In Spite of All by Edna Lyall — Read

Many loved Truth, and lavished life's best oil / Amid the dusk of books to find her. / But these our brothers fought for her, / At life's dear peril wrought for her, / So loved her that they died for her, / Tasting the raptured fleetness Of her divine completeness: / Their higher instinct knew / Those love her best who to themselves are true, / And what they dare to dream of dare to do. / They followed her and found her Where all may hope to find-- / Not in the ashes of the burnt-out mind, / But beautiful with danger's sweetness round her, / Where faith made whole with deed / Breathes its awakening breath / Into the lifeless creed; / They saw her plumed and mailed, / With sweet, stem face unveiled, / And all-repaying eyes look proud on them in death. / --Lowell.

There had been a heavy fall of snow in Hereford during the night, but the south walk in Dr. Harford's garden had been swept, and the still, frosty air and mid-day sunshine made the place as pleasant a playground as could be wished. The merry voices of a boy and girl had rung for the last half-hour in the pleasance, and the joys of snowballing were far too keen to allow the little couple to notice even for a moment the beauty of the wintry scene, with the rime-covered trees and bushes bordering the river, and in the background the cathedral, its massive tower surmounted in those seventeenth century days by a lofty spire covered with lead which glittered in the bright sunshine.