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No matter if he lost sometimes,

He's got th' stuff in him that climbs,
An' when his chance was mighty slim,
He came up smilin'-good fer him!

James W. Foley,

From "Tales of the Trail,"
E. P. Dutton & Co.

A HERO

If defeat strengthens and sweetens character, it is not defeat at all, but victory.

HE sang of joy; whateʼer he knew of sadness

He kept for his own heart's peculiar share:
So well he sang, the world imagined gladness
To be sole tenant there.

For dreams were his, and in the dawn's fair shining,
His spirit soared beyond the mounting lark;
But from his lips no accent of repining

Fell when the days grew dark;

And though contending long dread Fate to master,
He failed at last her enmity to cheat,

He turned with such a smile to face disaster
That he sublimed defeat.

From "Poems,"
Houghton Mifflin Co.

Florence Earle Coates.

WILL

"I can resist anything but temptation," says a character in one of Oscar Wilde's plays. Too many of us have exactly this strength of will. We perhaps do not fall into gross crime, but because of our flabby_resolution our lives become purposeless, negative, negligible. No one would miss us in particular if we were out of the way.

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I

WELL for him whose will is strong!

He suffers, but he will not suffer long;
He suffers, but he cannot suffer wrong.

For him nor moves the loud world's random mock,
Nor all Calamity's hugest waves confound,
Who seems a promontory of rock,

That, compass'd round with turbulent sound,
In middle ocean meets the surging shock,
Tempest-buffeted, citadel-crown'd.

II

But ill for him who, bettering not with time,
Corrupts the strength of heaven-descended Will,
And ever weaker grows thro' acted crime,
Or seeming-genial venial fault,

Recurring and suggesting still!

He seems as one whose footsteps halt,

Toiling in immeasurable sand,

And o'er a weary sultry land,

Far beneath a blazing vault,

Sown in a wrinkle of the monstrous hill,

The city sparkles like a grain of salt.

Alfred Tennyson.

FABLE

To be impressed by a thing merely because it is big is a human failing. Yet our standard of judgment would be truer if we considered, instead, the success of that thing in performing its own particular task. And quality is better than quantity. The lioness in the old fable was being taunted because she bore only one offspring at a time, not a numerous litter. "It is true," she admitted; "but that one is a lion."

THE

HE mountain and the squirrel
Had a quarrel,

And the former called the latter "Little Prig";
Bun replied,

"You are doubtless very big;

But all sorts of things and weather

Must be taken in together,

To make up a year

And a sphere.

And I think it no disgrace
To occupy my place.

If I'm not so large as you,
You are not so small as I,
And not half so spry.

I'll not deny you make

A very pretty squirrel track;

Talents differ; all is well and wisely put;

If I cannot carry forests on my back,

Neither can you crack a nut."

DUTY

Ralph Waldo Emerson.

THEN Duty comes a-knocking at your gate,
Welcome him in, for if you bid him wait,

He will depart only to come once more
And bring seven other duties to your door.

Edwin Markham.

From "The Gates of Paradise, and Other Poems,"
Doubleday, Page & Co.

PRAYER FOR PAIN

"The thief steals from himself. The swindler swindles him self," says Emerson. Apparent gain may be actual loss; material escape may be spiritual imprisonment. Any one may idle; but the men who are not content unless they climb the unscalable mountains or cross the uncharted seas or bear the burdens that others shrink from, are the ones who keep the heritage of the spirit undiminished.

I Do not pray for peace nor ease,

Nor from sorrow:

No suppliant on servile knees
Begs here against to-morrow!

Lean flame against lean flame we flash,
O, Fates that meet me fair;

Blue steel against blue steel we clash-
Lay on, and I shall dare!

But Thou of deeps the awful Deep,

Thou Breather in the clay,

Grant this my only prayer- Oh keep

My soul from turning gray!

For until now, whatever wrought

Against my sweet desires,

My days were smitten harps strung taut,

My nights were slumbrous lyres.

And howsoe'er the hard blow rang

Upon my battered shield,

Some lark-like, soaring spirit sang

Above my battlefield.

And through my soul of stormy night
The zigzag blue flame ran.

I asked no odds-I fought my fight-
Events against a man.

But now at last-the gray mist chokes
And numbs me. Leave me pain!

Oh let me feel the biting strokes

That I may fight again!

John G. Neihardt.

Permission of the Author.

From "The Quest" (collected lyrics),

The Macmillan Co.

STEADFAST

No one ever has a trouble so great that some other person has not a greater. The thought of the heroism shown by those more grievously afflicted than we, helps us to bear our own ills patiently.

F I can help another bear an ill

IF

By bearing mine with somewhat of good graceCan take Fate's thrusts with not too long a face And help him through his trials, then I WILL! For do not braver men than I decline

To bow to troubles graver, far, than mine?

Pain twists this body? Yes, but it shall not
Distort my soul, by all the gods that be!
And when it's done its worst, Pain's victory
Shall be an empty one! Whate'er my lot,
My banner, ragged, but nailed to the mast,
Shall fly triumphant to the very last!

Others so much worse off than I have fought;
Have smiled-have met defeat with unbent head
They shame me into following where they led.
Can I ignore the lesson they have taught?

Strike hands with me! Dark is the way we go,
But souls-courageous line it-that I know!

From "The Quiet Courage,"

Stewart & Kidd Co., Cincinnati, Ohio.

Everard Jack Appleton.

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