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STUDENT 
 
 MFIS. MAP^THA ED'WIN'A IJBBY 
 
 For sewnifim ygars a teac.lier in fSrrLiiri' atu' : . 
 
 Spokane, and for eleven y i 1/ ^n^«i\ 
 
 in the tirJifirii) ^fjoka, 
 
 t?^ 
 
 v^^ . i Cv^s;*^.' 
 
 A Compilation of Oocafional Eiiu-RittKUiul Pspi-r*, Mtni*!y 
 
 A>:ldlrMi!edl to ttie 
 
 SPOKANE SOROSIS CLUB. 
 
 witK an introducd'ior. «",- 
 
 NORMAN FRANK. C( ■ 
 
 ViP 
 
 Connin'ltct rtnd kiiM 
 
 1, C, LIBBY, 
 
 •||,.nj)' 
 
 IflBMi'fcint*. VVn 
 
y(esuz4^ C\£J^ 
 
 ■•■^l!!^-^ 
 
AMONG 
 
 STUDENT-FRIENDS 
 
 MRS. MARTHA EDWINA LIBBY, 
 
 u 
 
 For seventeen years a teacher in private and ^uh/ic schools in 
 
 Spokane, and for eleven years teacher of English 
 
 in the original Spokane High School. 
 
 "M" 
 
 A Compilation of Occasional Educational Papers, Mostly 
 
 Addressed to the 
 
 SPOKANE SOROSIS CLUB. 
 
 with an introduction by 
 
 NORMAN FRANK COLEMAN 
 
 Professor of English in Reed College, Portland, Oregon. 
 
 Vf 
 
 Compiled and Edited by 
 
 1. C. LIBBY. 
 
 "W 
 
 JOHN W. GRAHAM y CO 
 
 Spokane. A^^ashinjton 
 
1^ 
 
 
 Copyright, 1914 by 
 
 I C. LIBBY, 
 
 All Rights Reserved. 
 
 FEB "U; 1914 
 
 (0)CI.A362517 
 
TEACHER AND FRIEND. 
 
 She loves the warbling of the glad, wild bird, 
 
 "A robin singing in the rain," — its glee 
 
 A symbol joyous, — and she loves to see 
 
 The fields abloom as tints of spring engird 
 
 The earth with life and joy. And have you heard 
 
 Her tell of stars? Orion? Nebulae? 
 
 Of motifs in that wondrous tapestry 
 
 Above our heads? 'Twas her dear influence stirred 
 
 The harpstrings of my thought. For her a throng 
 
 Of students in life's symphony are grown 
 
 To larger themes, and now in grateful song 
 
 Remember that the daily lessons flown 
 
 Are leavening their lives. To her belong 
 
 Love's diapasons played in tender tone. 
 
 — Florence Davis Keller. 
 
Contents. 
 
 Introduction. 
 
 Editor's Preface. 
 
 Phillips Brooks, Knight of the Nineteenth Century. 
 
 Helping Girls and Boys to Like Their School Work. 
 
 Charles Dickens, Educator and Reformer. 
 
 Have We An American Literature. 
 
 Some American Historians, Well-Recognized and 
 Otherwise. 
 
'^-^t^^ -^.^.e^ "ZZZ? ^ «. A<-^s^ 
 
 •/ ^ ■q/y^t^»'*'..jL 
 
 
 
Editor's Preface. 
 
 In presenting- this little volume, long planned 
 but finally rather hurriedly prepared, under the dark 
 shadow of the prolonged helplessness of the author, 
 the editor is constrained to explain that, if friends 
 who have paid such earnest heed to the reading of 
 these Sorosis papers should miss some shining link 
 here and there in the chain of thought that encircled 
 their company, they must charge it up, not to any 
 failure on the part of the author or any careless- 
 ness of the editor, but to the peculiar prostration 
 of the former by reason of which all arrangements 
 for the publication were necessarily carried on 
 without her knowledge, for fear of disastrous re- 
 sults otherwise almost certain. 
 
 To the many devotedly sympathetic friends, with- 
 out whose assistance the publication as it is accom- 
 plished would have been impossible, the debt of 
 gratitude can never be discharged; and, while it 
 may be useless to try to mention hj name all such, 
 within and without the Sorosis ranks, special thanks 
 are certainly due to Professor Coleman for his 
 Introductory Note; Mrs. M. E. Gamble for the 
 cover design; Mrs. Florence Davis-Keller for the 
 kodak snapshot there used, and to Mrs. Grace Nixon 
 Stecher for clerical and other detail assistance — 
 services vastly beyond mechanical. 
 
 Spokane, January, 1914. 
 
Phillips Brooks, Knight of the 
 Nineteenth Centuty. 
 
 iSorosif., Feb ?VH- iOM, 
 
 HE Scanciinavians in their oarly t 
 
 ti;iu liisto!}' always mentioned tlu' 
 
 Sitviour as "the white Christ." When 
 
 the Norwegian aiitlioj' Bjoriisen was in 
 
 (iiu- 'uunti'}' lie t^'newcci the acquaint - 
 zAoofa e«ujLum 
 ance formed with I ongteilow wnen tiie latter 
 
 making a tour ortidaiid, ;md 
 
 firm friends. AViieii Bj<" as siidd^^ 
 
 home from New ^ 
 
 with him to the fsteiiJiU'i. 'Mi ;\c' and a u juU 
 
 hye to the whi- '' LongfeUoit. Ma> 
 as appropriately LiinK of th- 
 en reer we study all too briefl;v im 
 wlio served with loft^^' gifts the 
 fallow man, ■''-" ■^he irJ.iff PljUJir.-. 
 
