Miniatures.

Evening Post, Issue 51, 29 February 1908, Page 10

Miniatures.

A Fool and a Poet met. "How does tho world servo you?" asked the former. "Badly enough!" sighed the- Poet. "I afk them for bread and they give me a btono." "That's not at all bad. You can throw the stono back and hurt them. They only give me praibe, and I can npither eat it nor throw it back at ii man came to the gates of the Garden of Blessing. "What claim has thou?" asked he who sat thci'c. "I have never grumbled. I have always been content with my lot." "Then, my friend, go back and remain with it." Year in and year out he toiled along tho broad road that ran thiough tho Valley of Sin. Above him, white and sciene, towerad tho Hilltops of Righteousness. So at last he ramo to the end of the road, and ono questioned him on hie journey. "Never could I find tho turning that led to the hilltops," ho complained "Thou fool," said that one ; "there is no turning. Only with infinite courage and labour can thou climb alono up the ctocp and pathless face of the rock. One came from another world. He went down fleet-street, and saw tho weary, witless men who wrote daily of Nature and her boautica. He went to a theatre, and heard those who sang of her charm. Ho went into tho country, and heard poasants grumbling of their lot and sighing for tho town. He watched "sportsmen," who rent the magnificence silences with tho harsh crack of rifles, and destroyed wantonly the blithest of birds and beasts. Then he mot a philosopher. "I have seen those who live with Nature, those who ravish her splendours, those who write and ting of her. Now, where are thost. who love hor?' And, like all men with a reputation, tho philosopher was silent. A man journeyed in search of love. ] Weary and despairing, he camb to tho other edgo of life ever complaining of his failure. There one met him, old and white* haired and infirm like himsolf. "Who art thou?" asked the man. "I am what thou hast, sought. " "I sought one young and fair." "That was I. Ever at thy side 1 have gone with thee, and grown old in waiting ; but never hat thou looked to tho right or left." Tho gardon was divided. One side nad responded well to tho hand of the gardener, tho other was luxuriant in its unhindered wildnpss. On tho one hanri lilies and violots gicw beneath tho cool ness of the oak tirps ; on tho othc poppies and buttercups flourished undor a blazing pun. An ominous bvec7c crept slowly from out the north, stiring tho wildeni garden into waves of crimson and gold. Behind the oak bnles tho lilies stood erect, unmoved. Night camo, and with' it tho tempest. 2Nexfc morning Iho poppies waved a3 over ; but the violets and lilies lay crushod beneath tho fallen oaks. A man camo before the great bestowqr, and pleaded that he might have a flower -£or his ow-n. Jtlis requost was granted. , Day by day ho sat and watched it tonderly, gloiying in its development Ho dreamed of nothing else. He worshipped it. "Then it died: ho had forgotten to water it. .\nd the man cursed a blind and prejudiced Fate. A man encq entered into tho victory chamber of his own /soul. Ono by ono ho took down ancl examined the tatterod banners of his spiritual life Anon ho came to oie, new and splendid, whereon was biased this legend in letters of burnished gold: "I wcs placod here at tho moment, you entered this chamber. "—Walter Higgina, in tho Westminster Gazette. ■