Chapter I: Want to Go to Morrow (3)

Dear Friends: I am going to do that which the dead oft
promised he would do for me. The loved and loving brother,
husband, father, friend, died where manhood's morning almost
touches noon, and while the shadows still were falling
toward the west. He had not passed on life's highway the
stone that marks the highest point; but being weary for a
moment, he lay down by the wayside, and, using his burden
for a pillow, fell into that dreamless sleep that kisses
down his eyelids still. While yet in love with life and
raptured with the world, he passed to silence and pathetic
dust.

Yet, after all, it may be best, just in the happiest,
sunniest hour of all the voyage, while eager winds are
kissing every sail, to dash against the unseen rock, and in
an instant hear the billows roar above a sunken ship. For
whether in mid-sea or 'mong the breakers of the farther
shore, a wreck at last must mark the end of each and all.
And every life, no matter if its every hour is rich with
love and every moment jeweled with a joy, will, at its
close, become a tragedy as sad and deep and dark as can be
woven of the warp and woof of mystery and death. This brave
and tender man in every storm of life was oak and rock; but
in the sunshine he was vine and flower.

He was the friend of heroic souls. He climbed the heights,
and left all superstition far below, while on his forehead
fell the golden dawning of the grander day. He loved the
beautiful, and was with color, form, and music touched to
tears. He sided with the weak and with a willing hand gave
alms. With loyal heart and with the purest hands he
faithfully discharged all public trusts. He was a worshiper
of liberty, a friend of the oppressed. A thousand times I
have heard him quote these words: "For justice, all place a
temple and all season summer."

He believed that happiness was the only good, reason the
only torch, justice the only worship, humanity the only
religion, and love the only priest. He added to the sum of
human joy; and were every one to whom he did a loving
service to bring a blossom to his grave, he would sleep
to-night beneath a wilderness of flowers.

Life is a narrow vale between the cold and barren peaks of
two eternities. We strive in vain to look beyond the
heights. We cry aloud, and the only answer is the echo of
our wailing cry. From the voiceless lips of the unreplying
dead there comes no word; but in the night of death hope
sees a star and listening love can hear the rustle of a
wing. He who sleeps here when dying, mistaking the approach
of death for the return of health, whispered with his latest
breath, "I am better now."

Let us believe, in spite of doubts and dogmas, of fears and
tears, that these dear words are true of all the countless
dead. And now, to you, who have been chosen from among the
many men he loved to do the last sad office for the dead, we
give his sacred dust. Speech cannot contain our love. There
was, there is no gentler, stronger, manlier man.

America's First Great Poem.

In the history of literature there are occasionally noted the names of some distinguished writers whose best remembered work was accomplished at the very beginning of their careers. One remarkable illustration is found in the poem "Thanatopsis," which was composed by William Cullen Bryant (1794-1878) when he was but seventeen years of age.

His father found the poem in his son's desk, together with the manuscript of "The Waterfowl," and was so affected by the discovery of verse so unusual that he hastened to the house of a neighbor, thrust the manuscripts into his hand, and then burst into tears as he exclaimed:

"Oh, read that. It is Cullen's!"

"Thanatopsis" was taken by Dr. Bryant to the editor of the newly established _North American Review_; but this gentleman and the friends to whom he showed it were at first unwilling to believe that an American could have written so fine a poem. It was, however, published (in 1817); yet even then, and for a long time after, most persons credited it to Dr. Bryant rather than to his son.

The importance of "Thanatopsis" is at once literary and historical. It is in reality the first original note ever sounded in American poetry. Until that time Americans had merely imitated whatever style of writing happened to be current in England. Bryant, however, attained spontaneous self-expression and distinct individuality. He drew a direct inspiration from Nature itself; and his lines were vivified by the imagination that is unforced. The publication of "Thanatopsis," therefore, is now held to mark the date at which the national literature of America begins.

THANATOPSIS.

BY WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT.

To him who in the love of nature holds
Communion with her visible forms, she speaks
A various language: for his gayer hours
She has a voice of gladness, and a smile
And eloquence of beauty; and she glides
Into his darker musings with a mild
And healing sympathy, that steals away
Their sharpness ere he is aware. When thoughts
Of the last bitter hour come like a blight
Over thy spirit, and sad images
Of the stern agony, and shroud, and pall,
And breathless darkness, and the narrow house,
Make thee to shudder and grow sick at heart,
Go forth under the open sky, and list
To Nature's teachings, while from all around--
Earth and her waters, and the depths of air--
Comes a still voice: Yet a few days, and thee
The all-beholding sun shall see no more
In all his course; nor yet in the cold ground,
Where thy pale form was laid with many tears,
Nor in the embrace of ocean, shall exist
Thy image. Earth, that nourished thee, shall claim
Thy growth, to be resolved to earth again;
And, lost each human trace, surrendering up
Thine individual being, shalt thou go
To mix forever with the elements--
To be a brother to the insensible rock,
And to the sluggish clod, which the rude swain
Turns with his share and treads upon. The oak
Shall send his roots abroad, and pierce thy mold.

