The Columbia herald. [volume] (Columbia, Tenn.) 18??-1935, 1901-04-12
CHAPTER XXI.

woman who grieves in silence broadens
and deepens. sending down into her
own life far-reaching roots and I'M
folding upward rare auxiliary bios
SONS that fill the life about her with
divine breathings Such was the eX-
perience of Frances Brookin. Thrown
back upon herself. conscious of inno-
cence, and feeling always the presence
of sorrow, the sorrow of great dis
appointment, she saw her girlhood
slipping away faster than time itself;
for it is true that age is the sum of
experience rather than years, and all
of life may be lived between the set
ting and the rising of the sun. But
with Frances this change was not the
shrinking of the soul into forgetful-
ness; it was an enlargement of view
and perspective in which old headlands
assumed smaller proportions. New
imperative duties they seemed. arose
and met her; new responsibilities pre-
sented themselves; she faced them all
bravely, hopefully, lovingly. The fine
quality of her soul proved itself in the
casting out of all the bitterness which
had in the first hours of her misfor-
tune stormed its citadel and raised
somber banners there. The victory
over self won by this frail girl was so
marvelously complete that no cynicism
supplanted her innocent faith in the
eternal existence Of truth and good
ness and their ultimate triumph over
evil. Her touching acceptance of life
IN its new aspect was not born in
day. There were weeks of anguish;
there were months of dull heartache
and loneliness; there were tear-wet
pillows and nights of crying out against
fate; for the death of an ideal is the
saddest death in all the universe. since
for this there is no resurrection. The
girlish ideal of Frances Brookin was
dead at last and slept under the petals
of faded white rose. Richard Somers
was out of her life. out of her heart.
The man she loved had never existed,
she told herself. He was a dream, a
romance, an immaculate conception of
virgin mind. The real man was the
unworthy offspring of base, worldly
passions; he was nothing to her but
a name.
Political events fastened the girl
into womanhood and towards that
large tolerance with which the strong
soul at last invariably encysts the in
eXplicable and unwelcome facts it can
not avoid. With one leap the fierce
south entered the arena Of war, and
Virginia hills echoed the mingled
cheers of contending armies and the
thunder of mighty guns. Richmond
seemed to have become. as in a day,
the center of intrigue and of action.
On every side flashed the gold and sill
YER of wars rich trappings. Plumes
danced in the breeZes and the confed-
crate gray met the eye, rest where it
would. From the capitol the banner
of new nation foated proudly. and
beneath it echoed the tramp of march
ing legions. the galloping hoof-beats
of horses. through all hours of day and
night. Men, in this hitherto staid old
southern city, hurried, under the spur
of emotions that seemed born of a con-
tagion in the air, and anxious women
went about with willing hands to aid
in every department they might in
wade. Among these. her life adjusting
itself easily and gratefully to the new
demands, was Frances Brookin. the
tenderness of her fine face softeneG
and deepened into divine womanliness
the love-ray eloquent in her melting
eyes.
Swiftly the holiday side of the wal
had faded out of view, Agonized 81
lence swallowed up laughter. For The
drift was coming in from where the
storm of battle ragged, wrecks of hu
man forms once freighted with life's
rarest merchandise. Soon every hos
pital, every available space in church
and public building and the most spa
cious of private homes were to have
their quota of the wounded, the dying
and the dead. The southern woman wa
entering upon that field of labor il
which she achieved her noblest dignity
her fame its immortality. Foremos
among those who first gave their en-
ergies, their whole lives to the allevia
ton ofssuifering, the inspiration of tn
hopeless and the despairing was Fran
ces Brookin. Free to dispose of he
time sshe would and with an album
dant means at her disposal, she mad
herself a ministeTng angel wherevc
soldier suffered. Day and night 81
labored, sustained by boundless patr
otism and an citation for which sh
could not account, try as she would
She failed in her self-analysis froI
ignorance of the fact that a voice tina
has once spoken to the heart is neve
quite silent afterwards, End tia
youth when il bureS its dead trample
uut the sod above it, Fiery hatred {
the invader possessed her, as it di
her sisters; bred in the bone and nour
isked with the mothers milk. il cou!
not De que.led except by years Of gent
association and common cause, bl
by strange paradox this bitterne
excluded every stained and blood
blue uniform or haggard northern fac
Out of the fight, these we're ever out
the sweep of a southern woman's We
geance. Upon the suffering prisone
Frances delighted to lavish the tendt
ness of her nature, now broadened al
Geeppped by its own ministry; al