The Potter and the Clay: A Romance of Today

by Maud Howard Peterson

  Produced by Al Haines.

  "_It’s a storm!_" _he cried._ (See page 90.)]

  _*The*_* POTTER *_*and*_* *_*The*_* CLAY*

  A ROMANCE _of_ TODAY

  _By_ MAUD HOWARD PETERSON

  ILLUSTRATED BY CHARLOTTE HARDING

  LOTHROP PUBLISHING COMPANY BOSTON

  COPYRIGHT, 1901, _By_ LOTHROP PUBLISHING COMPANY.

  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

  ENTERED AT STATIONERS’ HALL

  Published May 7, 1901. 6th Thousand, June 11, 1901. 10th Thousand, July 19, 1901. 13th Thousand, Aug. 16, 1901.

  Norwood Press: Berwick & Smith, Norwood, Mass., U.S.A.

  To M. C. P. and M. T. C.

  WHOSE LIVES REVEAL THE POTTER’S TOUCH

  *AUTHOR’S NOTE*

  The comparatively unknown rendering of the verse from the Rubáiyát ofOmar Kháyyám, quoted on the succeeding page, is to be found in the_first_ edition of Fitzgerald’s translation of the Persian poem.

  "For in the Market-place, one Dusk of Day, I watch’d the Potter thumping his wet clay: And with its all-obliterated Tongue It murmur’d—’Gently, Brother, gently, pray!’"

  _From the Rubáiyát._

  PERMISSION to use the poem, "The Potter’s Wheel," which appears on thenext page, was granted by the owners of the English copyright ofBrowning’s works through Messrs. Smith, Elder & Co., London, and by theAmerican publishers of Browning, Messrs. Houghton, Mifflin & Co.,Boston.

  *ThePotter’s Wheel*

  Ay, note that Potter’s wheel, That metaphor! and feel Why time spins fast, why passive lies our clay,— Thou, to whom fools propound, When the wine makes its round, "Since life fleets, all is change; the past gone, seize to-day!"

  Fool! All that is, at all, Lasts ever, past recall; Earth changes, but thy soul and God stand sure: What entered into thee, _That_ was, is, and shall be: Time’s wheel runs back or stops: Potter and clay endure.

  He fixed thee mid this dance Of plastic circumstance, This Present, thou, forsooth, would fain arrest: Machinery just meant To give thy soul its bent, Try thee and turn thee forth, sufficiently impressed.

  What though the earlier grooves, Which ran the laughing loves Around thy base, no longer pause and press? What though, about thy rim, Skull-things in order grim Grow out, in graver mood, obey the sterner stress?

  Look not thou down but up! To uses of a cup, The festal board, lamp’s flash and trumpet’s peal, The new wine’s foaming flow, The Master’s lips aglow! Thou, heaven’s consummate cup, what needst thou with earth’s wheel?

  But I need, now as then, Thee, God, who mouldest men; And since, not even while the whirl was worst, Did I—to the wheel of life With shapes and colors rife, Bound dizzily—mistake my end, to slake Thy thirst:

  So, take and use Thy work: Amend what flaws may lurk, What strain o’ the stuff, what warpings past the aim! My times be in Thy hand! Perfect the cup as planned! Let age approve of youth, and death complete the same!

  _Robert Browning._

  *CONTENTS*

  PROLOGUE

  BOOK ONE

  _The clay takes shape_

  BOOK TWO

  _The break in the clay_

  BOOK THREE

  _The Potter’s touch_

  *LIST *_*of*_* ILLUSTRATIONS*

  *"It’s a storm!" he cried.* (_Frontispiece._)

  "*You—saw—me—then?*"

  "*What right had he to look for a woman’s face in the foam?*"

  "*Trevelyan lay on the floor.*"

  *PROLOGUE*