Yet not to thine eternal resting-place
Shalt thou retire alone, nor couldst thou wish
Couch more magnificent. Thou shalt lie down
With patriarchs of the infant world--with kings,
The powerful of the earth--the wise, the good--
Fair forms, and hoary seers of ages past,
All in one mighty sepulcher. The hills,
Rock-ribbed and ancient as the sun--the vales
Stretching in pensive quietness between--
The venerable woods--rivers that move
In majesty, and the complaining brooks
That make the meadows green; and, poured round all,
Old ocean's gray and melancholy waste--
Are but the solemn decorations all
Of the great tomb of man. The golden sun,
The planets, all the infinite hosts of heaven,
Are shining on the sad abodes of death,
Through the still lapse of ages. All that tread
The globe are but a handful to the tribes
That slumber in its bosom. Take the wings
Of morning; traverse Barca's desert sands,
Or lose thyself in the continuous woods
Where rolls the Oregon, and hears no sound
Save his own dashings--yet the dead are there;
And millions in those solitudes, since first
The flight of years began, have laid them down
In their last sleep--the dead reign there alone.
So shalt thou rest; and what if thou withdraw
In silence from the living, and no friend
Take note of thy departure? All that breathe
Will share thy destiny. The gay will laugh
When thou art gone, the solemn brood of care
Plod on, and each one, as before, will chase
His favorite fantom; yet all these shall leave
Their mirth and their employments, and shall come
And make their bed with thee. As the long train
Of ages glide away, the sons of men--
The youth in life's green spring, and he who goes
In the full strength of years, matron, and maid,
And the sweet babe, and the gray-headed man--
Shall one by one be gathered to thy side
By those who in their turn shall follow them.

So live that when thy summons comes to join
The innumerable caravan which moves
To that mysterious realm where each shall take
His chamber in the silent halls of death,
Thou go not, like the quarry-slave at night,
Scourged to his dungeon, but, sustained and soothed
By an unfaltering trust, approach thy grave
Like one who wraps the drapery of his couch
About him, and lies down to pleasant dreams.

PRE-EASTER PHILOSOPHY.

A Few Reflections, Pertinent and Impertinent, on the Subject of Clothes,
Their Cost, and the Consequences of Sartorial Splendor.

Dwellers in huts and marble halls--
From shepherdess up to queen--
Cared little for bonnets, and less for shawls,
And nothing for crinoline.
But now simplicity's not the rage,
And it's funny to think how cold
The dress they wore in the Golden Age
Would seem in the Age of Gold.

HENRY S. LEIGH--_The Two Ages_.

Nothing is thought rare
Which is not new, and follow'd; yet we know
That what was worn some twenty years ago
Comes into grace again.

BEAUMONT AND FLETCHER--_Prologue
to the Noble Gentleman_.

Dress drains our cellar dry,
And keeps our larder lean; puts out our fires,
And introduces hunger, frost, and wo.
Where peace and hospitality might reign.

COWPER--_The Task_. Bk. II.

He that is proud of the rustling of his silks, like a madman, laughs at the rattling of his fetters. For indeed, Clothes ought to be our remembrancers of our lost innocency.

Fuller--_The Holy and Profane States_.

I'll be at charges for a looking-glass,
And entertain some score or two of tailors,
To study fashions to adorn my body:
Since I am crept in favor with myself,
I will maintain it with some little cost.

_Richard III_. Act I. Sc. 2.

So tedious is this day,
As is the night before some festival
To an impatient child, that hath new robes,
And may not wear them.

_Romeo and Juliet_. Act III. Sc. 2.

Costly thy habit as thy purse can buy,
But not express'd in fancy; rich, not gaudy;
For the apparel oft proclaims the man.

_Hamlet_. Act I. Sc. 3.

The glass of fashion and the mold of form,
The observ'd of all observers.

_Hamlet_. Act III. Sc. 1.

Their clothes are after such a pagan cut too,
That, sure, they've worn out Christendom.

_Henry VIII_. Act I. Sc. 3.

You, sir, I entertain for one of my hundred;
only I do not like the fashion of your garments.

_King Lear_. Act III. Sc. 6.

He is only fantastical that is not in fashion.

BURTON--_Anatomy of Melancholy_.

And as the French we conquer'd once,
Now gives us laws for pantaloons,
The length of breeches and the gathers,
Port-cannons, periwigs, and feathers.

BUTLER--_Hudibras_. Pt. I. Canto III.

Thy clothes are all the soul thou hast.

BEAUMONT AND FLETCHER--_Honest
Man's Fortune_. Act V. Sc. 3.

A winning wave, deserving note,
In the tempestuous petticoat;
A careless shoe-string, in whose tie
I see a wild civility--
Do more bewitch me than when art
Is too precise in every part.

ROBERT HERRICK--_Delight in Disorder_.

Fashion--a word which knaves and fools may use,
Their knavery and folly to excuse.

CHURCHILL--_Rosciad_.

As good be out of the world as out of the fashion.

COLLEY CIBBER--_Love's Last Shift_.

Who seems most hideous when adorned the most.

ARIOSTO--_Orlando Furioso_. XX. 116.

I see that the fashion wears out more apparel than the man.

_Much Ado About Nothing_. Act III.
Sc. 3. L. 148.

Be plain in dress, and sober in your diet;
In short, my deary, kiss me! and be quiet.

LADY M.W. MONTAGU--_Summary of
Lord Littelton's Advice_.

Classics From Carlyle.

Two of the Most Celebrated Passages in "Sartor Resartus," Penned By
the Great Scottish Philosopher in What He Called "The
Loneliest Nook in Britain."

"The selections printed here are taken from what is regarded
by nearly every one as the masterpiece of Thomas Carlyle
(1795-1881). "Sartor Resartus" (The Tailor Retailored) is
the title of a book which exhibits the very soul of Carlyle
himself, with all its mingled scorn, lawlessness, humor, and
pathos. He wrote in what he called "the loneliest nook in
Britain"--a little Scottish farm at Craigenputtoch.

To this place Carlyle had taken his bride, Jane Welsh, a
very brilliant woman, and there the two lived for years amid
the most desolate surroundings and after the rudest fashion.
They were a strange and ill-assorted couple--he in manner
and appearance a gaunt and uncouth peasant; she a delicate
and nervous woman of the world. Carlyle suffered tortures
from dyspepsia, which often made him as savage as a wolf.
His wife, who had married him less from love than because
she thought he had a great career before him, suffered from
his heedlessness and roughness, yet took her revenge upon
him by the sharpness of her tongue, and by the burning
record which she left of their mutual bitterness and spite.

