 Every man has a genius for something or other. I have a genius for a comfortable armchair. Add to these two ingredients what Bob Cratchit would call a circle of congenial companions, meaning, as his considerate creator points out, a semi-circle, and I am as destitute of envy as the miller of the D. I stipulate, however, that my companions shall be so very much to my taste that when in the mood I can talk to my heart's content without seeming garrulous, and, when in the mood, can remain as silent as the sphinx without appearing sullen. This outrageous spasm of autobiography is necessitated as an explanation of Rubble and Rose Leaves. The contents are neither essays nor sermons, nor anything of the kind. The inexhaustible patience of my readers has lured me into the habit of talking on any mortal or immortal subject that takes my fancy. I have merely set down here a few wayward notions that have, in the course of my wanderings, occurred to me. But, in self-defense, let me add that these outbursts have been punctuated by whole infinitudes of silence. The silences are eloquently represented by the gaps between the chapters. Frank W. Borum. Armadale, Melbourne, Australia. Easter, 1923. End of introduction. First, old envelopes. Three envelopes cruelly torn and sadly crumpled look reproachfully up at me from the yawning abyss of my waste-paper basket. There is a heavy, pompous envelope of full-scap size who evidently feels that I have affronted his dignity by casting him to the void in this unceremonious way. There is a thin, blue envelope who seems to be barking out something about an account that ought to be paid. And there is a dainty little square envelope delicately perfumed and addressed in the lady's flowing hand. This pretty piece of stationery keeps asking in a plaintive voice if the age of chivalry is dead. Why, these envelopes want to know, why are the letters that we brought laid so respectfully on your desk while we, to whom you are so much in debt, are crushed and mangled and tossed disdainfully aside? Isn't an envelope as good as a letter any day? There is justice in their contention, and I take up my pen that I may tender them an apology. A letter will tell you much, but the envelope will often tell you more. I remember sitting with John Broadbanks one autumn afternoon on the broad veranda of the Mosquill Mans. Some important meetings were to be held next day, and he had driven over to help me in my preparations for them. He had moreover arranged to stay the night. As we made our way through the various papers that would have to be dealt with next day, the gate swung open and the postman placed a budget of letters in my hand. Hello, I exclaimed, an English mail, and excusing myself from the business on hand, I lost myself in the letters from home. I noticed that when we returned to the agenda papers and reports, John did not seem as keen as usual. He went through the documents mechanically, languidly, perfunctorily, allowing several matters to pass that ordinarily he would have questioned. He gave me the impression of having something on his mind, and it was not until we all sat around the tea table that I grasped the situation. Then he opened his heart to us. I am very sorry, he said, but if you let me, I think I had better return to Silverstream this evening after all. The arrival of the English mail makes all the difference. You have your letters. Mine are waiting for me at the man's. When I last heard from home, my mother was very ill. I have spent an anxious month waiting for the letter that has evidently arrived today, and I do not feel that I can settle down to tomorrow's business until I have seen it. The announcement was greeted with demonstrations of general disappointment. John was a universal favorite. He was the nearest approach to a relative that the children had ever known, and the prospect of having him in the house until bedtime and of finding him still on the premises when they awoke in the morning had occasioned the wildest excitement. And now the beautiful dream was about to be shattered. I tell you what, John. I said going to the window and looking out. It's going to be a perfect moonlight night. Spend an hour with the children after tea, and then I'll drive over to Silverstream with you. If all's well, we can return together. If not, we shall understand. When after a sharp cold drive in the moonlight we reached the Silverstream man's, things took an unexpected turn. Mrs. Broadbanks has gone out, the maid explained. The English mail arrived this afternoon, and she said you would be anxious to get your home letter. She took it with her and said that she would try to get it posted this evening so that you would get it first thing in the morning. And I think she intended to look in at Mrs. Blackies before she returned, an inquire about Alex's broken leg. I know she took some jellies with her. It was now John's turn to be disappointed. He had had his journey for nothing. Indeed, as things now stood, he would be nearer to the letter at Mosgill than at Silverstream. Then an idea occurred to him. Did Mrs. Broadbanks get letter from her home? The maid thought that she did. She knew at least that after the arrival of the mail, her mistress had spent some time in the bedroom by herself. John hurried to the bedroom. Hooray, he cried a moment later, here's the envelope. It is addressed in my mother's handwriting, and the postmark shows that it left England on March 16. The last letter left on February 17, and the envelope was addressed by my sister. So all serene, let's get back to Mosgill. John wrote a hurried note for Lillian, left it on the bed, and in a few minutes, we were once more startling the rabbits on the road. It is wonderful how often the envelope tells us all that we wish to know. I always feel sorry for the postmaster general. No man on the planet is under so great an illusion as is he. I can never read his annual report without amusement. It is a stirring romance, but the romance is, to some extent, the romance of fiction rather than the romance of fact. I know that it is a thankless task to rob a man of an illusion that makes him happy, but the interest of truth sometimes demanded. They do in this case. For it is not the postmaster general alone who has been tricked by the witchery of appearances. The fallacy is shared by all the members of his enormous staff. Every individual in the department, from the minister down to the messenger boy, is equally deceived. The annual report proves it. For in this annual report, the postmaster general tells you how many millions of letters he and his subordinates have handled during the year. But have they? As a matter of fact, they have handled no letters at all, except dead letters, and dead things don't count. The postmaster general handles envelopes. That is all. Let him correct the statement in his next report. It will involve him in no loss of prestige, for as these three envelopes in the basket plead so plaintively, and as John Broadbanks discovered that moonlight night at Silverstream, envelopes have a significance of their own. The postman knows that he never sees the letters, but the envelopes whispered to him a thousand secrets. He knows the envelopes that contain circulars, and he hands them to you with a look that is a kind of apology for having trouble you to answer the door. He knows the official envelopes that contain demands for rates, income taxes, and the like. If you are in his good books, he hands them to you sympathetically. If not, he secretly enjoys the fun. Here is an envelope marked urgent. Here is one with a deep black border. Here is one with silver edges. He cannot be quite deaf to all that these envelopes say, and here is one addressed very neatly to a young lady at the house at the corner. He brings an exactly similar envelope to the same fair recipient every other morning. On the morning on which he brings the envelope, she invariably scampers along the hall in order to personally receive the letters. On the alternate mornings, her father or her sister usually respond to his ring. He never sees her letters, but he knows, he knows. The envelopes chatter to him all the way down the street. Envelopes are great gossips. They talk to the sorter, they talk to the collector, they talk to the postman, they talk to the receiver, and they even go on talking, like the trio that set me scribbling, after they have been tossed distainfully into the waste paper basket. The letter may be interesting in its way, but the envelope reveals the essential things. When a man writes to me, he does not tell me what kind of a man he is, but recognizing that it is of the utmost importance to me that this information should be placed at my disposal, he is good enough to impart it on the envelope. He smothers the envelope with higher glyphs and signs, which are more revealing than a photograph. It frequently happens that my reply is determined more by these signs than by anything that he says in the letter. The letter is probably stiff, formal, lifeless, like a tailor's model. But the envelope reveals individuality, character, life. The envelope's the thing. You find all sorts of things in envelopes. You never find any modesty there. Envelopes are never shy, they never stand on ceremony, they wait for no introduction. They begin to talk as soon as they arrive. The envelope tells me by means of its postmark of the locality from which it has come and of the length of time that it has spent upon the road. Then, swiftly establishing itself on friendly terms, it becomes personal, communicative, confidential. It tells me that the writer of the letter that I am about to read is a tidy man, or a slovenly man, as the case may be. Sometimes an envelope will tell me that it was addressed by a feverish, impulsive, excitable man. Another will assure me proudly that it was sent to me by a leisurely, composed, methodical man. I come, boasts one envelope, from a painstaking and accurate man who is scrupulously careful to cross every T and dot every I. And I, murmurs the envelope lying against it, come from a man who doesn't care a wrap, whether the I's have dots, or for that matter, whether the dots have I's. Here is an envelope that tells me that it has been sent to me by a very dilatory man. The letter is dated March 2. The postmark is dated March 6. He was four days in posting it. This envelope contains a letter earnestly requesting me to oblige the writer by speaking at a meeting which he's organizing, and he's kind enough to speak of the great value which he attaches to my services. But the good man has not the heart to deceive me, so lest I should take the contents of the letter seriously, he tells me that he has not even troubled to find out how I spell my name, or what initials I'm pleased to bear. I