Eruption, earthquake, avalanche, the attrition of glacier, the erosion
of water, the cracking of frost, the weathering of rain and wind and
snow--these it had eternally fought and resisted in vain, yet still
it stood magnificent, frowning, battle-scarred and undefeated. Its
sky-piercing peaks were as cries for mercy to the Infinite. This old
mountain realized its doom. It had to go, perhaps to make room for
a newer and better kingdom. But it endured because of the spirit of
nature. The great notched circular line of rock below and between the
peaks, in the body of the mountains, showed where in ages past the
heart of living granite had blown out, to let loose on all the near
surrounding desert the streams of black lava and the hills of black
cinders. Despite its fringe of green it was hoary with age. Every
looming gray-faced wall, massive and sublime, seemed a monument of its
mastery over time. Every deep-cut canyon, showing the skeleton ribs, the
caverns and caves, its avalanche-carved slides, its long, fan-shaped,
spreading taluses, carried conviction to the spectator that it was but a
frail bit of rock, that its life was little and brief, that upon it had
been laid the merciless curse of nature. Change! Change must unknit
the very knots of the center of the earth. So its strength lay in the
sublimity of its defiance. It meant to endure to the last rolling grain
of sand. It was a dead mountain of rock, without spirit, yet it taught a
grand lesson to the seeing eye.
Life was only a part, perhaps an infinitely small part of nature's plan.
Death and decay were just as important to her inscrutable design. The
universe had not been created for life, ease, pleasure, and happiness
of a man creature developed from lower organisms. If nature's secret was
the developing of a spirit through all time, Carley divined that she had
it within her. So the present meant little.
"I have no right to be unhappy," concluded Carley. "I had no right to
Glenn Kilbourne. I failed him. In that I failed myself. Neither life nor
nature failed me--nor love. It is no longer a mystery. Unhappiness is
only a change. Happiness itself is only change. So what does it matter?
The great thing is to see life--to understand--to feel--to work--to
fight--to endure. It is not my fault I am here. But it is my fault if
I leave this strange old earth the poorer for my failure.... I will no
longer be little. I will find strength. I will endure.... I still have
eyes, ears, nose, taste. I can feel the sun, the wind, the nip of frost.
Must I slink like a craven because I've lost the love of one man? Must I
hate Flo Hutter because she will make Glenn happy? Never!... All of this
seems better so, because through it I am changed. I might have lived on,
a selfish clod!"