The Beaver herald. [volume] (Beaver, O.T. [Okla.]) 1895-1923, 1915-08-05
ON LIFE'S HIGHWAYS
STRANGE MEETINGS THAT FATE
WILL BRING ABOUT.
Graduates Of the Same University, In
Different circumstances, communed
In the Northern Woods--"The
Weary Ways Of Men,"

Weary Ways Of Men,"
A graduate Of a great university was
camped one night six years ago in the
woods of northern Michigan. He and
his companions, lying upon bed of
spruce boughs, with their feet to the
fire OF blazing pine roots, heard twigs
cracking out in the darkness. They
sat up quickly as a man emerged from
the shadow into the freight, young
man, unshaven, unkempt, battered by
fate, and carrying bundle under his
arm.
The stranger ate and then he sat on
his launches by the fire, with his
knees in his arms, and smoked and
talked. In n pause of the conversa-
tion the graduate, looking dreamily
out toward the shadowy forest aisles,
and hardening to the soughing of the
night wind in the pine trees, quoted
this bit from Mathew Arnold's Dover
Beach,"
The sea of faith
Was once. too. at it's full, and round
earthly shore
Lay like the folds OF bright girdle
furl'c
But now / only hear
Its melancholy long. withdrawing roar,
Retreating, to the breath
OF the night-wind, down the vast edges
drear,
And naked shingles OF the world.
There he paused, and Immediately
the stranger took up the quotation and
continued It:
All. love, let us be true
To one another For the world, which
seems
To lie before us like a land of dreams,
So various, SO beautiful, so new,
Hath really neither JOY. nor love. nor
light.
Nor certitude. nor peace nor help for
pain:
And we are here as on darkening plain,
Swept by confused alarms Of struggle and
flight
Where ignorant armies clash by night.
The stranger was a graduate of the
same university. For seven years he
had been drifting, with no definite
aim, but always carrying in his bundle
three books, the "Rubaiyat," "Medita-
tions of Marcus Aurelius" and the
"Oxford Book of English Verse;"
The stranger took from his bundle
the book of verse, and the other grad
uate dug out of his knapsack copy of
Matthew Arnold's poems, and there,
by the freight in the forest, they ex-
changed books, and sat until morning
talking, and then they ate again and
the stranger took his bundle under his
arm, and, as they shook hands in part
ing, he quoted T. z. Browns:
To live within a cave-it is most good;
But II God makes day
And someone come and say:
'Iol ! have gathered faggots in the
wood"
Fen let him stay,
And light fire, and fan a temporal
mood,
So sit TIL morning. when the light Is
grown
That he his path may read.
Then bid the man God-speed.
His morning is not thine, yet must thou
own
They have cheerful warmth. those
ashes on the stonel
And 80 they parted, and each forgot
to ask the others name, and they
never met again.
One day last week that same uni
versity graduate, who had been camp
ing In the northern woods, went into
restaurant ON Grand avenue in
Kansas City for bite and sup. 1t
was a cheap 'shcrt order" place. The
woman who came to take his order
glanced at little golden watch key
that hung from his fob and smiled.
When she returned with his ten-cent
plate Of beans and coffee she looked
again at the key. which was the in
sigma OF the Phi Beta Kappa honor
fraternity, and said:
"Et tn in Arcadia vixisti" ("And
you have lived in Arcadia?")
The graduate stared in astonish-
ment, fingered his fraternity key. and
asked:
You recognize that?"
Il? Certainly. ! have key myself
But ! keep 1t in my room"
"And how came you here? What's
the story?"
For answer she quoted this line
from Ernest Dawson;
THE weary ways OF men," and went
for another order of beans.-Kansas
City Star.