tears and sobs of joy, and her father laid her within her mother's bosom. YOUTHFUL FRIENDSHIPS. Oh! blame not boys for so soon forgetting one another in absence or in death. Yet forgetting is not just the very word. Call it rather a reconcilement to doom and destiny in thus obeying a benign law of nature that soon streams sunshine over the shadow of the grave. Not otherwise could all the ongoings of this world be continued. The nascent spirit outgrows much in which it once found all delight; and thoughts delightful stillthoughts of the faces and the voices of the dead - perish not; lying sometimes in slumber, sometimes in sleep. It belongs not to the blessed season and genius of youth to hug to its heart useless and unavailing griefs. Images of the well-beloved, when they themselves are in the mould, come and go, no unfrequent visitants, through the meditative hush of solitude. But our main business our prime joys and our prime sorrows ought to be, must be, with the living. Duty demands it; and Love, who would pine to death over the bones of the dead, soon fastens upon other objects; with eyes and voices to smile and whisper an answer to all his vows. So was it with us. Ere the midsummer sun had withered the flowers that Spring has sprinkled over our Godfrey's grave, youth vindicated its own right to happiness; and we felt that we did wrong to visit too often that corner of the kirkyard. No fears had we of any too oblivious tendencies. In our dreams we saw him, most often all alive as ever, sometimes a phantom away from that grave. If the morning light was frequently hard to be endured, bursting suddenly upon us along with the feeling that he was dead, it more frequently cheered and gladdened us with resignation, and sent us forth a fit playmate to the dawn that rang, with all sounds of joy. Again we found ourselves angling down the river or along the lock; once more following the flight of the falcon along the woods, eying the eagle on the echo-cliff. Days passed by without so much as one thought of Emilius Godfrey; pursuing our pastime with all our passion, reading our books intently, just as if he had never been. But often and often, too, we thought we saw his figure coming down the hill straight toward us - his very figure we could not be deceived. But the love-raised ghost disappeared on a sudden; the griefworn spectre melted into mist. The strength that formerly had come from his counsels now began to grow up of itself within our own unassisted being. The world of nature became more our own, moulded and modified by all our own feelings and fancies; and with a bolder and more original eye we saw the smoke from the sprinkled cottages, and saw the faces of the mountaineers on their way to their work, or coming and going to the house of God.- Recreations of Christopher North. τα ILSON, ROBERT BURNS, an American poet; born in Pennsylvania in 1850. His early work gave evidence of his ability as a true poet. In 1880, his longest poem, Constance - A Spring-Time Memory, appeared in the Chicago Current. When Evening Cometh On," published in Harper's Magazine, shows Mr. Wilson at his best. This poem may be characterized as a sort of brief nature epic. With his grandly sounding lines, full of a majestic grace, he places before us in clearest outline. one scene after another as the shadows of evening fall, all of which he invests with the deepest human interest. Here is one of the secrets of the poet's power. Mere description of the most striking scenes, however faithful, becomes monotonous unless we perceive in it some bearing upon human interests. The opening stanza, by no means selected as the best, shows the clear, bold lines in which the author can limn scenes from nature: "When evening cometh on, Slower and statelier in the mellowing sky The fane? like purple-shadowed clouds arise; Cooler and balmier doth the soft wind sigh; Lovelier, lonelier to our wondering eyes The softening landscape seems. The swallows fly Swift through the radiant vault; the field-lark cries His thrilling, sweet farewell; the twilight bands Of misty silence cross the far-off lands When evening cometh on." Mr. Wilson's collected verses appeared in 1895 under the title Life and Love. No hope, no sign, And the cold stars shine REMEMBER THE MAINE. When the vengeance wakes, when the battle breaks When the foe is neared, when the decks are cleared, When the squadrons meet, when it's fleet to fleet From ship to ship, from lip to lip, Pass on the quick refrain, "Remember, remember the Maine!" When the flag shall sign, “Advance in line, When the guns shall flash and the shot shall crash When the rattling blasts from the armored masts Yet their voices loud, through the blinding cloud, God's sky and sea in that storm shall be But across that hell every shot shall tell, Not a blow shall fall on the crumbling mail, Shall sweep the decks of the blackened wrecks τα ILSON, THOMAS WOODROW, an American historian; born at Staunton, Va., December 28, 1856. He was graduated from Princeton College in 1879; he studied law and practiced as an attorney at Atlanta, Ga., for two years. From 1883 to 1885 he studied history and politics at Johns Hopkins University, and taught history at Bryn Mawr College, 1885-86, serving there as Professor of History and Political Science, 1886-88. After a year as professor of the same studies at Wesleyan University he accepted the chair of jurisprudence at Princeton (1890). He was elected President of the University in 1902. Among his works are Congressional Government: A Study in American Politics (1885); The State (1889); Division and Reunion, 1829–89 (one of the Epochs of American History series, 1893); An Old Master and Other Political Essays (1893); George Washington (1896); Mere Literature and Other Essays (1896); A History of the American People (1902). A CALENDAR OF GREAT AMERICANS. Before a calendar of great Americans can be made out, a valid canon of Americanism must first be established. Not every great man born and bred in America was a great "American." Some of the notable men born among us were simply great Englishmen; others had in all the habits of their thought and life the strong flavor of a peculiar region, and were great New Englanders or great Southerners; others, masters in the fields of science or of pure thought, showed nothing either distinctively national or characteristically provincial, and were simply great men; while a few displayed old crossstrains of blood or breeding. The great Englishmen |