第44章 ON MEMORY(3)

Ghosts! They are with us night and day.They walk beside us in the busy street under the glare of the sun.They sit by us in the twilight at home.We see their little faces looking from the windows of the old school-house.We meet them in the woods and lanes where we shouted and played as boys.Hark! cannot you hear their low laughter from behind the blackberry-bushes and their distant whoops along the grassy glades? Down here, through the quiet fields and by the wood, where the evening shadows are lurking, winds the path where we used to watch for her at sunset.Look, she is there now, in the dainty white frock we knew so well, with the big bonnet dangling from her little hands and the sunny brown hair all tangled.Five thousand miles away! Dead for all we know! What of that? She is beside us now, and we can look into her laughing eyes and hear her voice.She will vanish at the stile by the wood and we shall be alone; and the shadows will creep out across the fields and the night wind will sweep past moaning.Ghosts! they are always with us and always will be while the sad old world keeps echoing to the sob of long good-bys, while the cruel ships sail away across the great seas, and the cold green earth lies heavy on the hearts of those we loved.

But, oh, ghosts, the world would be sadder still without you.Come to us and speak to us, oh you ghosts of our old loves! Ghosts of playmates, and of sweethearts, and old friends, of all you laughing boys and girls, oh, come to us and be with us, for the world is very lonely, and new friends and faces are not like the old, and we cannot love them, nay, nor laugh with them as we have loved and laughed with you.And when we walked together, oh, ghosts of our youth, the world was very gay and bright; but now it has grown old and we are growing weary, and only you can bring the brightness and the freshness back to us.

Memory is a rare ghost-raiser.Like a haunted house, its walls are everechoing to unseen feet.Through the broken casements we watch the flitting shadows of the dead, and the saddest shadows of them all are the shadows of our own dead selves.

Oh, those young bright faces, so full of truth and honor, of pure, good thoughts, of noble longings, how reproachfully they look upon us with their deep, clear eyes!

I fear they have good cause for their sorrow, poor lads.Lies and cunning and disbelief have crept into our hearts since those preshaving days--and we meant to be so great and good.

It is well we cannot see into the future.There are few boys of fourteen who would not feel ashamed of themselves at forty.

I like to sit and have a talk sometimes with that odd little chap that was myself long ago.I think he likes it too, for he comes so often of an evening when I am alone with my pipe, listening to the whispering of the flames.I see his solemn little face looking at me through the scented smoke as it floats upward, and I smile at him; and he smiles back at me, but his is such a grave, old-fashioned smile.We chat about old times; and now and then he takes me by the hand, and then we slip through the black bars of the grate and down the dusky glowing caves to the land that lies behind the firelight.There we find the days that used to be, and we wander along them together.He tells me as we walk all he thinks and feels.I laugh at him now and then, but the next moment I wish I had not, for he looks so grave I am ashamed of being frivolous.Besides, it is not showing proper respect to one so much older than myself--to one who was myself so very long before I became myself.