recognize, of course, that the information imparted by the envelope is not to be implicitly trusted. An notorious gossip must always be heard with the greatest caution. But most people with much experience of correspondence, before answering a letter, like to hear what the envelope has to say about it. Nature, I notice, is very careful about the envelopes in which she sends us her letters. The architecture of an orange is a marvel of symmetry and compactness. But who has not admired the color and formation of the peel? Is there anything on earth more delicate and ingenious than the wrappings of a maze-cobb? The husks and rings and pods and shells that we toss upon the rubbish heap are masterpieces of design and execution. As a small boy, I found among my treasures three things that filled me with ceaseless wonder and admiration. The skin of horse chestnuts, the cocoons of my silkworms, and the shells of the bird's eggs that I brought home from the lane. I knew little about nature in those days, but I instinctively based my first impressions on the envelopes that she sent. And judging her by that sure standard, I felt that she must be wonderfully wise and good and beautiful. It is considered correct, I understand, to say that one should not judge by outward appearances. But how can you help it? Envelopes will talk. I can never forget a tremendous impression made upon my mind a few weeks after I went to live in London. I was barely seventeen, I was feeling horribly lonely, and on all sorts of subjects I was desperately groping my way. One wet night, in passing down the strand, I saw hundreds of people crowding into Exeter Hall. Moved by a sudden impulse, I followed. The adventure promised a new experience, and I was specializing in novelties. Then came the impression. It was not created by the arguments of the speakers, for as yet not one of them had spoken. It was created by their personal appearance. The chair was occupied by Sir Stevenson Arthur Blackwood, beauty Blackwood, as he was called, and the dresses were delivered by the reverend Newman Hall, Donald Fraser, Marcus Rainsford, and Archibald G. Brown. I could imagine nothing more picturesque than those five nightly figures, tall, dignified, and stately. The spectacle completely captivated me. I gazed spellbound. While the great audience sang their opening hymn, my eyes roved from one handsome form to another, bestowing upon each the silent homage of boyish hero worship. This happened more than 30 years ago. Yet, I am confident that I could easily write out a full and accurate report of each of the speeches delivered that night. So favorably had the envelopes impressed my mind, and so effectively had they prepared me for the letters they contained. In every department of life, it is the envelope that becomes emphatic. In describing at night the people with whom we have met during the day, we refer to the lady in the fur coat, the girl in the red hat, and the man in the grey suit. The lady, the girl, and the man, these are letters. The fur coat, the red hat, and the grey suit are merely envelopes. Yet, we feel that to speak of a lady, a girl, or a man, is in effect to say nothing. It conveys no concrete idea. It lacks vividness, force, reality. But a lady in a fur coat, a girl in a red hat, a man in a grey suit, these are pictures. The envelopes make all the difference. We often say by way of the envelope what we cannot say so well in the body of the letter. Charles Dickens knew that. So did John Bunyan. So did the greatest master of all. Dickens knew it. Indeed, somebody has as good a said that Dickens is all envelopes. He gives us the barrister's wig in mistake for the barrister, the beetle's cocked hat in mistake for the beetle, and so on. But if it is true on the one hand that Dickens is too fond of envelopes, it must be confessed on the other that he knows how to use them. Who can forget the night when David Copperfield and Mr. Pagoty set out together on one of those dreadful journeys that stood connected with the loss of little Emily? Before starting, Mr. Pagoty entered Emily's room. Without appearing to notice what he was doing, said David Copperfield. I saw how carefully he adjusted the little room and finally took out of a drawer one of her dresses, neatly folded and placed it on a chair. He made no allusion to these clothes. Neither did I. There they had been waiting for her many and many a night, no doubt. Mr. Pagoty could not express in so many words all that he felt. But Emily, if she came, would see the dress lying ready for her and would understand that everything was to be just as it always was. She would see the envelope and the envelope would say more than any letter could possibly do. Bunyan knew it. The first thing that impressed the people of Vanity Fair, as they gazed upon Christian and faithful, was that the pilgrims were clothed with such kind of raiment as was diverse from the raiment of any that traded in that fair. And Jesus knew it. The most searching and terrible of all his parables was the parable of the man who seated at the king's feast had not a wedding garment. And even more notably, when the prodigal came home, the father knew of no words in which he could adequately welcome his son. But if he could not write a satisfactory letter, he could at least express himself by means of the envelope, away with the rags, on with the robes. Bring forth the best robe and put it on him and put a ring on his hand and shoes on his feet. And even when the Bible attempts to depict the felicities of the world to come, it does it not in the phraseology that we employ in letters, but in the symbolism that we employ in the use of envelopes. It speaks of robes and palms and crowns, for it knows that the wise will understand. End of Part 1, Chapter 1. Recording by Marcela Collado. Part 1, Chapter 2 of Rubble and Gross Leaves and Things of That Kind. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Marcela Collado. Rubble and Gross Leaves by Frank W. Borum. Whistling takes two milestones. Two, whistling jigs to milestones. Part one, Blueberry Creek. Blueberry Creek, where in the world was Blueberry Creek? It was all very well for conference to resolve in the easy and airy fashion that is so charmingly characteristic of conferences that John Broadbanks and I should be appointed to visit and report upon the affairs of the congregation at Blueberry Creek. But how on earth were we to get there? On that point, the conference in its wisdom had given no directions. It had not even condescended to take so mundane a detail into its consideration. A fearful and wonderful thing is a conference. A conference is capable of ordering an inquiry into the state of the inhabitants of Mars and it would appoint its commissioners without giving a thought to the ways and means by which they were to proceed to the scene of their investigations. It was altogether beneath the dignity of that august body to reflect that Blueberry Creek is as near to the other end of nowhere as any man need wish to go. That it is many miles from a railway station or it is en route and that the only approach to it is by means of a grassy track that winding in and out among the grey brown hills is during a large part of the year impassable. The only indication of the track's existence consisted of a suspicion of wheel marks among the tussock. When at the close of the session we met on the steps outside the hall John and I stared at each other in a lugubrious bewilderment. Then, seeing as he never failed to do the humor of the situation he burst into peals of laughter. Blueberry Creek, he roared, as thou the very name were a joke and how are we to get to Blueberry Creek? Still, while we admire the complacent audacity with which the conference had saddled us with the responsibility of finding or making a road to Blueberry Creek, we felt as it felt that somebody ought to go. Alan Gillespie, a young minister who for seven years had done excellent work there had resigned without any apparent reason. The people whose confidence, esteem and affection he had completely won were depressed and disheartened and the work stood in imminent peril. John used to say that if you leave a problem long enough, it will solve itself. The way in which the problem of getting to Blueberry Creek solved itself certainly seemed to vindicate his philosophy. I've been making inquiries, said Mr. Alexander Mitchell, a man of few words but of great practical sagacity as he met me in the porch on the last day of the conference. I've been making inquiries about that appointment of yours. I find that a motor has been through to Blueberry. If one can do it, another can. I have a sturdy little car that will get there if it is possible for four wheels to do it. My business will take me as far as Crannington next week so that I shall then be two-thirds of the way to Blueberry. If you and Mr. Broadbank's care to accompany me, we will do our best to get through. I expect we shall have a rough passage, but I am willing to take all the risks if you are. Truth to tell, the project was very much to our taste. In order that we might make an early start on the Tuesday, we arranged that John should spend Monday night as our guest at Mosgill. He came, and we both awoke next morning on the best of terms with ourselves. Civilization was quickly left behind. We followed the road as far as Crannington had lunch there and then plunged into the hills. For the next few hours, Mr. Mitchell's motor, whose sturdiness he had by no means exaggerated, was crashing its way through scrub and fern, clambering over rocky boulders, gliding down precipitous gradients, edging its course along shelves cut in the hillside and splashing through the stream whose tortoise folds awaited us in every hollow. At about five o'clock, we emerged upon a great plain covered with tussock. We made out a cluster of cottages in the distance, and we knew that at last we had come to Blueberry Creek. Why? Here is Alan, exclaimed John, as he pointed to a solitary horseman who dashed along a track that intersected ours was evidently hurrying to join us. We were soon at the man's. Alan was not married. His mother kept house for him. My father died of consumption, he used to say, and so did my grandfather. I must make sure that I am a citizen of this planet and not merely a visitor before I let any pretty girl make eyes at me. Our mission was quite unavailing. John and I had a long talk with Alan after tea. No, he said at last, rising from his chair and pacing the room under the stress of strong emotion. His shock of fair wavy hair fell about his forehead when he was excited, and he brushed it back impatiently with his hand. His pale blue eyes burned at such times as though a fire were blazing behind them. No, I feel that I am whistling