It was in this lonely place that Carlyle wrote "Sartor
Resartus," which first appeared in _Fraser's Magazine_
(1833-1834). It is one of the strangest and most eccentric
of literary productions. It has no form. Its language is
often exclamatory, vociferous, and wild--interlarded also
with foreign words, and words that Carlyle himself invented.
It really sets forth the personal opinions, the fanciful
speculations, and the mental writhings of its author; and it
foreshadows the almost demoniac power wherewith Carlyle
afterward wrote the story of the French Revolution, which he
himself called "truth clad in hell-fire."

Carlyle, as a man, was so erratic as to be almost
impossible. His opinions were extreme, and he was fond of
bellowing them forth in the fiercest and most furious words,
insulting those who differed with him, eaten up by a
colossal vanity, and yet unquestionably a genius of the
first order.

Night View of a City.

"Ah, my dear friend," said he once, at midnight, when we had returned from the coffee-house in rather earnest talk, "it is a true sublimity to dwell here. These fringes of lamplight, struggling up through smoke and thousandfold exhalation, some fathoms into the ancient reign of Night, what thinks Booetes of them, as he leads his Hunting-Dogs over the zenith in their leash of sidereal fire?

"That stifled hum of Midnight, when Traffic has lain down to rest; and the chariot-wheels of Vanity, still rolling here and there through distant streets, are bearing her to Halls roofed-in, and lighted to the due pitch for her; and only Vice and Misery, to prowl or to moan like night-birds, are abroad; that hum, I say, like the stertorous, unquiet slumber of sick Life, is heard in Heaven! Oh, under that hideous coverlet of vapors, and putrefactions, and unimaginable gases, what a Fermenting-vat lies simmering and hid!

"The joyful and the sorrowful are there; men are dying there, men are being born; men are praying--on the other side of a brick partition, men are cursing; and around them all is the vast, void Night.

"The proud Grandee still lingers in his perfumed saloons, or reposes within damask curtains; Wretchedness cowers into truckle-beds, or shivers hunger-stricken into its lair of straw; in obscure cellars, _Rouge-et-Noir_ languidly emits its voice-of-destiny to haggard, hungry Villains; while Councillors of State sit plotting and playing their high chess game, the pawns being Men.

"The Lover whispers his mistress that the coach is ready, and she, full of hope and fear, glides down, to fly with him over the borders; the Thief, still more silently, sets-to his pick-locks and crowbars, or lurks in wait till the watchmen first snore in their boxes.

"Gay mansions, with supper-rooms and dancing-rooms, are full of light and music and high-swelling hearts; but in the Condemned Cells the pulse of life beats tremulous and faint, and bloodshot eyes look out through the darkness, which is around and within, for the light of a stern last morning. Six men are to be hanged on the morrow; comes no hammering from the Raven's Rock?--their gallows must even now be a-building.

"Upward of five hundred thousand two-legged animals without feathers lie around us, in horizontal positions; their heads all in nightcaps, and full of the foolishest dreams. Riot cries aloud, and staggers and swaggers in his rank dens of shame; and the Mother, with streaming hair, kneels over her pallid dying infant, whose cracked lips only her tears now moisten--all these heaped and huddled together, with nothing but carpentry and masonry between them--crammed in, like salted fish in their barrel--or weltering, shall I say, like an Egyptian pitcher of tamed vipers, each struggling to get its _head above_ the others; _such_ work goes on under that smoke-counterpane! But I sit above it all; I am alone with the Stars."

In Nature's Wilds.

"Mountains were not new to him; but rarely are Mountains seen in such combined majesty and grace as here. The rocks of that sort called Primitive by the mineralogists, which always arrange themselves in masses of a rugged, gigantic character; which ruggedness, however, is here tempered by a singular airiness of form and softness of environment; in a climate favorable to vegetation, the gray cliff, itself covered with lichens, shoots-up through a garment of foliage or verdure; and white, bright cottages, tree-shaded, cluster around the everlasting granite. In fine vicissitude, Beauty alternates with Grandeur; you ride through stony hollows, along strait passes, traversed by torrents, overhung by high walls of rock; now winding amid broken, shaggy chasms, and huge fragments; now suddenly emerging into some emerald valley, where the streamlet collects itself into a Lake, and man has again found a fair dwelling, and it seems as if Peace had established herself in the bosom of Strength.

"To Peace, however, in this vortex of existence can the Son of Time not pretend; still less if some Specter haunt him from the Past; and the Future is wholly a Stygian Darkness, specter-bearing. Reasonably might the Wanderer exclaim to himself: Are not the gates of this world's Happiness inexorably shut against thee; hast thou a hope that is not mad? Nevertheless, one may still murmur audibly, or in the original Greek if that suit thee better: 'Whoso can look on death will start no shadows.'

"From such meditations is the Wanderer's attention called outward; for now the valley closes in abruptly, intersected by a huge mountain mass, the stony, water-worn ascent of which is not to be accomplished on horseback. Arrived aloft, he finds himself again lifted into the evening sunset light; and cannot but pause, and gaze round him, some moments there.

"An upland, irregular expanse of wold, where valleys in complex branchings are suddenly or slowly arranging their descent toward every quarter of the sky. The mountain-ranges are beneath your feet, and folded together; only the loftier summits look down here and there as on a second plain; lakes also lie clear and earnest in their solitude.

"No trace of man now visible; unless indeed it were he who fashioned that little visible link of Highway, here, as would seem, scaling the inaccessible, to unite Province with Province.

