It is reported that the last words of Charles Frohman before he went down on the ill-starred “Lusitania” were: “Why should we fear death? It is the most beautiful adventure of life.”
It was a great heart said that, holding it-self a bit aloof from the game, not too entangled with earth’s interests. For the fine soul is always above his pleasures, above his pains.
To the well-seasoned mind life is a pageant. What next? And will the day’s scene and doings be tragedy or comedy?
And at the end of the play there is always that most alluring adventure—death.
What does it mean? We know a deal, we have fat books of science, other books full of figures; we have studied, probed, tabulated, classified—go into the library and see the Augean stables of our knowledge. But we know as little of what death means as the cavemen knew.
There is that shut door. We paint pictures on it. We peep at the keyhole and think we see something. But what is on the other side no man knows.
Some day we shall each find out. But they that know never tell. It is the one secret that is kept.
Against that door pours humanity’s most desperate love and longing. As we grow older the best of our friendships gather over there. Do they still live? Do they still love?
Against that door surges question after question; and there is no answer but the surf-roar where the baffled questions break.
The great adventure! It is around the corner from me. When shall I meet it? Today? Tomorrow?
“I wonder the day of the year;
I wonder the hour of the day.”
Our utter ignorance of what it means has a deep influence upon life’s quality.
To know positively the future would make us hard. Dogmatists, who assert they know, and have made themselves believe they know, lose a certain flavor; for they have ceased to be adventurers. The soul’s finest food is mystery. It makes nobleness of mind. It gives a certain elevation to our view. It is like living always in sight of the ocean.
Every night the sky enrolls its amazing panorama of mystery. What does it say to the eyes that gaze upward? What sediment of beauty does it deposit in wondering hearts?
These are things too deep for words. Somewhere in the subterranean caverns of the soul, there is stored the strange wisdom we gather from the Infinite.
Every day is a surprise. The one thing of which we are sure is the unexpected.
Each of us stands upon the prow of Today, an eager Columbus, peering into the uncharted sea of Tomorrow.
What shall happen to us when we go through that Door? What for us will be the Great Adventure?
All I know is that, when I came into this life, loving hands had made a plan for me, a mother’s breast awaited me, a father’s care protected me.
And there, too, shall the newcomer not find a home? Shall not love and labor welcome him?
Whatever it be, let us approach it with stout hearts, relying upon the cosmic ac-curacies of the spirit, the certainties of love.
Surely a soul has gained much that has learned to look on Death, not as the Great Calamity, but as the Beautiful Adventure.
