All day, where the sunlight played on the sea-shore, Life sat.All day the soft wind played with her hair, and the young, young facelooked out across the water. She was waiting--she was waiting; but shecould not tell for what.All day the waves ran up and up on the sand, and ran back again, and thepink shells rolled. Life sat waiting; all day, with the sunlight in hereyes, she sat there, till, grown weary, she laid her head upon her knee andfell asleep, waiting still.Then a keel grated on the sand, and then a step was on the shore--Lifeawoke and heard it. A hand was laid upon her, and a great shudder passedthrough her. She looked up, and saw over her the strange, wide eyes ofLove--and Life now knew for whom she had sat there waiting.And Love drew Life up to him.And of that meeting was born a thing rare and beautiful--Joy, First-Joy wasit called. The sunlight when it shines upon the merry water is not soglad; the rosebuds, when they turn back their lips for the sun's firstkiss, are not so ruddy. Its tiny pulses beat quick. It was so warm, sosoft! It never spoke, but it laughed and played in the sunshine: and Loveand Life rejoiced exceedingly. Neither whispered it to the other, but deepin its own heart each said, "It shall be ours for ever."Then there came a time--was it after weeks? was it after months? (Love andLife do not measure time)--when the thing was not as it had been.Still it played; still it laughed; still it stained its mouth with purpleberries; but sometimes the little hands hung weary, and the little eyeslooked out heavily across the water.And Life and Love dared not look into each other's eyes, dared not say,"What ails our darling?" Each heart whispered to itself, "It is nothing,it is nothing, tomorrow it will laugh out clear." But tomorrow andtomorrow came. They journeyed on, and the child played beside them, butheavily, more heavily.One day Life and Love lay down to sleep; and when they awoke, it was gone: only, near them, on the grass, sat a little stranger, with wide-open eyes,very soft and sad. Neither noticed it; but they walked apart, weepingbitterly, "Oh, our Joy! our lost Joy! shall we see you no more for ever?"The little soft and sad-eyed stranger slipped a hand into one hand of each,and drew them closer, and Life and Love walked on with it between them. And when Life looked down in anguish, she saw her tears reflected in itssoft eyes. And when Love, mad with pain, cried out, "I am weary, I amweary! I can journey no further. The light is all behind, the dark is allbefore," a little rosy finger pointed where the sunlight lay upon the hill-sides. Always its large eyes were sad and thoughtful: always the littlebrave mouth was smiling quietly.When on the sharp stones Life cut her feet, he wiped the blood upon hisgarments, and kissed the wounded feet with his little lips. When in thedesert Love lay down faint (for Love itself grows faint), he ran over thehot sand with his little naked feet, and even there in the desert foundwater in the holes in the rocks to moisten Love's lips with. He was noburden--he never weighted them; he only helped them forward on theirjourney.When they came to the dark ravine where the icicles hang from the rocks--for Love and Life must pass through strange drear places--there, where allis cold, and the snow lies thick, he took their freezing hands and heldthem against his beating little heart, and warmed them--and softly he drewthem on and on.And when they came beyond, into the land of sunshine and flowers, strangelythe great eyes lit up, and dimples broke out upon the face. Brightlylaughing, it ran over the soft grass; gathered honey from the hollow tree;and brought it them on the palm of its hand; carried them water in theleaves of the lily, and gathered flowers and wreathed them round theirheads, softly laughing all the while. He touched them as their Joy hadtouched them, but his fingers clung more tenderly.So they wandered on, through the dark lands and the light, always with thatlittle brave smiling one between them. Sometimes they remembered thatfirst radiant Joy, and whispered to themselves, "Oh! could we but find himalso!"At last they came to where Reflection sits; that strange old woman who hasalways one elbow on her knee, and her chin in her hand, and who stealslight out of the past to shed it on the future.And Life and Love cried out, "O wise one! tell us: when first we met, alovely radiant thing belonged to us--gladness without a tear, sunshinewithout a shade. Oh! how did we sin that we lost it? Where shall we gothat we may find it?"And she, the wise old woman, answered, "To have it back, will you give upthat which walks beside you now?"And in agony Love and Life cried, "No!""Give up this!" said Life. "When the thorns have pierced me, who will suckthe poison out? When my head throbs, who will lay his tiny hands upon itand still the beating? In the cold and the dark, who will warm my freezingheart?"And Love cried out, "Better let me die! Without Joy I can live; withoutthis I cannot. Let me rather die, not lose it!"And the wise old woman answered, "O fools and blind! What you once had isthat which you have now! When Love and Life first meet, a radiant thing isborn, without a shade. When the roads begin to roughen, when the shadesbegin to darken, when the days are hard, and the nights cold and long--thenit begins to change. Love and Life WILL not see it, WILL not know it--tillone day they start up suddenly, crying, 'O God! O God! we have lost it!Where is it?' They do not understand that they could not carry thelaughing thing unchanged into the desert, and the frost, and the snow. They do not know that what walks beside them still is the Joy grown older.The grave, sweet, tender thing--warm in the coldest snows, brave in thedreariest deserts--its name is Sympathy; it is the Perfect Love."South Africa.
