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Show An Idler's 'Retteries "In Vrose arid Werse9 "By K. W, Sloan, Douglas Jerrbld is said to have spoken of a self-sufficient author as one "who wrote prose and werse." There may be no just ground for the assumption, as-sumption, none the less an impression prevails that there is a pedantry a laboriousness in-volved in-volved in prose that is wanting in poetical quotations. quo-tations. Scriptural and Shakesperean selections may be excepted from this summary, for the reason rea-son that these are so woven into the web and woof of our language as to be indistinguishable save by the student. The assumption referred to, in all probability, is due to the greater difficulty experienced ex-perienced by most persons in memorizing prose quotations. Not only is prose wanting in the rhymes that so materially aid the mind in recalling re-calling the phraseology in which a thought is clothed, but the swing, or, as the Irish might put it, the "lilt" of the words themselves is not there, and the unconscious conclusion is reached that because of the greater general difficulty in memorizing mem-orizing prose, those who frequently resort to this style of quotation have refreshed themselves by study for its use, as men frequently refresh themselves them-selves for some unusual task with stimulants; whereas, poetical quotations play upon the mind like a fresh breeze, and spring forth with the eager joy of vibrant youth for happy sports. Taste in literature is even as taste in other things. There are those who find neither sense j nor pleasure in poetical or imaginative writings who must have meat three times a day to keep j them from starving. So, also, there was the old lady who found much joy in kissing her cow. Those to whom a taste for poetical writings has been given manifest their bent in this class of literature by the selections, or the authors they read oftenest and whose utterances most persistently persis-tently reflect themselves upon their minds. All persons who find joy or solaceor both in poetical poeti-cal writings are cultured, though the language of their own lips be crude and uncouth. For there is a language of the soul which speaks in words unintelligible to many human ears and those that possess it are cultured, and when that language lan-guage fires the full understanding of a reader, there is common accord and the greatness of him that reads equals the wide hope of the one that wrote. .Now, I hold it here that the greater light, the deeper culture lies pfttimes with the reader; for while his lips may be sealed, and the words of his mouth be as the words of the dumb, yet his broad soul builds and clothes with a glory un-thought un-thought of by the writer, some simple and unadorned un-adorned suggestion cast in an idle moment from the well worn mind, and, but for the reader, destined des-tined to be lost for all eternity. Have ot you, reader, often questioned again and again whether the speaker or the writer of a bald suggestion that has fastened itself tenaciously upon your mind ever conceived the glory that came to you from the thought a thought upon which the marvelous mar-velous masonry of your mind has built, and built again, until the structure reared has dazzled even your mental vision. However unexcelled the oration, however resistless re-sistless and all pervailing the spell woven by the speaker, in every audience there are those upon whose minds words have fallen, and those words have conjured up thoughts dreams if you will beyond the farthest scope of your orator's power of utterance thoughts that had never so much as dawned even upon his sunlit vision as clear, as helpful, as beautiful, as pure, as noble as any that were ever chambered in the mind of man or found nourishment in the loftiest soul. How many, ah, how many poets, statesmen, musicians, painters, idealists, humanitarians, with hearts attuned to the highest possibilities, have sunk back voiceless into the unremembered dustl God made man good and worthy. God is not to blame that all His children do not come to their own. "Full many a flower is born to blush unseen, And waste its sweetness on the desert air." I mind me now of one quotation from Byron. It is descriptive of that mysterious hour when the all-enveloping twilight deepens unconsciously into the darkness of night. Of its class there is no choicer bit of English; yet, I have wondered vain perhaps yes, surely, the query must be vain if the fathomlessness of it all so overcame the soul of the wonderful genius who wrote it as it has overcome mine when the lines reproduce themselves upon my mind at the holy hour described de-scribed when one's whole being and the wide world seem wrapped in and charged about with an unspeakable depth of feeling, and all the soul of man seems to lean out upon an abyss of emo- il tion so vast, so profound, that it may not be de- ll scribed. J "When the last sunshine of expiring day In summer's twilight weeps itself away, jH Vho hath not felt the softness of the hour Sink on th6 heart, as dew along the flower With a pure feeling, which absorbs and awes, While nature makes that melancholy pause Her breathing moment on the bridge, where time, Of light arid darkness forms an arch sublime." The lines are from memory,, but will be found as introductory to Byron's "Monody on the Death of Sheridan." Every person who writes much writes a great deal that is passable, some that is very good, a little that is right good, and a vast deal that may not unfairly be termed "rubbish." Hence it is that there is no end to the making of "Libraries of the World's Best Literature." If good writers wrote nothing but the best, how delectable a world this would be to one who loves to keep his nose between the leaves of an interesting book. But your good writer is the author of more in-sufferable in-sufferable rubbish than your poor one; and for the simple and ample reason that you will read that which emanates from authors of reputation in the hope of occasionally finding something that is worth the while; whereas your poor au-thor au-thor is damned and doomed at the start. Than jJ Robert Burns the world has known no greater song writer, few whose verses are more appeal-ing appeal-ing or more eloquent of the virtues and sorrows of the humble and of the common rights of man. His published works, nevertheless, contain any number of short poems which capable versifiers in our current magazines would be ashamed to put their names to. The high mental and spiritual elation the "divine afflatus" that controls men when they are possessed by thoughts to hold the world, and which it is given them to clothe in fitting words, cannot endure