UNFORGOTTEN HISTORY.

Dominion, Volume 6, Issue 1756, 22 May 1913, Page 2

UNFORGOTTEN HISTORY.

The curtain had just fallen on tho last act of Antony and Sweet and twenty, arm in arm with'iifty, crosses the bright-globed park, homewards. A silence born of tho aiijllt, imd the selftragic end of .Egypt's great Queen, lias tied'even youth's voluble tongue. St. Marv's shadows enfold ere it is broken, and "then youth asks a questiou, several questions. "Can you tell me, mother mine, why Clcopatras livo and never grow old? Why poets tell their charms, and playwrights mako their names immortal? These enchantresses were —well, not exactly good, you know, and yet we love to hear about them, read of them, set their passionate love portrayed time and again, by tho best exponents of tho histrionic art, and scenes magnificent im tho extreme. Why has no one sung of Elizabeth Fry, Harriett llartineau, Harriett Bcecher Stojve? Is goodness at a premium, and virtue of little account? Famous I women were, more often than not, infamous. Catherine of Russia, the Medicis, Madame Du Barry, Pompadour,' SSieL Gwynne—why, their lives will not bear inspection, yet their beauty, their power, their influence, have been told and retold in painting, novel, and drama. Tell me why, mother mine, these tilings be, and why good women (lo not inspire the pen. the brush, and tho great actress, in tho same way ?" Fifty is hard put to it to answer, yet sweet and twenty demands a reply. lin may not toll her in so many words, nor quote the assertion of an English novelist, that "it is the bad women who Seem lo know men best, and to be able to influence them most." But she calls to her remembrance the first scene of the drama they have just witnessed, the great queen's passionate love for tho Eoman soldier, a love against which kingdom, place, and fower count for nothing. In the second net she tells youth to recall the uncontrolled jealousy of n> woman which would tear tlio very life from tho slave who dares say Antony is married, and that tho new wifo may be fairer than she. And in tho final scene sweet and twenty herself remembers tho courage of tho woman who, without the flicker of an eyelid, seeks reunion with her lover, and presses tho poisonous asp close, close to nor breast, counting life not worth the living, since ho whom sho loved lies dead at her feet. _ Passionately she lived, passionately sho died, says fifty, with a smile. And herein, :ha points out, is tho secret of the perpetual /interest Clcopatras hold for men -and woiDlrn 01 oil nftos. For they thought, and loved, and loved intensely. Ko lialf-nieasures ■ for them. All or nothing they wanted, and got. And concentration of thought, unswerving purpose, and intensity of feeling won tlio day for them. Hotfover un ? worthv their aims and ambitions may have been,'and were, however unworihy their levo, it was. yet a vital flame, which scarred a pathway down the long conturics, and commanded the Memory of an oft-forgetful world. Many a woman has placidly loved her husband, and been forgotten by him ere the spring came round again. But the world remembers, so says I'uty , the Heloise and Cleopatra type, because they lived and loved .intensely. Youth sighs as sho enters the .home portal. Sho is not altogether satisfied. But Fifty smiles.—From -ho bydncy Horning Herald."