jigs to milestones. I am preaching to people who, while they are very good to me, make no response of any kind to my message. They see to it that mother and I want for nothing. They bring us all kinds of little dainties from the farms and stations. They share with us whatever is going as the seasons come around, and they welcome me into their homes as though I really belong to them. They are great church people, too. They attend the services magnificently, although they have to come long distances along bad roads in all sorts of weather. They even compliment me on my sermons, just as a sleeper roused at midnight by the alarm of fire might, without rising, praise the dramatic ability of the friend who had awakened him. I've stood it as long as I can, he cried, his lip quivering and his face pale with passion. And now I must give it up. You needn't try to find me another church. I have no wish to repeat the experience. I shall preach my last sermon on Sunday week, and I have chosen my being. I shall preach, he said, coming right up to us and transfixing us with ice whose glowing fervor seemed to scorch us. I shall preach on the unpardonable sin. I shall preach us gently and as persuasively, but as powerfully as I know how. But that will be my subject. For the unpardonable sin is to tamper with your oracle, to be disloyal to your vision, to play fast and lose with the truth. Alan had an appointment that evening. Mr. Mitchell, exhausted by his long drive, retired early. John and I excuse ourselves and set off for a walk across the plain. For a while we journeyed in silence, enjoying the sunset, the song of the birds and the evening air. Alan's words too had taken a strong hold upon us. There is a lot in what he says, John remarked that length, especially in his exposition of the unpardonable sin. Strangely enough, I was looking into the subject only a few days ago. The popular interpretation is, of course, absurd upon the face of it. You remember George Borough's story of Peter Williams? Peter, as a boy of seven, came upon the passage about the unpardonable sin and took it into his head that he could dispose of religion for the rest of his life by the simple process of committing that deadly transgression. Arising from his bed one night, he went out into the open air, had a good look at the stars, and then, stretching himself upon the ground and supporting his face with his hands, the little idiot poured out such a hideous torrent of blasphemy as he believed would destroy his soul forever. For years the memory of that solemn act of spiritual self-destruction darkened all his days and haunted all his nights. He tormented himself, as Bunyan did, with the conviction that he had committed the sin for which there is no forgiveness. It ended as it did with Bunyan, as it always does. Chrysostom says that it is notorious that men who imagine that they have committed the sin against the Holy Ghost invariably become Christians and lead exemplary lives. We came at that moment to the banks of the creek. The water was sparkling in the moonlight. We instinctively seated ourselves among the ferns. Alan's interpretation, John went on, is much nearer the mark. The words were addressed in the first instance to men who declared that Christ cast out devils by the Prince of the Devils. The thing is ridiculous. It is a contradiction in terms. Why should the Prince of the Devils occupy himself with casting out devils? The men who said such a thing were simply talking for the sake of talking. They were putting no brain into it. They were stultifying reason, and the man who stultifies his reason is darkening his own windows. He is, as Alan put it, tampering with his oracle. He is playing fast and loose with the truth. A fellow may behave in the same way towards his conscience or towards any other means of moral or spiritual illumination. As soon as he does that kind of thing, he shuts the door in his own face. He puts himself beyond the possibility of salvation. And when I was dipping into the matter at Silverstream a few nights since, I came to the conclusion that the passage about the unpardonable sin simply means this. The men who, in the old Galilean days, distorted the evidence of the miracles and rejected the testimony of the Son of Man were guilty of a serious offense, but it was a venial offense. For, after all, it was not easy to realize that the Nazarene peasant was the Son of God, but those to whom the fullness of the gospel has come, and upon whom the light of the ages has shone. How shall they be made the recipients of the divine grace if they deliberately block every channel by which that grace may approach them, if they stultify their reasons and harden their hearts? If, as Alan says, they tamper with their oracles and play fast and lose with the truth, what hope is there for them? I am sorry to see poor old Alan taking the apathy of his congregation so much to heart, but most of us would make better ministers if we took it to heart a little more. We discussed the matter for an hour or so, our conversation punctuated by the splashing of the trout in the creek, and then, feeling that it was getting chilly, we rose and walked back to the man's. Alan, to our surprise, was already there. Now look, he said, as he seated himself in his armchair and began to poke the fire. You two men have come up here to talk me out of my decision, and I am delighted to see you. But tell me this, a few years ago nobody could talk about the things of which I speak every Sunday without moving people to deep emotion. I have been reading the records of Wesley and Whitefield and Spurgeon. Why bless me? It was nothing for those men to see a whole audience bathed in tears. Whitefield would have the kings with miners crying like babies. Why do I never see any evidence of deep feeling? That's what I want to know. You may say that it's because I don't preach as Wesley and Whitefield and Spurgeon preached. I thought until lately that that was the explanation, but I've given up that theory, it won't work. Livingstone has a story about Ol Baba, a native chief who bore the most excruciating torture without the flipper of an eyelid or the contraction of a muscle. Yet when Livingstone read to him the story of the crucifixion, he was melted to tears. No flights of rhetoric, Mark you, just a reading of the New Testament without note or comment. Now I've read that same story to my people and who was much affected by it. Then look at Spurgeon. Why Spurgeon, anxious to test the acoustic properties of his new tabernacle, entered the pulpit believing the building to be empty and exclaimed, behold the Lamb of God that takeeth away the sin of the world. A workman concealed among the empty pews, heard the words, listened, heard them repeated and was profoundly stirred by them. He laid down his tools, sought an interview with Spurgeon and was led into a life of useful and happy service. No sermon, Mark you, just a text. Why? I've quoted the same text scores of times and who came to me inquiring the way of salvation? I shall say all this in my farewell sermon. I shall say it as kindly as I can for the people have been wonderfully good to me. But it is my duty to say it and I'm going to recite a few verses of poetry. Would you like to hear them? I haven't memorized them yet. I only came upon them yesterday. He slipped off to another room and returned with a volume of poems by Ella Wheeler Wilcox. Opening it, he read to us some verses entitled The Two Sunsets. They tell how a young fellow of pure heart and simple ways saw a sunset and heard a song. As the sinking sun filled the western sky with crimson and gold he looked and as he looked the sight sent from his soul through breast and brain such intense joy it hurt like pain. His heart seemed bursting with delight. So near the unknown seemed so close he might have grasped it with his hand. He felt his inmost soul expand. A sunlight will expand a rose. And after the story of the sunset we have the story of the song. One day he heard a singing strain a human voice in bird-like trills he paused and little raptor reels went trickling downward through each vein. And then the years went by. Queen Folly held her sway. She fed his flesh and drugged his mind. He trailed his glory in the mire and after a long interval he revisited his boyhood's home beheld another sunset and heard another song. The clouds made day a gorgeous bed. He saw the splendor of the sky with unmoved heart and stolid eye he only knew the west was red. Then suddenly a fresh young voice rose bird-like from some hidden place. He did not even turn his face. It struck him simply as a noise. He saw the sunset that once filled him with ecstasy but he saw it with unmoved heart and stolid eye. He heard the song that once sounded to him like the voice of angels and it struck him simply as a noise. That's the unpardonable sin exclaimed Alan gathering fervor as he proceeded. He sprang from his chair and stood facing us his back to the fire. That's the unpardonable sin that just says so. Listen. Oh, worst of punishments that brings a blunting of all finer sense a loss of feelings keen, intense and dulls us to the higher things. Oh, shape more hideous and more dread than vengeance takes in creed-taught minds. This certain doom that blends and blinds and strikes the holiest feelings dead. This vehement recital brought on a violent fit of coughing and he left the room. When he returned, we made no attempt to reply to him. We felt that the case did not lend itself to argument. We fondly wished that we could have retained him for the ministry. His burning passion would have glorified any pulpit. But what could we say? We were a steer early next morning. Mr. Mitchell was up soon after dawn getting the car ready for the road. After breakfast, John led us all in family worship. Very graciously and very feelingly, he committed the young minister to the divine guidance and care. He specially pleaded that the closing days of his ministry might be a season in which rich fruits should be gathered and lasting impressions made. And, he continued, made the tears that he sheds as he takes far well of his people, softened his heart towards them and watched from his eyes the vision of their indifference and may he be astonished in the great day at the abundant response which their hearts have made to the word that he has preached among them. Half an hour later, we were again speeding towards the hills, Alan and his mother waving to us from the gate. Part 3 Alan was as good as his word. After leaving Blueberry, he never preached again. I must have a rest for a month or two, he said. I saved a little money at Blueberry and I can't afford to take life easily for a while and think things over. The next that I heard of him was in a letter which some years