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HERE'S HOPIN'

An optimist has been described as a man who orders oysters at a restaurant and expects to find a pearl to pay the bill with. This of course is not optimism, but brazen brainlessness. Yet somehow the pearls come only to those who expect them.

YEAR

EAR ain't been the very best ;-
Purty hard by trouble pressed;
But the rough way leads to rest,-
Here's hopin'!

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CLEON AND I

Toward the end of the yacht race in which the America won her historic cup the English monarch, who was one of the spectators, inquired: "Which boat is first?" "The America seems to be first, your majesty," replied an aide. "And which is second?" asked the monarch. "Your majesty, there seems to be no second." So it is in the race for happiness. The man who is natural, who is open and kind of heart, is always first. The man who is merely rich or sheltered or proud is not even a good second.

CLE

LEON hath a million acres, ne'er a one have I;
Cleon dwelleth in a palace, in a cottage I;
Cleon hath a dozen fortunes, not a penny I;
Yet the poorer of the twain is Cleon, and not I.

Cleon, true, possesses acres, but the landscape I;
Half the charm to me it yieldeth money can not buy,
Cleon harbors sloth and dullness, freshening vigor I;
He in velvet, I in fustian, richer man am I.

Cleon is a slave to grandeur, free as thought am I; Cleon fees a score of doctors, need of none have I; Wealth-surrounded, care-environed, Cleon fears to die; Death may come, he'll find me ready, happier man am I.

Cleon sees no charm in nature, in a daisy I;

Cleon hears no anthems ringing in the sea and sky;
Nature sings to me forever, earnest listener I;

State for state, with all attendants, who would change?

Not I.

Charles Mackay.

THE PESSIMIST

Most of our ills and troubles are not very serious when we come to examine the realities of them. Or perhaps we expect too much. An old negro was complaining that the railroad would not pay him for his mule, which it had killed-nay, would not even give him back his rope. "What rope?" he was asked. "Why, sah," answered he, "de rope dat I tied de mule on de track wif.”

NOTH

JOTHING to do but work,
Nothing to eat but food,
Nothing to wear but clothes
To keep one from going nude.

Nothing to breathe but air
Quick as a flash 'tis gone;
Nowhere to fall but off,
Nowhere to stand but on.

Nothing to comb but hair,
Nowhere to sleep but in bed,
Nothing to weep but tears,
Nothing to bury but dead.

Nothing to sing but songs,
Ah, well, alas! alack!
Nowhere to go but out,

Nowhere to come but back.

Nothing to see but sights,

Nothing to quench but thirst,
Nothing to have but what we've got;
Thus thro' life we are cursed.

Nothing to strike but a gait;
Everything moves that goes.

Nothing at all but common sense
Can ever withstand these woes.

Ben King.

From "Ben King's Verse,"
Forbes & Co., Chicago, Ill.

A PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED

There are irritating, troublesome people about us. Of what use is it to be irritating in our turn or to add to the trouble? Most offenders have their better side. Our wisest course is to find this and upon the basis of it build up a better relationship.

HERE'S a fellow in your office

TH

Who complains and carps and whines

Till you'd almost do a favor

To his heirs and his assigns.
But I'll tip you to a secret

(And this chap's of course involved)---
He's no foeman to be fought with;
He's a problem to be solved.

There's a duffer in your district
Whose sheer cussedness is such
He has neither pride nor manners-
No, nor gumption, overmuch.
'Twould be great to up and tell him
Where to go. But be resolved—
He's no foeman to be fought with,
Just a problem to be solved.

This old earth's (I'm sometimes thinking)

One menagerie of freaks

Folks invested with abnormal

Lungs or brains or galls or beaks.
But we're not just shrieking monkeys
In a dim, vast cage revolved;
We're not foemen to be fought with,
Merely problems to be solved.

St. Clair Adams.

PROSPICE

Here the poet looks forward to death. He does not ask for an easy death; he does not wish to creep past an experience which all men sooner or later must face, and which many men have faced so heroically. He has fought well in life; he wishes to make the last fight too. The poem was written shortly after the death of Mrs. Browning, and the closing lines refer to her.

FEAR

EAR death?-to feel the fog in my throat,
The mist in my face,

When the snows begin, and the blasts denote
I am nearing the place,

The power of the night, the press of the storm,
The post of the foe;

Where he stands, the Arch Fear in a visible form,
Yet the strong man must go:

For the journey is done and the summit attained,
And the barriers fall,

Though a battle's to fight ere the guerdon be gained,
The reward of it all.

I was ever a fighter, so-one fight more,

The best and the last!

I would hate that death bandaged my eyes, and forbore, And bade me creep past.

No! let me taste the whole of it, fare like my peers

The heroes of old,

Bear the brunt, in a minute pay glad life's arrears
Of pain, darkness and cold.

For sudden the worst turns the best to the brave,
The black minute's at end,

And the elements' rage, the fiend-voices that rave,
Shall dwindle, shall blend,

Shall change, shall become first a peace out of pain,
Then a light, then thy breast,

O thou soul of my soul! I shall clasp thee again,

And with God be the rest!

Robert Browning.

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