The World As I Have Found It | Page 2

Yet, it may be, more lofty
courage dwells In one meek heart that braves an adverse fate, Than his
whose ardent soul indignant swells, Warmed by the fight, or cheered
through high debate. The soldier dies surrounded; could he live Alone
to suffer, and alone to strive?"
So was rendered the sad soul-music of one of the legion,
"Who learned in sorrow What they taught in song."
and the weird words have been echoed by the voice of many a woman
all along, whose weary wanderings have burned the sacrificial fires;
amid the ashes of whose dead hopes the embers have flickered and
faded only to rekindle the lurid, lustrous light of added, and still added

offerings. There, waiting and watching the deep tracery "upon the sands
beside the sounding sea," find wave after wave wash away the mystic
hand-writing.
The ebbing tide carries afar the ships freighted with aching, anguished
hearts; when borne upon the swell of the flowing sea, come the swift
sails of Argosies richly laden with hope, full with fruition.
Within the heart of all there lies deeply imbedded the "Black Drop" of
which the Mahometan legend tells, and which the angel revealed to the
Prophet of Allah. 'Tis in aching anguish this drop must be probed and
purified, to be healed only through the endless eloquence of duty done.
The sightless eyes have vivid visions. Theirs is the light in darkness
which stirred the soul of a Milton with a "gift divine;" inspired a Homer
with the "fire and frenzy" which crowned an Iliad and an Odyssey, the
master pieces of Epic verse; gave to the antique and traditional
literature of the Celtic race its meteoric brilliancy, and produced the
weird, wondrous sublimity of an Ossian.
All who have read the Invocation to Light by the blind authoress, Mrs.
De Kroyft, must have realized the luminous light of a soul sublimated
by sorrow and swelling and soaring in eloquent strains.
'Tis but a simple song I must sing, a bird-note amid cathedral tones; but
may not its minstrelsy meet the heart and search the soul of many a
sorrowing one, or rise like the song of the nightingale to the throne of
Him who sees the lives enthralled?
If this little lesson of life can find a single searcher for the truth it tells,
or bear on the breath of the breeze "one soft Æolian strain," may I not
hope that it may help to swell the harp-notes of the heavenly
harmonies?

CHAPTER II.

"I remember, I remember How my childhood fleeted by-- The mirth of
its December, And the warmth of its July."
In a former volume I have recounted the varied scenes of an eventful
childhood, whose auroral dawn was tinted with the rose-hue and
perfumed with the breath of light-winged moments; even as the
Goddess of the Morning ushers in the new-born day with her
flower-laden chariot, and the bright Morning Star lends its light ere it
sinks under the horizon.
Having my birth on the rich soil of a Southern land, and cradled under
its tropical skies and sunny smiles, I was early transplanted to colder
climes and ruder blasts, yet through the nurture of a mother's gentle
hand, and the ministrations of a loving band of sisters and brothers,
whose talismanic touch toned every note, softened every sorrow and
heightened every hope, I could but bloom like an Alpine flower in its
bed of snow.
But in the golden chain there came to be, in time, a "missing link;" the
mother's life went out, and from the darkened fireside vanished the
little flock, scattered through various ways to various destinies.
My own was a slippery path to tread, and ofttimes led my weary feet
into the shadow, and gloom, and darkness. Through sickness, neglect
and maltreatment came all too soon "sorrow's crown of sorrow;" when
over the young life fell a dark pall, and eyes so used to light no longer
held the prisoned sunbeams, and passed forever under the relentless
bond and cruel curse of blindness. Then indeed my soul grew dark!
And could my restless eyes wait in thraldom for the dawn of an eternal
day, and must my wandering feet pass through the "valley of the
shadow," ere I could see the light "around the Great White Throne?"
Through a singular complication of circumstances I was led to the
home of a sister in Chicago, from whom I had long been separated; and
by equally singular ways I was also there reunited to three of my
brothers (Charles, William and Howard). Then my veiled vision could
not shut out the loved lineaments living in the pictured halls of
memory--the vision of a love-hallowed home, and a mother's face

crowning all. Scenes and faces gone, passed like a panorama before