A TALE OF LOVE....

In a lonely house sat a youth in the morning of his life. He sat looking now through the window at the starry sky, now at the picture of a woman in his hand. A picture it was the line and color of which was reflected in his face. The picture of a woman's face speaking to him and making his eyes ears; putting in him understanding of the language of the hovering spirits in that room; bringing to birth hearts lighted by love and filling with yearning.

So passed the hour as a minute of pleasant dreaming, or as a year from eternity. Then the youth sat the picture before him and took up pen and paper and wrote:

"Beloved of my soul: Great and sublime truths pass not from one human creature to another by way of human speech; rather do they choose silence as a road between souls. I know that the stillness of this night is a messenger between our two spirits bearing messages even more tender than those the breeze writes upon the water's face; reciting the pages of our two hearts to each other. As God willed that our souls be placed in the prison of our bodies, so did love decree that I should be the prisoner of words.

"They say, my darling, that love through worship turns into a all-consuming fire. I have found that the hour of separation does not prevail against the joining of our unearthly selves, as I have known with the first meeting that my spirit was your companion for countless ages, and that your first glance was not in truth, the first glance.

"Ah, my love , verily the hour that did join our two hearts exiled from another world was one among many that upheld my believing in the eternity of the spirit and its immortality. In such an hour does Nature tear away the veil from the face of timeless justice that people think injustice.

"Do you recall, beloved, the garden wherein we stood, each regarding the face of a loved one? And your glances told me your love for me sprang not from pity. Those glances taught me to proclaim to myself and to the world that the gift whose source is justice is greater than that which begins in charity. And love that is created of circumstance is like the waters of a swamp.

"Before me, my love, is a life I would to be great and beautiful. A life that will be dear to the memory of future men and evoke their love and esteem. A life whose beginning was your meeting, of whose immortality was assured. for I believe that your being was able to bring back the strength that God had taken from me. Yea, even as the sun brings forth fragrant flowers of the field. And so does my love remain to me and to the ages and endure free from selfishness, that it may be spread abroad and be raised above small things in its devotion to you."

The youth rose and walked across the room slowly. Then he looked again from the window and saw that the moon had risen, filling the firmament with its gentle radiance. He returned to the letter and wrote:

"Forgive me, beloved, for I have spoken to you as another person, yet you are my half that I lost when we emerged from the hand of God on the same moment. Forgive me."