HEIN. [to WITTIKIN]. Woman, what
voice was that? Speak-answer me!
WIT. Thou'lt learn that soon enough.
HEIN.
Nay, I'll begone.

Show me a way will lead me upward, to the heights!

Lonely I'll live where erst I Master stood. WIT. Thou'lt never win up to thy

heights, I trow.

Thou wast a sturdy shoot, and mightyyet too weak.

What thou wouldst seek, by now's a heap of ashes.

Up yonder thou shalt find it nevermore. HEIN. Then let me perish here, where

now I stand!

WIT. Ay, so thou shalt. He who has flown so high,

Into the very Light, as thou hast flown, Must perish, if he once fall back to Earth. HEIN. So be it. Shall I not see her

once?

WIT. It is the end, and thou shalt see

her once again.

HEIN. Art thou so mighty?

Canst thou do so much?

Once I was ready for the end, as now:
Hoping each breath the last.

But then she came, and I grew well

WIT. I place three goblets on the table. So.

Now, shouldst thou drain the first, thy vanished power

Shall be restored to thee. Shouldst drink the second,

Once more thou shalt behold the spirit bright

Whom thou hast lost. But an thou dost drink both,

Thou must drain down the last.

A WOMAN WHO HAD A HISTORY.

A

WELL-DRESSED and sharp-faced woman passed into the lawyer's office and very shortly was standing by his desk. "I beg your pardon," she said in salutation, "but can you spare a few moments of your valuable time?"

"I am very busy, madam," he replied; "but, if you have anything of importance to communicate, I shall be glad to hear it. Pray be seated."

"Thank you, no," she said, looking around at a clerk or two in a nervous fashion. "I am a woman with a history, and-"

"Excuse me," apologized the attorney, seeing a fee appearing on the horizon; "possibly you had better step into my private office with me, where we will not be interrupted."

She thanked him, and they went into the adjoining room.

"Now," he said, when they were seated, "I presume you wish to consult me on this matter of your history?"

"Yes, sir; that is why I am here."

"Very well, proceed. Anything you say to me will be held in the strictest confidence. You were saying you were a woman with a history?" This very sympathetically, as an encourager.

"Yes, sir," she began, as she laid a document before him. "It's a history of Napoleon Bonaparte, in eighteen monthly parts, at fifty cents a month, and-"

He threw up his hands; but she had him, and he couldn't get away until he had put down his name; and now, when "a woman with a history" is mentioned in his hearing it makes cold chills run down his back.

Until he said, "Now get a man
To fix this dang pipe ef he can!"
The man he fixed it pretty soon
An' ma came home that afternoon.

V.

LIBERTY AND EQUALITY.

BY WEBSTER C. DAVIS.

[From a speech at the Democratic National Convention, Kansas City, July 5, 1900.]

LIFE, human life, is but a narrow one be

tween two great unknown eternities, and life is too short for a man to sacrifice principles for money or for public office.

Old conditions have passed away, old questions have passed and gone, and new questions are now before the American people. I care not a snap for party or for criticism. I care nothing for office. I love liberty. I love equality of rights, and I love justice.

In every part of Europe and Africa the charge is made that there is a secret alliance between this country and Great Britain, to the effect that in case of any foreign nation attempting to intervene in behalf of the poor Boers the great Republic will stand by Great Britain with its army and navy. Is it a fact that this great Republic must chain itself to the chariot wheels of the British empire in its mad race for land and gold?

Liberty we all love, the splendid word, the sweetest word that ever blossomed and came upon human ears. Is liberty to become obsolete in the American lexicon?

I sympathize with people struggling for liberty everywhere. I sympathized with them as they struggled for liberty in Armenia. I sympathized with them as they struggled for liberty in Greece, and when the war broke out with Spain we said then that it was a war, not for conquest, not for territory, but for carrying liberty to people who were crying for help at our feet.

And the boys marched up from the Northland whose fathers once marched in tattered blue with the song their fathers loved, "My Country, 'tis of Thee." And the boys came from the Southland whose fathers once marched in ragged gray to the music of "'Way Down South in Dixie." They followed the men who at once led the Northern and Southern

armies down to Cuba and into other lands and islands of the sea. They marched under one flag in behalf of one country to the music of one splendid melody as they felt in their hearts the music that had inspired the men in the days gone by.

