The faces of
men had changed, but the sea then, as at that time, shone in the
beauty and freshness of eternal youth, and still surged in majesty
along its rock-bound coast, and over the deep, the unknown grave of
the beautiful Masa, the forgotten one.
Yes, the forgotten one!
All things pass away; grief as well as joy is forgotten. The years
roll on over both, like the waves of the deep over the bodies
consigned to its keeping.
All things pass away! Man has only to learn and to wait in patience.
No matter how pain may rend his soul, if he only knows how to wait
in patience, the balm of time will gradually heal his wounds and
soothe his soul. All things pass away!
To be sure there are hopeless and weak natures who refuse to wait
for this soothing balm of time; natures which destroy themselves in
fiery torture, or in their cowardly weakness are destroyed by the
dark genius of despair.
The poor sheik had not been able to bear the loss of his only child,
his Masa. He had died of grief. He had called for his Masa with his
last breath.
No one now speaks of her. The young girls of that time have now
become mothers, and sometimes tell their little ones of the Flower
of Praousta and her death, as of a fairy tale of the olden time.
It has become a fairy-tale, and has been written in verses which the
fisher-boys sing when they go out upon the waves.
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