The age-herald., 1900-05-27
THE MURMUR
 OF THE WORLD

When Troilus loved Cressida, fair cousin to Pandarus, he raved like a madman, which Is but another name for lover. Ask | ed the simple question if he had seen the ! maiden, he made answer imperishable: 1 No, Pandarus: l stalk about her door,
 Like strange soul upon the Stygian banks
 | Staying for waftage. O. be thou my Charon,
 And give me swift transportance to those fields,
 | Where l may wallow in the lily beds | Propose for the deserver! o gentle Pan darus,
 From Cupid's shoulder pluck his painted wings
 And fly with me to Cressidar' Pandarus bids him walk in the orchard and he will bring her to him. When she 1 comes he acts like a lunatic, resolving l finally to tell her that she had berett him of all words. Words pay no debts, the l wise Pandarus reminds him. and bids him give her deeds She asks him in, and to his ravings is moved to say that all lovers swear more performance than they are able and yet reserve an ability that they never perform; vowing more than the perfection of ten and discharging less than the tenth of one; and she asks nm II lovers are not monsters. That Is some what in reply to his assertion that nothing in lovers is monstrous but the undertakings of men who love. When they VOW to weep seas, live in fire, eat rocks, tame tigers; thinking it harder for our mistress to devise imposition enough than Tor us 10 undergo any difficulty imposed This IS the monstruosity in love, lady-that the will is infinite and the execution con fined that the desire is boundless, and the act a slave to limit" In the fever and ague of love the good Troilus had sworn; 70 Pandarus! I tell thee, Pandarus- | how my drown'd,
 Reply not in how many fathoms deep
 They lie indrenchd. I tell thee, l am mad In Cressid's love: Thou answerst, She Is fair;
 Pour'st in the open ulcer of my heart
 Her eyes, her hair, her cheek, her gait her voice;
 Handlest in thy discourse, o, that her hand,
 In whose comparison all whites are ink, Writing their own reproach; to whose soit seizure The cygnets down Is harsh, ana splii' 0i sense
 Hard as the palm of ploughman! This L thou tells me,
 As true thou tellst me, when say-l love her;
 But. saying this instead of oil and balm Thou lay'st in every gash that love hath given me
 The knife that made it
 
 This sort of insanity that men call love and women dream divine is appointed Tor good and therefore is eternal in the human spirit and of eternal interest to the human senses. All men love to talk of love, and all women love to hear it talked TO the humblest toiler, bent-b9 cked with the bur- den of the centuries and without hope of earthly riches, to the king, weighted with the greatness of the ages and the splendors is Q nTipplpGSlV cious It is blessed comfort to the one when the night of rest is fallen upon the place of the poor and to the other in the shad- owed chambers whence sleep is fled to seal the eyelds of the rude ship's-boy upon the dizzy mast far out at sea. It brightens the curly head of the son of want, and adds lustre to the curly head that one day the crown shall press. For the needles poor slave it speeds every stitch and softens with a tender grace every heartbeat at morn and in the weary twilight. Even so, 1t sets bounding the soul of plentys fair daughter, slave of pleasures. swinging upon the gate and listening to the worshiper's story with the mockbird'S notes between the phrases of fidelity, the while the star beams kiss the brow that awaits another greeting; and when beauty lays her down upon perfumed couch, sweet resting place of innocence, love shapes the draperies and soothes to dreamful slumber of bliss through which tiptoe the angels of nameless hopes and promises Such as these love touches and glorifes; and so love marks all the children of earth, from the marsh land of toll to the summit whereon is bulded the palace of plenty for the play fellows of pleasure.
 Loving and doing make up all that is worthy of life" urged the grey philosopher who came last nightfall to the workbench where the briar-root pipe has burned through many a nightfall of unrest The peace he came upon was lent a softer glow by his gentle mein and yet gentler philoso- phy and when he went regretted away he left upon the white paper the steady trac- ing of flowing and doing" It is fairest philosophy: it might be sacred writ. Love lifts children and women and men above themselves, and lends to very heart selfshness a color of unSelfiShneSS, which sets them doing something that were bet ter than they were wont to do before love came to sway them to loves better pur- poses. No good was ever done in the world that was not inspired of love, and every lefe is begotten of primal good waiting upon primal wrong. Born of love has been every lofty human impulse, even piety. Yea, even martyrdom! The trGant hoy, stirred by that something he knows not to name, is less truant, less rudely a roySter- CT. And the boy is father to the man in this as in all essential things. Woman may be the initial incident to that enno-
 
 God. Vows to my lady may lead to holy vows without which life can be com plete. There is another life needed to fill worthily every life, and that life is not of the world: yet things of this world point the way. There is hope for even the fools; and sometimes the star of promise long shines above woman's head God is love. The wayfaring man, though a fool, need not err. '.The elephant hath joints, but none for courtesy: his legs are legs for necessity, not for fexure." You know the elephant.
 'I said Good morrow, Ajax; and he replies Thanks, Agamemnon. ''This shall be told our lovers lord Eneas: If none of them have soul in such a kind We left them all at home: But we are sold iers:
 And may that soldier a mere recreant DrOVe
 That means not hath not or is not In loVe!'
 Tn the beginninC of the ploan nino of