The age-herald., 1899-07-09
THE MURMUR
 OF THE WORLD

When the nights toll was done, and poems and pictures, songs of the heart and the faces of beautiful women were be- ing fashioned by wondrous magic out of the blue-gray smoke that rose in radiant clouds, ever changing, shifting dreamfully sweet, that rose from the briar-root pips and made glorious company for the dreamer care-worn and weary of all things save his own thoughts, there came a youth to make plea that never yet found unresponsive thrill in any soul that was not sordid, since human souls began to expand, and love for loves sake began to find loves own sweet way. From the blge-gray canopy that trembled above an altar at which no sinful offering was made the vision vanished, and the dreamer with the tobacco pipe came back to listen to the oldest and youngest story that man. kind hears upon the march to oblivion. The youth might have left the dreamer to dream through voiceful memories that shall not be spoken; but he did not. He had his own story to tell, and it was the same as that related over and over and over again upon many a lifeless planet that now rolls with the dust of races that were
 
 quickened the beating of every heart known of God, and that makes for the splendid illumination of the world al dawn, at noon- time, and when earth's dim shadows would fall at eventime upon youth and maid swinging upon some gate in every lane kissed by sunshine or gloriied by star light upon this rolling old globes vast circuit.
 When tobaco was working it's diyinest charm and filching from life the dullness of the uncounted years, making the pipe the polished censer swinging above the pray er-place of faiths religion of hope the youth came and told his little tale of fears realized and hopes dreampt of through hours that dragged or sped as maid frown ed or smiled. Fresh tobacco was burned, and the old sweet song, heard for eyer at the confessional-and in places not holy heard in hut and palace, and upon the bosom of ocean and where the sky bends to kiss the mountain; in the dale where the rivuet laughs and in the garden where the birds make love to the flowers; in crowded streets and upon the wide high way winding amongst green fields,-this oldest of all mans song rang sweetly riotous in the unreasoning mind of the man and tumultuously in the heart of the boy, eager of hope, desperate of despair. It did so yesterdaynight, as it has done from the beginning, and shall do until the last man shall claim comradeship of the last woman. No worthy man, no good wo- man, ever heard that song uhmoved; and not all the jests nor the ribald laughter of the addle-pated or the wicked can eyer rob it of the sweetness that God gave it to lift man above swine. It serves to place roses and yiolets and daffodls amongst the stones that bruise all human feet in the pathway to the unseeable.
 The youths eyes dimmed somewhat, his lips twitched his voice notes went out of harmony, his face flushed, and he-he was youth bearing the precious burden of doubt and unrest that maid ever places upon him who ioiters in the enchanted land. He was the lunatic with the madness that comes at some time to affiict and sglorify every one of us worthy to take susten- ance of the bosom of our mother earth. The man with the briar-root pipe, resting under the shade of the blue-grey smoke of tobacco, heard and needed, was touched to unwonted tenderness and was himself a boy again. Swiftly the scroll was un- rolled, and he watched the pictures as they came. Maid and woman-beautiful maidens, beautiful women-they were there in every picture. And 1t Is sworn to you, my beloved, that there is not in the mena-