always in any one man, or continuously in any number of men. jH These are like fevered patients the fever must down or the patient will die; and when the fever jH is down, the pulse and temperature become the pulse and temperature of all the world exceed- jH ingly common. It is also a fact that those whose jH mental and spiritual natures qualify them to soar to dazzling heights, have almost without excep-tion excep-tion both capacity and inclination to sound the sorry depths; and the depths are sounded, as any 1 reader of Byron or Burns must confess. H There arc those, too, who, wanting the ca- j pacity for great and lofty flights, are yet given the unequaled blessing of power to travel great distances along high planes without faltering; and while the ecstacy of delight and the rapture Hj of despair are not of their creating, they never- theless beget a serenity of spirit, and an eleva-Hl eleva-Hl tion of resignation if it may be so expressed H' that more nearly gives joy than anything but joy H) itself; and I take this occasion, humble and hid- HjH den though it be, to give benediction and a Hflj heart's profound blessing for hours of unalloyed happiness that I owe to the worthiest pastor of i all these folks Longfellow. "Mo one is so accursed by fate No one so utterly desolate But some heart, though unknown, Responds unto his own Responds, as if with unseen wings, An angel touched the quiv'ring strings And murmur'd in its song: 'Where hast thou stayed so long?' " Even poets endowed but little above the me-Hj me-Hj diocre, who lack the power to ascend the heights, are brushed at times by the wing of inspiration and burst into songs almost holy in their beauty. How dear to me the hour when daylight dies mMj And sunbeams melt along the silent sea; For then sweet dreams of other days arise And mem'ry breathes her vesper sigh to thee. And as I watch the line of light that plays Along the smooth wave toward the burning west, I long to tread its golden path of rays And think 't'will lead to some bright isle of rest. My hat off to you, Tom Moore, for many verses, but for these most of all. And this, too, mWt is doubtless vanity, yet I've often wondered if Ifl these lines ever meant so much to him as they have to me time and again. Sitting on the sod that encircled an Irish bay, I've seen the sun sink into the Atlantic, taking with it the track of glory that had fled from my feet away across the shim-mering shim-mering waves to the burning west to that west where all my heart yearned for seemed to be and as the shadows of night fell around me, and the murmuring waves broke gently upon the shore at my feet, my soul has fled along that fading and hallowed path of light until all the hill tops of memory and the wide expanse of the Hj past has been splendid with a glory now dead and Hj a passion for loved ones now gone; and both jH words and music have filtered through the rov- ing and' quickened mind with a sadness sweeter than any joy given man to know. There are mo-Mm mo-Mm ments when man knows he has a soul and how kiiiiV fast the soul grows in such moments. Let me hark back to a suggestion already advanced, ad-vanced, that there is a choice in literature even as in other things; and to the initiated, with opportunity op-portunity for study accorded, that taste becomes as manifest in all persons fond of reading, as a predilection for horses, for good dress, for music or for painting. Some seek for lofty themes such as Milton affords; some long for the descriptive and feast well and nobly on Byron's "Apostrophe to the Ocean;" some yearn for the sentimental, while some arc content with less complex phases of emotion wherein are blended the tenderness of simple lives and' the sweetness of nature in her gentlest moods. There is sanctity in a summer night. When the moon rises gloriously above the mountains, or moves majestically through the mid heavens, when stars shine from cloudless skies, who hath not felt the mysterious joy the ecstacy that comes to one who gazes through and beyond the tops of softly waving trees, whose soul almost bursts with the thought that for depths upon depths in the boundless abyss of space that lies beyond even the mind's vision, the same calm serenity still prevails that there is no end in space or time. If aught may take a man's soul out of his body and cast him wandering and wondering won-dering upon unknown shores, this surely is the hour. "Heaven's ebon vault Studded with stars unutterably bright, Through which the moon's unclouded grandeur rolls, Seems like a canopy which love has spread To curtain close her sleeping world." The importance of a thing rests on its power for good or ill and memory, the bane of all human hu-man existence at times, is yet the source of our profoundest and most enduring joys. Ah, me! the wondrous spell a moonlight night will weave about us when memory takes possession and all our faculties and feelings respond to her behest! How clear, how beautiful, how undyingly beautiful beauti-ful it all is once more. The month of June with its rose breath; a sky of azure studded with stars never before so numberless, never since so bright; a moon serener than moon before or after, so near, so enveloping, with its white, soothing radiance; ra-diance; a soft night wind sighing down a canyon as a satisfied lover sighs; a rustic bridge abpve a glittering little stream, and hy the bridge a wild rose bush with its late blossoms fragrancing the intoxicated air; a dear face loved how much through all the intervening years and a gray and trusting pair of eyes that looked through che heart of truth even as do a baby's eyes so pure, so innocent; the answer of all answers that trembled trem-bled on lips too sacred for human touch, the palpitating pal-pitating suspense,- and then slowly but radiantly the world's fullness of joy the joy of star and moon and air and all the wide, wide earth! "How beautiful is the night when the silvery moon is high, And countless stars, glittering gems, hang sparkling spark-ling in the sky; When balmy breaths of summer breeze whisper down the glenn, And one fond voice alone is heard, ah, night is lovely then!" Is there then nothing but memory to make a patiently borne burden of the knowledge that in time's eternal round such deathless joys may never come again with the freshness of life's morning? ' "Nothing! Ah, God, is this then all That may be hoped by those that fall Yet rise once more? May not repentence deep, if true, The by gone happy hours renew, Old love restore? ''May not the dearly loved and lost ' Be won again, if, as the cost, We toil life's slope? If not, then let me living dream, Or, dying, sink beneath the sheam Of deathless hope." |