"But sunward, lo you! how it towers sheer up, a world of Mountains, the diadem and center of the mountain region! A hundred and a hundred savage peaks, in the last light of Day; all glowing, of gold and amethyst, like giant spirits of the wilderness; there in their silence, in their solitude, even as on the night when Noah's Deluge first dried!

"Beautiful, nay solemn, was the sudden aspect to our Wanderer. He gazed over those stupendous masses with wonder, almost with longing desire; never till this hour had he known Nature, that she was One, that she was his Mother and divine.

"And as the ruddy glow was fading into clearness in the sky, and the Sun had now departed, a murmur of Eternity and Immensity, of Death and of Life, stole through his soul; and he felt as if Death and Life were one, as if the Earth were not dead, as if the Spirit of the Earth had its throne in that splendor, and his own spirit were therewith holding communion.

"The spell was broken by a sound of carriage-wheels. Emerging from the hidden Northward, to sink soon into the hidden Southward, came a gay Barouche-and-four; it was open; servants and postilions wore wedding-favors; that happy pair, then, had found each other, it was their marriage evening! Few moments brought them near; _Du Himmel!_ It was Herr Towgood and--Blumine!

"With slight unrecognizing salutation they passed me; plunged down amid the neighboring thickets, onward, to Heaven, and to England; and I, in my friend Richter's words, _I remained alone, behind them, with the Night_!"

THE ACTUAL HEIGHT OF SEA WAVES.

Average in Different Oceans--Fifty-Two Feet the Height of the Tallest
Billow Yet Measured--Not More Than Thirty Feet in North Atlantic.

Waves are the agents of tremendous force, as the batterings received by the big ocean liners in the winter storms tend to prove. But in spite of the stories told by timid or imaginative passengers on the Europe-America ferry, the surges of the North Atlantic are not the highest waves nor the most forcible. The most tremendous of seas are those that form south of the Cape of Good Hope and Cape Horn, where the oceanic belt is unbroken by land.

How high those southern waves rise has not been accurately measured, so far as can be discovered; but probably they are not very much higher than the waves farther north. Says the New York _Sun_:

Sailors in modern times have never seen such waves as those
which the early navigators declared attained heights of one
hundred to one hundred and thirty feet. La Perouse asserted
that he saw waves towering in the Pacific to a height of
nearly two hundred feet. In these more scientific days we
may say that the highest wave yet measured had an altitude
of about fifty-two feet.

This was in the southern ocean, a little north of the
Antarctic regions; and it is quite certain that the highest
waves ever seen in that region did not surpass fifty-eight
feet in altitude. A wave of that height would certainly be a
formidable looking object, and its crest would wash the
windows of the fifth story of many New York buildings.

The average height of the waves in different oceans has been
ascertained with some approach to accuracy as the result of
a great many measurements. The highest waves observed in the
Indian Ocean, for example, are about forty feet. The highest
waves in the North Atlantic are from twenty-five to
twenty-nine feet, and in the Mediterranean from sixteen to
nineteen feet.

Even the smallest of these great waves has considerable
destructive power. Some of them travel along at a speed of
twenty-five miles an hour. A wave about thirty feet high
contains thousands of tons of water, and when this immense
force is dashed against any structure the ruin wrought is
likely to be impressive.

BASEBALL BARDS "ON DECK."

A Garland of Truly American Verse--Poems, New and Old, That Sing the
Glories of the Great National Game.

THE OLD ENTHUSIAST.

By S.E. Kiser.

There's a glad old-fashioned feeling stealing over me once more;
I forget that I'm gray-headed and am verging on threescore;
There are many weighty matters that my earnest care should claim--
But come, old man, let's knock off and go out and see the game.

Let's get a bag of peanuts, and be boys again and shout
For the men who lam the leather and who line three-baggers out;
Let's go out and root and holler, and forget that we have cares,
And that still the world has markets which are worked by bulls and
bears.

Every year or two they tell us that baseball is out of date;
But each spring it's back in fashion when they line up at the plate,
When the good old, glad old feeling comes again to file its claim--
When a man can turn from trouble and go out and see the game.

I can feel the warm blood rushing through my veins again--hooray!
See those slender pennants waving? Hear the umpire calling "Play!"
Yah, you bluffer--no, you didn't--aw, say, umpire, that's a shame!
What? Two strikes? Come off, you robber! Well, you're rotten all the
same!

Oh, if we'd a man like Anson or Dan Brouthers used to be,
To hold down that first bag--say, what a corker that was! Gee!
Go it! Slide, you chump--you've got to--never touched him! Yip! Hurrah!
Say, that boy's a wonder--hold it! Ah, the dub, they've caught
him--pshaw!

Ever see John Ward as short-stop? There's the boy that had the head!
Why, if we had him out yonder he would scare those fellows dead!
And Mike Kelly--Whee-e-e! A beauty! Home run, sure as Brown's my name!
Downed 'em nine to eight, by golly! Wasn't it a corkin' game?

_Chicago Record-Herald_.

THE BOY WHO KEEPS THE BATS.

By Bide Dudley.

Just see him stride from bench to plate--
The boy who keeps the bats;
With truly a majestic gait--
The boy who keeps the bats.
His clothes are old, his feet are bare,
His face unwashed, unkempt his hair,
He's still in pride a millionaire--
The boy who keeps the bats.

A most important man is he--
The boy who keeps the bats;
Possessed of great activity--
The boy who keeps the bats.
He knows each player by his name,
His age, his weight, from whence he came,
And just how long he's played the game--
The boy who keeps the bats.

He'll lug ten sticks and laugh with glee--
The boy who keeps the bats.
"De gang" regards with jealousy
The boy who keeps the bats.
Although he's not employed for pay,
He "gets inside to see 'em play,"
Which beats his former knot-hole way--
The boy who keeps the bats.

