The Eternal Maiden

The Eternal Maiden

The Project Gutenberg eBook, The Eternal Maiden, by T. Everett Harré
This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or
re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.net

Title: The Eternal Maiden
Author: T. Everett Harré

Release Date: June 20, 2005 [eBook #16093]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE
ETERNAL MAIDEN***
E-text prepared by Al Haines

THE ETERNAL MAIDEN
A Novel
by
T. EVERETT HARRÉ
Published by Mitchell Kennerley New York
Press of J. J. Little & Ives Company East Twenty-fourth Street New
York
1913

TO
EDGAR WILSON RIDDELL
JANUARY 31, 1892--JULY 2, 1912
IN MEMORY OF

A LIFE'S SUPREME FRIENDSHIP

THE ETERNAL MAIDEN
PRELUDE
_Long ages ago, darkness brooded over the frozen world and held in its
thrall the unreleased waters of the glacial seas. There was no animal life
upon the land, and in the depth of the waters no living thing stirred.
Kokoyah, the water god, breathed not; Tornahhuchsuah, the earth spirit,
who rules above the spirits of the wind and air, was veiled in slumber.
Men had risen like willows from the frozen earth; but, although they
lived, they were as the dead. They spake not, neither did they hunt, nor
eat, nor did they die. Then the Great Spirit, whose name is not known,
placed upon earth a man, in his arms the strength to kill, in his heart the
primal urge of love. And in that flowerless arctic Eden, out of its
bounteous compassion, the Great Spirit placed also a maiden, her face
beautiful with the young virginity of the world, in her bosom implanted
a yearning, not unmixed with fear, for love. Gazing upon her, the
youth's heart stirred, with desire, the maiden's with virginal terror. The
maiden fled, the youth followed. Over the desolate icy mountains the
fleet feet of the youth sped with the swiftness of the wind gods, over
the silent white seas the maiden with the elusiveness of the air spirits.
In the heart of the youth throbbed the passion of love, indomitable,
eternal, which the blasting breath of time should never kill. In the
maiden's bosom quaked a reasonless shame, an unconquerable terror.
Surrounded by her whirling cloud of hair, the maiden sprang, untiring,
across the wild white world. His strength failing, the youth pantingly
followed. Thousands of years passed; the breathless pursuit continued;
the maiden's nebulous hair became shot with streaks of golden fire,
from her eyes beams of light streamed across the expanses over which
she exultantly, fearfully bounded; the tremulous faltering youth's face
paled until it shone silvery in the darkness, and the beads of
perspiration on his forehead glowed with a strange lustre. Reaching, in
their mad race, the very edge of the earth, the maiden leaped, fiery, into
space, and her hair becoming suddenly molten, she became the sun--the
eternal maiden Sukh-eh-nukh, the beautiful, the all-desired. Utterly
exhausted, his wan arms yearningly outstretched, the youth swooned
after her into the heavens, and was transformed into the moon--the

ever-desiring, ever-sorrowing moon. In the smile of Sukh-eh-nukh the
seas melted. Walrus and narwhals, seals and whales came into being on
the bosom of Kokoyah; on the earth the snows disappeared, and the
brow of Tornahhuchsuah was crowned with green grasses and starry
flowers. Men hunted game, women laughed for joy; they beat drums,
they danced, they sang. By the eternal, unrequited passion of the lovers
in the skies, happiness and plenty came upon the earth. But, with Light,
came also Death. Jealous of men's happiness, Perdlugssuaq, the Great
Evil, brought sickness; he struck men on the hunt, on the seas, in the
mountains. He was ever feared. He made the Great Dark terrible. But
when the night became bright with the love-lorn glamour of the moon,
Perdlugssuaq was for the time forgotten; in their hearts men felt a
vague, tender, and ineffable stirring--the lure of a passion stronger and
stranger even than death. They gazed upon the moon with instinctive,
undefined pity. So, as the years passed, and ages melted and remade the
snows, the long day was golden with the Beauty that is ever desired,
the Ideal never attained; the night was softly silver with the melancholy
and eternal hope of the deathless love that eternally desires, eternally
pursues, and is eternally denied._
Thus runs the Eskimo legend.

I
"_Her cheeks were flushed delicately with the soft pink of the lichen
flowers that bloom in the rare days of early summer. Her eyes played
with a light as elusive, as quick as the golden radiance on the seas._"
Great excitement prevailed among