later I received from John Broadbanks. Poor old Alan Gillespie has gone, he told me. His lungs went all to pieces after he left Blueberry. The tonic air of the hills kept him alive up there. He went to the Mount Stuart Sanatorium, but it was too late. He died there three weeks later. He felt that his fervent spirit made too heavy a demand upon so frail a frame. His mother was much touched by the letters she received from Blueberry. Crowds of young people wrote to say that they could never forget the things that in public and in private Alan had said to them. They owed everything some of them added to his intense devoted ministry. It looks as if they were not so irresponsible as they seemed. I suspect that this is usually so. People are not so adamantine as they like to look. Still, John and I will always feel that Alan taught us to take our work a little more seriously. Whenever we are tempted to lower our ideals or to settle down complacently to things as they are, his great eyes, so full of solicitude and passion seem to pierce our very souls and sting us to concern. End of Part 1, Chapter 2. Recording by Marcela Collado. Part 1, Chapter 3 of Robel on Rose Leaves and Things of That Kind. This is the LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Marcela Collado. Robel on Rose Leaves by Frank W. Borum. The Front Door Bell. Chapter 3. The Front Door Bell. A fearful and wonderful contrivance is a Front Door Bell. The wire attached to my Front Door Bell is the line of communication between me and the universe. The universe knows it, and so do I. The Front Door Bell is the one thing about a private dwelling that is public property. If a stranger walked in at the front gate and began to push or pull at anything else, I should instantly send for the police. He walks straight to the Front Door Bell and begins to push or pull at it. I regard the position as perfectly normal. No man living may enter my gate in order to inspect the roses to admire the view or to stroke the cat. But anyone has a perfect right to walk boldly up the path and ring the Front Door Bell. A man may do what he will with his own. And the bell is his. It is more his than mine. It is perfectly true that I was there and that I paid for it. But it is also true that I am the only person on the planet to whom it is of no use at all. A visitor from Mars, seeing the bell hangers working to my order might be pardoned for supposing that I was gratifying in this way my insatiable passion for music. Not at all. In giving the order for the bell I was activated by no selfish motive. The bell at my Front Door is not my bell. It is everybody's bell. You say, but mine. That is why such a thrill runs through the house when the bell rings. It is one of the sensations of the common place. A ring at the Front Door Bell is a bolt from the blue, a call from the vast, a message from out of the infinite. It presents to the imagination such a boundless range of possibilities. There are 1500 million people on the planet and this may be any one of them. It may be a hawker or a soap. A cake of soap that he, poor man, appears to need so much more than I do. It may be the telegraph boy with some startlingly pleasant or poignantly painful message. It may be the very man I want to see or the very man I don't. Or then again, it may be only Sam. Everybody knows the accents of ineffable disdain in which it is announced that the ringer of the bell is simply a member of the family circle. It may be anybody. The doorbell rings. You are prepared for anything. You feel as you await the announcement that you have suddenly tipped your hand into the lucky bag of the universe and you are in a flutter of curiosity as to what you're about to draw. Tinker, tailor, soldier, sailor, rich man, poor man, beggar man, thief. Why is the girl so long in returning from the door? Smiles, frowns, laughter, tears. They may any of them come from the ringing of the front doorbell. When the bell rings, you are eating your dinner or reading the paper or romping with the children or chatting easily beside the fire. The atmosphere is perfectly tranquil. All the wheels are running smoothly. Life is without a thrill. The bell rings. All eyes are lifted. Each member of the household glances inquiringly at all the others. Is anybody expecting anybody? We vaguely feel that we enter upon a fresh face. Whether the change will be for wheel or for woe, for better or for worse, we cannot tell. We only know that things are not likely to be quite the same again. Somebody will come in or somebody will be called out or something fresh will have to be done. The cards of life are all shuffled and dealt afresh at the ringing of the front doorbell. But it was not of my own bell that I set out to write. Well, why then should I write of it? I prefer to write of the bells that do belong to me. The next doorbell is my bell and the bell of the house beyond that and so on to the end of space. For if it is humiliating to reflect that the bell at my own door is not mine, it is extremely gratifying to be reminded that beyond my door there are millions and millions of bells that I can proudly call my own. I am not generally considered musical but I spend a good deal and I propose to describe one or two instruments on which at some time or other I have performed. First, to begin with, there is the bell that is not working. To all outward appearance the mechanism may be complete. You press the neat little button and then early turn your back upon it happy in the conviction that you have sent a delicious flutter through every soul on the premises. In point of fact, it is the kind. Things within are going on just as they were when you opened the gate. Nobody has the slightest suspicion that you are cooling your heels on the door mat. The electric battery is exhausted. Beyond a scarcely perceptible click when your fingers pressed the button you made no noise at all. That is the worst of life's most tragic collapses. There is nothing to indicate the breakdown. The failure does not advertise itself. Samson said he could go out as at other times and shape myself. And he was not that the Lord was departed from him. The button on the bell were there. How was he to know that the current had vanished? The preacher enters his pulpit as of old. Who could have suspected that the invisible force without which everything is so pitifully ineffective had forsaking him? The worker is still in his place. Who would have dreamt that having lost his old power and his influence now counts for so little? Lots of people fancy that a button and a bell complete the requisites of life. Because the external appliances are in good order they take it for granted that everything is working satisfactorily. It is a woeful blunder. The button may be there and the bell may be there. Yet the entire outfit may be destitute of all practical utility. I called at a house last week. Outside there was a button and on the right there was a bell. I pressed the button several times and only discovered afterwards that the mechanism to which it was attached gave the lady of the house no intimation of my presence at her door. The bell was not working. A bell that is out of action represents a broken line of communication between the individual and the universe. Sometime ago my bell broke down. I heard every day of people who had called and gone away fancying that nobody was at home. I wondered every night what I had missed during the day through being out of touch with the world. The broken bell had turned me into a hermit and exile. I recluse. People might want me never so badly they could not get at me. I might want them never so badly they left the door without my seeing them. The saddest case of this kind that ever came under my notice occurred at Hobart. A gentleman called one day that his business was marked by gravity and urgency. My name, he said, is MacArthur. My mother is lying very ill at the homeopathic hospital. It would be a great comfort to us all and to her if you could run up and see her. She has often asked us to send for you but we have always put it off. It seemed like encouraging her in the notion that her days were few but now we shall be very glad if you will go. I ought to tell you though I will not be able to make her here but you will find a slate and pencil at the bedside. If you write on it whatever you wish to say she will be able to read it and reply to you. I went at once when I told the matron that I had come to see Mrs. MacArthur a strange look overspread her face and she drew me into her private room. Is she dead? I asked or unconscious. Oh no the matron replied she is alive the sight has failed her she can only see us like shadows between herself and the window I don't know how you will be able to communicate with her. I never felt so helpless in my life as I stood by her bedside she seemed so near yet so very far away I struck her forehead and she smiled but that was all I was standing on the door mat pressing the button but the bell was not working with the soul within it is a way that bells have the current becomes exhausted sooner or later it is clearly intended that while we are in touch with the Universe we should learn all that the Universe can teach us so that when the line of communication collapses we shall be independent of the Universe and need its messages no more then there is the bell that when I press the button rings without my hearing it in Winchester Avenue I pressed the button several times listening intently I could hear no sound within I tapped but still everything was silent I was just stooping to slip my car under the door when suddenly I heard a rush and a commotion within and in a moment Mrs. Finch full of charming apologies stood before me she had heard the bell each time but her maid was out waiting to have kept me waiting we are too apt to suppose that our pressure of the button is awakened in no response we fancy that our words fall upon deaf ears people appear to take no notice perhaps if we knew all we should discover that while we press and listen and hear nothing we are all unconsciously throwing some gentle spirit into a perfect fever of agitation I pressed the button at my neighbor's door but when I heard no sound I turned and stood irresolute if I had moved the bell I must have heard it should I wrap or go but in a moment more my neighbor came the bell is far and very small he said you may not catch it for the walls between but rest assured each time you push the knob we cannot choose by hear the bell inside and what they told me of my neighbor's bell has cheered me when I knocked at some heart heart no answer now and then I poured my soul out in a hot appeal and had no sign from lip or hand or eye that he I would have said had even heard and I have sighed and turned