 May I ti'v u* ]ve'iLire 
 
 ; > '\ i ) 1 1 I n •■ 
 
 people standing in <\>pley Square, Bur^uiii. i.au.-i ri;.- 
 open sk}'- of a day '-^ '^; "I'ary, 1893, vviri,. tiie funeral 
 ■;er\'i<'<'S of Pliillii' ,{s wer<^' iH'i' hu'ted In 
 
Phillips Brooks, Knight of the 
 Nineteenth Century. 
 
 (Sorosis. Feb. 27th. 1911.) 
 
 I HE Scandinavians in their early Chris- 
 tian history always mentioned the 
 Saviour as ''the white Christ." When 
 the Norwegian author Bjornsen was in 
 our country he renewed the acquaint- 
 ance formed with Longfellow when the latter was 
 making a tour of the Northland, and they became 
 firm friends. When Bjornsen was suddenly called 
 home from New York, he said to Howells, who went 
 with him to the steamer, "Give my love and a good- 
 bye to the tvhite Mr. Longfellow.^' May we not just 
 as appropriately think of the one whose marvelous 
 career we study all too briefly this afternoon, the one 
 who served with lofty gifts the lowly needs of his 
 fellow man, as the wMte Phillips Brooksf 
 
 May I try to picture to you the vast throng of 
 people standing in Copley Square, Boston, under the 
 open sky of a day in January, 1893, while the funeral 
 services of Phillips Brooks were being conducted in 
 
Trinity Church? There were hushed voices and sad 
 faces when the services in the church were ended 
 and the body was borne from the church, as it had 
 been carried in, on the shoulders of Harvard stu- 
 dents and placed in a catafalque in sight of the great 
 assembly, where a second service was held. Prayers 
 were said, and a favorite hymn of the great preacher 
 was sung: "0 God, Our Help in Ages Past." Then 
 the procession passed through Harvard Yard to 
 Mount Auburn. 
 
 That was a dark day in Boston. The awful in- 
 telligence that Phillips Brooks was dead fell upon 
 the city and the country at large with the effect of 
 unspeakable calamity, a sorrow which at first could 
 hardly find words for expression, "a? in the shadow 
 of some great affliction the soul sits dumb." When 
 utterance began there were numberless expressions 
 of love and admiration. So it went on in a way that 
 can not be forgotten during months and years that 
 may be thought of as the afterglow of that great 
 life; and today, while for nearly twenty years the 
 New England snows have lain white upon that grave 
 in beautiful Mount Auburn, we say there was that 
 in his smile and in his sympathetic life that could 
 not die, for it has not died. 
 
 Do you ask me the secret of his power? I re- 
 
 2 
 
call the tribute to him by Chancellor Day of Syra- 
 cuse: 
 
 "The scholar said, 'He is of us,' and the unlet- 
 tered said, 'He is of us.' The poor said, 'He is 
 ours,' and the rich, 'He is ours.' To the young he 
 was full of mirth and buoyancy, and to the troubled 
 he was a man acquainted with grief. All men claimed 
 him because in his magnificent heart and sympathy 
 he seemed to enter into their disappointments and 
 successes and make them his own." 
 
 For thirty years through a remarkable career 
 Phillips Brooks exerted an unexampled influence over 
 hundreds of thousands of his fellow men, and it was 
 felt that he had some power or secret of power that 
 he did not or could not impart. A friend recalls an 
 occasion when he had invited a number of young men 
 to the rectory. Among them was a theological stu- 
 dent who was observed to be moving about the study 
 in a distracted manner, — even getting down on his 
 hands and knees in order to read the titles on the 
 lower shelves. As Mr. Brooks was not in the room 
 at the time, the friend took the liberty to ask the 
 young man if there was anything he was searching 
 for. He replied, "I am trying to find out where he 
 gets it." When asked if he had found the source, 
 he replied, "He gets it here," tapping his forehead. 
 
 3 
 
I prefer to think that more than in the richness 
 of his cultured mind the secret of his power lay in 
 his transparent honesty and sincerity which so won 
 the confidence of his hearers that anything he might 
 say gained an increased force from the weight of 
 his personality. He was a reserved man, not easy 
 to converse with; he gave his inner thoughts to the 
 world only through his sermons. It was a summary 
 of his own experience when he said in one of these 
 sermons, "Keep your life pure, that some day God 
 may make it holy." 
 
 ''The Brooks Boys," for there were six of them, 
 of whom Phillips was the second, passed their 
 healthy, happy boyhood in Boston, and Phillips en- 
 tered the Boston Latin School at the age of eleven. 
 This school gave to him the benefit of its famous 
 training in the Classics, and in his devotion to Greek, 
 "the morning land of languages," we can trace the 
 first signs of the distinctive character of his literary 
 work. He entered Harvard before he was sixteen, 
 and became a Harvard man at once. The college 
 then had a remarkably distinguished corps of teach- 
 ers. Literature was represented by Longfellow; the 
 natural sciences by Agassiz and Asa Gray; and it 
 must have been a satisfaction to the boy who de- 
 lighted in the study of Greek and its literature to 
 have for his instructor one who sent a great part of 
 
 4 
 
his quarterly salary to his home on the banks of the 
 Ilissus; for a man whose name was Sophocles was 
 then Professor of Greek at Harvard. Phillips Brooks 
 was a thorough, conscientious student, but not a 
 ''grind." He became a member of the famous 
 ''Hasty Pudding Club," where his cast in the the- 
 atricals was usually determined by his height, which, 
 when he entered college, was six feet three. He does 
 not seem to have given any sign of becoming an 
 orator, and it is said of him in his college days that 
 he despised elocution as at war with naturalness 
 and simplicity. His earliest delivery was identical 
 with his latest, marked by the same extraordinary 
 rapidity. Soon after his graduation from Harvard 
 he entered the theological seminary in Alexandria, 
 old Virginia. He thus left home for the first time, 
 at the age of twenty ; for in his course at Harvard 
 he was always at home in Boston on Saturdays and 
 Sundays. He was followed by letters which assured 
 him that he was never for a moment forgotten. He 
 responded to this affection by carrying about with 
 him the memory of the home circle as a picture upon 
 his soul in colors unfading. iVt heart he always re- 
 mained a boy in the household until the loved father 
 and mother had passed from the world. The sense 
 of the dearness of the home life grew stronger as 
 he grew older. He wrote to his brother Frederick. 
 
