She's All the World to Me/Proem
SHE'S ALL THE WORLD TO ME.
PROEM.
This is the story of how a woman's love triumphed over neglect and wrong, and of how the unrequited passion in the great heart of a boy trod its devious paths in the way to death, until it stood alone with its burden of sin before God and the pitiless deep.
In the middle of the Irish Sea there is, as every one knows, an island which for many ages has had its own people, with their own language and laws, their own judges and governor, their own lords and kings, their own customs and superstitions, their own proverbs and saws, their own ballads and songs. On the west coast of the Isle of Man stands the town of Peel. Though clean and sweet, it is not even yet much of a place to look at with its nooks and corners, its blind lanes and dark alleys, its narrow, crooked, crabbed streets. Thirty-five years ago it was a poor little hungry fishing port, chill and cheerless enough, staring straight out over miles and miles of bleak sea. To the north of Peel stretches a broad shore; to the south lies the harbor with a rocky headland and bare mountain beyond. In front—divided from the mainland by a narrow strait—is a rugged island rock, on which stand the ruins of a castle. At the back rises a gentle slope dotted over with gray houses.
This is the scene of the following history of the love that was won and the love that was lost, of death that had no sting and the grave that had no victory. Wild and eerie as the coast on which I learned it is this story of love and death; but it is true as Truth, and what it owes to him who writes it now with feelings deeper than he can say is less than it asks of all by whom it is read in sympathy and simple faith.