It contained only a few lines, wishing happiness to the bride and
bridegroom, and hoping they all might meet in Europe, should the
wedding trip extend so far. "And as for you, my dear niece," continued
the writer, "whenever you think of me remember that little poem of
Emerson's that we read on the rocks the last time I saw you. The longer
I live the more of truth do I find in it, especially in the last verse:
"'Heartily know,
When half-gods go,
The gods arrive!'"
"What does that mean?" demanded Redmond, looking up from the letter.
"We can not know except by experience," answered Mary Leithe.
"SET NOT THY FOOT ON GRAVES."
_New York_, _April 29th_.--Last night I came upon this
passage in my old author: "Friend, take it sadly home to thee--Age and
Youthe are strangers still. Youthe, being ignorant of the wisdome of
Age, which is Experience, but wise with its own wisdome, which is of
the unshackeled Soule, or Intuition, is great in Enterprise, but slack
in Achievement. Holding itself equal to all attempts and conditions,
and to be heir, not of its own spanne of yeares and compasse of
Faculties only, but of all time and all Human Nature--such, I saye,
being its illusion (if, indeede, it be illusion, and not in some sorte
a Truth), it still underrateth the value of Opportunitie, and, in the
vain beleefe that the City of its Expectation is paved with Golde and
walled with Precious Stones, letteth slip betwixt its fingers those
diamondes and treasures which ironical Fate offereth it.
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