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Allen, James Lane, 1849-1925

"Bride of the Mistletoe"

Many a time she had heard it stop at the front gate: the road of
his life there turned in to her. There were nights of pitch darkness
and beating rain; and sometimes on these she had to know that he was
out there.
Long she sat in the shadow of her room, looking towards the bed where
her husband slept, but sending the dallying vision toward the
doctor. He would be at the Christmas party; she would be dancing with
him.
Clouds and darkness descended upon the plain of life and enveloped
it. She groped her way, torn and wounded, downward along the old lost
human paths.
The endless night scarcely moved on.
* * * * *
She was wearied out, she was exhausted. There is anger of such
intensity that it scorches and shrivels away the very temptations that
are its fuel; nothing can long survive the blast of that white flame,
and being unfed, it dies out. Moreover, it is the destiny of a
portion of mankind that they are enjoined by their very nobility from
winning low battles; these always go against them: the only victories
for them are won when they are leading the higher forces of human
nature in life's upward conflicts.
She was weary, she was exhausted; there was in her for a while neither
moral light nor moral darkness.


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