Nor knowest thou what argument
Thy life to thy neighbor's creed has lent.
All are needed by each one;
Nothing is fair or good alone.

-EMERSON.

T was the third day that the musician had roamed the woods in despair of meeting the demands of his creditors, of arriving at a tolerable calm after his tangled love-affair, and of lifting the adagio movement of his symphony above the commonplace. He was a pianist-composer and teacher of music, in retreat from the turmoil of a distant city, and all summer long, in his studio-chamber in the little house on the edge of the town, he had spent himself upon the adagio. Failure, and the accruing futilities of years past, had sent him to the woods. Only twice during the three days had he been back to his studiochamber for something to eat. On both occasions he had looked into the drawer of his desk at several copies of an unfinished note, he had fumbled an envelop that had been torn raggedly open in haste, he had glanced at the heap of ruled paper, the adagio,with confusion dotted in the bars; then he had struck his hands together as though utterly despairing, and had retraced his way to the darkest haunts of the gleaming birch-woods.

His life had been confused and distraught by passion, until now he was giving scarce a thought to worldly He minded less the demands of his creditors, with whom he could come to an adjustment whenever he wanted to resume teaching in the city, than he

cares.

As he came out from the edge of the wood near a crude wooden foot-bridge that crossed a small stream, just above the point where the stream, held back by a natural rocky ledge and some artificial dam, gathered into a pool of wide expanse, it was plain that he had not found calm in his wandering. Rather, from the disordered state of his hair and his first wild look about, he might have been fleeing from the ghostly birches behind him. He paused, standing waist deep amid reeds and brush. His shirt, open in front and flung back from the throat, was torn about the shoulders. Still seeming to be unaware of the hurt that had come to him in his wild plunging through the woods, he rubbed his left breast where it had been pierced and bruised by the prong of a limb hanging from a dead tree. The briefest delay gave him his bearings. There was no hesitation; he thought his mind was made up. By changing his direction slightly he came out on the footbridge.

The foot-bridge was two or three feet higher than the banks of the stream, and the musician paused suddenly, with his hand on the railing, at sight of a yellowhaired boy, not far off, sitting on a stone

wall that ran along the top of a knoll. It startled the musician to discover the boy just then, but he had not been seen by the boy, for the latter was staring up inquisitively at the topmost branches of a near-by, gaunt dead elm-tree. In any case, the musician reflected, the boy could make no difference. He would do to run and tell the townspeople. And then the musician turned to look over the railing, and, fascinated, gazed until he was oblivious of all but the calm, inviting depths of the pool.

It was deep, in truth, and promised rest. On the sunlit side, the pool was transparent, clear; and on the other, in the shadow of the birch-wood, it was a lucent, velvet-black mirror, reflecting the palisade of white trunks. And the musician grimly observed that this was all the monument he desired, this transient reflection as white as any tombstone. On the surface of the pool the darting water-bugs created their strange, impulsive, intersecting designs, and, like many a higher organism, left no trace. There came a litany from below, where the water ran among the rocks. To-day all was calm and alluring to the musician, who had been there yesterday as well, reflecting upon Shakspere's queen of old Nile: she had asked but a grave of Nilus' mud that water-flies might blow her into abhorring, and to the musician the ringing cry of her despair was fully comprehensible.

He was not the prey of barren pessimism. What he would do would be the fruit of very ripe intention. He thought he was just as decided about what he was going to do as when he had come from the heart of the woods, but he lingered here to think more lucidly of the way circumstances become complicated, and to fret himself a little before the end, because he had been so pitifully long in admitting that they were invincible. He had been a lifetime in concluding that man was a brittle thing, constructed for a limit of achievement that he could not excel. Once he had not believed this of the artist's mind or of the musician's soul; now he believed. Previously, he had had a vain, deluding self-confidence that a soul, once charged with melody, could again fling itself up, up.

Summer had gone, and this faith had gone. The symphony, the adagio-let the struggle cease! The rest should be silence.

So he expressed himself Hamlet-wise. His mind had seemed to run to Shakspere; his ears were attuned to the magic of sweet words discoursing upon life's nothingness. Years before he had liked to think of himself as Hamlet. He had had the wavering resolution; now he also had something of the paunch, and he was occasionally out of breath, and it must have been of this condition that Hamlet had taken note when he cried:

O, that this too too solid flesh would melt, Thaw and resolve itself into a dew!