away and then my neighbor's words came back we cannot choose by hear inside and after many days I have had an answer to a word I spoke in ears that seemed as deaf as dead men's ears I was 12 years at Mosgill in New Zealand I felt that the men and women and especially the old people were attached to me but somehow I was never as successful with the children as I should like to have been I was very fond of them I loved to meet them play with them talk with them but I saw them grow up to be young men and women without being impressed in any way by any word of mine that was the bitterest ingredient in my sorrow when 15 years ago I left that little country town of Australia from end to end in a railway journey of 7000 miles I have crossed and re-crossed the entire continent and one of the most delightful experiences of this great trip was to meet my old Mosgill boys and girls at every turn one girl came with her husband 100 miles to spend 5 minutes with me at the railway station others travelled with me for 20 or 30 miles just for the sake of the talk in the train without an exception they were all well and happy and living useful lives in every case they reminded me of things that I had said and done in the old days things that as I fancied had made no impression at all and when I returned to the quiet of my own home I reviewed all these happy reunions I felt ashamed of having suspected these young people of being irresponsible the bell often rings without our hearing it third on the other hand it does occasionally happen that when I press the button the bell rings I myself, standing on the door mat distinctly hear it yet it is not heard by those upon whom I have called I am so sorry exclaimed Mrs. Wilson as she left the church last evening I took my book on Thursday afternoon and strolled down to the summer house at the foot of the garden I must have become absorbed in the story I did not hear the bell I found your card under the door I say cried Harry Blair I am awfully sorry I must have been at home when you called but the bell is at the front of the house and we happen to be at the back the children were making such a din that we never heard you precisely there are those whose bells we ring in vain in the days in which I made up my mind to be a minister I fell under the influence of the Reverend James Douglas of Brixton a most devout and scholarly man he often took me for a walk on Clapham Common and said things to me that I have never forgotten when you are a minister he said one day as we sat under the shelter of a giant oak when you are a minister you will find wherever you go that there are a certain number of people whom you are not fitted to influence it is largely a matter of personality and temperament don't break your heart over it that you have done your duty by them and then leave it at that it was wise counsel there are a certain number of bells that run by us are not heard within fourth and last and saddest of all there is the bell that we did not ring we have thought of it we heard afterwards how welcome a call would have been but the contemplated visit was not paid around the corner I have a friend in the great city that has no end yet days go by and weeks rush on and before I know it a year is gone and I never see my old friend's face for life is a swift and terrible race he knows I love him just as well as in the days when I rang his bell and he rang mine we were younger then and now we are busy tired men playing a foolish game tired with trying to make a name tomorrow I say I will call on Jim just to show that I am thinking of him but tomorrow comes and tomorrow goes and the distance between us grows and grows around the corner yet miles away here is a telegram sir Jim died today and that's what we get and deserve in the end around the corner a vanished friend you have pressed the button at Jim's door but the good intentions did not ring the bell and I am left to nurse my lifelong remorse I really intended to have answered the door when a visitor divine stood gently knocking there but the good intention did not let him in he turned sadly and warily away and I am left to my shame and my everlasting regret end of part one chapter three recording by Marcella Collado part one of Rubble and Rose Leaves and things of that kind this is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org recording by Dvorah Allen Rubble and Rose Leaves by Frank W. Borum the green chair one the green chair was never occupied it stood according to Irving Bachelor in the home of Michael Hackett and Michael Hackett is the most lovable schoolmaster in American literature Michael Hackett possessed a violin and a microscope the romps that he led with the one and the researchers that he conducted with the other represented the two sides of his character for he was the jolliest soul in all that countryside and the wisest but in addition to the violin and the microscope the green chair was even more valuable as a revelation of the schoolmaster's character than either the microscope or the violin Barton Baines the hero of the story went as a border to Mr. Hackett's school and the green chair deeply impressed him when the family assembled at table the green chair always empty was always there before he took his own seat Mr. Hackett put his hand on the back of the green chair and exclaimed it was a rollicking meal that first meal at which Barton was present the schoolmaster was full of quips and jests and his clever sallies kept everybody bubbling with laughter then when all had finished he rose and took the green chair from the table exclaiming Michael Henry God bless you I wondered at the meaning of this says Barton but I dared not ask shortly afterwards however he summoned up courage to do so Mr. Hackett had gone out I've been all day in the study the schoolmaster had said I must take a walk or I shall get an exalted abdomen one is badly beaten in the race of life when his abdomen gets ahead of his toes children keep Barton happy till I come back and mind you don't forget the good fellow in the green chair he had not been long gone when the children differed as to the game that they should play a dispute was threatening don't forget Michael Henry who is Michael Henry asked Barton sure replied Mrs. Hackett he's the child that has never been born he was to be the biggest and noblest of them all kind and helpful and cheery-hearted and beloved of God above all the others we try to live up to him he seemed to me said Barton a very strange and wonderful creature this invisible occupant of the green chair Michael Henry was the spirit of their home an ideal of which he was a kinder when a conversation threatened to become too heated it was always Michael Henry whose ears must not be offended by harsh and angry tones it was Michael Henry who had begged that a culprit might be forgiven just this once it was Michael Henry who was always suggesting little acts of courtesy and kindness I like to think of Michael Henry the schoolmaster would say his food is good thoughts and his wine is laughter I had a long talk with Michael Henry this was a chunk of merriment oh what a limb he is I wish I could tell you all the good things he said but he couldn't and we all know why there was no Michael Henry and yet Michael Henry the occupant of the green chair pervaded like a perfume and ruled like a prince the gentle schoolmaster's delightful home two we are very largely ruled by empty chairs in support of this contention let me call two or three witnesses the first is Clarence Shadbrook Clarence was well on in life when I first met him he struck me as being reserved taciturn, unsociable it took me several years I grieved to say to understand him it was on the occasion of his wife's death that I first caught glimpses of unsuspected depths of tenderness and sentiment within him Hannah Shadbrook was one of our most excellent women she had a kind thought for everybody she was the heart and soul of our ladies' organizations in every good cause her hand was promptly outstretched to help she was especially tactful in her dealings with the young people to many of the girls she was a second mother she was tall and spare with a slight stoop at the shoulders her eyes were soft and gray and her face was illumined by a look of wonderful intelligence and sweetness she was the sort of woman somehow I had always imagined that at home she was unappreciated I cannot recall anything that I ever heard or saw that can have given me so false and unfortunate an impression but there it was and it was therefore with a shock of surprise that at the time of her death I found the strong and silent man so utterly broken and disconsolate ah he sobbed when in a few halting words in the church I daresay but it was at home that she was her best nobody will ever know what she was to me and to the children who have married and gone but it was not until two years later that he opened his heart more thoroughly I heard on a certain Sunday evening that he was ill and next day I made my way to the cottage he was in bed I stepped across to the window and laid my hand upon a chair intending to transfer it to the bedside excuse me would you mind having the chair over by the wardrobe instead if the request struck me as strange the thought only lingered for a moment I replaced the chair that I was holding took the one indicated and dismissed the matter from my mind I daresay you are wondering why I asked you not to take the chair by the window he said presently after we had discussed the weather, the news and his prospects of a speedy recovery there's a story about that chair except to her glancing at a portrait but if you'd like to hear it I don't mind telling you well, he went on assured of my interest I took a fancy to that chair nearly 50 years ago I was learning wood carving I thought that it would suit my purpose and I bought it it was the first piece of furniture that I ever possessed I remember laughing to myself as I carried it to my little room it stood beside the bed there she seemed far too good for me but then I thought to myself she is far too good for anybody and so our courtship began and one night I came home tremendously excited we were engaged I lay awake for hours that night sometimes painting wonderful pictures of the happy days to be and sometimes lecturing myself as to the kind of man I must become in order to be worthy of the treasure about to be confided to my care and I comforted myself with a reminder to have her always beside me to restrain the worst and encourage the best that was in me and thinking such thoughts I at length fell asleep but sleeping I went on dreaming I thought that coming home tired from the shop I entered my little room at the top of the stairs the room in which I was actually sleeping and was surprised