KEEPSAKES.

Otago Witness, Issue 2207, 18 June 1896, Page 43

KEEPSAKES.

. I had a rose, a white, white rose, Twm given me long ago. In fhVhush t»f a lolden twilight, When all the world was gone. It lies in an old book, faded, Between the pages white, But .the ages cannot dim the dream It brought to me that night, — •Sonf. " Keep*ak«s".is an old-fashioned word. Tb is contemporary with "Books of Bsaufcy/ with an age of tender sentiment* with Losfl Byron's poetry, and^'ladiea' men,** Thexe,ll • an odour of dried rose leaves, of kvandw and delioate spices about the word, bo muori does it savour of tbe past when the busy: athletio woman and the argumentative poll* tioal woman were unknown. "Souvenir," "memento," these are oar modern words, but they have an sffttflolaL pompons «rand beside the simple, dear oM word " keepsake." " From me <to yon/ became I love yon and yon mast not forget me. Those are the keepsakes that were given to ns, saored for over for dear love'o sake, and these are the keepsakes that we treasure in memoriam. Here is a hideous patobwotf cushion whose intricacies make the brain reei ; it has a place of hononr in the moorish alcove' of an exqulsitely-f amlshed room ) U is more preoioas to the dear old lady who owns it than all the beautiful triumphs of art and wealth ttbat adorn her rooms, ShO has only one eon, for the good God took alt her other children to Himself while they were in [their stainless ohildhood j and 4Q yean ago the tiny fingers of that one little son ocnoooted that wonderful cushion undei sorgo's direction as " a surprise for mother* He is a handsome elderly man now, ft oaptain in her Majesty's navy, and bis mother's favourite psalm is the twenty -third, and he* favourite hymn is " Eternal Father, strong U> save." Every mail, .when practicable, brings k long, loving letter to the dear old father anty . mother, and the house Is full of the rio& embroideries, the. carvings, bronzes, obino, ," and strange curios which " the oaptain " Uf always sending home. Bat among all thic rare and costly collection there is nothing so precious as that old jpatohwork oashion wniotii , the ohild worked for his mother's keepsake 1 40 years ago!' Here in my mother's Bible lies a quaint old keepsake whose only beauty is that 0$ assoolafcioo. It is an old bookmarker worked on perforated cardboard in silks whose brifc liance has long since faded. "Praise the Lord upon tbe barp " runs the legend, and the harp, elaborately wrought in shining silks, occupies the centre of the design, while beneath it is the dedioatlon in striking capital!, "To dear Hiss Anne." I never saw my deal mother so angry with as as she was when she discovered as .laughing over her ancient keepsake. "It was given to me as a keep* sake from my Sunday school class when I left England to be married, and the handsome Bible itself was not so dear to me as that," she said. Ah mcl what keepsakes: we most of as have; how few of them have any value of their own ; how many are v riob in tbe perfume of love and sorrow as they are poor in intrinsic wealth. An old glove, a faded ribbon, a withered flower, a scrap of paper with a few words.in a dearly-loved handwriting, a visiting card, a ball programme, a broken sleeve-link — this and that, all equally worthless, yet potent to recall the keenest joys and sorrows of that variety entertainment we call so. emphatically our 'Uife," As if there were no other life I' How passing strange are, the lecon- ' ceivablftychauges which millions of lives*— no two exactly alike— manage to ring oat of the same- .elements. Always the same ndver mixed in the same pro* ■portion. It in the proportion wbioh makea thjß difference. How else could such variety be got from a little love, a little hate, lips that smile, and eyes that weep, the joy or health, the torture of pain, with birth at ona end of the chain and ae&th.at the other. So, too, with keepsakes, for they mutelX

