By Rebecca Springer Originally titled  "Intra Muros" Published 1922

Within the Gates    Celestial Art from the Youthful Craftsmen     I stooped to touch them, and lo, they were imbedded in the marble. My brother explained, "One day while the house was building, a company of young people came to the door and asked if they might enter. I gladly gave them my consent. Then they asked who the building was for, and when I told them, they asked, 'May we beautify this room?' I gave them permission, wondering what they might do.         "The girls, who had immense bunches of roses in their hands, began to throw the flowers over the floor and against the walls. Wherever they struck the walls, to my surprise, they remained as though in some way permanently attached. When all the roses had been scattered, the room looked just as it does now, only the roses were really freshly gathered roses. Then the boys each produced a small case of delicate tools and in a moment all boys and girls were down on the marble floor and busy at work. How they did it, I do not know, it is one of the celestial arts, taught to those of highly artistic tastes, but they imbedded each living flower just where it had fallen in the marble and preserved it as you see before you.         "They came several times before the work was completed, for the flowers do not wither here nor fade, but are always fresh and perfect. And such a merry, happy company of young people I never saw before! They laughed and chatted, and sang as they worked. I could not help wishing more than once that the friends whom they had left in mourning for them might look upon this group and see how little cause for sorrow they had. At last, when all the work was completed, they called me to see their work, and I was not sparing of my praises either for the beauty of the work, or for their skill in performing it. Then, saying they would be sure to return when either of you came, they went away together to do something of the kind elsewhere, I do not doubt."         Happy tears began dripping upon my hands, and, greatly touched, I asked who these lovely people were. He replied that he knew them now, but they were strangers until they came that first morning. And he named them. They were children I had known in my Earth days.         "Precious children," I said. "How little I thought my love for them in the olden days would ever bring to me this added happiness here! How little we know of the links binding the two worlds!" Life in Paradise, a Continuation of the One Here         "Ah, yes," said my brother, "that is just it. How little we know. If only we could realize while we are yet mortals that day by day we are building for eternity, how different our lives in many ways would be! Every gentle word, every generous thought, every unselfish deed will become a pillar of eternal beauty in the life to come. We cannot be selfish and unloving in one life and generous and loving in the next. The two lives are too closely blended, one but a continuation of the other. But now come to the library."         Rising, we crossed the room that henceforth was to hold for me such tender associations, and entered the library. It was a glorious apartment, the walls lined from ceiling to floor with rare and costly books. A large stained glass window opened upon the front veranda. A semicircular row of shelves supported by very delicate pillars of grey marble, about six feet high, extended some fifteen feet into the spacious main room and cut it in two sections lengthwise, each one with bowed windows in the back, leaving still a large space beyond the dividing line, where the two sections united into one.         By the bowed window stood a beautiful writing desk with everything ready for use. Upon it was a chaste golden bowl whose spicy odor I had been dimly conscious of for some time. "It is my brother's desk and his favorite flowers. Here we never forget the tastes and preferences of those we love."

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