The Day After
THE CONTRIBUTORS’ CLUB.
MANIFOLD are the songs that celebrate our holidays and anniversaries, plentiful are the pages filled with suitable selections and appropriate refrains commemorating this great day or that remarkable occasion. Lives there a holiday so humble that it has not its host of eulogists ? Is there a memorable time that has escaped due recognition ?
Yes, one, — and that of such incalculable importance that it should stand preëminent among red-letter days : a day the value of which none may ignore ; the vast significance of which all must acknowledge ; a day that plays a vital part in every life and makes or mars the history of every soul. It is a petty day of judgment. A day that tests our passions, and tries our strength and patience, and teaches us the worth of all other red-letter days, none of which may dare rival this one in might and majesty.
It is a strange omission that the “ Day After, ” supreme and epoch-making period of time, should have failed to receive the homage which is its just prerogative.
The Day After the feast, we run slight risk of overrating its value. The Day After the ball, we can sit down to analyze our partners. The Day After the wedding begins a new régime, for better or for worse. The Day After the funeral, the bereaved realize that the beloved one has departed.
That is the day that tests, and tells, and laughs, and weeps, and registers its date upon the soul.
The battle surely tries the general’s skill and strength, but the Day After reveals his character and greatness.
The coronation is a mighty spectacle, but the Day After we learn the measure of the king.
Upon a summer day we shout the wondrous victory of Manila, but the Day After perchance we may deplore the burden of the Philippines.
What mean those two great words “ success ” and “ defeat ” save in the light of the Day After ?
The angel with the flaming sword drives Adam and Eve from Paradise, and then begins the story of the world.
A climax is much oftener a beginning than an ending. We follow a series of great events up to that instant of triumph or despair, and then we end abruptly ; such a conclusion is verily artistic !
The curtain falls as Phyllis murmurs “ yes,” but still the audience wonders if the glad ending will really prove so, when tested by the clear prosaic daylight that is to come.
Ah, vital day of days, we are incapable of measuring our other days except by you !
Breathing your calm tranquillity, we learn regret and thankfulness. In your judicial presence we recognize success and failure, which in the rush of swift events and stirring action we are unable to distinguish.
And at the end, we speak of “ Death ” with lowered tones and dim forebodings, yet’t is not Death we fear, but the Day After.