The seamless robe

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated.1912 Excerpt: ... CHAPTER n SHADOW-LAND Tell me not In mournful numbers, Life Is but an empty dream. For the soul is dead that slumbers, And things are not what they seem.--Longfellow. While Sir James Norton thus soliloquised, his distinguished patient drove further westward. With eyes half closed, he lay back upon the soft leather which cushioned his brougham, and that great impressionist--man's imagination--dashed a vivid picture upon the canvas of his mind. There he saw the interior of a beautiful chapel. Strong shafts of light, richly dyed, threw their radiance upon the central figures of a stately group. A background of oak, carved by the hand of a master craftsman and deeply empurpled by age, formed a regal setting for the font of cloud-white marble which shone forth softly as might the purest pearl. Almost lost to sight within the lawn-draped arms of episcopalian dignity lay a little child. Gathered around were men and women of high degree. There stood a royal princess, and next to her he saw his wife.... Here fear caught the man about the heart, and bade him give pause and observe that, with the ripening of her motherhood, his wife's loveliness bespoke the pale beauty of the snowdrop, rather than, as heretofore, the straightness and strength of the lily.... And his it was to tell her that the little babe, his child and hers, must, while still a child, bear the full weight of a great inheritance. God grant that he be not compelled to carry also the burden of his race's woe! The weary man's eyes are now quite closed. Worn out with the morning's demands upon his strength, he sleeps. And as he sleeps, the glitter and the roar of Babylon, softened and beautified out of all similitude, penetrate his dreams: he stands, a spectator, forming an item in a crowd of rank and wea...