Horas non numero nisi serenas. The rain is fierce, it flogs the earth, And man’s in danger. O that my mother at my birth Had borne a stranger! The flooded ground is all around. The depth uncommon. How blest I’d be if only she Had borne a salmon. If still denied the solar glow ‘T […]

The moon in the field of the keel-plowed main Was watching the growing tide: A luminous peasant was driving his wain, And he offered my soul a ride. But I nourished a sorrow uncommonly tall, And I fixed him fast with mine eye. “O, peasant,” I sang with a dying fall, “Go leave me to […]

When men at candidacy don’t connive, From that suspicion if their friends would free ’em, The teeth and nails with which they did not strive Should be exhibited in a museum.

A rat who’d gorged a box of bane And suffered an internal pain, Came from his hole to die (the label Required it if the rat were able) And found outside his habitat A limpid stream. Of bane and rat ‘T was all unconscious; in the sun It ran and prattled just for fun. Keen […]

As the poor ass that from his paddock strays Might sound abroad his field-companions’ praise, Recounting volubly their well-bred leer, Their port impressive and their wealth of ear, Mistaking for the world’s assent the clang Of echoes mocking his accurst harangue; So the dull clown, untraveled though at large, Visits the city on the ocean’s […]

Well, I’ve met her again–at the Mission. She’d told me to see her no more; It was not a command–a petition; I’d granted it once before. Yes, granted it, hoping she’d write me. Repenting her virtuous freak– Subdued myself daily and nightly For the better part of a week. And then (’twas my duty to […]

Well, well, old Father Christmas, is it you, With your thick neck and thin pretense of virtue? Less redness in the nose–nay, even some blue Would not, I think, particularly hurt you. When seen close to, not mounted in your car, You look the drunkard and the pig you are. No matter, sit you down, […]

1909 AIMS AND THE PLAN The author’s main purpose in this book is to teach precision in writing; and of good writing (which, essentially, is clear thinking made visible) precision is the point of capital concern. It is attained by choice of the word that accurately and adequately expresses what the writer has in mind, […]

A PERSON who loses heart and hope through a personal bereavement is like a grain of sand on the seashore complaining that the tide has washed a neighboring grain out of reach. He is worse, for the bereaved grain cannot help itself; it has to be a grain of sand and play the game of […]

ALL kinds of relief, charitable or other, doubtless tend to perpetuation of pauperism, inasmuch as paupers are thereby kept alive; and living paupers unquestionably propagate their unthrifty kind more abundantly than dead ones. It is not true, though, that relief interferes with Nature’s beneficent law of the survival of the fittest, for the power to […]

A WELL-KNOWN citizen of Ohio once discovered another man of the same name exactly resembling him, and writing a “hand” which, including the signature, he was unable to distinguish from his own. The two men were unable to discover any blood relationship between them. It is nevertheless almost absolutely certain that a relationship existed, though […]

AN AMERICAN newspaper holds this opinion: “If republican government had done nothing else than give independence to American character and preserve it from the servility inseparable from the allegiance to kings, it would have accomplished a great work.” I do not doubt that the writer of that sentence believes that republican government has actually wrought […]

OF ALL anachronisms and survivals, the love of the dog; is the most reasonless. Because, some thousands of years ago, when we wore other skins than our own and sat enthroned upon our haunches, tearing tangles of tendons from raw bones with our teeth, the dog ministered purveyorwise to our savage needs, we go on […]

WHAT I should like to know is, how “the enlargement of woman’s sphere” by entrance into the various activities of commercial, professional and industrial life benefits the sex. It may please Helen Gougar and satisfy her sense of logical accuracy to say, as she does: “We women must work in order to fill the places […]

EMANCIPATION of woman is not of American invention. The “movement,” like most others that are truly momentous, originated in Europe, and has broken through and broken down more formidable barriers of law, custom and tradition there than here. It is not true that the English married woman is “virtually a bondwoman” to her husband; that […]

THIS is not a country of equal fortunes; outside a Socialist’s dream no such country exists or can exist. But as nearly as possible this is a country of equal opportunities for those who begin life with nothing but nature’s endowments–and of such is the kingdom of success. In nine instances in ten successful Americans–that […]

THE promoter of organized charity protests against “the wasteful and mischievous method of undirected relief.” He means, naturally, relief that is not directed by somebody else than the person giving it–undirected by him and his kind–professional almoners–philanthropists who deem it more blessed to allot than to bestow. Indubitably much is wasted and some mischief done […]

I. “DOWN with the gallows!” is a cry not unfamiliar in America. There is always a movement afoot to make odious the just principle of “a life for a life”–to represent it as “a relic of barbarism,” “a usurpation of the divine authority,” and the rotten rest of it The law making murder punishable by […]

I. This is my ultimate and determining test of right–“What, in the circumstances, would Christ have done?”–the Christ of the New Testament, not the Christ of the commentators, theologians, priests and parsons. The test is perhaps not infallible, but it is exceedingly simple and gives as good practical results as any. I am not a […]

THE desire for life everlasting has commonly been affirmed to be universal–at least that is the view taken by those unacquainted with Oriental faiths and with Oriental character. Those of us whose knowledge is a trifle wider are not prepared to say that the desire is universal or even general. If the devout Buddhist, for […]