "dumb,
driven cattle" Only this and nothing more. |
Some hours passed before repassed the
fountain that had 30 unwittingly given me q /
text. The sun had been = benefcent agent