,,the ,,last ,,christmas ,,tree ,illustration3 ,james ,lane ,allen ,,the ,,last ,,christmas ,,tree ,,an ,,idyl ,,of ,,immortality ,,by ,,james ,,lane ,,allen ,,portland ,,maine ,,thomas ,,bird ,,mosher ,,mdccccxiv ,,copyright ,,james ,,lane ,,allen #aiad ,,to ,,those ,,who ,,know ,,they ,,have ,,no ,,solution ,,of ,,the ,,universe ,,yet ,,hope ,,for ,,the ,,best ,,and ,,live ,,for ,,it ,,the ,,last ,,christmas ,,tree ,in a somewhat different and in a much briefer form ,the ,last ,christmas ,tree appeared several years ago in ,the ,saturday ,evening ,post4 ,,the ,,last ,,christmas ,,tree ,life on this earth1 my children1 means warmth4 ,do not forget that3 whatever else it may be1 life as we know it is warmth4 ,every living earthly thing is on fire and every fire is perpetually going out4 ,when the warmth1 when the fire1 which is within us and which is perpetually going out1 goes out for good1 that is the end of us4 ,it is the end of us as far as the life which we derive from the planet is ourselves4 ,if our planetary life is our only life1 when the planetary fire within us dies out1 all of us dies out4 ,if planetary fire be not our only vital flame1 vital energy1 then planetary dust and ashes are not the complete end of us1 not the last word of our terrible lovable human story4 ,and if this be true1 what next may come1 what kind of story will then begin with ourselves as its characters1 what sort of existence for us will emerge from planetary extinction--that has always been the one greatest question1 solicitude1 hope1 help1 song1 prayer of our race4 ,it has never been more a problem than now when we know more about many other things than we have ever known yet can find out nothing about this thing and were never so impatient of our ignorance4 ,but meantime life on this earth implies warmth and carries warmth3 that at least we positively have found out though without knowing what warmth is4 ,every living terrestrial creature is a candle1 is a lamp4 ,the rose is a perfumed lamp and when its bowl is without oil1 that inimitable lamp so silently built to give off for a little while a few serene rays of vestal beauty as silently falls to pieces4 ,the pine tree is a wild candle poised on a mountain table4 ,the eagle is a winged candle burning to cinders on a peak of air4 ,the albatross is a floating conflagration with all the ineffectual sea drenching its back and breast4 ,the polar bear is a four-branch candle in a candlestick of snow4 ,we human beings are laughing and tear-dripping candles1 descending swiftly to our sockets4 ,the sun and the stars are candles1 whirling golden candles in the night of the universe1 a long1 long night4 ,one by one they too burn down at those brief intervals which we with our puny measurements call ages4 ,the whole myriad-lighted starry infinite1 as far as we know1 is a mere ballroom arranged for somebody's pleasure1 somebody's dancing4 ,the candles may last as long as the master of the revels requires them2 and then perhaps at some strange daybreak of which we can conceive naught1 they will go out to the final one--all go out at the coming-on of day4 ,a strange day indeed without any suns1 without any stars1 these having been consumed during the ancient night4 ,what our human race has always most wished to know1 most liked to believe1 is that ,nature1 the whole universe of ,nature1 is itself but a troubled night of being2 and that when ,nature has come to some kind of end1 the night of existence will have come to an end also4 ,beyond will have to be some kind of day1 endless day4 ,our human race has always believed or has tried to believe that on the ,natureward confines of that day it will be discovered1 assembled there1 waiting there1 having journeyed thither somehow3 no matter how1 so it arrive4 ,for however dull and petty man may be1 however despicable1 brutish1 abandoned1 there has been no lack of sublimity in his vision1 in his faith1 of what he is to be3 that after the last star has gone out in the night of ,nature1 the orb of his soul will have but begun to flash the immortality of its dawn4 ,once and for an immeasurable time the whole earth was warm1 and life on it being warmth1 the life on it was everywhere4 ,that was ,nature's particular hour of the night just then--it called for a warm earth completely covered with life4 ,then one day something took place that had never taken place before4 ,for the first time1 for the very first time in the experience of the earth1 out of one of its clouds there began to fall1 not what had always fallen in the past1 drops of rain1 but tiny white crystals4 ,at first they were few2 then more and more2 then myriads1 myriads1 myriads1 until