The woman knew, instinctively, that she should not give herself to
this man. She felt in her heart that to do so would make her kin to
her sisters in the unnamable profession. The church would sanction,
the state would legalize, and society would accept such a union--does
accept such unions--but only the divine laws of Life, given for the
protection of Life, can ever make a man and a woman husband and wife.
The laws that govern the right mating of human kind are not enacted by
organizations either social, political, or religious, but are written
in the hearts of those who would, in mating, fulfill the purpose of
Life. These laws may be broken by man but they cannot by him be
repealed; and the penalty that is imposed for their violation is very
evident to all who have eyes to see and who observe with
understanding.
The woman knew, also, that, in respect and honor and gratitude to this
man, she dared not do this thing against which the instinct of her
heart protested. But still she asked herself: "Why? Why was the door
shut against him? Why was it not in her power to do that which she so
longed to do?"
And still, the thought of Failure haunted her.
And so it was, that, in asking, "why"--in seeking the reason of her
failure, the woman was led back even to the years of her childhood.
Back into her Yesterdays she went in search of the key that kept fast
locked the door of her heart against the man whom she would have so
gladly admitted. And, all the way back, as she retraced the steps of
her years, she looked for one who might have the key. But she found no
one. And in her Yesterdays she found only a boy who had entered her
heart when it was the heart of a little girl.
That the boy of her Yesterdays lived still in the heart of the woman,
she knew. But surely--surely--the boy was not strong enough to hold
her woman heart against the man who sought admittance. The boy could
not hold the door against the man and against the woman herself. Those
vows, made so solemnly under the cherry tree, were but childish vows.
It was but a play wedding, after all. And the kiss that had sealed the
vows--the kiss that was so different from other kisses--it was but a
childish kiss ... In the long years that had come between that boy and
girl the vows and the kiss had become but memories--even as the games
they played--even as her keeping house and her family of dolls. That
child wedding belonged only to the Yesterdays.
The woman was haunted by the thought of Failure.
SUCCESS
The world said that he was a young man to have achieved so notable a
Success. And he was. But years have, really, little to do with a man's
age. It is the use that a man makes of his years that ages him or
keeps him young.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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