Yorkville enquirer. [volume] (Yorkville, S.C.) 1855-2006, 1909-02-16
DEATH AND WORK.
We All Stand Answering to the Call of
the Heroic.

We All Stand Answering to the Call Of
the Heroic.
Almost any chance bit Of common
experience we fall upon has been
made vivid for us on canvas or In
stone, and the world Is full Of pic
lures of death and suffering, death
and love, says Harper's Weekly. Who
that has ever gazed upon the wander
ing Demeter in the British Museum,
the baffied priestess and the sorrow
ing mother, does not turn back In
thought when a blow has fallen to
that rigid and austere face, that gaunt,
closely wrapped figure, standing so
self-absorbed and so apart there amid
the multitudinous forms Of life? Pic
lures we have, too, Of the glory OF
work, Of digging, mining, building,
buying, selling and one where the
great nineteenth century prophet OF
the gospel of work stands in the cor
ner and smiles his approving smile
upon the busy process. But perhaps
only Durer himself could have drawn
work as our sole and ultimate refuge
from the heartbreak Of surrounding
death. A picture 1t should be where
death is all the outer and inclosing
circle; the fair, the young, the strong,
the useful, the brave, the gallant,
should all lie prone and stark; babes
as innocent and sweet as those who
follow the blessed lady and her child
across the plains Of Egypt in Holman
Hunts Triumph Of the Innocents,"
but in the center should be those
whose lives are MANNED and divided,
grief blinded, heavy-laden, hopeless,
but carrying on with mans heroic,
unintermittent courage the sowing
and the reaping, the building, clean
ing, feeding, the ordering, the unend-
ing struggle we call life.
What a picture it would have been
had Durer done 1t; he with his uner-
ring eye for the unvarnished fact!
Blake never could have persuaded
himself to leave out the floating, ethe-
real bodies lowering above which la
beled him the seer of visions and the
dreamer of dreams. But Durer could
have sat alone with all the blackness
and formlessness of death and would
have painted for us the same indomit-
BILE mood which centuries ago led the
strong man to exclaim, Though He
slay me, yet will I trust Him." What
ever slough of despond life cast man
into, blindfolded and handcuffed, yet
he accepts the challenge to transform
it into beauty. The spirit Of man Is
erect and shall not be curbed.
Yes, all men are under sentence OF
suffering and death, and the reprieve
is, at best, but a short one; but as all
are under the sentence Of death, so
also do all stand answering to the
challenge of the heroic. However
small our footstool, however slight
our task, we have one and all to meet
gallantly the issues Of defeat and loss
and death.
Let the world drop to ashes about
US and we turn but the more resolute-
ly into ourselves and determine while
we linger to give ourselves to more
enlightened action, more continuous
creation, to endowing space with mat
ters fair to contemplate.
And what a wonder of heroism, af-
ter all, man is, living with the odds so
terribly against him, with so rough
course to run and no surety given for
either past or future, yet stopping to
bethink himself Of mercy, justice, par
don and trust.