River Falls journal. [volume] (River Falls, Pierce County, Wis.) 1872-2019, 1920-05-13

song"
John Masefeld.
As it was impossible for the writer
to be present when the last kind offic-
es were performed for her whom we
so loved, let me here offer my tribute,
speaking the things within my heart.
Many visitors came to see mother
here in the little place with it's win
dows looking out over the historic
Hudson and so often they said, in
leaving: "What wonderful woman"
She seemed to have taken them up
into that sphere of exalted earnest
ness which was her true abode, and
there to have communicated to them
something of the secret of her
strength and her steadfastness, and
they left her as if in possession of a
sacred password, to be treasured,
guarded, always.
To Eliza Loring Nye daily life
was no commonplace and humdrum
matter. 1t was thing of vividness
--of three-plane vitality, in which
the activities of body, mind and soul
must be kept abreast. Up to her fin
al year her interest in national and
international concerns was as keen
as that of any man of affairs, out in
the world of action. Her literary dis
elimination was unerring and less than
year ago she was clipping from the
papers and magazines the choicest
bits of verse accounts of the new
est inventions, and of the latest re-
searches in the field Of science. Her
interest never tagged, and she never
became just an onlooker, till after she
she was l92. The young, the mid
dle-aged, the old, found in her joy
Gus companion. Her message was al
ways of Life--not death. She loved
flowers and music and perfume. She
revelled in beautiful shades and tints:
and she adored the open SKY.
No human being was ever more in
need of wings, and the pull OF mind
and soul against the restraints OF
bodily decline was terrific. She
thought and felt with such intensity
that in her later years she seemed
like one already disembodied-a CEN
tralized desire for life-a focused will
which would not be denied its demand
for knowledge and for the truth. Her
whole being was challenge.
She was woman whose true sphere
was among big events, big relation
ships, and her Interpretation of hui
man problems was ever in big terms.
She reached out, always,-not as an
idle dreamer, but as an eager partlc-
ipant, in all those spiritual and So
cial processes which make for Uni
versal Brotherhood; and although she
saw the sad significance of the stages
Of suffering through which the world
must pass, yet her faith in the final
outcome, the ultimate realization OF
the dream never faltered.
She talked often of what she called
her "Object Lessons" These were
waking visions, snatches of Cosmlc
Consciousness, which left an indelli-
BILE impression in her own mind: and
when they were related, in parable
form, they conveyed a unique and UNI
forgettable lesson. One of these ex-
periences she described many times,
something in this manner:
81 saw the earth-life spread out
before me like great map. | be-
held the phantasmagoria of mortal
ignorance, and greed, and strife.
saw the human species, grouped, like
insects, all intept upon just the ma :
terial SIDE of Extraordinarily, clan,
nation-resisting each other; always
in opposition-always either IN actu-
al conflict, or preparing for it, or
staggering, torn and bleeding, under
the effort to recover itself-blind to
any higher and better way. The hu-
man race, in spite eff the seeming adj
vance recorded by history, notwith-
standing its marvellous inventions,
its astounding discoveries-the up
lifting power OF its literature and its
art; and after all the sacrifice of its
heroes and its martyrs, appeared here
as just thing that grovelled-wil-
fully selfish, wasteful, visionless.
'Long l watched. Suddenly the
whole picture was shut out as by the