the air grew grey with the thick host of them4 ,finally the scene became as if the sky were the floor of the desert1 an upper inverted desert floor covered with fine white sand1 with sand-dunes2 and the winds1 sweeping and roaring across this desert floor1 lifted the dunes1 scattered them and swept them along3 avalanches of white sand1 cloudy landslides of white sand--blown toward the earth underneath4 ,no creature there below had ever seen the like2 and as those avalanches slided down on their heads and backs1 tumult1 fear1 flight followed4 ,perhaps caught in the raging1 roaring tempest1 perhaps having lost its way1 some bird of brilliant-red plumage flew round and round like a wandering ball of fire1 uttering its cry of bewilderment1 of helplessness1 of its fate--the prophetic note of the fate of everything4 ,when the first of these strange cold white crystals struck the warm earth1 at once they vanished4 ,so that for a while the vast catastrophe looked like some unfeeling prank of the clouds1 some too grave a trick1 heartless deception4 ,but faster than the first could melt1 others came1 more1 more1 until the later ones arrived before the earlier ones had disappeared4 ,and then they began to stay where they fell4 ,they began to stay and to pile up one on another2 they began to make a white spot1 a frozen spot4 ,we know nothing as to how and when and where2 yet we are bound to understand that some time there was the first snowcloud1 somewhere the first snowstorm1 the first snowbank4 ,no human eye beheld it3 there was to be no human eye for untold ages yet4 ,but there was one who saw1 one who was present1 one who had brought it to pass--,time2 and now that the first white spot was prepared and ready like some new flat marble slab1 bordered round with the earth's green and awaiting humanwise its due inscription1 ,time glanced at it1 approved it1 stepped forward and stooping down wrote three words in the sand--in the white sand of the sky3 ,,hic ,,jacet ,,terra4 ,since the unknown day of the first unknown snowbank1 the earth has made no revolution1 has not once turned over from side to side without keeping undeviatingly in the straight road toward the fulfilment of that epitaph1 ,time's epitaph4 ,never since then1 though fighting with all its fires1 has it been able to drive off that pallid visitant from outer space1 never has it been able to prevent the persistent return of that appalling stranger4 ,for the little white spot would not out1 would not out for good4 ,if it disappeared in one place1 it reappeared in another place4 ,and it invariably brought along more of its kind3 each visitant seemed to bring a mate1 a family1 a tribe4 ,in the blossoming zones of the earth's surface where we spend our dream-life of pain and joy1 if a solitary bee find its way to a new field in spring1 the summer will be likely to bring the swarm4 ,if a migratory bird by some deviation of route alight on a strange continent or island1 the species may some day cover that continent or island4 ,and those first downward flights from the clouds began to be followed by other flights1 by vaster flocks and flights4 ,and the earth began to have a new trouble4 ,she1 our very human ,mother1 had from the first had enough troubles of her own1 as without exception we her very human children have had enough of ours4 ,sometimes her stories had begun well but each of them as it ended ended badly4 ,as we now look back upon any one of these finished stories of hers1 we may derive some satisfaction from seeing that it possessed the art1 the logic1 of being inevitable4 ,but that will be our only joy4 ,her great novels1 her great epics1 have uniformly been stupendous1 immeasurable cataclysms1 earth-tragedies4 ,but among them all not one has possessed the awful beauty1 the chaste splendor1 the universality1 of this new trouble of hers with the tiny crystal4 ,we are well accustomed as we look out upon ,nature at close range to see great creatures harrassed by little creatures4 ,the lot of each big one seems to be in the keeping of some little one1 which never quits it1 nags it1 stings it1 wears it out1 drives it desperate1 makes life somewhat a burden to it and death somewhat a relief4 ,but no one of us has ever seen so huge and powerful a thing as a whole round world pitilessly stalked from age to age1 run down1 overcome inch by inch1 routed out of a fair destiny by such a mite of a tormentor as a crystal4 ,nowhere have we witnessed so disproportionate a conflict as that between a sphere and a snowflake4 ,why1 some wintry day when you in overcoat and gloves are tramping comfortably across your fields on which snow is falling1 stop and draw off one