 5 
 
after he had begun his work in the ministry, "My 
 own impression, strengthened every day since I left 
 home, is that we have one of the happiest homes 
 the world can show. Don't you begin to think so, 
 Fred?" 
 
 Shall I read to you one of his delicious letters 
 written to the folks at home when he was taking his 
 first trip abroad! *'My Dearest Mother: You can 
 not think how strange it seems to be writing to 
 you in this little German inn, and knowing that you 
 will read it in the old back parlor at home, where 
 you have read all of my letters. Johnnie will bring 
 it up from the Post Office some night, and Trip will 
 break out into one of his horrible concerts two or 
 three times while you are reading it. Then as soon 
 as it is read Father will get out his big candle, and 
 you will put up the stockings, and all go up the old 
 stairway to the old chambers and to bed. Well, 
 good night and pleasant dreams to you all, and don't 
 forget that I am off here, wandering up and down 
 these old countries, thinking ever so much about 
 you." 
 
 There is a French phrase which we often quote, 
 although it can not easily be translated into our lan- 
 guage — Noblesse oblige. Does this not come to our 
 minds when we say that the Brooks boys were well 
 born, and the world would naturally expect noble 
 
 6 
 
lives from the sons of such a father and mother? 
 Of his father Phillijis Brooks wrote, "He was one 
 of the truest, happiest, healthiest natures that God 
 ever made. All his life long was a delight in the 
 faithful doing of common things; and now I miss 
 him as I never dreamed I could miss anybody, and 
 it will be so to the end, I know." Of his mother, 
 "The happiest part of my happy life has been my 
 mother." Was there ever a more beautiful tribute 
 to a mother from her son than the reply of Phillips 
 Brooks to a friend who said to him, when the invi- 
 tation came to him to preach before Queen Victoria, 
 at the chapel of Windsor Castle, "Really, Brooks, 
 won't it make you a little nervous to preach before 
 the Queen!" He replied, "Why should I be nervous 
 in preaching before the Queen? 7 have preached 
 before my mother!" 
 
 There are people in Trinity Church today who 
 remember the mother's face as she listened with 
 rapt attention to her son's sermons, and who also 
 remember her going to him at the close of the sermon 
 and saying in her shy, modest way, "That was a 
 beautiful sermon, Phillie!" The mother may, at 
 one time, have been troubled at the divergence of 
 her son from her own Puritan opinions, but after he 
 came to Boston as the rector of Trinity Church it 
 was enough for her to know that he was telling the 
 
 7 
 
old, old story with a power and insight she never 
 had known before. In the light of her own generous 
 and affectionate commendation it is amusing to know 
 that she occasionally asked some close friend if it 
 were possible for the lavish praise to spoil him. 
 Adulation did not make him less humble. In spite 
 of his unequalled popularit.y and his continuous suc- 
 cess his modesty and humility did not fail. He had 
 the same child-like spirit at the end as at the be- 
 ginning. It seems most fortunate that when Phillips 
 Brooks graduated from the Episcopal theological 
 seminary he began his ministry in Philadelphia, 
 where he was called to become the rector of the 
 Church of the Advent. He was shy and sensitive, 
 and in the colder and more critical atmosphere of 
 New England he might not at first have been appre- 
 ciated. To those who were used to the slow, delib- 
 erate oratory — the so-called ministerial tone — he must 
 have seemed to defy every rule. He had a voice of 
 great sympathy, and yet this boyish preacher gave 
 his audience no time to think about his voice, whether 
 it were fine or not. There was a rush of sentences, 
 one tumbling after another, giving the listeners all 
 they could do to follow, for somehow he made them 
 intensely eager to follow and to catch every word. 
 Aside from the rapid manner there was the occa- 
 sional entanglement of words and the stumbling 
 
 8. 
 
over sentences, and there must have been surprise 
 at something so unlike anything they had ever heard 
 before. He exerted from the first a mysterious 
 charm, the secret spring of which neither he nor his 
 hearers could understand. 
 
 In the warm-heartedness of Philadelphia, in its 
 freedom from a tendency to overcriticize, was the 
 atmosphere in which his wonderful genius could 
 thrive; and his words in regard to Dr. Vinton, who 
 had been his predecessor at the Church of the Holy 
 Trinity to which Phillips Brooks was called from the 
 Church of the Advent, can be applied to his own 
 work in Philadelphia: ''It was one of the brightest, 
 sunniest pictures which the annals of clerical life 
 have anywhere to show." 
 
 The Civil War with its issues opened at the 
 time when he was beginning his ministry. We must 
 remember that Philadelphia was close to the border 
 and the factional spirit ran high. Mr. Brooks did 
 not defy this, he disregarded it, taking his heroism 
 not tragically, but naturally, as if men were always 
 true and brave. In the pulpit and on the platform 
 he was earnestly and eloquently on the side of the 
 nation, with a forgetfulness of self which was one 
 of the most sublime factors of those troublous times. 
 
