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Show Occasional IVHrr. I nave attended a large number of eel bratiun., coinnH.iiceax.nl9, ban-juetf, ban-juetf, Murees, and so, forth, and done tny bet to heip on a good many of them. I n fart 1 have become be-come rather too weli known in connection con-nection n nil "occasions" ami it lias cost tne no Jittle trouble J believe there Is nj kind of occurrence for which I have njt been rtijuested to coutribate Fjmething In prose or erse. It issomethlug very hard to v no to the requests. If one is in tlie right mood when he or ?he rites an occasional poem, it seems .i if uothing could lia.o Iki n tayier. "WIiv. that piece run off jest iike He. 1 don't bullieve." the unlettered unlet-tered applicant says to hinuclf "I Jou't builieve it took htm ten minutes min-utes to write them verges." The good people have uo suspicion of liow much a tingle lice, a i"2,K LS pnssion. may cost iU author. The wits used to ssj tluit Jioijers the joet once before referred to, old Samuel Itogers,authorof the -i'lea ores of Memory," and giver of famous fam-ous breakfasts was acculomed to have straw laid Irefjre the houe w Iieneve r be ha J j list given bi rlh to a coupitt. It Is not quite so bad as that with iuoi of us who are called upon to furnish a poem, a Mig, a lij mo, an ode for enw granu luetti.ig, but it j safe to s.iy that many a trifling performance has haa more good, tionetwork put into it than the minister's sermon of that week hail cc-thini. If a vessel glides off the wns anootlily and easily at her bunching, it itoes not mean that no great pains have l-en taken to k-ctirethcresul'. k-ctirethcresul'. iJecau-e s poem is an ''occasioual" one, It doe nut follow fol-low that it has not ti'ten as much lime and skiii o if it IiaJ ten written writ-ten without immediate, accidental, lunporaiy motive. Pindar's great odes w ere occaional emj,jutt as mueJi as our Commencement and Pill lieta Kaiipa poems are. au i Jet tliey have come down among the most precious bequests of antiquity to modern limes. Oliver WeiMitil Holme?. |