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PAINTED WINDOWS
BY
ELIA W. PEATTIE
Will you come with me into the chamber of memory and lift your eyes to the painted windows where the figures and scenes of childhood appear? Perhaps by looking with kindly eyes at those from out my past, long wished-for visions of your own youth will appear to heal the wounds from which you suffer, and to quiet your stormy and restless heart.
CONTENTS
I NIGHT
II SOLITUDE
III FRIENDSHIP
IV FAME
V REMORSE
VI TRAVEL
PAINTED WINDOWS
I
NIGHT
YOUNG people believe very little that they hear about the compen- sations of growing old, and of living over again in memory the events of the past. Yet there really are these com- pensations and pleasures, and although they are not so vivid and breathless as the pleasures of youth, they have some- thing delicate and fine about them that must be experienced to be appreciated.
Few of us would exchange our mem- ories for those of others. They have become a part of our personality, and we could not part with them without losing something of ourselves. Neither would we part with our own particular childhood, which, however difficult it may have been at times, seems to each of us more significant than the child- hood of any one else. I can run over in my mind certain incidents of my childhood as if they were chapters in a much-loved book, and when I am wake- ful at night, or bored by a long journey, or waiting for some one in the railway- station, I take them out and go over them again.
Nor is my book of memories without its illustrations. I can see little vil- lages, and a great city, and forests and planted fields,