Up until that point the war was right, but when we passed beyond that point we went too far. But it was another indication of following the footsteps of Great Britain that when our flag rose over the flag of the rotten Spanish monarchy the American Republic could not resist the temptation to follow in the footsteps of Great Britain. It thirsted for land and for gold. We should have stopped at the end of the Spanish victory, when we brought liberty to the people who were being ground to death under the heel of Spain's tyranny.

We do love liberty. The masses of the American people stand for the blessed idea of liberty, and if it were possible to get the news over the British army to the Boer farmers in the two South African republics that the representatives of six or seven million American voters send a word of sympathy to them, many a Boer would shout for joy in the hills of the Transvaal.

Grander struggle for liberty was never made in the world's history than the struggle being made by the Republicans and Democrats in South Africa. Let us sympathize with them. Let American principles ever live. Let them go on down for ages to come, to generations not yet born. Liberty, love of country, one flag, one country, one splendid destiny-all one.

C

VI.

MARY'S COMPOSITION ON
COLUMBUS.

OLUMBUS was a great man and died

being hung. He was so great that he discovered a cat's island in the ocean. And when he saw the cats he knelt and prayed he was so thankful. Cats are as old as the hills-I don't mean the Hills that live across the street. Oh, no; I mean the hills that are made from dirt, but then mamma says "we are made from dirt." If that is true, then I don't know how to explain myself, except that I know cats are really as old as the hills. And that is all I have to say about Columbus.

VII.

THE ANTIQUITY OF FREEDOM.

BY WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT.

ERE are old trees, tall oaks and

H gnarlèd pines,

That stream with gray-green mosses; here the ground

Was never trenched by spade, and flowers spring up

Unsown, and die ungathered. It is sweet To linger here, among the flitting birds And leaping squirrels, wandering brooks, and winds

That shake the leaves, and scatter, as they pass,

A fragrance from the cedars, thickly set With pale-blue berries. In these peaceful shades

Peaceful, unpruned, immeasurably old—
My thoughts go up the long dim path of

years,

Back to the earliest days of liberty.

O FREEDOM! thou art not, as poets dream,

A fair young girl, with light and delicate limbs,

And wavy tresses gushing from the cap With which the Roman master crowned his slave

When he took off the gyves. A bearded

man,

Armed to the teeth, art thou; one mailèd hand

Grasps the broad shield, and one the sword; thy brow,

Glorious in beauty though it be, is scarred With tokens of old wars; thy massive limbs Are strong with struggling. Power at thee has launched

His bolts, and with his lightnings smitten thee;

They could not quench the life thou hast from heaven;

Merciless Power has dug thy dungeon deep,
And his swart armorers, by a thousand fires,
Have forged thy chain; yet, while he deems
thee bound,

The links are shivered, and the prison-walls
Fall outward; terribly thou springest forth,
As springs the flame above a burning pile,
And shoutest to the nations, who return
Thy shoutings, while the pale oppressor flies.

Thy birthright was not given by human hands:

Thou wert twin-born with man. In pleasant fields,

While yet our race was few, thou sat'st with him,

To tend the quiet flock and watch the stars,
And teach the reed to utter simple airs.
Thou by his side, amid the tangled wood,
Didst war upon the panther and the wolf,
His only foes; and thou with him didst
draw

The earliest furrow on the mountain-side,
Soft with the deluge. Tyranny himself,
Thy enemy, although of reverend look,
Hoary with many years, and far obeyed,
Is later born than thou; and as he meets
The grave defiance of thine elder eye,
The usurper trembles in his fastnesses.

Thou shalt wax stronger with the lapse of years,

But he shall fade into a feebler ageFeebler, yet subtler. He shall weave his snares,

And spring them on thy careless steps, and clap

His withered hands, and from their ambush call

His hordes to fall upon thee. He shall send Quaint maskers, wearing fair and gallant forms

To catch thy gaze, and uttering graceful words

To charm thy ear; while his sly imps, by stealth

Twine round thee threads of steel, light thread on thread

That grow to fetters; or bind down thy

arms

With chains concealed in chaplets. Oh! not yet

Mayst thou unbrace thy corselet, nor lay by Thy sword; nor yet, O Freedom! close thy lids

In slumber; for thine enemy never sleeps, And thou must watch and combat till the day

Of the new earth and heaven. But wouldst thou rest

Awhile from tumult and the frauds of men,
These old and friendly solitudes invite
Thy visit. They, while yet the forest-trees
Were young upon the unviolated earth,
And yet the moss-stains on the rock were

new,

Beheld thy glorious childhood, and rejoiced.