 Though still a youth he became a representative man, 
 
 9 
 
showing a remarkable capacity for leadership. In 
 the brief records in his diary at this time one can 
 but be impressed with his wish to be of service in 
 the simplest ways. In the entry of Saturday, July 
 11th, 1863, just after the battle of Gettysburg, we 
 read, "All day among our men, distributing cloth- 
 ing, and writing letters." Sunday, 12th, "All day 
 among the southern wounded in the hospital. Ter- 
 rible need and suffering." Those who knew what 
 strength was in his very presence can appreciate 
 what it meant when he went through the wards of 
 the hospital, and it is beautiful to note that in this 
 awful hour he knew no discrimination between the 
 Blue and the Gray. Dr. S. Weir Mitchell, who was 
 one of his parishioners and an intimate friend, said 
 of him in recalling him at this time, "I have known 
 a number of men we call great, poets, statesmen, sol- 
 diers, but Phillips Brooks was the only one I ever 
 knew who seemed to me entirely great. The most 
 vivid picture I retain of him is as he appeared at 
 his Wednesday lecture when he used to stand away 
 from his desk so that his massive figure and the 
 strength of his head had their effect, and from his 
 great height the magic of his wonderful eyes was 
 felt like the light of some strong tower by the sea." 
 
 He made frequent visits to the home in Boston, 
 but the date of his going to Cambridge in 1865 to 
 
 10 
 
make the prayer at the Harvard Commemoration 
 may be thought of as the time when Boston claimed 
 him and would not be content until he was her own. 
 At the Harvard Commemoration were represented 
 the glory and strength of New England. In the 
 church at Harvard Square poems were read by Julia 
 Ward Howe, Emerson, Holmes and by Lowell, who 
 read his now famous Commemoration Ode, but it 
 was Phillips Brooks who uttered in his prayer the 
 word that the great moment demanded. When the 
 prayer was over the people turned and looked at one 
 another. Here is a contemporary comment, ''As he 
 stood in all the majestic beauty with which he is en- 
 dowed by favoring nature he stood to mortal eye 
 confessed of hosts the leader and of princes the king. 
 One would rather have been able to pray that prayer 
 than to lead an army or conduct a state. It is not 
 too much to say that that prayer was the crowning- 
 grace of the Commemoration." "AVhen the 'amen' 
 came," comments another, "it seemed that the occa- 
 sion was over, that the harmonies of the music had 
 been anticipated, that the poems had been read and 
 the oration uttered; that after such a prayer every 
 other exercise might well be dispensed with." Said 
 President Eliot, "It was the most impressive utter- 
 ance of a proud and happy day. Even Lowell's 
 marvelous ode did not, at the moment, so touch the 
 
 11 
 
hearts of the listeners." I might say here that no 
 record of that prayer remains. It is certain that 
 for this, as for all public utterances, he made the 
 most careful preparation. He was the despair of 
 reporters, and it would be impossible for any one 
 to give from memory the glowing words. 
 
 After refusing again and again to listen to the 
 call to old Trinity Church in Boston, he finally ac- 
 cepted. 
 
 One writer says of the early days of his minis- 
 trations in Trinity, "It is pleasant to see Phillips 
 Brooks's audience, and to analyze it. I had ex- 
 pected that it was exclusively of the educated classes, 
 but it is not. From the place where I sat last 
 Sunday evening I could pick out easily enough the 
 sewing girls, the Boston clerks, the men of leisure 
 and study, the poor old women with their worn and 
 faded, but thoughtful and earnest faces, and it was 
 a, dear sight — all these classes and conditions of 
 people riveted to the countenance of Phillips Brooks 
 and hanging on his words." 
 
 You know the story of the wonderful years that 
 followed his coming to Trinity; the destruction of 
 the church on Summer St. in the great Boston fire; 
 the four years in which the congregation worshiped 
 in Huntington Hall while the new Trinity was being- 
 erected in what is known as the "Back Bay" dis- 
 
 12 
 
trict. At this time the secular hall took on a sacred 
 character, and there was no lessening of the crowds 
 that came to every service, until in 1877 the mag- 
 nificent new clnirch was completed, and Phillips 
 Brooks took his place as in a cathedral, where for 
 many years he swayed the people with a power that 
 had been hitherto unknown. The years as they 
 passed over him did not diminish the beauty of his 
 countenance or the dignity and symmetry of his 
 form. In every company he carried the highest dis- 
 tinction in appearance. Chief Justice Harlan said, 
 "I sat opposite him once at dinner, and could not 
 take my eyes off him. He was the most beautiful 
 man I ever saw." A Roman Catholic Sister said 
 to a friend who had sent to her one of Phillips 
 Brooks's portraits, "I thank you for sending me 
 the lovely picture of one of the loveliest men the 
 world has ever known. The picture now hangs in 
 my room beside a copy of Hoffmann's Christ, and 
 seems at home there." 
 
 This was the time when he began to be claimed 
 by other religious communions as though, when such 
 power was concerned, all creed distinctions should 
 be subordinate. Thus we hear of his preaching, 
 when he was in New York, at the Fifth Ave. Dutch 
 Reformed, or in Philadelphia at the First Baptist 
 and the Presbyterian. He began to realize that what 
 
 13 
 
people wanted was himself. No callers who came 
 to him at the rectory were refused admittance. 
 There were numberless instances in his life where 
 other interests were laid aside that he might devote 
 himself to a single case of need. Letters came to 
 him from all parts of our country and England com- 
 mitting to him the care of young people who had 
 come to the great city for the first time. 
 
