Part 1 (1/2)

Bride of the Mistletoe.

by James Lane Allen.

PREFACE

Any one about to read this work of fiction might properly be apprised beforehand that it is not a novel: it has neither the structure nor the purpose of The Novel.

It is a story. There are two characters--a middle-aged married couple living in a plain farmhouse; one point on the field of human nature is located; at that point one subject is treated; in the treatment one movement is directed toward one climax; no external event whatsoever is introduced; and the time is about forty hours.

A second story of equal length, laid in the same house, is expected to appear within a twelvemonth. The same father and mother are characters, and the family friend the country doctor; but subordinately all. The main story concerns itself with the four children of the two households.

It is an American children's story:

”A Brood of The Eagle.”

During the year a third work, not fiction, will be published, ent.i.tled:

”The Christmas Tree: An Interpretation.”

The three works will serve to complete each other, and they complete a cycle of the theme.

EARTH s.h.i.+ELD AND EARTH FESTIVAL

A mighty table-land lies southward in a hardy region of our country.

It has the form of a colossal s.h.i.+eld, lacking and broken in some of its outlines and rough and rude of make. Nature forged it for some crisis in her long warfare of time and change, made use of it, and so left it lying as one of her ancient battle-pieces--Kentucky.

The great s.h.i.+eld is raised high out of the earth at one end and sunk deep into it at the other. It is tilted away from the dawn toward the sunset. Where the western dip of it reposes on the planet, Nature, cunning artificer, set the stream of ocean flowing past with restless foam--the Father of Waters. Along the edge for a s.p.a.ce she bound a bright river to the rim of silver. And where the eastern part rises loftiest on the horizon, turned away from the reddening daybreak, she piled s.h.a.ggy mountains wooded with trees that loose their leaves ere snowflakes fly and with steadfast evergreens which hold to theirs through the gladdening and the saddening year. Then crosswise over the middle of the s.h.i.+eld, northward and southward upon the breadth of it, covering the life-born rock of many thicknesses, she drew a tough skin of verdure--a broad strip of hide of the ever growing gra.s.s. She embossed n.o.ble forests on this greensward and under the forests drew clear waters.

This she did in a time of which we know nothing--uncharted ages before man had emerged from the deeps of ocean with eyes to wonder, thoughts to wander, heart to love, and spirit to pray. Many a scene the same power has wrought out upon the surface of the s.h.i.+eld since she brought him forth and set him there: many an old one, many a new. She has made it sometimes a s.h.i.+eld of war, sometimes a s.h.i.+eld of peace. Nor has she yet finished with its destinies as she has not yet finished with anything in the universe. While therefore she continues her will and pleasure elsewhere throughout creation, she does not forget the s.h.i.+eld.

She likes sometimes to set upon it scenes which admonish man how little his lot has changed since Hephaistos wrought like scenes upon the s.h.i.+eld of Achilles, and Thetis of the silver feet sprang like a falcon from snowy Olympus bearing the glittering piece of armor to her angered son.

These are some of the scenes that were wrought on the s.h.i.+eld of Achilles and that to-day are spread over the Earth s.h.i.+eld Kentucky:

Espousals and marriage feasts and the blaze of lights as they lead the bride from her chamber, flutes and violins sounding merrily. An a.s.sembly-place where the people are gathered, a strife having arisen about the blood-price of a man slain; the old lawyers stand up one after another and make their tangled arguments in turn. Soft, freshly ploughed fields where ploughmen drive their teams to and fro, the earth growing dark behind the share. The estate of a landowner where laborers are reaping; some armfuls the binders are binding with twisted bands of straw: among them the farmer is standing in silence, leaning on his staff, rejoicing in his heart. Vineyards with purpling cl.u.s.ters and happy folk gathering these in plaited baskets on sunny afternoons. A herd of cattle with incurved horns hurrying from the stable to the woods where there is running water and where purple-topped weeds bend above the sleek gra.s.s. A fair glen with white sheep. A dancing-place under the trees; girls and young men dancing, their fingers on one another's wrists: a great company stands watching the lovely dance of joy.

Such pageants appeared on the s.h.i.+eld of Achilles as art; as pageants of life they appear on the Earth s.h.i.+eld Kentucky. The metal-worker of old wrought them upon the armor of the Greek warrior in tin and silver, bronze and gold. The world-designer sets them to-day on the throbbing land in nerve and blood, toil and delight and pa.s.sion. But there with the old things she mingles new things, with the never changing the ever changing; for the old that remains always the new and the new that perpetually becomes old--these Nature allots to man as his two portions wherewith he must abide steadfast in what he is and go upward or go downward through all that he is to become.

But of the many scenes which she in our time sets forth upon the stately gra.s.sy s.h.i.+eld there is a single spectacle that she spreads over the length and breadth of it once every year now as best liked by the entire people; and this is both old and new.

It is old because it contains man's faith in his immortality, which was venerable with age before the s.h.i.+eld of Achilles ever grew effulgent before the sightless...o...b.. of Homer. It is new because it contains those latest hopes and reasons for this faith, which briefly blossom out upon the primitive stock with the altering years and soon are blown away upon the winds of change. Since this spectacle, this festival, is thus old and is thus new and thus enwraps the deepest thing in the human spirit, it is never forgotten.

When in vernal days any one turns a furrow or sows in the teeth of the wind and glances at the fickle sky; when under the summer shade of a flowering tree any one looks out upon his fatted herds and fattening grain; whether there is autumnal plenty in his barn or autumnal emptiness, autumnal peace in his breast or autumnal strife,--all days of the year, in the a.s.sembly-place, in the dancing-place, whatsoever of good or ill befall in mind or hand, never does one forget.

When nights are darkest and days most dark; when the sun seems farthest from the planet and cheers it with lowest heat; when the fields lie shorn between harvest-time and seed-time and man turns wistful eyes back and forth between the mystery of his origin and the mystery of his end,--then comes the great pageant of the winter solstice, then comes Christmas.