There are echoes on all sides of us, and no sound is ever lost. How can
this be?
If you stand beside a quiet pool, and drop a stone into it, the stone sinks
down to the bottom and lies there; but from the spot where its fall broke
the calm surface, ring after ring ripples the water. Just so a single word
dropped from the lips of a child into the ocean of air is carried on, wave
after wave; so that, as a great philosopher once said, "the air is one vast
library, on whose pages is for ever written all that man has ever said or
even whispered."
[Illustration: THE "ECHO WOOD"]
There is a poem which you may know, that begins with this line--
"Kind words can never die."
This is quite true; but we might alter the first part of it a little, and
say, "No word can ever die." Not only the soft, loving words, but the
rough, angry ones, which we may well wish we had never spoken, all live in
this "vast library," and tell their own story.
How much it ought to make us think about our words, to know they can never
be lost!
THE RED, RED SKY.
"In the early, early morning, beyond the islands green,
Beyond the pines and palm trees, and the purple sea between,
Like the glow through a crimson window the morning rises slow,
And the isles lie dun in the glory, and the sea is all aglow.
"In the dim and misty evening the purple mountains stand,
And the glooms that hush the woodlands lie over all the land,
And high in dark blue heavens the red light bums and glows.
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