to find it occupied a man was sitting in the chair beside the bed the chair over there by the window but I could not be angry I looked up and welcomed me with a smile that disarmed my suspicions and made me feel that all was well I felt instantly and powerfully drawn to him he seemed to magnetize me his face realized my ideal of manly strength tempered by an indefinable charm and courtesy then as I gazed it occurred to me that there was about his countenance and bearing something strangely familiar what could it mean? whom could it be? and then the truth flashed upon me it was myself yes, it was myself as I should be in the years to come under Hannah's gentle and gracious influence it was myself transfigured I awoke and found myself staring fixedly at the empty chair beside the bed the chair that you were about to remove from the window there I made up my mind that day that the chair should never be used it is dedicated to the ideal self of whom I caught a glimpse in my boyish dream and even now every visitor of that memorable night seems to be still sitting there and I never approached the chair without mentally comparing myself with its silent occupant who would have supposed that beneath the rugged exterior of Clarence Shadbrook there dwelt so rich a vein of poetry and romance I almost apologized to him for my earlier judgment it only shows that like the first Australian explorers we may tread the gold beneath our feet without suspecting its existence three my second witness is Harold Glendening Harold was the minister at Port Air a little seaside town close to the harbour's mouth he had frequently asked me to exchange pulpits with him and at last he had coaxed me to consent come early on Saturday he wrote so that we may have an hour or two together here before I have to leave like Clarence Shadbrook Harold was a widower but unlike Clarence he had waited and died after three short years of married life his mother kept house for him at the man's I reached Port Air early on Saturday we went for a walk round the rocky coast before dinner and in the afternoon Harold made preparations for departure but dear me he exclaimed I haven't shown you your room come with me and he led me out into the hall and up the stairs the room was obviously his own young wife were everywhere her presence pervaded it the window commanded a noble view of the bay and we stood for a minute or two admiring the prospect we then turned towards the door treat the places though it belonged to you he said make yourself perfectly at home you're welcome to everything except he half closed the door again you'll understand I know he went on but don't use the armchair over there in the corner I glanced in the direction a comfortable chair stood beside a small occasional table on which a lovely bowl of roses had been placed it's her chair he exclaimed it used to stand by the fireplace in the dining room she's out there every evening reading or sewing with her feet resting on her camp stool I notice now that a folded camp stool stood near the chair somehow he continued the chair seemed to become a part of her and after afterwards so I brought it up here and somehow with the chair there she doesn't seem so very far away I'll show you something else he said and diving into a drawer near his hand he produced an old magazine I only found this afterwards he explained at least I only noticed the marked passage I saw it in her lap several times during the last week or two and in an offhand way I picked it up and glanced through it but it was only after this poem he handed me the magazine and surely enough I detected a mark so faint as to be scarcely visible besides some lines by L. C. Jack when day is done and in the golden west my soul from yours sinks slowly out of sight and you alone enjoy the warmth and light that once had seemed of all God's gifts the best when roses bloom and I not there to name when threshes sing when laughter breaks upon your ear and friends come flocking as of old they came I pray dear heart for sweet remembrance's sake you pluck the rose and hear the songful thrush with laughter meet once more the merry jest and greet familiar faces still awake for I asleep in the eternal hush would have you ever at your golden best you may think it strange he concluded as we turn to leave the room often fancy that the chair in the corner makes it a little more easy for me to live in the spirit of those lines four I had intended calling several other witnesses but I must be content with one Alec Frazier was a little old Scotsman who lived about seven miles out from Mosgiel I heard one day that he was very ill and I drove over to see him his daughter entered the door showed me in and placed a chair for me beside the bed another chair it stood directly facing the pillow as if its occupant had been in earnest conversation with the patient ah Alec I exclaimed on greeting him so I'm not your first visitor he looked up surprised and in explanation I glanced at the tell-tale position of the chair oh he said with a smile I'll tell you about the chair by and by but who are the wife and the wings and the Kirk I found that he was far too ill however to be worried by general conversation I read to him the shepherd's psalm I led him to the throne of grace and then I rose to go about the chair he said as I took his hand it's like this years ago I thought I couldn't pray I fell asleep on my knees and even if I kept awake my thoughts were eye-flitten one day when I was so worried about it I spoke to Mr. Clare McKenzie the minister at broad point was like Mosgill then he was a good old man was Mr. McKenzie and he told me not to fash my head about Neil and Doane just sit you down he said and put a chair again you for the Lord and talk to him just as though he sat beside you and I've been doing it ever since so now you know what the chair is doing standing the way it is I pressed his hand and left him a week later his daughter drove up to the manse I knew everything or almost everything father died in the night she sobbed I had no idea that death was so near and I had just gone to lie down for an hour or two he seemed to be sleeping so comfortably and when I went back he was gone he didn't seem to have moved since I saw him last except that his hand was out on the chair do you understand I understood end of part one chapter four part one chapter five of Rubble and Rose Leeds and things of that time this is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org recording by Maddie Mast of Virginia USA Rubble and Rose Leeds by Frank W. Boreham Living Dogs and Dead Lions Maz Jill was in the throes and John Broadbank and I were exchanging pulpits in order to be on the spot when Sunday arrived I was driven over to Silverstream on the Saturday evening when I awoke on Sunday morning and looking out the Mars window found the whole plane very deep in snow I was glad that I had taken this precaution at breakfast we speculated on the chances of my having a congregation later on however the buggies began to arrive in the afternoon I told the teachers to feel under no obligation to come I shall be here I said and in any of the children putting in the parents I shall be pleased to look after them when the afternoon came there were three scholars present Jack Linaker who had ridden over on his pony from a farm about two miles away Alec Crosby a high school boy who lived in a large house just across the fields and little Myrtle Broadbanks accompanied me from the Mons I decided to return with my three companions to the Mons and to hold us on the school by the fireside well I said as soon as we were all closely seated I was reading this morning in the Bible about a living dog and a dead lion which would you rather be there was a pause Jack was the first to speak oh I'd rather be the living dog he floated out it's better to be alive than dead any day oh I don't know why he had already carried off two or three scholarships he had been weighing the matter carefully while Jack was giving us the benefit of his first impression I don't know a dead lion has been a living lion while the living dog will be a dead dog someday I think I'd rather be the dead lion while Goldilocks I said turning to the little maiden at my side and what do you think about it oh she said I'd like a little of both I'd like to be a lion like the one and alive like the other this all happened many years ago Jack Linnaker now owns the farm from which he then rode over Alec Crosby is a doctor with a large practice in Sydney and I heard of Goldilocks's wedding only a few weeks ago I expect they have forgotten all about this knowing afternoon that we spent by the fireside but I smile still as I recall the answers that they gave to the question that I said then there is something to be said for Jack's way of looking at things our love of life is our master passion it animates us at every point it is because we are in love with life that we see so much beauty in the dawning of a new day and find so wealthier romance in the unfolding of the spring we feel that among the myriad mysteries of the universe we are as inclusive and so sublime as this one a living moth is a more wonderful affair than a dead moon indeed we only recognize the strength of the hold that life has upon us when there is some question of its extinction let a man stand on the seashore and unable to help watching exhausted swimmers struggle for his life in the seething waters let him look up and follow the movements of a sequel Jack as he climbs a diddy spire let him visit a circus in the course of some sensational performance and for the moment he will find his heart in his mouth the blood will forsake his face he will be filled with trepidation and palpitation he can scarcely breathe and why the people in peril are nothing to him for him life would go on in just the same way whether they live or die yet their danger fills him with uncontrollable excitement or look if you will in quite another direction our opposite was a lad probably an errant boy curled up with a book his sparkling eyes were glued to the pages his face was flushed with excitement he was completely lost to his immediate surroundings I rose to leave the car the movement evidently aroused him he glanced out of the window and then with a star shut the book and sprang up to follow me have you passed your proper corner I asked when side by side we reached the pavement yes sir he said it was a wedding was it I inquired reaching out my hand for the volume on the cover was a picture of a red Indian galloping across the prairie with a white girl thrown across the front of his saddle my word it was he replied it's about a fellow who was flying for his life from the Indians and took refuge in a cave and when he got back into the dark part of the cave he