The White Shield
Preface
The editor takes great pleasure in being able to give to the public another volume from the pen of the lamented author – Myrtle Reed. These fascinating bits of fiction reflect the characteristics of the writer; the same vivid imagination, the quick transition from pathos to humour, the facility of utterance, the wholesome sentiment, the purity of thought, the delicacy of touch, the spontaneous wit which endeared her to friends and to thousands of readers, not only in Europe and America, but also in Australia and South Africa, are here fully represented.
Her mission was largely one of comfort to the suffering and the sorrowing; letters of good cheer went to far-away countries where her personal ministry could reach in no other way, and her writings are rich with sympathy and hope which have poured the oil of gladness into many a wounded spirit.
Pathos is not sadness, but it is rather the sunshine gleaming through a passing cloud, and hence the writings of Myrtle Reed are illumined with the gladsome light of unfailing love. Not only in her books and in letters to troubled souls, but also in her personal records, we find the unfading lines of a deeply devotional nature which was sacredly guarded from the careless observer and seldom discussed even with friends. But in this abiding faith was rooted the brave loyalty and high purpose which not only characterised herself, but also all of her productions.
The beautiful stories here presented have given pleasure to thousands of readers in the magazines in which they first came into print, and it is to the unvarying courtesy of the publishers that we are indebted for the privilege of thus binding the scattered grain into a single golden sheaf.
For the many letters of sincere sympathy which, in response to a formal request, have come from these stranger-friends, the editor is especially grateful.
Chicago, February, 1912.
The magic East lies in enchanted shadow —
A Titan dreaming fitfully of day,
The ghostly mists are deep upon the meadow
Outlined against the hillside faintly grey;
The portent of the dawn has strangely swayed
The silver birches, trembling and afraid.
Too long the hosts of Dark have held the plain,
The King of Night at last must end his reign;
With rapturous accord doth earth acclaim
The tidings of new life for heart and brain,
Behold the night hath passed away in flame!
Sea-born and strong, the winds begin to blow
Against the cliffs, the billows break in spray;
Returning waters meet and overflow —
White-plumed battalions marshalled for the fray;
Upon the beach the foaming cavalcade
Beats yet once more with rhythmic cannonade.
Afar the boundless reaches of the main
Show lines of white that fall and rise again,
A morning song the sea's lips soon shall frame,
Insistent and with passionate refrain,
Behold the night hath passed away in flame!
Athwart the sombre East there comes a glow —
A thrill, a tremble, then a slender ray,
A single arrow from the sun-god's bow
Strikes on the zenith like a star astray;
Swiftly does the light of Venus fade,
Her gentle radiance for the night was made.
The distant hills take on a crimson stain
From fire-poppies set in golden grain
That wrought of light puts harvest fields to shame;
Through feathery clouds there creeps a scarlet vein,
Behold the night hath passed away in flame!
The ramparts of the sunrise glorious grow,
Of what lost rubies builded, none may say,
What diamonds snatched from sunbeams or from snow —
What emeralds and violets lost by May
In those far off celestial walls are laid!
Imperial columns of jacinth and of jade,
Like dreamer's castles built in sunny Spain,
Before these jewelled entrances are lain;
Forgotten springs may summer now reclaim
And visions of the autumn yet remain,
Behold the night hath passed away in flame!
Reflected splendour on the sea below
Hath blazoned through the waves a royal way —
A path of glory such as angels know,
That leads the wondering soul to kneel and pray.
Stray threads of sun are shining in the glade,
Where dews of morning sparkle in the shade
The pearly webs an alien beauty gain;
High in the maple, down the leafy lane,
A robin's song with neither words nor name
Falls in a cadence like a silver rain,
Behold the night hath passed away in flame!
"Let there be light!" the angels now ordain,
For links of morning, distant seas enchain,
Into the waiting heart new courage came,
And from the deep there rose a siren strain —
Behold the night hath passed away in flame!
The White Shield
People said that Joe Hayward's pictures "lacked something." Even the critics, who know everything, were at a loss to find where the deficiency might be. Hayward, himself, worked hard studying the masters, patiently correcting faults in colour and perspective, and succeeding after a fashion. But he felt that art, in its highest and best sense, was utterly beyond him; there was a haunting elusive something which was continually beyond his reach.
Occasionally, when he sold a picture, he would give "a time" to a dozen artist chums from studios near by, as they did, whenever fortune favoured them; after this he would paint again, on and on, with a really tremendous perseverance.
At length, he obtained permission to make an exhibition of his work in a single room at the Art Gallery. The pictures were only ten in number, and some of them were small, but they represented a year's hard work. When he superintended the hanging, on Saturday morning, he was more nearly happy than he had ever been in his life. The placard on the door, "The Hayward Exhibition will open Monday," filled him with pleasure. It was not a conceited feeling of importance, but rather a happy consciousness that he had done his best.
At last he was suited with the arrangement. The men went out with the ladder and wire, and he stood in the centre of the room, contemplating the result. The landscape in the corner might be a little out of drawing, he thought, but the general public would not notice that. And the woman in white, beside it, which he had christened Purity certainly showed to good advantage. He remembered very well the day he had put the finishing touches upon it after the night of revelry in which he had helped Jennings and a dozen other fellows from neighbouring studios to celebrate the sale of Jennings' Study of a Head, and how he had thought, at the time, that he, who spent such nights, had no business to paint a figure like this of Purity.
As he turned to leave the room, he saw a grey gowned young woman, who evidently did