4io 
LITERARY PAPERS 
as any one may prove by testing and proving in daily life the 
poet’s far-reaching conclusions. Now what is the meaning of 
all this externality of true speaking, true living, true searching ? 
Absolutely meaningless nothings, as external expressions pure 
and simple; but pregnant, all meaning and powerful as forms 
in which our thoughts live and breathe. These thoughts to be 
vital must be centred in the inner shrine of being with God; 
they must be firmly anchored by intent in the stream of Truth. 
Then, and not until then, will the outward forms of our speech 
and activity become vitalized entities, and not prove worthless 
husks. 
At the moment of death or great danger the veil is often¬ 
times raised and delusions vanish. 
“At the word, the woman’s eyes, slow wandering till they neared 
The blue eyes o’er the bush of honey-colored beard, 
Took in full light and sense and—tore to rags some dream 
Which hid the naked truth — O loud and long the scream 
She gave, as if all power of voice within her throat 
Poured itself wild away to waste in one dread note!” 
The thought of death brings another thought that beyond 
death higher Truth abides. When Alkestis in “ Balaustion’s 
Adventure” was borne to take her last look at the sun, and the 
living to look their last at Alkestis, Balaustion says, — 
“We grew to see in that severe regard, . . . 
What Death meant when he called her consecrate 
Henceforth to Hades. I believe, the sword — 
Its office was to cut the soul at once 
From life, — from something in this world which hides 
Truth, and hides falsehood, and so lets us live 
Somehow.” 
Often the realization of our true purpose of living becomes 
known to us by ways and means insignificant in themselves 
but great as their influences turn us to broader living and 
knowledge of good and evil. The flight of the Duchess is an 
incident where this thought finds expression. Events in our 
past lives may in years after, through memory, be powerful 
movers in freeing us from the fetters of Ignorance. Then, 