Did the world think that fat men had no tragedy that it must have its Hamlet lean? The musician was stocky, he had seen himself grow pursy, but he was none the less despairing. There came to mind a past vexation, that his coarse, wiry hair, growing in a wide circle around an area that was bald, should have made him look too much like a fat, ridiculous Jew. Middle years and passion's storm had done their worst for him. But time! Time could repair by dissolution the worst that the years could ever do. One thing was left to man, to shorten the futility of his days. He'd yield himself to time.

Time, as seen through the clear mirror of the pool, was so transparent that all his life behind was turgid and confused. No memories of the past blurred the shining future. Now that the fever had left his brain, what had seemed reasonable enough on coming from the woods, seemed inevitable. The silence in-and beyond the pool! A moment only to note its beauty!

He leaned over the railing, and the rough bark scraped his forearm through a thin shirt-sleeve, and the slight hurt seemed desirable, quickening his other senses. He saw water-cress growing thickly along the edges of the pool. Then his eye ran up the shore to the tall stand of queen's lace waving on the edge of the birches, and came back, noting the vervain, the scarlet cardinal flowers, and the deflowered iris clumps. The ripe pod of a milkweed plant, bending over from the shore, was blowing now

wall that ran along the top of a knoll. It startled the musician to discover the boy just then, but he had not been seen by the boy, for the latter was staring up inquisitively at the topmost branches of a near-by, gaunt dead elm-tree. In any case, the musician reflected, the boy could make no difference. He would do to run and tell the townspeople. And then the musician turned to look over the railing, and, fascinated, gazed until he was oblivious of all but the calm, inviting depths of the pool.

It was deep, in truth, and promised rest. On the sunlit side, the pool was transparent, clear; and on the other, in the shadow of the birch-wood, it was a lucent, velvet-black mirror, reflecting the palisade of white trunks. And the musician grimly observed that this was all the monument he desired, this transient reflection as white as any tombstone. On the surface of the pool the darting water-bugs created their strange, impulsive, intersecting designs, and, like many a higher organism, left no trace. There came a litany from below, where the water ran among the rocks. To-day all was calm and alluring to the musician, who had been there yesterday as well, reflecting upon Shakspere's queen of old Nile: she had asked but a grave of Nilus' mud that water-flies might blow her into abhorring, and to the musician the ringing cry of her despair was fully comprehensible.

He was not the prey of barren pessimism. What he would do would be the fruit of very ripe intention. He thought he was just as decided about what he was going to do as when he had come from the heart of the woods, but he lingered here to think more lucidly of the way circumstances become complicated, and to fret himself a little before the end, because he had been so pitifully long in admitting that they were invincible. He had been a lifetime in concluding that man was a brittle thing, constructed for a limit of achievement that he could not excel. Once he had not believed this of the artist's mind or of the musician's soul; now he believed. Previously, he had had a vain, deluding self-confidence that a soul, once charged with melody, could again fling itself up, up.

Summer had gone, and this faith had gone. The symphony, the adagio-let the struggle cease! The rest should be silence.

So he expressed himself Hamlet-wise. His mind had seemed to run to Shakspere; his ears were attuned to the magic of sweet words discoursing upon life's nothingness. Years before he had liked to think of himself as Hamlet. He had had the wavering resolution; now he also had something of the paunch, and he was occasionally out of breath, and it must have been of this condition that Hamlet had taken note when he cried:

O, that this too too solid flesh would melt, Thaw and resolve itself into a dew!

Did the world think that fat men had no tragedy that it must have its Hamlet lean? The musician was stocky, he had seen himself grow pursy, but he was none the less despairing. There came to mind a past vexation, that his coarse, wiry hair, growing in a wide circle around an area that was bald, should have made him look too much like a fat, ridiculous Jew. Middle years and passion's storm had done their worst for him. But time! Time could repair by dissolution the worst that the years could ever do. One thing was left to man, to shorten the futility of his days. He 'd yield himself to time.

Time, as seen through the clear mirror of the pool, was so transparent that all his life behind was turgid and confused. No memories of the past blurred the shining future. Now that the fever had left his brain, what had seemed reasonable enough on coming from the woods, seemed inevitable. The silence in-and beyond the pool! A moment only to note its beauty!

He leaned over the railing, and the rough bark scraped his forearm through a thin shirt-sleeve, and the slight hurt seemed desirable, quickening his other senses. He saw water-cress growing thickly along the edges of the pool. Then his eye ran up the shore to the tall stand of queen's lace waving on the edge of the birches, and came back, noting the vervain, the scarlet cardinal flowers, and the deflowered iris clumps. The ripe pod of a milkweed plant, bending over from the shore, was blowing now