 At one time two poor women of Salem who were 
 of the Catholic faith and had never heard Phillips 
 Brooks were talking of a wayward boy. One of 
 them said to the other, "The thing to do is to take 
 him to Phillips Brooks," His power in the sick 
 room was wonderful and rare. In the early '80s 
 there was no apparent lessening of his boundless 
 vitality. In a newspaper item at that time we read, 
 ''Yesterday was a dismal day, even for Boston No- 
 vember, but Phillips Brooks walked down News- 
 paper Row in the afternoon, and all was bright." 
 Browning's words might have been written for him, 
 
 "Oh, the wild joy of living! 
 How good is man's life! the mere living how fit to employ 
 All the heart, the soul and the senses forever in joy!" 
 
 A working man living in one of the suburbs of 
 Boston was told at the hospital that he must undergo 
 a serious operation; that he could not live without 
 it; and it might be, even then, his life could not be 
 saved, — but there was a chance. He went home and 
 
 14 
 
told his wife. They had before them the anxious 
 evening, and they went to Trinity rectory, although 
 neither had known Phillips Brooks, and they had 
 not the slightest claim on his attention. Mr. Brooks 
 received them as they knew he would — talked with 
 them, and soothed them and promised to l>e with 
 them at the hospital the next day. 
 
 One of his many wealthy parishioners had an 
 appointment to meet him at the rectory at 8 o'clock 
 one evening to go to a reception. Not until 11 did 
 Mr. Brooks return to keep the appointment. He 
 had been detained at the hospital by a negro who 
 had been injured and had sent for him. A physi- 
 cian whom they met expressed surprise that Mr, 
 Brooks had not sent his assistant, as a physician 
 would have done. Mr. Brooks quietly replied that 
 the man had sent for him. 
 
 Any sketch of the life of Phillips Brooks must 
 include his relations to children. The letters written 
 to his little nieces, while he was abroad in their 
 childhood, and which were published after his death, 
 are delightful. It was the children of his Sunday 
 school in Philadelphia for whose Christmas exer- 
 cises he wrote, after he had visited the Holy Land, 
 the exquisite hymn, "0 Little Town of Bethlehem," 
 and this has been given an honored place in the 
 church hymnals of all denominations, and thus be- 
 
 15 
 
longs to tlie children of all time. There were chil- 
 dren in various institutions of that city of beautiful 
 charities whom he carried in his heart. Helen Keller 
 was entrusted to his care by her father, who wished 
 her first religious instruction to come from Phillips 
 Brooks. It was he who gave to that rare girl her 
 first idea of God. There were children in many 
 households who rejoiced at his coming and who 
 claimed him as their friend, and if you should ask 
 me to tell you today what seems to me the most 
 beautiful of the numberless tributes of affection and 
 admiration to the memory of this knight of the 
 nineteenth century, it would not be the vast throng 
 standing in the wintry square with sad faces, re- 
 markable as was that demonstration, — it would not 
 be the stately Brooks house, built in Harvard Yard 
 to commemorate Mr. Brooks's personal religious 
 work among the students, — with its sig-nificant in- 
 scription, "Did not our hearts burn within us as 
 he talked with us by the way!" Neither would it 
 be the charitable work of the wealthy parish where 
 every wish of the leader whose hands were folded 
 so long ago is lovingly followed. But I should tell 
 you of the unconscious tribute of a little child of 
 whom Mr. Brooks had been particularly fond. One 
 summer day in '98 I had gone with a dear friend 
 from the busy Boston street into Trinity church, 
 
 16 
 
which is always open, just as Mr. Brooks wished it 
 to be. It was wonderfully restful to go from the 
 glare of the summer noontime into the cool and spa- 
 cious church, with its light softened by the rich 
 decorations of LaFarge, and we seemed to feel the 
 inspiration of the presence which for so many years 
 uplifted the hearts of all who entered the place. 
 
 As we went from the church my friend told me 
 of a little girl whose father and mother had dreaded 
 to tell her of the sudden death of Mr. Brooks, and 
 for several days his name had not been mentioned 
 in the presence of the little child. But one day she 
 said, "Why does not Mr. Brooks come to play with 
 me any more?" The mother replied, "Mr. Brooks 
 is in heaven now, my darling." Instead of the burst 
 of grief that the mother had expected, the child 
 said, w^ith face aglow, "0 mother, won't the angels 
 be j^lad?" 
 
 17 
 
Helping Girls and Boys to Like Their 
 School Work. 
 
 (Spokane Chronicle. Sept. 30th, 1905.) 
 
 F COMPOSITION writing is dreaded 
 by the pupils of our schools, it is in 
 many instances the fault of the teach- 
 ers," declares Mrs. I. C. Libby, the 
 well-known teacher of rhetoric at the 
 High School, who has guided so many of Spokane's 
 young boys and girls through two terms of rhetoric 
 and made the study of English a pleasure for them. 
 This answer was given as a reply to the question 
 as to whether the writing of compositions is ever 
 a pleasure to the boys and girls. 
 
 "The pupils in the High School who do the 
 most excellent work in this line are those who have 
 had the most careful training in the grades," stated 
 Mrs. Libby, "for no part of the work is so im- 
 portant as that of the earlier years. 
 
 "In those years I believe it is possible to bring 
 
 about the best results in writing without frequent 
 
 use of the word composition, as is too often the 
 
 18 
 
case. We are likely to find a traditional dread 
 of that word. 
 
 ''Professor Brown of Tuft's College, tells this 
 story of an old gentleman who sat beside him in 
 the great music hall in Boston during one of 
 Dickens' marvelous readings. The man was an 
 ardent admirer of Dickens, but he thoroughly dis- 
 liked public readings or elocutionary efforts of any 
 kind. As the author came upon the platform and 
 began to tell his audience, as one would talk to 
 a friend, of the old boat on the Yarmouth sands, 
 with graphic descriptions of the family living there, 
 the old gentleman seemed to forget everything around 
 him and to be lost in the words of the speaker. 
 At leng-th the rapt listener turned to Mr. Brown 
 and said: 
 
 '' 'This is wonderful, wonderful, and I wish he 
 would keep on in this way and let the reading go.' 
 