He knows each player's stick, you bet--
The boy who keeps the bats.
'Twould break his heart should he forget--
The boy who keeps the bats.
Whene'er a ball is knocked away,
He throws them one with which to play,
He's there for business ev'ry day--
The boy who keeps the bats.

He yells when worthy work is done--
The boy who keeps the bats.
He "hollers" after ev'ry run--
The boy who keeps the bats.
He's overjoyed at victory,
And tells the other kids how "we"
Won out as easily as could be--
The boy who keeps the bats!

_St. Joseph News_.

CASEY AT THE BAT.

BY PHINEAS THAYER.

It looked extremely rocky for the Mudville nine that day;
The score stood two to four, with but an inning left to play.
So, when Cooney died at second, and Burrows did the same,
A pallor wreathed the features of the patrons of the game.

A straggling few got up to go, leaving there the rest,
With that hope which springs eternal within the human breast,
For they thought: "If only Casey could get a whack at that,"
They'd put up even money now, with Casey at the bat.

But Flynn preceded Casey, and likewise so did Blake,
And the former was a puddin', and the latter was a fake,
So on that stricken multitude a deathlike silence sat,
For there seemed but little chance of Casey's getting to the bat.

But Flynn let drive a "single," to the wonderment of all,
And the much-despised Blakey "tore the cover off the ball."
And when the dust had lifted, and they saw what had occurred,
There was Blakey safe at second, and Flynn a-huggin' third.

Then, from the gladdened multitude went up a joyous yell,
It rumbled in the mountain-tops, it rattled in the dell;
It struck upon the hillside and rebounded on the flat;
For Casey, mighty Casey, was advancing to the bat.

There was ease in Casey's manner as he stepped into his place;
There was pride in Casey's bearing, and a smile on Casey's face.
And when, responding to the cheers, he lightly doffed his hat,
No stranger in the crowd could doubt 'twas Casey at the bat.

Ten thousand eyes were on him as he rubbed his hands with dirt,
Five thousand tongues applauded when he wiped them on his shirt;
Then while the New York pitcher ground the ball into his hip,
Defiance gleamed in Casey's eye, a sneer curled Casey's lip.

And now the leather-covered sphere came hurling through the air,
And Casey stood a-watching it in haughty grandeur there.
Close by the sturdy batsman the ball unheeded sped--
"That ain't my style," said Casey. "Strike one," the umpire said.

From the benches, black with people, there went up a muffled roar,
Like the beating of storm waves on a stern and distant shore.
"Kill him! Kill the umpire!" shouted some one on the stand.
And it's likely they'd have killed him had not Casey raised a hand.

With a smile of Christian charity great Casey's visage shone;
He stilled the rising tumult; he bade the game go on:
He signaled to Sir Timothy, once more the spheroid flew;
But Casey still ignored it, and the umpire said, "Strike two."

"Fraud!" cried the maddened thousands, and echo answered "Fraud!"
But one scornful look from Casey and the audience was awed.
They saw his face grow stern and cold, they saw his muscles strain,
And they knew that Casey wouldn't let that ball go by again.

The sneer is gone from Casey's lip, his teeth are clenched in hate;
He pounds with cruel violence his bat upon the plate.
And now the pitcher holds the ball, and now he lets it go,
And now the air is shattered by the force of Casey's blow.

Oh, somewhere in this favored land the sun is shining bright;
The band is playing somewhere, and somewhere hearts are light.
And somewhere men are laughing, and somewhere children shout:
But there is no joy in Mudville--mighty Casey has struck out.

FOIBLES OF LITERARY MEN.

Many qualities which would be regarded as censurable if possessed by ordinary men and women are often regarded with a respect that is tinctured with admiration when they are possessed by persons of genius.

There is scarcely an author or musician of note who has not been distinguished by some foible that has excited the amusement of his friends. In many instances these foibles afford an index to the character of their victim. Some are natural, while others would seem to be the result of some inexplicable affectation. Viewed in any light, however, all are interesting.

=Keats= liked red pepper on his toast.

=Sardou= imagines he has a perpetual cold.

=Dickens= was fond of wearing flashy jewelry.

=Ernest Renan= wore his finger-nails abnormally long.

=Walter Savage Landor= threw the dishes around to relieve
his mind.

=Edgar Allan Poe= slept with his cat. He was inordinately
proud of his feet.

=Alphonse Daudet= wore his eye-glasses when asleep. He did
his best work when hungry.

=Thackeray= used to lift his hat whenever he passed the
house in which he wrote "Vanity Fair."

=Thomas Wentworth Higginson= possesses a singular power over
wild birds, and can easily tame them.

=Alexandre Dumas=, the younger, bought a new painting every
time he had a new book published.

=Robert Louis Stevenson's= favorite recreation was playing
the flute, in order, as he said, to tune up his ideas.

=Robert Browning= could not sit still. With the constant
shuffling of his feet holes were worn in the carpet.

=Longfellow= enjoyed walking only at sunrise or sunset, and
he said his sublimest moods came upon him at these times.

=Washington Irving= never mentioned the name of his fiancee
after her death, and if anybody else did so, he immediately
left the room.

=Nathaniel Hawthorne= always washed his hands before reading
a letter from his wife. He delighted in poring over old
advertisements in the newspaper files.

=Macaulay= kept his closets crammed with elaborately
embroidered waistcoats, and the more gaudy they were the
better he liked them.

=Disraeli= wore corsets. The older he grew, the greater
became his desire to dress like a young man. He had a pen
stuck behind each ear when writing.

=F. Marion Crawford= carries his own stationery, pen, and
ink, and never writes with any other. He has written every
word of every novel with the same penholder.

=Bjornson= kept his pockets full of the seeds of trees,
scattering handfuls broadcast in his daily walks. He even
tried to persuade his associates to do the same.

