The Whispering Gallery, Part IV [pp. 421-426]

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THE WHISPERING GALLERY
By ROSSITER JOHNSON
Some truths may be proclaimed upon the housetop;
Others may be spoken by the fireside;
Still others must be whispered in the ear of a friend.
HE next time we saw Miss Ravaline she was in deep sorrow. Her only sister,
who had been most happily married less than a year before, was recentlv
widowed. The young man had been a general favorite, whose life was full
of promise, and its end was peculiarly tragic. Miss Ravaline,- like many another
mourner, finding no consolation in gazing at an empty chair and thinking of the
virtues of him who had filled it, or in reading the many letters of condolence that
came to her sister, or in considering his work, which now seemed to have gathered
about it a kind of sacred atmosphere, or in thinking he was even happier now
than in his life on earth,-had turned to such literature, sacred and-profane, I
suppose is the conventional term, but there ought to be a better one-as relates
especially to this somber subject.
"I have been re-reading," said she, "all the great elegiac poems in our language, and some also that are not great, are not famous even, but are worthy of
serious attention."
"Have you not observed," said I, "that nearly all the poets who are not poets
-I mean the scores of young men and school-girls who try their hands (or perhaps I should say their wits) at rhyme -devote their earliest efforts to this subject?"
"I think the reason for that is plain," said Elacott. "'Tlie mass of mankind
lead, for the most part, a monotonous existence. One day's story, with them, is
like another's. But sooner or later thev are startled by an event that challenges
attention and compels them to think. A near relative or a dear friend is taken from
life; and althotugh thev have always been aware of the common and inevitable
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