 "He had listened to page after page of 'David 
 Copperfield,' and yet he did not know that the read- 
 ing had begun. 
 
 "So I believe that the unselfish and painstaking 
 teacher can make the beginning of English composi- 
 tion so attractive to pupils that they will take 
 pleasure in the work from day to day and feel 
 that writing does, after all, lead through ways of 
 pleasantness. 
 
 19 
 
'^I have to confess to sympathy with some of 
 the objections made by leading educators against 
 the too general sugar-coating of tasks set for our 
 pupils in these days, but I believe the well-trained 
 and experienced teacher (and surely it is no possible 
 kindness to any other to be assigned to the English 
 work in school or college) does right when he tries 
 to make the class room a happy place to every 
 pupil. 
 
 "What is your idea of the value of oral composi- 
 tion?" 
 
 "Oral composition should from the earliest years 
 be given an important place in this work. 
 
 "Professor Herrick of the University of Chi- 
 cago, says: 'Writing is very much like talking, 
 and the pupil must be made to see that what he 
 talks about is lit matter for writing.' 
 
 "When the little children in the grades are 
 encouraged in regular class exercises to talk of those 
 things that interest them, the best results will fol- 
 low throughout their school life. 
 
 "Is it possible as a general thing to get pupils 
 to do this freely?" 
 
 "Always possible if the teacher has true sym- 
 pathy and patience. Let me say, however, that 
 
 20 
 
the teacher should never publicly criticize such 
 efforts. 
 
 ''Much" of the time given to writing in the 
 Eighth Grade and also in the first year of the High 
 School may be ])leasantly and profitably spent in 
 writing letters. It is not necessary to begin with 
 business forms, but these may be brought in now 
 and then until the pupil would not fail if asked to 
 write any ordinary business letter. 
 
 "To interest pupils at once in this line, the 
 teacher has but to remind them of the fact that 
 when they were little children they enjoyed writing 
 letters. The teacher may read to the class letters 
 written by a six-year-old Spokane boy to his mama: 
 
 " 'Dear Mama: We are lonesome without you. 
 There is a fire on old Baldy. 
 
 It began in the middle 
 
 And went both ways, 
 Till it got on the back side 
 
 Where we can't see the blaze. 
 
 Your dear boy, Tom.' 
 
 "Many mothers in Spokane, as elsewhere, count 
 such letters among their choicest treasures. The 
 classes will always be interested in reading the letter 
 written by Philips Brooks to his nieces, and some 
 one may be asked to read aloud to the class the 
 
 21 
 
letter of 'Uncle Jack to Carol Bird,' or 'The Bird's 
 Christinas Carol.' 
 
 "The teacher may say to her class: I do not 
 expect all of you to become great writers. One 
 or two of my 100 pupils may sometime write a 
 book. All of you will, I trust, write letters, and 
 T wish you to know how to write accurate and in- 
 teresting letters. 
 
 "Not long ago one of our High School boys 
 read to his class a letter written to him by his 
 brother when a student at Harvard. This described 
 in a most delightful way a tramp from Boston to 
 old Concord town, over the road immortalized by 
 Paul Revere. These diversions from the stereo- 
 typed may never fail to arouse interest and to lead 
 the pupils to realize that there is material for 
 narration or description in the every-day occurrences 
 of life. 
 
 "Those who have artistic talent should be en- 
 couraged to illustrate their letters. Some of the 
 best work of this kind which I have ever seen has 
 been done by pupils in our Spokane schools. Care 
 must be taken that the illustrations may be looked 
 upon as incidental, else the effect may be discour- 
 aging to those whose talents do not lead them in 
 that direction. 
 
 22 
 
"Something very pleasant came to the XA 
 English class of our High School, last year. Through 
 the efforts of our i)rincipal and the principal of 
 the Wintringham Higher Grade School of Grimsbj^ 
 England, a correspondence was opened between the 
 second year pupils and the corresponding grade of 
 ours. 
 
 "If any thing were needed to convince our 
 teachers that the schools of the United States are 
 not abreast of the English schools in the founda- 
 tion work of English compositions, those letters 
 would have been sufficient proof. Neat and accur- 
 ate, with pretty descriptions of the school and 
 the interesting old town, those letters were written 
 by boys and girls whose ages averaged 13 years. 
 
 "The average age of our pupils to whom the 
 letters were addressed was 15 years. The replies 
 written by our Spokane pupils were evidently of 
 great interest to their young English friends, and 
 in some instances the correspondence has continued 
 through the year. 
 
 "This gave a definiteness to composition work 
 which can but be of lasting and inestimable value 
 to the young people concerned. 
 
 "No pupil can do his best work in writing upon 
 a subject which does not appeal to him." 
 
 23 
 
Charles Dickens, Educator and 
 Reformer. 
 
 (Sorosis, Nov. 25th, 1907). 
 
 HIRING the last twenty- five years num- 
 berless so-called historical novels have 
 been written, few of which, if I may 
 venture to predict, will be much 
 thought of a half century hence — and 
 there is pleasure in returning to those compositions 
 of this character which have stood the test of time 
 and so have a right to be called classics. Among 
 these Dickens's Tale of Two Cities holds a high 
 place. In none of his books did the author show 
 more clearly skill in imaginative writing. There can 
 be nothing more remarkable in our literature than 
 the picture of a wasted life saved at last by heroic 
 self-sacrifice. Sidney Carton suffers himself to be 
 mistaken for another and gives his life that the girl 
 whom he loves may be happy with that other, — the 
 secret being known only by a poor little girl in the 
 tumbril that takes them to the scaffold in the ter- 
 rible times of the French Revolution. 
 