of your gloves1 and holding out your hand1 catch one of these little terrors1 one of these dread arrows from the unseen quiver of all whiteness4 ,intercept it in its passage towards the earth and let it strike you1 strike your palm1 instead of striking the ,mother who has been struck so often4 ,one instant after it has reached your palm it has dropped its disguise and has turned into its old familiar self1 a raindrop1 a drop of dew4 ,that is1 under the influence of the warmth of your planetary fire1 it has returned to its youth4 ,for snow is the old age of water4 ,cloud1 mist1 rain1 dew--these all are young3 their old age is ice4 ,when a dewdrop arranges itself for perpetuity1 disposes itself in orderly fashion never to change again1 stretches itself out in its rigor mortis1 it has become a crystal4 ,it has given up the ghost and has become a ghost--it has become snow1 the ghost of the brook1 the ghost of the rain4 ,now this--just this--was the ,earth's new trouble2 and this ever since has been her increasing trouble and her losing fight3 that over vaster and vaster regions of her surface she has lost the power to work the miracle of the resurrection--to bid the dead arise1 take back its life1 and having burst from its white sepulchre ascend again to the heavens4 ,this is the trouble of our great ,mother--that she has been fighting against old age as we her children fight against it4 ,old age has been descending upon her from the clouds2 and wherever she has not been able to give back to old age its youth1 there old age has stayed2 and wherever on the earth old age has stayed1 there the earth itself has become old4 ,and now for us who live on the earth to-day1 looking out upon the battle between the planet and the snowflake1 how fares the fighting8 ,if you should start from your home in our north-temperate latitude and travel northward steadily on and on1 after a while you would find that the air gradually grows colder1 myriads of living things begin to be left behind2 fewer and fewer remain2 those that do remain1 whether animals or birds or flowers1 begin to lose gorgeous color1 begin to become white4 ,the countless sounds of living things begin to die out4 ,everything is changed1 colors are gone1 songs have ceased4 ,on and on you journey and always you are traveling towards silence1 toward the white4 ,and at last you come to the kingdom of the crystal1 to the reign of the snowflake1 to the old age of the earth2 you come to one of the battlefields where the snowflake has conquered the planet4 ,perhaps on this northward journey the last living thing you saw in ,nature was the evergreen--thriving there in unconquerable youth on the margin of unconquerable death4 ,if you should start from your home and travel southward1 you would at first cross land after land where it grew warmer2 but if you kept on1 you would at last begin to recognize all that you had seen on your northward journey3 life failing1 colors fading1 the living harmonies of the earth replaced by the discords of ,nature's lifeless forces3 pinnacles of ice1 deserts of snow4 ,again on those boundaries of desolation you would see the sign of the world's youth--its evergreen3 only that sign4 ,if1 starting from your home for the third time1 you could rise straight into the air1 higher1 higher1 as though you were climbing the side of an aerial mountain1 you would at last find that you had ascended the aerial mountain to a height where1 were it a real mountain1 it would be capped with snow1 capped with perpetual snow4 ,for all round the earth wherever its actual mountains are high enough1 their summits pierce the level of eternal cold3 above us everywhere lies the unseen land of eternal cold4 ,and there again near those summits your eye1 searching for some mitigation of the solitude1 would come upon the evergreen4 ,some time in the future1 we do not know when1 but some time the cold at the north will have moved so far southward2 the cold at the south will have moved so far northward2 the cold in the upper air will have moved so far downward1 that the three will meet and when they meet there will be for the earth one whiteness1 one silence--rest3 all troubled or untroubled things will be at rest4 ,a great time had passed1 how great no one knew2 there was none to measure it4 ,it was twilight and it was snowing4 ,on a steep mountain's side near its bald summit thousands of feet above the line that any other living thing had ever crossed1 stood two glorious fir trees1 strongest and last of their race4 ,they had climbed out of the valley below to this height and had so rooted themselves in rock and soil that the wildest gales had never been able to dislodge