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    The Lost Word: A Christmas Legend of Long Ago
    The Lost Word: A Christmas Legend of Long Ago
    The Lost Word: A Christmas Legend of Long Ago
    Ebook65 pages44 minutes

    The Lost Word: A Christmas Legend of Long Ago

    By Henry Van Dyke

    2.5/5

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    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherArchive Classics
    Release dateAug 1, 2003
    The Lost Word: A Christmas Legend of Long Ago
    Author

    Henry Van Dyke

    Henry Van Dyke (1928–2011) was born in Allegan, Michigan, and grew up in Montgomery, Alabama, where his parents were professors at Alabama State College. He served in the Army in occupied Germany, playing flute in the 427th Marching Band. There he abandoned his early ambition to become a concert pianist and began to write. In 1958, after attending the University of Michigan on the G.I. Bill and living in Ann Arbor, he moved to New York, where he spent the rest of his life. Henry taught creative writing part-time at Kent State University from 1969 until his retirement in 1993, and was the author of four novels, including Blood of Strawberries, a sequel to Ladies of the Rachmaninoff Eyes.

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    • 2/5
      71 page book written in six sections I. The Poverty of Hermas; II. A Christmas Loss; III. Parting but No farewell; IV Love in Search of a word; V. Riches without Rest; VI.. Great Fear and Recovered Joy.The four illustrations are photogravures from the original drawings by Corwin Knapp Linson. A search will bring up many web-pages which offer the text as an e-book without ISBN or copyright. The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation lists it on manybooks.net with a picture of the cover which matches our copy passed down through my husband's family. A delightful book to read for the entire family.

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    The Lost Word - Henry Van Dyke

    The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Lost Word, by Henry Van Dyke

    This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with

    almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or

    re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included

    with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.net

    Title: The Lost Word

    A Christmas Legend of Long Ago

    Author: Henry Van Dyke

    Posting Date: July 26, 2009 [EBook #4384]

    Release Date: August, 2003

    First Posted: January 20, 2002

    Language: English

    *** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE LOST WORD ***

    Produced by Charles Aldarondo. HTML version by Al Haines.

    THE LOST WORD

    A Christmas Legend of Long Ago

    By

    HENRY VAN DYKE

    New York

    MDCCCXCVIII

    DEDICATED TO MY FRIEND HAMILTON W. MABIE

    CONTENTS

    I

    THE POVERTY OF HERMAS

    COME down, Hermas, come down! The night is past. It is time to be stirring. Christ is born to-day. Peace be with you in His name. Make haste and come down!

    A little group of young men were standing in a street of Antioch, in the dusk of early morning, fifteen hundred years ago. It was a class of candidates who had nearly finished their two years of training for the Christian church. They had come to call their fellow-student Hermas from his lodging.

    Their voices rang out cheerily through the cool air. They were full of that glad sense of life which the young feel when they awake and come to rouse one who is still sleeping. There was a note of friendly triumph in their call, as if they were exulting unconsciously in having begun the adventure of the new day before their comrade.

    But Hermas was not asleep. He had been waking for hours, and the dark walls of his narrow lodging had been a prison to his restless heart. A nameless sorrow and discontent had fallen upon him, and he could find no escape from the heaviness of his own thoughts.

    There is a sadness of youth into which the old cannot enter. It seems to them unreal and causeless. But it is even more bitter and burdensome than the sadness of age. There is a sting of resentment in it, a fever of angry surprise that the world should so soon be a disappointment, and life so early take on the look of a failure. It has little reason in it, perhaps, but it has all the more weariness and gloom, because the man who is oppressed by it feels dimly that it is an unnatural and an unreasonable thing, that he should be separated from the joy of his companions, and tired of living before he has fairly begun to live.

    Hermas had fallen into the very depths of this strange self-pity. He was out of tune with everything around him. He had been thinking, through the dead, still night, of all that he had given up when he left the house of his father, the wealthy pagan Demetrius, to join the company of the Christians. Only two years ago he had been one of the richest young men in Antioch. Now he was one of the poorest. And the worst of it was that, though he had made the choice willingly and accepted the sacrifice with a kind of enthusiasm, he was already dissatisfied with it.

    The new life was no happier than the old. He was weary of vigils and fasts, weary of studies and penances, weary of prayers and

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