Debris by Madge Morris Wagner (the top 100 crime novels of all time .txt) 📕

to defend, to uplift and ennoble womankind; to be as lenient to a
plea for mercy from a fallen woman as though that plea had come from the lips of a fallen man; to throw around her also the broad
mantle of charity, and if she would try to reform, give her a chance. Far be it from any honest woman to countenance the
abandoned wretch who plies an unholy calling in defiance of all morality, for her very breath is contamination; but why should
you greet with smiles and warmest handclasps of friendship the man who pays his money for her blackened soul? When two human
beings ruled by the same mysterious nature, have yielded to temptations and fallen, what is this monster of social distinction
that excuses the sin of one as a folly or indiscretion, while it makes that of the other a crime, which a lifetime cannot
retrieve? It is a strange justice that condones the fault of one while it condemns the other even to death; that gives to one,
when dead, funeral rite and Christian burial and to the other the Morgue and a dishonored grave, simply because one is a
strong man and the other a weak woman. And it is a stranger, sadder truth that 'tis woman's influence which metes out this
justice to woman. Mother, if you must look with scorn and contempt upon the woman who through her love for some man has
gone down to destruction, do not smilingly acknowledge her paramour a worthy suitor for your own unsullied daughter. Maiden,
if you must sneeringly raise your white hand and push back into the depths of pollution the woman who seeks to reinstate herself
in the path of rectitude, do not permit the man who keeps half a dozen mistresses to clasp his arm around your waist and whirl you
away to the soft measure of the "Beautiful Blue Danube." If the ban of society forbids that you say to a penitent sin-sick
sister, "Go and sin no more," if you must consign her to the life of infamy which inevitably follows the deaf ear which you turn
upon her appeal, then do it; but in God's name do not turn around and throw open the doors of your homes and welcome to the
sanctity of your family altars the man who enticed her to ruin. Ah, woman, by your tireless efforts you may win the right to
vote, your voice may be heard in the Assembly Halls of the Nation; but if you administer as one-sided a justice in political
life as you do in social life, the reform for which you pray will never come!


WOULD YOU CARE?

All day on my pillow I wearily lay,
With a stabbing pain at my heart,
With throbbing temples, and a feverish thirst
Burning, my lips apart.
If I longed for a touch of your soft, strong hand,
For you one little minute there;
For a smile, or a kiss, or a word to bless,
Would you blame me, love?--would you care?

When the long, long, lonesome day was done,
And you never for a moment came,
If I tried to shut you out of my heart,
Impatient at your name;
If disappointment's bitter sting
Was harder than pain to bear,
If I turned away with a doubting frown,
Would you blame me, love?--would you care?

Should I die to-night, and you saw me not
Again till my soul had fled
With its vain request, and my features wore
The white hue of the dead--
Would you place just once, in a last caress,
Your hand on my death-damp hair?
Would you give me a thought, or a fond regret?
Would you kiss me, love?--would you care?


A THOUGHT OF HEAVEN.

Friend of my heart, you say to me
That your belief is this--
The heaven is but a vision rare
Of pure, ethereal bliss.

And life there but a dream enhanced,
Where never sound alarms;
Where flowers ne'er fade and skies ne'er cloud,
And voiceless music charms--

And save as see we in our dreams
The dear ones gone before,
The friends that here we knew and loved,
We'll know and love no more.

An endless and unbroken rest,
Nor change, nor night, nor day,
Where aimless, as in sleep, we'll dream
Eternity away.

Sweet friend of mine, that Heaven of thine
Methinks if overblest;
We could not work on earth enough
To need so long a rest.

Our human nature could not be
Content with rest like this,
And even bliss could cloy, if we
Had nothing else but bliss.

Great Nature's hand, in every plan,
Had laid in wise design,
But what design, or use, is in
This theory of thine?

If, when our earth-career is done,
All conscious life must cease,
And we drift on, and on, and on,
In endless, dreamy peace--

If Heaven is but a mystic spell,
Whose glowing visions thrall,
Why should we have a life beyond?
Why have a Heaven at all?


CONSOLANCE.

"Be brave?" why, yes, I will; I'll never more despair;
Who could, with such sweet comforting as yours?
How, like the voice that stilled the tempest air,
Your mild philosophy its reasoning pours.

Go you and build a temple to the skies, and make
Your soul an alter-offering on the pile;
Then, from its lightning-riven ruin, take
Your crushed and bleeding self, and calmly smile.