felt something warm and then heard the growl of a bear my I thought he was dead that time and what did it matter it was a mirrored frolic of an author's fancy lived or died and yet the life or death of that hero was of such moment to him that for the time being his mind lost its hold upon realities in order that it might concentrate itself upon a fight among shadows it is our intense, our persistent our unquenchable love of life that explains the fascination of all tales of romance and adventure with man as with the animals says Dr. James Marchineau death is the evil from which the heart shrinks and which he most deplores for those he loves it is the utmost that he can inflict upon his enemy and the maximum which the penal justice of society can award to its criminal it is the fear of death which gives their vivid interest to all hair grits escapes in the shipwreck or amid the glaciers or in the fight and it is man's fear of death that supplies the chief tragic element in all his art when we find ourselves following the love of the hunter or the explorer we fancy that our emotion arises from a solicitude for the man himself as a matter of fact it arises from nothing of the kind it arises from our love of life for its own sake in his lavender, George Bro describes an open-air service which he attended on a large open moor the preacher, a tall thin man in a plain coat with a calm serious face was urging his hearers not to love life over much the service over I wandered along the heat till I came to a place where beside a thick first sat a man his eyes fixed intently on the red ball of the setting sun it looked like his old comrade Jasper Patul and wrote the jitsie is that you Jasper indeed brother and what inquired the newcomer sitting by the jitsie side what is your opinion of death Jasper like this sweet brother well think so there's night and day brother both sweet things sun, moon and stars brother all sweet things there's likewise a wind on the heat life is very sweet brother who would wish to die I need to say no more in order to show that there is a good deal to be said for Jaclyn Aker's way of looking at things how beautiful it is to be alive to wake each mourn as if the makers grace did us afresh from nothingness derived how happy is our case how beautiful it is to be alive from Jack's point of view there can be no doubt that one living dog is worth all the dead lions that ever were or will be Alec Crosby however is not so sure a dead lion he points out has been a living lion while the living dog will be a dead dog someday there is something in that he means if I rightly cash the drift of his philosophy you can pay too much for the privilege of being alive everything else has its price and most of us buy our goods on too high a market one man pays too much for popularity he sells his conscience for it another pays too much for fame it costs him his help a third buys his money too dearly in gaining the whole world he loses his own soul and in the same way a man may pay too much even for life itself Jack Crosby probably knew is usually employed in Oriental literature as an emblem of the contemptible the dog in our modern sense Rover, Carlo and the rest is unknown the lion on the other hand is invariably the symbol of the courageous Alec thinks that all things considered it's better to be a dead hero than a living coward Alec reminds me of Artemis Ward on the day of a general election Artemis entered a polling booth and began to look about him in evident proficiency the returning officer approached and offered to help him for whom do you desire to vote he asked I want to vote for Henry Clay replied Artemis Ward for Henry Clay exclaimed the astounded officer why Henry Clay has been dead for years yes I know replied Artemis Ward but I'd rather vote for Henry Clay for either of these men living Alec Crosby could easily call a great host of witnesses to support his view of the matter let me summon two one from martyrology and one from fiction my first witness shall be Thomas Cranmer Art Bishop of Canterbury for his fidelity to the truth Cranmer was sentenced to die at the state but every day during his imprisonment he was offered life and liberty for the terrible temptation every morning the document was spread out before him and the pen placed in his hand day after day he resisted the terrible temptation but as Jasper says life is very sweet the craving to live was too strong Cranmer yielded but as soon as the horror of a cruel death had been removed he felt that he had bought the boon of life at too high a price the death with which he had been threatened was the death of a lion he held himself in contempt and abhorrence he cowered before the faces of his fellow men life on such terms was intolerable he made a recantation of the recantation as he tokened of his remorse he burned to a cinder the hand with which he signed the cowardly document and then at peace with his conscience he embraced a fiery death with a joyful heart he felt that it was a thousand times better to be a dead lion than a living dog as from fiction is introduced to me by Maxwell Gray in the silence of Dean Maitland he shows that life may be bought at too high a price Cyril Maitland had committed a murder yet all the circumstances pointed to the guilt of his innocent friend Henry Everett Maitland felt every day that it was his duty to confess that the lure of life was too strong for him and besides he was a minister and his confession would bring shame upon his sacred office and so the years went by and Everett languished in jail having been sentenced to 20 years imprisonment Maitland advanced in popularity and won swift preferment he became a dean but his life was a torture to him he felt that death even the death that he had dreaded would have been infinitely preferable and after suffering agonies such as Everett and prison never knew he at last made a clean breath of his guilt and laid down the life for which he had paid too much for his violent crossbeams but it was Goldilocks that on that snowy afternoon at Silverstream hit the nail on the head I think I'd like a little approach she said I'd like to be a lion like the one and a lion like the other precisely with her feminine facility for putting her finger on the very heart of things Goldilocks has brushed away all irreverency and got to bedrock for after all the question of life and death a dog living or dead can be nothing other than a dog a lion living or dead can be nothing other than a lion the dead lion as Alec Crosby says was a living lion once the living dog will be a dead dog someday Goldilocks helps us to clear the issue the real alternative is not between life and death for life and death come in turn to dog and lion alike the real question is between the canine and the leonine should I live contentively or should I live courageously and Alec says the last of the biblical writers and behold a lion the lion of the tribe of Judah like a lion he lived with the courage of a lion he died and in leonine splendor he moves through all the world above Goldilocks had evidently made up her mind in life and in death to model her character and her experience upon his End of Part 1, Chapter 5 Part 1 Part 6 of Rubble and Rose Leaves and things of that kind this is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org recording by Charles Conover Rubble and Rose Leaves by Frank W. Borman New Brooms New Brooms they say sweep clean the statement is scarcely worth challenging it is ridiculous upon the face of it how can New Brooms sweep clean New Brooms do not sweep at all if they sweep they are not New Brooms they have been used the dealer will not sweep at all if they sweep they are not New Brooms they have not received them back into stock they are obviously second hand but I need not stress that point my antagonism to the ancient saw rests on other grounds New Brooms they say sweep clean it is invariably a cynic who says it he seizes the proverb as he would seize a bludgeon and with it he makes a murderous attack on the first young enthusiast he happens to meet it is a barbarous weapon and can be wielded by an expert with deadly effects it is a thousand times worse than a shalely, a tomahawk, a baton or a club with either of these a man can break your head but with the saying about the New Brooms he can break your heart I well remember the public meeting at which I was formally welcomed to Mosgiel among the speakers was an old minister of the severely conservative type with whom I subsequently grew very intimate but at that stage as he himself told me afterwards he deeply resented my coming he regarded it as an intrusion he said in the course of his speech that he confidently expected to hear during the next few months the most glowing accounts of the work at the Mosgiel church that, he cruelly observed was the most usual thing a young minister's first year among his people is he remarked a year of admiration the second is a year of toleration and the third a year of abomination New Brooms he said was a sweep clean the jest I dare say rolled from the memories of the people like water from a duck's back I doubt if they gave it a second thought they probably remarked to one another as they drove back to their farms that the old gentleman was in a droll humor but to me his words were like the thrust of a sword he stabbed me to the quick there was never a day that I would have been doing those first three years at Mosgiel but the wound ached and smarted long afterwards I reminded the old gentleman of his jest and he most solemnly assured me that he had not the slightest recollection of ever having uttered it which only proves that our thoughtless thrusts are often just as painful as our malicious ones I have long since forgiven my old friend indeed I do not know that I have much to forgive for after all his stinging jibe only made me resolve to prove its falsity for more than a thousand mornings I rose from my bed vowing that at the end of three years and at the end of thirty the broom should be sweeping as cleanly as ever the old minister has been in his grave for many years now and I have nothing but benedictions to heap upon his honored name the cult of the new broom is a most pernicious one no heresy has done more harm the woman who really believes that new brooms sweep clean will endeavor to keep the broom new as long as she possibly can and that is not what brooms are for brooms are to use and as soon as you begin to use them they cease to be new brooms the point is a vital one about three hundred years ago one of the choicest spirits in English history was passing away George McDonald says of him that one of the keenest delights of the life to come will be the joy of seeing the face of George Herbert with whom to talk humbly will be in bliss