PREFACE

As I sit in the broad piazza, watching the closing of the day, I gaze into the vistas of moss-draped giant oaks. All is mystery, the mystery of nature, the mystery of the ages. These oaks, still strong, still beautiful, have seen generations pass. Through their filmy vistas the god of the day is sending his gleaming shafts as he has always done.

But brighter to me than these last rays is the pageant of the Past, which sweeps before me now: scenes as intense as the flaming sky, incidents as tender as the fleecy clouds, years as dark and tragic as that leaden storm-bank at the horizon’s edge, but redeemed from utter despair by a courage and a sacrifice equal in splendor to its illumined summits.

In my memory are stored the beauty and pathos of these years. Shall I let all this die without a word? These pictures I have treasured—so full of beauty and color—shall I let them fade, even as the sunset, into gray oblivion? I cannot bring before you as clearly as I would the charm and glamour of the past, but I can at least give a faint idea of “the days that are no more.”