 This girl at the moment has discovered his 
 
 24 
 
secret and it strengthens her also to die. Can we 
 find any word painting more vivid than the descrip- 
 tion of the knitting women who have come together 
 to the phice of execution? "The terrible work begins. 
 Crash! and the women count one. The machine 
 whirrs and falls, with each stroke ending a human 
 life, and the knitting women never falter nor pause 
 in their work. She kisses his lips, he kisses hers; 
 they solemnly bless each other. The spare hand does 
 not tremble as he releases it. Nothing but a sweet, 
 bright constancy is in the patient face. She goes 
 next before him, is gone. The knitting women count 
 twenty-two. The murmuring of many voices, the up- 
 turning of many faces, the pressing on of many foot- 
 steps in the crowd so that it swells forward in a 
 mass like one great heave of water — and the knit- 
 ting women count twenty-three. 
 
 They said of Sidney Carton about the city that 
 night that his was the peacefuUest face ever beheld 
 there. Many added that it looked sublime and pro- 
 phetic. ' ' 
 
 In this story so marvelously told, the home life 
 of a few simple, every-day people is so interwoven 
 with the outbreak of a terrible public event that one 
 seems to belong to the other. When we are made 
 conscious of the first sultry drops of a thunder-storm 
 that fell upon a little group sitting in an obscure 
 
 25 
 
English lodging, we see the actual beginning of a 
 tempest which is preparing to sweep away every- 
 thing in France. 
 
 Not long ago I asked our city librarian if 
 Dickens is a popular author among the patrons. 
 Her reply was, "His books are constantly read." 
 I then asked which of his books seemed to be the 
 favorites with Spokane readers. She replied un- 
 hesitatingly "Dombey and Son and Nicholas Nickle- 
 by. " I was pleased to know this, but, like Oliver 
 Twist, I call for "more" and should be glad to know 
 that David Copperfield and Old Curiosity Shop have 
 their share in public favor, for in these four books 
 we have abundant proof that Charles Dickens was 
 not only an educational critic and reformer, but an 
 educational leader, as well. We might say, in pass- 
 ing, that Dickens was the first Englishman of note 
 to advocate the kindergarten, and his name may be 
 worthily classed with that of Froebel as an inter- 
 preter of Christ's ideals of childhood. As we all 
 know, Nicholas Nickleby was a protest against the 
 neglect of education in England at the time of its 
 publication and closed forever such establishments 
 as Do-the-Boys Hall. On the summit of a desolate 
 hill in Yorkshire still stands the house which Dickens 
 pictured as the Squeers' School. Tourists tell us 
 that the building presents so cheerless an aspect 
 
 26 
 
that one can hardly conceive of a more depressing 
 environment for the neglected children who once 
 thronged its halls. There are people still living in 
 the village who remember the school master. His 
 name, like Squeers', was of one syllable and began 
 with S. He was not, however, like Squeers in 
 person, nor was he ignorant. His school was the 
 largest of the many cheap schools which the author 
 of Nicholas Nickleby had in mind. Beside rooms in 
 adjoining houses, he hired barns in which to lodge 
 his many pnpils. A farm connected with the estab- 
 lishment was cultivated by the boys, whose food was 
 chiefly oatmeal. Scanty food and liberal flogging 
 came to all who displeased the master. Do you 
 recall the description of the boys of the school! 
 '"Tliere were little faces, which should have been 
 handsome, darkened with the scowl of sullen, dogged 
 suffering. There was childhood with the light of 
 its eye quenched, its beauty gone and its helpless- 
 ness alone remaining — there were vicious faced boys, 
 brooding with leaden eyes — like malefactors in a 
 jail, with every young and healthy feeling starved 
 down, and fostering every revengeful feeling that 
 can lurk in human hearts. What an incipient hell 
 was here!" 
 
 Probably no one of these schools realized all of 
 the wretchedness portrayed by Dickens, yet in spite 
 
 27 
 
of his declaration that Squeers was the representa- 
 tive of a class and not an individual the popular 
 recognition of this school as the typical Do-the-Boys 
 Hall wrought its ruin and the death of master and 
 mistress. This last, too, he deplored, since in their 
 case the odium seems to have been not wholly de- 
 served. 
 
 In the sketch of the all too brief life of little 
 Paul Dombey the author aimed to overthrow an- 
 other giant school evil, the evil of cramming and 
 urging. Dr. Blimber was the type chosen to depict 
 this evil. Wlienever a young gentleman was taken 
 in hand by Dr. Blimber, he might consider himself 
 sure of a pretty tight squeeze. The doctor under- 
 took the charge of only ten young gentlemen, but 
 he had always ready a supply of learning for a hun- 
 dred and it was the business and delight of his life 
 to gorge the unhappy ten with it. 
 