=Darwin= had no respect for books as books, and would cut a
big volume in two, for convenience in handling, or he would
tear out the leaves he required for reference.

=Zola= would pass whole weeks in the belief that he was an
idiot. While in this state he wrote more than at any other
time. He would never accept an invitation to dinner.

=Oliver Wendell Holmes= used to carry a horse-chestnut in
one pocket and a potato in another to ward off rheumatism.
He had a great fondness for trees, and always sat under one
when he could.

=Voltaire=, as a preliminary to his day's work, would
sharpen an even dozen lead pencils. He would untie and retie
his stock whenever an idea concerning his work particularly
pleased him.

=Count Tolstoy= used to go barefoot and hatless the year
round. He is fond of French perfumes, and keeps his linens
scented with sachet powder. There is always a flower on his
desk as he writes. Although rich, he wears the cheapest
clothes he can buy.

=Sir A. Conan Doyle=, even in the coldest weather, never
wears an overcoat. When he gives an afternoon lecture he
removes his vest and buttons his Prince Albert coat close to
his body. He is a golf enthusiast, and spends all the time
possible on the links.

=Bret Harte=, when the inspiration was on him, would hire a
cab for the night, and drive, without stopping, through the
darkness until the struggle for ideas was over, and he grew
calm enough to write. Nothing pleased him more than to be
taken for an Englishman.

The World's Fastest Trains.

Great Britain Leads in Speed, with France a Good Second, and the United
States Only a Slow Third.--Some Passenger Statistics.

Speed is the magician that makes the world smaller. Compare the hourly runs of the old stage-coaches with the hourly runs of the modern railroad train, and we can figure without difficulty just how much the world has shrunk in seventy-five years--though, as always happens in magic, the shrinkage is apparent, not real. Motor cars now are made so powerful that the fastest can go more than two miles in a minute--a speed which is not yet considered practicable for ordinary travel. Railroad trains have made phenomenal time over short distances, and there is one train which regularly travels one hundred and eighteen and one-half miles at about sixty miles an hour.

It is something of a surprise to learn that American trains are not the fastest. England is first, with France second. The following article from the New York _Sun_ gives the speed figures of the fastest trains of all countries where good speed is made:

The fastest regular long-distance run without stop in the
world is on the Great Western, from London to Bristol, 1181/2
miles in 120 minutes, or practically sixty miles an hour. In
order to leave passengers at Bath a car is dropped from the
train without stop, a time-saving device in operation on a
number of European roads, though still unknown here.

The longest run without stop made in any country is from
London to Liverpool on the London and Northwestern, 201
miles, made at the rate of fifty-four miles an hour. The
next longest is on the Midland, from London to Leeds, 196
miles, at the rate of fifty-two miles an hour.

The Empire State Express.

The train in this country coming nearest to these long runs
without stop is the Empire State Express on the New York
Central, from New York to Albany, 143 miles, at the rate of
53 64-100 miles an hour; and the time of the same train to
Buffalo, 440 miles in 500 minutes, is just a trifle faster
than that of the Midland express from London to Glasgow,
447 miles in 510 minutes. Each makes four regular stops. The
Northwestern runs a train from London to Glasgow, 4011/2
miles, in eight hours, making two stops.

The Great Northern runs a train from London to Doncaster,
156 miles, without stop, in 169 minutes, at the rate of 551/2
miles an hour, and the Great Central train runs over
England's new road, from London to Sheffield, 165 miles, in
170 minutes, better than 58 miles an hour, slipping a car at
Leicester without stop.

Such runs as that between London and Birmingham on the Great
Western, a distance of 1291/4 miles, made without stop in
140 minutes, or at the rate of more than 55 miles an hour,
are less remarkable; for this seems to be about the regular
gait of many trains in England.

These fast and long runs are common to all the trunk lines
in England, while in the United States the fast runs are all
confined to two roads, the New York Central and the
Pennsylvania. Compared with many English fast runs, the time
between New York and Washington and Boston is slow. The
distance to the two cities from New York is about the same,
and in both cases the fastest trains make it in five hours
(or a little over, now, to Boston), or at 46 miles an hour.

For runs of nearly 1,000 miles no country can show trains to
compare with the New York and Chicago trains on the New York
Central, the best trains making the 980 miles in 1,080
minutes, or at 54 miles an hour. While this is not quite so
fast as the time made by the fast trains from Paris to Lyons
and Marseilles, the distance is twice as great as across
France.

Fast Time to Atlantic City.

Coming to short runs and special summer trains, undoubtedly
the fastest are from Camden to Atlantic City. Here some very
fast time has been made over an ideal country for fast time
by both the Reading and the Pennsylvania. The best Reading
time is 561/2 miles in 50 minutes, or 66 miles an hour, while
the best Pennsylvania time is 59 miles at the rate of 64
miles an hour.

These constitute all the very fast regular trains in the
United States. The fastest run in New England outside the
Boston-New York run is from Boston to Portland at the rate
of 44 miles an hour, and the showing is still poorer in the
West and South. Chicago, in many respects the greatest
railroad center in the world, has no fast trains outside the
New York Central and Pennsylvania trains referred to.

Throughout the West, though the best trains are very
luxurious, the runs are all short, averaging about 30 miles
between stations and the speed nowhere averages 40 miles an
hour.

Next to speed may be considered the frequency of trains,
their appointments, etc. In this respect a still more
pronounced difference appears in different countries with
almost equal population.

More trains leave the great South Terminal in Boston in one
day than are moved in one direction on all the roads of
Spain and Portugal in two weeks. From one terminal in London
more trains leave daily than move in ten days to supply the
whole population of Russia.

The World's Largest Station.

