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He had a lively sense of humour, and the irony of his situation was not lost on him. He took a grim, ferocious delight in calling up the might-have-beens and the 'fatuous ineffectual yesterdays' of life. There is a certain sardonic satisfaction to be gleaned from a frank recognition of the fact that you are the architect of your own misfortune.
As the man in the late afternoon went out through the ancient iron gates, between the vine covered columns of stone, he knew that his belief in Religion would not go as his faith in fairies had gone. Because of those companion graves and all that they meant to him because of the little girl in his Yesterdays his faith in Religion would not go.
It was the face of the boy who lived next door the boy who had stood with her under the cherry tree; who had put a tiny play ring of brass upon her finger; and who had kissed her with a kiss that was somehow different. He was the hero of her Yesterdays as he was the acknowledged chieftain of the school. No one could run so fast, swim so far, dive so deep, or climb so high as he.
Wisdom comes also to those who in their maturity realize that the morrow is veiled in uncertainty, and their tomb is not far distant. It bids them reflect that their yesterdays are safe, that nothing is forgotten; that no worthy deed has fallen out of life; that yesterday is a refuge from conflict, anxiety and fear.
The boy's pride in his father's superior goodness and wisdom she shared fully because he was the father of the boy. All the sweet lore of childhood was theirs in common. All the wise Ignorance of his Yesterdays she shared. Only in the boy's forbidden friendship with that one who had such knowledge of evil the little girl did not share.
And obscure as they all were, compared to that great operative of the Sanctuary at Westminster whom my father clung to, still, that the yesterdays that had lighted them the way to dusty death had cast no glare on dishonored scutcheons seemed clear, from the popular respect and traditional affection in which I found that the name was still held in hamlet and homestead.
And this is the love that I say, is one of the Thirteen Truly Great Things of Life. But my story is not yet quite finished for still, you must know, there are Memories. And the years of the man and the woman passed until all their days were Yesterdays.
Very slowly the man went up the stairs again to his room; there to spend the evening not as he had planned, when he was in the mastering grip of self, but safe in the quiet harbor of the Yesterdays where the storms of life break not or are felt only in those gentle ripples that scarce can stir the surface of the sea.
He felt discombobulated as though this dream were of more substance than dew over the eyes that he would eventually dry from, a sandstorm within the self where, were it not for his own angst, that same regret that he felt a dozen yesterdays ago and was a constancy that would commandeer a lifetime of perennial guilt- ridden tomorrows, he would not know reality if it were to swallow him.
It is the salvation of the world that they do not know. And then, as one from the deck of a ship bound for a foreign land looks back upon his native shore when the vessel puts out from the harbor, this man turned from his years that were to come to his years that were past and from dreaming of his future slipped back into the dreams of his Yesterdays.
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