Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1891-01-03
SHE LIVED LONG AGO.
ONE OF THE CHILDREN WHO
HAVE MADE STORIES.
WRITTEN FOB The EVENING STAR BY
FRANCES HoDas0N BURNETT.

IT WOULD be very difficult to tell anything
Il at all definite about her. One can only TT,
10 imagine what she was like, wha. she
thought, what she did, and how her young hf,
was passed And imagination, however power
full, can scarcely be relied on to depict to ono
very clearly and truly the things that happened
more than L. SOD years ago.
More than l.S00 years ago she died in the
ancient city Of Pompeii an awful, tragic death
which 2 900 people shared with her. perishine
In the most overwhelming catastrophe the
world has ever known. And yet today one can
pass through the streets she walked about in,
stand in the '1peristylium" or court of the
house which was perhaps the one she lived in,
and where her fsvorite flowers grew, and
where she amused herself by Watching the gold
fishes in the little oblong stone-lined pool which
We are told was called the piscina One sees, per-
haps, her very own little bed room. where she
slept with her playthings about her. as rosy
and peaceful as other little girls sleep today
in their bed rooms in London or New York. And
one can stand and look down pityingly at the
slender lava and ash-incrusted little form
which was all that the great eruption of Mount
Vesuvius on the 2ith Of August, AID. 49, left OF
her childish body. She is lying by her mother
Just a. she fell when they were trying to escape
among the binding showers Of hot ashes, red
hot lapilh or small fragments Of pumice stone
and the sudden deluge of boiling water, which
the great volcano poured forth alternately and
sometimes all at once, and which turned the
beautiful day into black night, filed the air
with shrieks of terror and the narrow streets
with beuildered. agonized people losing their
way and stumbling in the horrible darkness as
they we're flying for their lives.
Many hundred years she lay in the darkness
with the gay, luxurious little city she had lived
in and which the quaking earth had broken into
ruins and the burning mountain had covered
with shower after shower of lapilli and ashes
until 1t was buried twenty feet deep. no trace
Of it left TO show that it had ever existed.
When one stands in the small museum and
looks down at the slender. lava-incrusted
frame, which looks more like a curiously rough
gray image than anything else. it is difficult to
think of il the body of a real, living young
creature, warm and soft and full of movement
and color. And yet she was sol ,S11 years
ago.
II she had died as others do she would have
been dust centuries ago, but as ii is she lies in
the tiny PompeI museum in glass case near
that other lava-incrusted image which is sup
posed to have been her mother. and with other
Ike images near her. and one stands and looks
at her with thrilled wonder and tries to imagine
what she looked like, what her short life was
and if all was quickly over when she fell. amid
the sitting ashes, the sulphurous vspor. the
flashes Of CHASTITY lightning and the awful vol
c6nOs thunder.
In a case near he- there is q poor dog with
what seems to have been quite beautiful collar
round his neck. He is lying in a distorted po-
sition on his back. his feet in the air and his
mouth open, as il he had died on giving a last
yelp of terror and pain. / wondered il per-
haps he had been her dog, and hoped he was
not or that she had not heard his poor cry for
the help which she could not give.
h. ,fob
all the soft sunny day as / wandered through
the once brilliant little city where she had lived
and died. My friends did not see her, but did
and fancied even that felt the touch of her
little hand No one could hear her. for she
moved so softly. But when l imagined that
she walked with me she was no longer poor
little gray lava incrusted thing, but supple and
pretty and soft and clothed in the delicate
graceful garments she wore so long ago-Or at
least as nearly Us my imagination, assisted by
Alma Tademas beautiful pictures, could array
her.
But for those wonderful pictures I think
could not have really called her to life but re-
membering them / made a little shadow which
seemed almost more than a shadow slender
figure In graceful little white tunic falling in
simple lovely folds and with border of gold
or purple or purple and gold together. She
had small sandals on her slim feet and a light
wreath of flowers on her delicate head. As for
her face, / only seemed to see that il was sweet
ish rose bloom on her checks; that her ewes
were deep and shadowy under their long
Lshes. and that she had blue-black hair. which
was not long. but waved softly about her head
and neck and shaded her forehead little, as it
might if she lived in the present day.
She was my guide and she seemed to tell me
many things and make the dead ancient city
live again, though d. net know how under
stood her, for think she lsed to speak Latin
when she was alive. But here was a guide in
Uniform Xhn lpI and h.
planned things in French perhaps / stole the
words from him and altered them and added
TO them. and translated them into the music
Of the voice that ceased speaking ISL years
ago.
have many interesting days in nv life to re-
member. but among them all there is not one
which stands out a. a memory so utterly
strangely beautiful and absorbing as that day
spent rambling through tine streets and ruins
OF long. long dead city warmly flooded with
an italian sun 1t must have been such a CAV
and brilliant little place. with it5 richly colored
and decorated houses, thei- fower-wreathed
red or yellow columns, thei- bright court
yards. their fountains and vines the graceful
temples and theaters and villas. the great
mountain behind, the blue Mediterranean at its
feet.
1T was very beautiful" thought nv little
shadow told me. The people were so gay and
rich. 1t WAS not so stately and magnificent as
Rome, but it was so bright and luxurious
There were 80 many flowers everywhere the
sky was ALWAYS so blue and the sun SO warm.
We lived so much out Of doors. we used to sit
and work and take our meals in the open court,
and the wine cups were wreathed with flowers
and garlands hung from the columns and were
twined about them. and we wore fresh gar
lands on our heads-every one wore them when
there was gayety and feasting."
''YOu were never afraid Of the great noun
tain them" said, and looked up at il as il
lowered so near us, dark and bare looking and
sullen with its cloud Of smoke rolling upward
and about its summit
NO one was afraid Of it -then-particularly
not the children We used to hear that wears
before-when some Of us were not born-there
had been . great earthquake which the noun
tain had caused, but il seemed so quiet and
peaceful then, covered with beautiful mead
ovs and the earthquake seemed to us to have
been so long ago that il would have seemed
only like legend IL we had not been able to
some Of the ruins il had made and the
Forum which was being rebuilt II was not
finished when the great eruption came. which
burned everything. When you go into it today
you viii see the unfinished columns lust as the
slaves left them when they turned and fed into
the darkness to try TO save their lives"
And then there came to nv mind paragraph
i remembered reading in Bulwer's Last DAYS
of Pompeii:"
AT one of the public edifces appropriated IN
the business Of the city workmen were employed
upon the columns and you heard the noise OF
their labor every now and then rising above
the hum Of the multitude. The columns are
unfinished to this day."
We went into the ruins Of the Forum-the
great mart and gathering place of those ancient