When loud, and fierce, and wild, a storm sweeps o'er your rest,
Say that it soothes you--brings you peace again;
Laugh while the hot steel quivers in your breast,
And "make believe" you love the scorching pain.

See every earthly thing your life is woven round,
Fall, drop by drop, until your heart is sieved!
Go mad and writhe, and moan upon the ground,
And curse, and die, and say that you have prayed and lived!

Then come to me, as now, and I will take your hand,
And look upon your face and smile and say:
"All were not born to hold a magic wand;
Cheer up, my friend, you must be brave always."


WHEN THE ROSES GO.

You tell me you love me; you bid me believe
That never such lover could mean to deceive.
You tell me the tale which a million times
Has been told, and talked, and sung in rhymes;
You rave o'er my "eyes" and my "beautiful hair,"
And swear to be true, as they always swear;
But the wrinkles will grow, and the roses go,
And lovers are rovers oft, you know,
When the roses go.

I have heard of a woman, sweet and fair,
With dewy lips and shining hair,
And you pledged to her, on your bended knee,
The self-same vow you make to me.
She was fairer than I, I know;
She was pure and true, and she loved you so;
But the wrinkles will grow and the roses go--
How she learned that trouble comes, _you know_,
When the roses go.

You're a man in each outward sense, I trow,
With the stamp of a god on your peerless brow.
You hold my hand in your thrilling clasp,
And my heart grows weak in your subtle grasp,
Till I blush in the light of your tender eyes,
And dream of a far-of paradise--
Almost forgetting that ever from there
Another was turned in her bleak despair.
But the wrinkles will grow, and the roses go--
I will answer you, love, my love, you know,
When the roses go.


* * * * *


THE DIFFERENCE.

With odds all against him, struggling to gain,
From fortune a name, with life to maintain,
Toiling in sunshine, toiling in rain,
Never waiting a blessing Heaven-sent,
Working and winning his way as he went--
Whether he starved, or sumptuously fared,
Nobody knew and nobody cared.

With success-crowned effort that fate had defied,
That wrought out from fortune what favor denied,
Standing aloof from the world in his pride;
The niche he has carved on fame's slippery wall
Friends are proclaiming with heraldry-call.
His Croesus-bright scepter has magical sway,
Yester's indifference solicits to-day.
His daring his triumph, how daily he fares,
Every one knows, and anxiously cares.


BEWARE.

Beautiful maiden,
So daintily fair,
Thy rose-hued lips,
Thy soft, flowing hair,
Symmetric perfection,
Sweet, winning face,
The charms that thou wearest
A palace might grace;
And yet thy bright beauty
May wreck and despair.
Beautiful maiden,
Beware! oh, beware!

There are flattering tongues
That 'twere death to believe,
And loves who woo
But to win and deceive;
For innocent feet
There is many a snare.
Beautiful maiden,
Beware! oh, beware!


A REGRET.

Close on my heart was resting
A sunny golden head,
As the dim gray of the twilight
Crept round with noiseless tread.

"Tell me a 'tory, mamma,"
The blue-eyed baby said,
"About some itty birdie
In za itty birdie bed.

"'Bout fen oo was itty
An'ze mens was walkin' hay
An' found free ittie birdies
Wiz za muzzer don away."

"Some other time, my darling;
Mamma's tired now."
A shade of disappointment
Swept over the baby's brow.

The dear blue eyes grew misty;
O, lips that lived to blame,
That kissed and whispered "sometime"--
That "sometime" never came.

Again, the dim, gray twilight
Creeps round with noiseless tread,
But on my heart is resting
No sunny golden head.

No sweet voice pleads with mamma
"Tell me a 'tory" now,
And only death can take away
The shadow on my brow.


* * * * *


"IT IS LIFE TO DIE."

"It is life to die," the muse has sung,
The prophet words have rung from pole to pole,
The trust, the hope to which many have clung,
An echo woke in many a weary soul.

"Ah! welcome thrice if but that death would come
As sweeps the avalanche from Alpine hight,
As falls the flashing storm-sent lightning-bolt,
Resistless in its terror and its might.

"But oh! to die by slowest slow decay,
To clothe a dying heart in life's warm breath,
When every day repeats a long eternity,
And every hour is but another death!"

O, God! why were we born to live a life,
From very thought of which our souls must shrink,
To sink down in the waves of human strife,
And ever only wait, and wait, and think.

No wonder that so many hapless ones,