Matjesfontein,
Cape Colony,
South Africa.
November, 1890.
CONTENTS.
I. The Lost Joy.
II. The Hunter (From "The Story of of an African Farm").
III. The Gardens of Pleasure.
IV. In a Far-off World.
V. Three Dreams in a Desert.
VI. A Dream of Wild Bees (Written as a letter to a friend).
VII. In a Ruined Chapel.
VIII. Life's Gifts.
IX. The Artist's Secret.
X. "I Thought I Stood."
XI. The Sunlight Lay across My Bed.
I. THE LOST JOY.
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 face
looked out across the water. She was waiting--she was waiting; but she
could not tell for what.
All day the waves ran up and up on the sand, and ran back again, and the
pink shells rolled. Life sat waiting; all day, with the sunlight in her
eyes, she sat there, till, grown weary, she laid her head upon her knee and
fell asleep, waiting still.
Then a keel grated on the sand, and then a step was on the shore--Life
awoke and heard it. A hand was laid upon her, and a great shudder passed
through her. She looked up, and saw over her the strange, wide eyes of
Love--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 was
it called. The sunlight when it shines upon the merry water is not so
glad; the rosebuds, when they turn back their lips for the sun's first
kiss, are not so ruddy.
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