The South Terminal in Boston not only is the largest station
in the world, but sends out daily more than 400 trains,
nearly twice the number despatched from the Grand Central
Station by the three roads starting from there. The next
largest number sent from any station in this country is
about 350 from the Boston and Maine terminal in Boston, and
the next about 325 from the Broad Street Station,
Philadelphia. Then come the Grand Central Station, New York,
and the Reading Terminal, Philadelphia.

But these figures do not equal those of the great London
terminals. There one station sends out 700 trains daily, the
greatest number from any one station in the world, and all
of the twelve great terminals send out large numbers of
trains.

Including all suburban trains, and figuring on a mean
average of winter and summer, the regular scheduled trains
leave the four great centers in the following numbers daily,
the figures being for all roads and approximately correct:
New York city, 1,400; Boston, 1,000; Philadelphia, 850;
Chicago, 850. No other American city has 400.

Good Road-Beds Abroad.

The road-bed and the operating equipment are better in
England and some parts of France and Germany than in
America, and, owing to the ever-prevailing precautions,
accidents are only about one-fifth as frequent as in
America. All the principal roads in England have two tracks
and many main lines have four.

In this respect Americans are making great improvements now,
as the Pennsylvania is four-tracked from New York to
Pittsburgh, and the New Haven from New York to New Haven,
while the New York Central is three-tracked part of the way
to Albany, and four-tracked from there to Buffalo.

Turning to continental Europe it is found that France alone
indulges in really fast trains, and possibly she is ahead
even of England in the number of trains running regularly
above fifty miles an hour. The greatest travel route on the
Continent is from Paris south to Lyons, Marseilles, and the
Mediterranean, and here are found fine and fast trains.

The run from Paris to Marseilles, 585 miles, is made in 750
minutes, with only six stops. Many of the shorter runs, such
as from Paris to Calais, to the Belgian frontier, etc., are
at the rate of from fifty-eight to sixty-two miles an hour
for the regular schedule.

Europe's Fast Averages.

According to a German authority, the average speed of the
fastest trains in Europe is as follows: French, fifty-eight
miles an hour; English, fifty-five miles an hour, and
German, fifty-one. As a matter of experience, fast trains
are hard to find in Germany, and the service in this respect
does not compare with France.

It takes the fastest train 227 minutes to go from Berlin to
Hamburg, 178 miles, which is 471/2 miles an hour, and the
"luxe" train, the one fast goer between Muenich and Vienna,
runs at only 45.60 miles an hour; but there are as a rule
frequent trains throughout Germany and the service is good.

For all the rest of Europe the speed drops to about 30 miles
an hour for express trains. Italy is surprisingly slow. It
takes the express 965 minutes to go from Turin to Rome, 413
miles, or only 26 miles an hour, though the Milan-Rome
express makes nearly 40 miles an hour.

Between Rome and Naples, 155 miles, there are only four or
five trains daily, the fastest at 34 miles an hour, while it
takes 920 minutes to go 439 miles on the best train from
Rome to Brindisi, a rate of less than 30 miles an hour.

The express between Stockholm and Gothenburg, the two large
cities of Sweden, barely makes 30 miles an hour. In the
remaining continental countries the trains are even slower.

THE BEGINNINGS OF THINGS.

Sealing-wax in the present form was first noted in London in the middle of the sixteenth century. A sort of earth was used by the ancient Egyptians in sealing papers and documents. The Egyptians placed such earth on the horns of cattle, and upon it was stamped the seal of the priest. Thus were identified the cattle to be used in the sacrifices.

The diving-bell was not mentioned before the sixteenth century. Two Greeks in that century (1538) gave an exhibition before Charles V, descending into water of considerable depth in a large inverted kettle. They took down with them burning lights. The men returned to the surface without being wet. The light was still burning.

The Lombardians were the first to use effectual quarantine methods against the plague and infectious diseases, and mention of a quarantine is made in Lombardy and Milan in 1374, 1383, and 1399. Prior to that time Christian communities resigned themselves to the visitation of the plague, regarding it as a divine punishment.

J.H. Schultze, a German, obtained the first actual photographic copies (of writing) in 1727; and to Thomas Wedgwood is due the honor of first producing pictures on sensitized surfaces in 1802. Between 1826 and 1833 Louis Jacques Daguerre and Nicephore Niepce perfected the daguerreotype process, the first practical photography. Their discovery was communicated to the French Academy of Sciences in 1839.

The turkey is an American bird. Lucullus and the Epicureans did not know about him. He was found in his wild state after Columbus's time. About a hundred years after the discovery of America broiled young turkeys became great delicacies on the Frenchman's table.

A telegraphic line, consisting of twenty-four wires, each representing a letter, was established by Lesage, at Geneva, in 1774; and in the same year Bishop Watson made experiments over a two-mile wire near London. In Germany the invention is credited to Sommering--1809.

Cork was known to the Greeks and Romans, and was put to almost as many uses as at present, although there is no mention in Rome of linoleum, notwithstanding its Roman sound. Glass bottles, with cork stoppers, for wine and beer did not come into use until the middle of the fourteenth century.

Water-mills were used in the time of Julius Caesar. In Roman times slaves were condemned to the corn-mills, which were propelled by treads. Afterward cattle were used. In the third and fourth centuries there were as many as three hundred cattle-mills in Rome.

Corn-mills are often mentioned in the Bible. The original corn-mill much resembled the modern druggist's pestle. Moses forbade corn-mills to be taken in pawn, for that, he thought, was like taking a man's life in pledge.

Joseph Henry was the first to construct electro-magnets in a useful form. In 1832, at the Albany Academy, he succeeded in ringing a bell over a mile of wire.

Wire was first beaten out by a hammer, but the artisans of Nuremberg, in 1350, began to draw it, which was the great step forward in that art.