a higher bliss as George Herbert lay dying he drew from beneath his pillow the roll of manuscripts that contained the poems that are now so famous deliver this he said to my dear brother Nicholas Farrar and tell him that he will find in it a picture of the many spiritual conflicts that pass between God and my soul and my will to the will of Jesus my master the verses were published and have come to be esteemed as one of the priceless possessions of the church universal and among them strangely enough I find a striking reference to this matter of new brooms what wretchedness George Herbert asks what wretchedness can give him to this foul while he adores the broom and here is George Herbert telling us on his deathbed that this reflects some deep spiritual conflict between God and his own soul what can he mean he means of course that it is possible to be so much in love with your new dress that you are afraid to wear it and so enamored of your new spade that you shirk from soiling it you may to return to the poet's imagery so adore your new broom that you allow all your floors to become dusty and foul and herein lies one of life's cardinal sins in his lecture on the valley of diamonds John Ruskin discusses the nature of covetousness wherein does it differ from the legitimate desire for wealth up to a certain point the desire for riches is admirable it develops intellectual alertness in the individual and in the aggregate builds up our national prosperity if nobody wished to be rich the resources of the country would never be exploited should men trouble to clear the bush or sink mines or erect factories or cultivate farms apart from the lure of wealth we should be a people of sluggish wit and savage habits viewed in this light the desire for wealth is not only pardonable it is admirable at what point does it curdle into covetousness our undoing Ruskin draws the line sharply the desire for wealth is good he argues as long as we have some use for the riches that we acquire it deteriorates into mere covetousness as soon as we crave to possess it for the sheer sake of possessing it and apart from any use to which we propose to put it fix your desire on anything useless he says and all the pride and folly of your heart will mix with that desire and you will become at last holy inhuman a mere ugly lump of stomach and suckers like a cuttlefish John Ruskin's vigorous prose throws a flood of light on George Herbert's cryptic poetry so far as I have it in my heart to use my new broom for the cleansing of my home and the comfort of my fellows my new broom may be a means of grace to me and them but so far as I view the new broom merely as a possession and irrespective of the service in which it should be worn out my pride in it is bad as bad can be John Ruskin reminds me of Lesage before reading the story of my life he makes Bill Blase listen to a tale I am about to tell thee and then he tells of the two tired and thirsty students who, travelling together from Penafield to Salamanca sat down upon a roadside spring near the spring they noticed a flat stone and on the stone they soon detected some letters but the question was almost effaced partly by the teeth of time and partly by the feet of the flocks that came to water at the fountain but after washing it well they were able to make out the words here is interred the soul of the Lysentiate Peter Garcia the first of the students roared with laughter and treated the affair as merely a joke here lies a soul what an idea a soul under a stone the second, however, took it more seriously and began to dig he at length came upon a leather purse containing a hundred dukats and a card on which was written in Latin the following sentence thou who hast had wit enough to discover the meaning then inherit my money and make a better use of it than I have the soul of the Lysentiate Peter Garcia make a better use of it than I have poor Peter Garcia felt that his shining dukats had been a curse and not a blessing because he had loved them for their own sake instead of for the sake of the use to which they could be put make a better use of them than I have he implored Peter Garcia would have understood exactly what George Herbert meant by the worship of the new broom but I need not have gone abroad for my illustration it is a far cry from George Herbert to George Elliott yet George Elliott has furnished us with the most telling exposition of George Herbert's Reckondite remark for George Elliott has given us Silas Marner indeed she has given us two Silas Marners we have Silas Marner the miser gloating greedily over the guineas that he afterwards lost and later on we have Silas Marner strong unselfish, tender-hearted rejoicing in the wealth that he has now regained let us glance first at the one and then at the other we peep at him as he appears in the second chapter so year after year Silas Marner had lived in the solitude his guineas rising in the iron pot and his life narrowing and hardening itself more and more into a mere pulsation of desire and satisfaction that had no relation to any other being his life had reduced itself to the functions of weaving and hoarding without any contemplation of an end towards which the functions tended Marner's face shrank his eyes that used to look trusting and dreaming now looked as if they had been made to see only one kind of thing for which they hunted everywhere and he was so withered and yellowed that although he was not yet forty the children always called him old master Marner this was Silas Marner the miser then followed the loss of the money the hoarded guineas were all stolen and Silas was like a man demented then little Epi stole into his home and heart when he saw her for the first time curled up on the hearth the flickering firelight playing on her riot of golden hair he thought his long lost guineas had come back in this new form and he loved her as he had once loved them he would take her on his knee and tell her wonderful stories and in the long summer evenings would stroll out into the meadows thick with butter cups and would make garlands with her hair and teach her to distinguish the songs of the birds and so the years go by till Epi is a Bonnie girl of eighteen always in trouble about her golden hair for no other girl of her acquaintance has hair like it and smooth it as she may it will not be hidden under her pretty brown bonnet and then comes the great discovery the pond in the stone pit runs dry and in its slimy bed are found the skeleton of the thief and the long lost guineas that evening Silas and Epi sat together in the cottage George Elliot describes the transfiguration which his love for Epi had affected in the continents of Silas she drew her chair towards his knee and leaned forward holding both his hands on the table near them lit by a candle lay the recovered gold the old, long, loved gold ranged in orderly heaps as Silas used to range it in the days when it was his only joy he had been telling her how he used to count it every night and how his soul was utterly desolate till she was sent to him hey my precious child he cried if you hadn't been sent to save me I should have gone to the grave in my misery the money was taken away from me in time and you see it's been kept kept till it was wanted for you it's wonderful her life is wonderful it is indeed but the wonderful thing for us at this moment is the contrast between these two Silas Marners they are both rich the first is rich and wretched the second is rich and happy and the secret? the secret is that in his first possession of the Guineas he loved them for their own sake irrespective of any use to which they could be put in his subsequent possession of the self-same Guineas he loved them for the sake of the happiness that they could purchase for Epi the first Silas Marner knew the wretchedness that George Herbert describes the wretchedness of the man whose house is foul while he adores his broom the second Silas Marner was willing that the broom should be worn out and sweeping all the obstacles and difficulties out of Epi's path in telling her story George Elliott remarks incidentally that men then Silas Marner often repeat his mistake the only difference is that while Silas Marner amassed money without considering the use to which it could be put these wiser misers accumulate knowledge in the same aimless way they abandon themselves to some erudite research some ingenious project or some well-knit theory and it brings them little joy which stands related to no actual need it is a broom and will remain a new broom it will never brush away any of the world's sorrows or sweep together any of its long lost treasures knowledge like money is a noble thing but as with money so with knowledge it derives its nobleness from the ends which it is designed to compass that civilization has a right to rejoice in its universities the university is the glory of civilization but unless we keep both eyes wide open the university may come to resemble the hole in the cottage floor in which Silas Marner hoarded his gold let the student of engineering remember that he is accumulating knowledge not that he may possess but that he may do more than they towards surmounting the obstacles that block the path of human progress let the medical student remember that he is amassing knowledge not that he may flourish the academic distinction he has won but that he may lessen the sum of human anguish and save human life and let the theological student reflect that he is winning for himself a scholarly renown not that he may rejoice in his attainments and distinctions for their own sake but that by means of them he may the more effectively and skillfully lead all kinds and conditions of men into the kingdom and service of his lord and so I come back to my starting point the broom that sweeps clean is not a new broom after commencing this chapter I happened to pick up a report of the British and foreign Bible society on one of its pages I find a story told by the society's Colportier at Port Said he boarded an incoming steamer and on the lower deck found a German sailor sweeping out a cabin the man was greatly depressed in the course of conversation each claimed to be a greater sinner than the other what? exclaimed the sailor why? you are the first man to tell me that he is a greater sinner than I am he took a gospel from the Colportier's hands and began to read ah he sighed that I were a little child again and could read it with a clean heart the remark was over heard by some of his shipmates is that you Janssen? they asked what wonder has happened to you no wonder at all the man replied I want to sweep out my heart and I am buying a broom the broom that he bought is by no means a new one but it sweeps wonderfully clean for all that end of part one chapter six