Waterbury Democrat., 1901-02-28

oS~NA
 called one by one out of the burning heat within to the cold embrace of the messenger outside. Stuart spent the day in a round of visits. At different places he found Andrew and Rhena and Eric. All of them were worn and sad with the burdens of all they had done and carried. Rhena especially seemed to show the strain of her great sacrifices. Stuart came very near speaking to her once about her over work. If he had. it is doubtful if he could have kept from telling his love in the same breath. Somehow he did not say it. And late in the evening he went home with a feeling as near the heartache as he ever knew. He seemed to have thought he must spend the day in as sacri1icial and helpful I manner as possible ill atonement for the evening he was to spend. But cer- tainly if ever man was in q poor frame of mind to enjoy festivity of the fash iOnable sort Stuart was that man. Jim Binney had died that afternoon, and Stuart had been there just in time to see Rhena kneel by the bed and pray as the spirit went back from the rough tabernacle to God who gave it. The words of the prayer and the great sobs of the miserable wife and mother, the cries of the children, the Wretched hut With it's few broken pieces of furni- ture, the snow patches on the floor, the dirty windows, the august dying of humanity in so commonplace and | for granted manner-all this filled | Stuarts heart as he came down into {! the brilliant rooms, decorated wit!i their garlands and bouquets of ,ex- rensive flowers and perfumed with that refinement which wealth cun- ningly spent knows so we'll how to pro- duce.
 1 Tho guests came, dressed in the lat i est and best that money can afford. | The conyersa ton was charming and 1 agreeable. To hear these men and wo- 1 men talk a stranger never could have 1 guessed that there was such thing as suffering in all thC world. The music was about love and flowers and beauty and sentimental phrases that had no meaning or q double one. The whole thing filled Stuart for the first time in ] his life With unspeakable loathing. It seemed to him like q dance in a ceme- tery, where the dancers might ina zine | they were waltzing over fra grant meadows dotted with white blossoms | when in reality it was on human graves they danced. black with the freshly laid earth of new made burials. He never knew how he passed the evening. He sang with Miss Vas blaine when Louise requested it. He heard a great applause when they had finished. Una was dressed beautifully. She was handsome, with great black eyes and much cclor. of the type of English girls, so different from Ihe- na, Stuart remembered thinking at one time during the evening. He found great difficulty in conversation. He had never been very apt at the slight nothings society knows so well how to exchange. Tonight he wondered if the world was so happy and satisfied ey- erywhcre that men and women. made in the image of God. had no better way l to spend their time than to meet for | bours every week dressed in their best clothes, eating expensive and indigesti- ble food singing songs that did not l contain ono noble aspiration higher than siclly sentiment, exchanging
 idiotic words thrown into sentences that had no throb of sacrifice or hero ism or manity in them, sitting at lit tie tables and playing cards by the
 hour with q persistence and repetition never shown for any enduring needs of | human suffering and then going home to sleep late next day and get up to l ir,er ,ot V of new ways of arranging flowers. card tables, menus and decorations ad intini- tum ad nauseanl after the manner of l what pleased to call itself the "best so-
 ciety."
 : Yes, the world must be getting on
 very smoothly. There is no real suffer, ing, no inequality, no need of heroism or sacrifice, no call for using human speech in any better way than to ex.
 change compliments. no use in trying to use time except to make money anc enjoy spending it, where women smile
 and sing, and flowers give out tleil
 perfume, and dancing feet strike the
 polished floor to the music of the
 strings behind the palms in the alcove
 For the world is society. What other
 world is there that calls for tears anG
 groans, and sacrifices and crosses, aE6
 bloody sweat and agony? Strike up tit
 music faster, faster! Let us eat
 drink and De merry, for tomorrow wt
 die.'' Surely society must be right. Tnt
 Aunt Royals and the I4ouises are cer
 tainly very proper and correct in theii
 estimates of what constitutes the righ thing to do. It cannot be that they art
 mistaken in this matter. Yet if the,
 arc it Is possible the great judgmen
 day will reveal it to them. After all death and the judgment are two dies