The first camera-obscura was invented by Giambattista della Porta, an Italian philosopher, during the latter half of the sixteenth century.

The first cologne was called Hungary water, from the country of its invention. It was made from spirits of wine distilled upon rosemary.

Colored glass came from Egypt. The Egyptians carried the art to great perfection apparently before history begins to tell of it.

Buckwheat began to be cultivated in England in 1597. It had been brought into Europe from Asia one hundred years before.

Wall paper, with fancy colored figures, began to be used in 1620. The art was developed thereafter largely by the French.

A RESCUED POEM.

The Scrap Book Resurrects from Distressing Obscurity a Gem
That Might Otherwise Have Been Lost to Posterity.

History records that in 1895 Langdon Smith, at that time connected with the Sunday edition of the New York _Herald_, wrote the first few stanzas of the following poem. They were printed in the _Herald_. Four years later, having joined the staff of the New York _Journal_ in the interim, Mr. Smith came across the verses among his papers, and, reading them over, was struck with a sense of their incompleteness. He added a stanza or two, and laid the poem aside. Later he wrote more stanzas, and finally completed it and sent it in to Arthur Brisbane, editor of the _Evening Journal_. Mr. Brisbane, being unable to use it, turned it over to Charles E. Russell, of the _Morning Journal_. It appeared in the _Morning Journal_--in the middle of a page of want "ads"! How it came to be buried thus some compositor may know. Perhaps a "make-up" man was inspired with a glimmer of editorial intelligence to "lighten up" the page.

But even a deep border of "ads" could not smother the poem. Mr. Smith received letters of congratulation from all parts of the world, along with requests for copies. The poem has been in constant demand; and it has been almost unobtainable. Here for the first time it is given to the public in a suitable position, with proper recognition--proof once more that the true spark cannot long remain hid under a bushel.

Mr. Smith has caught a note of deep interest. He has linked evolution to the theory of soul-transmigration--has translated Wordsworth's ode on immortality into the terms of science. "The glory and the dream" come, not from another world, but from the Paleozoic period, in which existed the most ancient forms of life of which traces still remain. And the author gives us glimpses of man in several geological periods, showing him, finally, as the cave man of the Stone Age; whence it is comparatively a short jump to the twentieth century--and Delmonico's.

EVOLUTION.

BY LANGDON SMITH.

When you were a tadpole and I was a fish,
In the Paleozoic time,
And side by side on the ebbing tide
We sprawled through the ooze and slime,
Or skittered with many a caudal flip
Through the depths of the Cambrian fen,
My heart was rife with the joy of life,
For I loved you even then.

Mindless we lived and mindless we loved,
And mindless at last we died;
And deep in a rift of the Caradoc drift
We slumbered side by side.
The world turned on in the lathe of time,
The hot lands heaved amain,
Till we caught our breath from the womb of death,
And crept into light again.

We were Amphibians, scaled and tailed,
And drab as a dead man's hand;
We coiled at ease 'neath the dripping trees,
Or trailed through the mud and sand,
Croaking and blind, with our three-clawed feet
Writing a language dumb,
With never a spark in the empty dark
To hint at a life to come.

Yet happy we lived, and happy we loved,
And happy we died once more;
Our forms were rolled in the clinging mold
Of a Neocomian shore.
The eons came, and the eons fled,
And the sleep that wrapped us fast
Was riven away in a newer day,
And the night of death was past.

Then light and swift through the jungle trees
We swung in our airy flights,
Or breathed in the balms of the fronded palms,
In the hush of the moonless nights.
And oh! what beautiful years were these,
When our hearts clung each to each;
When life was filled, and our senses thrilled
In the first faint dawn of speech.

Thus life by life, and love by love,
We passed through the cycles strange,
And breath by breath, and death by death,
We followed the chain of change.
Till there came a time in the law of life
When over the nursing sod
The shadows broke, and the soul awoke
In a strange, dim dream of God.

I was thewed like an Auroch bull,
And tusked like the great Cave Bear;
And you, my sweet, from head to feet,
Were gowned in your glorious hair.
Deep in the gloom of a fireless cave,
When the night fell o'er the plain,
And the moon hung red o'er the river bed,
We mumbled the bones of the slain.

I flaked a flint to a cutting edge,
And shaped it with brutish craft;
I broke a shank from the woodland dank,
And fitted it, head and haft.
Then I hid me close to the reedy tarn,
Where the Mammoth came to drink;--
Through brawn and bone I drave the stone,
And slew him upon the brink.

Loud I howled through the moonlit wastes,
Loud answered our kith and kin;
From west and east to the crimson feast
The clan came trooping in.
O'er joint and gristle and padded hoof,
We fought, and clawed and tore,
And cheek by jowl, with many a growl,
We talked the marvel o'er.

I carved that fight on a reindeer bone,
With rude and hairy hand,
I pictured his fall on the cavern wall
That men might understand.
For we lived by blood, and the right of might,
Ere human laws were drawn.
And the Age of Sin did not begin
Till our brutal tusks were gone.

And that was a million years ago,
In a time that no man knows;
Yet here to-night in the mellow light,
We sit at Delmonico's;
Your eyes are deep as the Devon springs,
Your hair is as dark as jet.
Your years are few, your life is new,
Your soul untried, and yet----

Our trail is on the Kimmeridge clay,
And the scarp of the Purbeck flags,
We have left our bones in the Bagshot stones,
And deep in the Coraline crags;
Our love is old, our lives are old,
And death shall come amain;
Should it come to-day, what man may say
We shall not live again?

Then as we linger at luncheon here,
O'er many a dainty dish,
Let us drink anew to the time when you
Were a Tadpole and I was a Fish.

A HOROSCOPE OF THE MONTHS.

BY MARION Y. BUNNER.

SECOND INSTALMENT.