them4 ,now the two occupied that beetling cliff as the final sentinels of ,nature4 ,they were like two soldiers stationed at the farthest outpost against the enemy and remaining faithful after all they stood for had perished4 ,the two firs looked out toward the land in one direction4 ,at the foot of the mountain in old human times a village had thriven1 had worked and played2 church spires had risen1 bridal candles had twinkled at twilight1 children had played at snowball4 ,in the opposite direction the trees looked out upon the ocean1 once the rolling blue ocean singing its great song but level now or ice-roughened and white and still--its voice hushed with all other voices1 the roar of its battleships silenced long ago4 ,the two comrade trees had the strange wisdom of their race1 ages old and gathered into them through untold generations4 ,they had their memories1 their sympathies2 they reached one another with language past our understanding4 ,one fir grew lower on the mountainside than the other2 it was like a man so stationed on a declivity that his head barely reaches to the shoulder of another man higher up4 ,a slow bitter wind wandered through their boughs1 smote their delicate boughs as though these were strings of harps4 ,the two firs became like harpers of old with whitened locks and long hoary beards1 harpers who never tire of the past1 of great days gone by4 ,the fir below1 as the snowflakes became thicker on its locks and sifted in more closely about its neck1 shook itself loose from them and spoke3 8,comrade1 the end for us draws near2 the snow creeps up4 ,to-night it will place its cap on my head4 ,i shall close my eyes and follow all things into their sleep40 8,yes10 responded the fir above1 8follow all things into their sleep4 ,if all things were thus to sleep at last1 why were they ever awakened8 ,it is a mystery40 ,the slow wind caught the words and bore them outward across the land and outward across the sea3 8,mystery--mystery--mystery40 ,twilight deepened4 ,the clouds trailed through the trees2 the flakes were formed amid the branches2 it was no longer the fall of the snow3 the ice-drops rested where they were formed4 ,at intervals1 surrounded by clouds and darkness1 the low communings of the two trees went on3 8,where now is he1 the strange human one1 he of the long thoughts and the brief shadow80 8,he thought he was immortal2 to him everything else on the earth perished but he was immortal4 ,where is he now80 8,once when he was very proud he said that he had a ,creator who made him to lie down in green pastures40 8,he lies in white pastures4 ,all the millions of his race lie in white pastures1 not green pastures40 8,our fathers1 the evergreens1 came forth on the earth countless ages before he appeared2 and we are still here untold ages since he disappeared--leaving not a trace of himself behind40 8,the most fragile of the mosses was born before he was born and it outlasted him40 8,the frailest fern was not so perishable40 8,yet he believed that he should have eternal youth40 8,that his race would return to some ,power who had sent it forth40 8,that he was ever being borne onward to some far off divine event where there was justice40 8,where there was justice for all40 8,he so loved justice yet so withheld justice40 8,it was the first thing he demanded and the last thing he meted out40 ,darkness now overhung the mountain top1 deep night above4 ,at intervals the firs1 being fast covered with snow1 went on with their broken talk which wandered back and forth along the track of ages4 ,they had but a few minutes for their thoughts of the ages and they lingered here and there as they willed4 8,this is part of the mystery3 if he were but the earth's dust and ashes1 like everything else1 how could it be so8 ,how could the earth which is without sin breed in his race so many sinners8 ,how could the earth1 since it speaks only the truth1 have been the father of all his lies8 ,how1 without sorrow1 could it have been the mother of his sorrows8 ,the earth never felt joy2 how could it have made him joy incarnate8 ,what does the earth know of greatness yet it made him great4 ,how could that be80 8,it is part of the mystery40 8,had they realized how alone in the universe they were1 would they not have turned to each other for happiness80 8,would not all have helped each80 8,would not each have helped all80 8,the longest of their rivers was the river of their own blood40 8,if they could have caught it in the basin of some empty sea1 they could have floated on it all their fleets of battleships40 ,once in the night they spoke together3 8,and all his gods1 his many gods in many lands with many faces--they