Life — December 22, 1910 — page 17: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

A Fable of Flames HERE was once a man and a woman who loved and were married. “We will love forever,” said the man. To keep the new hearth warm each brought a flame, And the man’s flame was a mighty, roaring tongue of fire. But the woman's was smaller, steady and luminous. These they placed upon the hearth “Look,” said the man, “how much bigger mine is than yours. It will give more heat and last longer.” The man’s flame was crimson. It licked out savagely with many tongues, and it gave out a smoke that all might see, The woman’s was white and clear; and as there was no smoke none knew | of it. “Mine will burn without any care,” said the man. But the woman tended hers daily. As time went on the man's flame va- ried. Now it soared up mightily, again it died down almost to extinction. The woman's burned alike, day and night, summer and winter. Yet the man cared not to add new fuel to his, nor to remove the choking ashes, nor to set the draughts aright, But all these things the woman did—yea, even to the neglecting of other duties. And the man warmed his hands at his flame when he could, and went cold when he could not. But the woman kept her hands warm at her flame—yea, even to the neglecting of other joys. Then presently the man’s flame went out, “See what you have done!" he said Macbeth: sake Not THY GORY LOCKS AT ME. THOU CANST Nor SAY J DID IT. angrily to the woman. Then he went to warm his hands at other firesides, com- plaining that his flame was dead. The woman kept her hands as warm as she could at the one small flame upon her hearth. Then one day the man, bitten to the heart with a deadly cold, and denied at other hearthstones, came back to his own hearth. “Tam cold,” he said; “warm me!” The woman held out to him her flame. She smiled. The man seized upon the flame and warmed his hands at it But when in his eagerness he would have wrapped the flame in his bosom and kept it for his own use it went out. Boozer Bill: rsuaw! ust xv LucK To Then the woman shivered. FIND THE PLACE CLOSED. She was cold. Helen Coale Crew.