testify to the character of the keeper, and they are the (rail outward tokens of seorets that have never been spoken, the dim, sad shapes that belong to the " might have been " «f life. Some people have a passion for small holocausts of their treasures. From time to time they recognise the end of an episode. Perhaps it Is a oherishod friendship, and that sad hour has oome of which Longfellow writes in "The Fire of Driftwood " :— And all that fills the hearts of friends When first they feel with secret pain Their lives henceforth have separate ends, And never can be one again. • The first light" swerving of the heart ■ Which words are powerless to express, And leave jit still unsaid in part, Or say it tn too great excess. Then such people sigh over the vanity of life, and at onoe consign their ill-fated sentiment to the limbo of - ' The long-lost ventures of the heart ° ' That send no answer back again. Everything that reminds them of the false friend or the fickle lover, is consigned to the flames. Or if death has stolen away wife or child, eaoh' cherished belonging, eaoh gay little toy .must- be put' out- of sijjht— some- ' times .•• beneath the coffin lid." I .remember a mother who lost the flower of her flock by a dreadful, accident on a brilliant, frosty winter's day;- His most .cherished treasures ■belaid in tbe.coffin with him. With never a tear she went through the house and gathered up all that belonged to him, locking them a,way from careless touch or sigh*, and upon his name fell the mantle of a silence saored tp her voiceless gtief. Bret Harte is not always true when he sings that, ' Never a tear bedims the eye That time and patience will not dry, Never a lip is curved in pain • That oannot be kissed to smiles agun. The grief that is silent, that has no keeplakes nor softens its' cruel pain with tears, is the most terrible grief of all. But if a vein of sadness creeps into our thoughts of keepsake*, it is notTbecause they are all necessarily sad 2 Far from it. I have v girl friend who counts as her greatest treasure a bundle of letters left to her by her mother—faded ink and old-fashioned paper, and tied np with a bit of " china " ribbon. Thus runs the label, written in a delicate pointed Italian hand : " Letters kept for their loving kindness and gratitude." Those letters ■how the mother's life as it was known only to her God, for she "did her good works tn secret." " I have another friend who has a lovely silky look of hair daintily tied with blue put away In her jewel oase. It looks like a child's hair, but it isnot— only a dear little dog's who lived io long ago that he was called after a popular aong which many of my readers will not even remember, " Tommy Dodd." Beside the look of. hair lies_a crooked- stained bit of wood, and-tb'at was a terrible "stake " that lamed ■ htr.'favburiU v horce !an,d made, the founda- . tlorf of ,a storjr she loves to tell. And/deeper, things lie hidden In the long >.bead roll -' of* -.!' Keepsakes 1 " than the. sweet; memory of an absent son or the pathos of a Child, . . „ . , gone into that school ' Where she no longer needs our poor protection And Christ Himself doth rule. Fairer things even than the hidden ohroniolesof a good woman's benef actionb ; more trivial things than the remembrance of a favourite horse or a faithful dog. Life's deepest sorrow — the sorrow that is darkened with shame— and th« tragedy that is bloodstained, have their history written in keep- • sakee, mate trifles that lid in that olosest

sympathy with the emotions, where speech .can never come. Here lies the clasp and the crimson ribbon Of the Legion of Honour, bat the s'ght of it, alas I does only send up strong unwearying prayers to heaven for one who lived to stain and disgrace the promise of his brave manhood—one who' waa brave as a lion at the cannon'B moutb, yet had no strength to say to the beautiful woman who drew him to a f hamef ul death

I could not love thee, dear, so well Loved I not honour more. There lies a faded rose— not the white, white rose of our song, but one that tells ite > pitiful story plainly enough in the words : There in the dusty street Lay'my love token ; * * Last night so pure and sweet, Now soiled, and broken. the story of. a love tender and true on the one side, but. broken; trampled,' and stained on the other, swallowed up in the darkness of sin, ending in the tragedy of death. But for thiß man— there are abmt such men, you know— life had ho second love : there lies the rose, his one keepsake — Still to me pure and sweet, Though soiled and broken. Here, saddest of ail, for it is darkened by a living hate as well as stained by a dead crime, lies a {keepsake — a look of thin grey hair stained with blood. It is the memorial of a terrible murder for which no man has yet suffered punishment. But the man in whose desk it lies bidden lives only for vengeance ; he rises early and works late, and "eats the bread of carefulness," while mornIng and evening he prays to Heaven for help— For he has forgotten that " Vengeance is mine, I will repay, saith the Lord."