Produced by Larry B. Harrison and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net THE PENTECOST OF CALAMITY THE MACMILLAN COMPANY NEW YORK · BOSTON · CHICAGO · DALLAS ATLANTA · SAN FRANCISCO MACMILLAN & CO., LIMITED LONDON · BOMBAY · CALCUTTA MELBOURNE THE MACMILLAN CO. OF CANADA, LTD. TORONTO THE PENTECOST OF CALAMITY _By_ OWEN WISTER _Author of "The Virginian," etc._ New York THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 1915 _All rights reserved_ COPYRIGHT, 1915, BY THE CURTIS PUBLISHING COMPANY. COPYRIGHT, 1915, BY THE MACMILLAN COMPANY. Set up and electrotyped. Published August, 1915. Reprinted September, twice, October, twice, November, three times; December, 1915 Norwood Press J. S. Cushing Co.--Berwick & Smith Co. Norwood, Mass., U.S.A. THE PENTECOST OF CALAMITY Ever the fiery Pentecost Girds with one flame the countless host. --EMERSON. I By various influences and agents the Past is summoned before us, more vivid than a dream. The process seems as magical as those whereof we read in fairy legends, where circles are drawn, wands waved, mystic syllables pronounced. Adjured by these rites, voices speak, or forms and faces shape themselves from nothing. So, through certain influences, not magical at all, our brains are made to flash with visions of other days. Is there among us one to whom this experience is unknown? For whom no particular strain of music, or no special perfume, is linked with an inveterate association? Music and perfumes are among the most potent of these evocatory agents; but many more exist, such as words, sounds, handwriting. Thus almost always, at the name of the town Cologne, the banks of the golden stream, the German Rhine, sweep into my sight as first I saw them long ago; and from a steamer's deck I watch again, and again count, a train composed of twenty-one locomotives, moving ominous and sinister on their new errand. That was July 19, 1870. France had declared war on Prussia that day. Mobilization was beginning before my eyes. I was ten. Dates and anniversaries also perform the same office as music and perfumes. This is the ninth of June. This day, last year, I was in the heart of Germany. The beautiful, peaceful scene is plain yet. It seems as if I never could forget it or cease to love it. Often last June I thought how different the sights I was then seeing were from those twenty-one locomotives rolling their heavy threat along the banks of the Rhine. And, for the mere curiosity of it, I looked in my German diary to find if I had recorded anything on last June ninth that should be worth repeating on this June ninth.