IT CAN BE DONE

BE THE BEST OF WHATEVER YOU ARE

We all dream of great deeds and high positions, away from the pettiness and humdrum of ordinary life. Yet success is not occupying a lofty place or doing conspicuous work; it is being the best that is in you. Rattling around in too big a job is much worse than filling a small one to overflowing. Dream, aspire by all means; but do not ruin the life you must lead by dreaming pipe-dreams of the one you would like to lead. Make the most of what you have and are. Perhaps your trivial, immediate task is your one sure way of proving your mettle. Do the thing near at hand, and great things will come to your hand to be done.

F you can't be a pine on the top of the hill
Be a scrub in the valley-but be

The best little scrub by the side of the rill;
Be a bush if you can't be a tree.

If you can't be a bush be a bit of the grass,
And some highway some happier make;
If you can't be a muskie then just be a bass-
But the liveliest bass in the lake!

We can't all be captains, we've got to be crew,
There's something for all of us here.
There's big work to do and there's lesser to do,
And the task we must do is the near.

If you can't be a highway then just be a trail,
If you can't be the sun be a star;

It isn't by size that you win or you fail-
Be the best of whatever you are!

Permission of
Douglas Malloch.

Douglas Malloch.

THE HOUSE BY THE SIDE OF THE ROAD

This poem has as its keynote friendship and sympathy for other people. It is a paradox of life that by hoarding love and happiness we lose them, and that only by giving them away can we keep them for ourselves. The more we share, the more we possess. We of course find in other people weaknesses and sins, but our best means of curing these are through a wise and sympathetic understanding.

HERE are hermit souls that live withdrawn

ΤΗ

In the peace of their self-content;

There are souls, like stars, that dwell apart,
In a fellowless firmament;

There are pioneer souls that blaze their paths
Where highways never ran;—

But let me live by the side of the road
And be a friend to man.

Let me live in a house by the side of the road,
Where the race of men go by-

The men who are good and the men who are bad,
As good and as bad as I.

I would not sit in the scorner's seat,

Or hurl the cynic's ban;

Let me live in a house by the side of the road
And be a friend to man.

I see from my house by the side of the road,
By the side of the highway of life,

The men who press with the ardor of hope,

The men who are faint with the strife.

But I turn not away from their smiles nor their
tears-

Both parts of an infinite plan;

Let me live in my house by the side of the road
And be a friend to man.

I know there are brook-gladdened meadows ahead
And mountains of wearisome height;

And the road passes on through the long after

noon

And stretches away to the night.

But still I rejoice when the travelers rejoice,
And weep with the strangers that moan,
Nor live in my house by the side of the road
Like a man who dwells alone.

Let me live in my house by the side of the road
Where the race of men go by-

They are good, they are bad, they are weak, they
are strong,

Wise, foolish-so am I.

Then why should I sit in the scorner's seat

Or hurl the cynic's ban?—

Let me live in my house by the side of the road
And be a friend to man.

From "Dreams in Homespun,"

Lothrop, Lee & Shepard Co.

Sam Walter Foss.

FOUR THINGS

What are the qualities of ideal manhood? Various people have given various answers to this question. Here the poet states what qualities he thinks indispensable.

FOUR

things a man must learn to do
If he would make his record true:
To think without confusion clearly;
To love his fellow-men sincerely;
To act from honest motives purely;
To trust in God and Heaven securely.

Henry Van Dyke,

From "Collected Poems,"

Charles Scribner's Sons.

The central idea of this poem is that success comes from selfcontrol and a true sense of the values of things. In extremes lies danger. A man must not lose heart because of doubts or opposition, yet he must do his best to see the grounds for both. He must not be deceived into thinking either triumph or disaster final; he must use each wisely-and push on. In all things he must hold to the golden mean. If he does, he will own the world, and even better, for his personal reward he will attain the full stature of manhood.

IF

F you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Ör being lied about, don't deal in lies,

Or being hated don't give way to hating,

And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise:

If you can dream—and not make dreams your master;
If you can think—and not make thoughts your aim,
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster

And treat those two imposters just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build 'em up with worn-out tools:

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings

And never breathe a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: "Hold on!"

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Ör walk with Kings-nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,

If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute

With sixty seconds' worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And-which is more-you'll be a Man, my son!

Reprinted by permission of Mr. Rudyard Kipling,
and Messrs. Doubleday, Page & Co.

Copyright 1892 and 1910 by Rudyard Kipling,
From "Rudyard Kipling's Verse, 1885-1918,"
Doubleday, Page & Co.

Rudyard Kipling.

INVICTUS

Triumph in spirit over adverse conditions is the keynote of this poem of courage undismayed. It rings with the power of the individual to guide his own destiny.

UT of the night that covers me,
Black as the Pit from pole to pole,

I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance

I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance

My head is bloody, but unbowed.
Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds, and shall find, me unafraid.

It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll,

I am the master of my fate:

I am the captain of my soul.

William Ernest Henley.