all sleep now in their ancient temples2 it is at last the true twilight of the gods40 8,they set shepherds over them4 ,then the shepherds declared themselves appointed by the ,creator of the universe to lead other men as their sheep3 now what difference is there between the sheep and the shepherds80 8,the shepherds lie with the sheep in the same white pasture4 ,they were all sheep3 they had no shepherd40 8,and their sins were the sins of sheep1 but the sins of silly sheep40 8,still1 what think you became of all that men did8 ,how could all that perish8 ,it was so solid1 so enduring2 it was so splendid2 it seemed worthy to be immortal40 8,what became of ,science8 ,how could all that ,science was come to naught80 8,and his ,art--that inner light of himself which was ,art8 ,do his pictures hang nowhere8 ,is his music never to be heard again80 8,and the love that was in him--was it but a blind force rising into him as the power of the clouds80 8,what became of the woman who threw herself away for love3 did she find no one at last to weep at the feet of1 no one who would free her soul from her body80 8,what became of the man who was false3 did he ever find a ,power that could make him true80 8,what became of the man who threw himself away in being true3 did any ,power ever make good to him his ruin80 8,the young soldier who poured out his life's blood for his country3 was he never to have any country80 ,on the long road of the ages here and there they loitered with their thoughts3 8,but he did fill the world with a great light of himself1 with the splendor of what he was40 8,and yet it was but half his life1 half his glory4 ,he forever dwelt in less than half of the light of his race3 the rest he himself put out yet never knew the darkness it left him in4 ,more than half his light he put out in neglected childhood and in youth slain on the battlefield40 8,all the greatest names up and down the terrible field of his history--there were just as many that he threw away3 he dwelt in half the light of his race40 ,if there had been a clock to measure the hour it must now have been near midnight as it was reckoned in old human times4 ,suddenly the fir below spoke out hopefully3 8,may they not after all be gathered elsewhere1 strangely altered yet the same8 ,is some other star their safe habitation8 ,were they right1 sheep that they were1 in thinking themselves immortal8 ,are they now in some other world80 8,what know we8 ,what knew he8 ,that was the mystery40 ,the winds caught the word and carried it away3 8,mystery--mystery--mystery40 8,our fathers remembered the day when he went into the woods and cut down one of our people and took it into his house4 ,on the evergreen he set the star3 they were for his youth and his immortality4 ,around those emblems children pressed their faces and reaching out plucked gifts from the branches4 ,the myriads and myriads of the children6 ,what became of them80 8,be still60 whispered the fir tree above4 8,at that moment1 while you spoke1 ,i felt the soft fingers of a child searching my boughs4 ,was not this what in human times they called ,christmas ,eve8 ,there they are again1 the fingers of a child60 8,hearken60 whispered the fir below4 8,down in the valley elfin horns are blowing and elfin drums beat4 ,do you not hear them--faint and far away4 ,and that sound--was it not the bells of the reindeer6 ,it passed3 it was a wandering soul of ,christmas40 8,but they are all around me6 ,they are all around you6 ,myriads and myriads are coming1 are on the way toward us1 the last of their ,christmas trees4 ,the souls of all children1 wide-awake1 are gathering about us ere we pass into the earth's sleep40 8,the souls of the children visit us ere we sleep40 ,not long after this the fir standing below spoke for the last time3 8,comrade1 it is the end for me4 ,the cap of snow is on my head4 ,i follow all things40 ,the snow closed over it4 ,the other fir now stood alone4 ,the snow crept higher and higher4 ,late in the long night it communed once more1 solitary3 8,i1 then1 close the train of earthly things4 ,and ,i was the emblem of immortality2 let the highest be the last to perish6 ,power1 that put forth all things for a purpose1 you have fulfilled1 without explaining it1 that purpose4 ,i follow all things into their sleep40 ,the sun rose clear3 all the mountain tops were white and cold and at peace4 ,the long war between the crystal and the planet was over3 the snowflake had conquered4 ,the earth was dead4 ,,nine ,,hundred ,,and ,,fifty ,,copies ,,of ,,this ,,book ,,printed ,,on ,,van ,,gelder ,,hand-,,made ,,paper ,,and ,,the ,,type ,,distributed ,,in ,,the ,,month ,,of ,,october ,,mdccccxiv