 To Dr. Blimber, Mr. Dombey brought his frail 
 little son with the injunction that he was to learn 
 everything. In this we can see that the author in- 
 tended to imply that the ambition of the parent was 
 as much at fault as the ignorance of the teacher. 
 I believe it to be very rarely the case that parents 
 do not deserve the greater share of blame when the 
 health of children is ruined by cramming. Before 
 
 28 
 
breakfast on the morning after the dear little fellow 
 entered this school he was given so many books that 
 he was unable to carry them to his room. They 
 were a little English and a deal of Latin, names of 
 things, declensions, a trifle of spelling, a glance at 
 ancient history, a wink or two at modern history, a 
 few tables and a little general information. When 
 Paul had spelled number two, he found he had no 
 idea of number one and when his teacher took him 
 in hand after breakfast, whether twenty Romuluses 
 made a Remus or hie, haec, hoc was Troy weight or 
 a verb always agrees with an ancient Briton, or 
 three times four was Taurus, a Bull, were open ques- 
 tions with him. So the fearful process of cramming 
 went on until the frail body yielded and little Paul 
 was taken home to die. Do we not find in this a 
 lesson of the importance of systematic physical 
 training and this as well — that little Paul Dombey was 
 killed by his father and Doctor Blimber! 
 
 It is well for us to know that Dickens never 
 stood so high in public favor as at the completion 
 of David Copperfield. As successive numbers of the 
 story appeared there had been a growing suspicion 
 that underneath the story lay something of the 
 author's own life. When busy with its closing pages 
 he wrote to a friend, "I am within three pages of 
 the shore, and am strangely divided between sorrow 
 
 29 
 
and joy. If I should tell you half of what Copper- 
 field makes me feel tonight, how surely even to you, 
 I should be turned inside out! I seem to be send- 
 ing some part of myself into the shadowy world." 
 In none of his stories has he shown more clearly 
 the strength of simple, homely goodness which may 
 lift even to grandeur the clumsiest human being. 
 Critics agree that there is no more impressive de- 
 scription in our language than that of the storm 
 and wreck, when the body of Steerforth is thrown 
 dead upon the shore amid the ruins of the home he 
 has wasted and by the side of the man whose hap- 
 piness he blighted. AVe are glad to know that the 
 author's own favorites in the book were the Peg- 
 gotty group and Dr. Strong, for in this book we 
 have two schools — the extremes of the bad and the 
 good, — the one, taught by Mr. Creakle, a selfish 
 brute of the Squeers type, the other, by Dr. Strong, 
 who embodied every high ideal in modern education. 
 You remember his appeals to the honor of the boys 
 in his care and how in every way he showed them 
 that he should believe them to be gentlemen unless 
 they proved themselves to be unworthy of the name. 
 Every teacher and every mother knows that there 
 is no surer way to lead a boy to do his best, for a 
 youth is indeed depraved who does not wish to bear 
 ''the grand old name of gentleman." 
 
 30 
 
If there were time, I should like to speak of 
 Mr. Gradgrind, the type of the utilitarian teacher 
 depicted in Hard Times. I will simply recall to you 
 the needs of the teacher's own son Tom, in which 
 he expressed his opinion of that system of educa- 
 tional training. In one of the rare intervals when 
 he and his sister Louisa were left alone, he said to 
 her, "I'm a donkey, that's what I am. I'm more 
 obstinate than one, I get about as much comfort as 
 one — I'm more stupid than one and I should like 
 to kick like one." 
 
 In beautiful contrast to the brutal Squeers and 
 the unsympathetic Dr. Blimber we have the dear 
 schoolmaster in Old Curiosity Shop. His school was 
 most old-fashioned, with none of our modern equip- 
 ment. The methods of teaching were perhaps de- 
 fective, but he holds a sure place in our memories, 
 for in him we find the greatest thing in the world, — 
 loving sympathy with his pupils. We can forget 
 the old master's pride in the accomplishments of 
 his sick pupil, his thoughtful erasing of the ink 
 from the boy's copybook, his sadness when he stays 
 from school, his request to little Nell to pray for 
 his recovery, his assurance to the sick boy that the 
 flowers in the garden were less gay because they 
 missed him. These surely are proofs that Dickens 
 recognized the spirit of sympathy as the most essen- 
 
 31 
 
tial element in the character of parent or teacher. 
 When the author had completed that part of the 
 story in which he describes the death of little Nell, 
 he wrote to his friend Forster: "Come over and 
 let's have a run across the downs, I've just buried 
 little Nell, and I've had a good cry." Can we 
 wonder that the people in his books seem to us really 
 to have lived when they were so real to him? It is 
 pleasant for us to know that he was made conscious 
 of public appreciation of the school-master and little 
 Nell by numerous letters from those whose appre- 
 ciation was dear to him, and when the magic pen 
 was laid down for the last time, a tribute by one 
 of our own countrymen was so beautifully expressed 
 that I can think of no more fitting close to our dis- 
 cussion. I may say that not many months before 
 Dickens's death he had noted in the Overland 
 Monthly two sketches by a young American writer 
 in California, "The Luck of Roaring Camp" and 
 "The Outcasts of Poker Flat" and had expressed 
 himself in terms of the strongest admiration. When 
 word of the death of Dickens was flashed over the 
 world, this young writer, all unconscious at that 
 time of the Master's admiration for his work, put 
 his tribute of appreciation into the form of a poem 
 which he entitled 
 
 32 
 
DICKENS IN CAMP. 
 
 Above the pines the moon was slowly drifting, 
 The river ran below, — 
 The dim Sierras far beyond uplifting 
 Their minarets of snow. 
 
 The roaring camp-fire with rude humor painted 
 The ruddy tints of health 
 
 On haggard face and form that drooped and fainted 
 In the mad race for wealth, 
 
 Till one arose and from his pack's scant treasure 
 A hoarded volume drew, 
 
 And cards were dropped from hands of listless leisure 
 To hear the tale anew. 
 
 And then while round them shadows gathered faster 
 And as the fire-light fell 
 
 He read aloud the book wherein the Master 
 Had writ of little Nell. 
 
 The fir-trees gathered closer in the shadows, 
 Listening in every spray 
 
 While the whole 'camp with Nell on English meadows 
 Wandered, and lost their way. 
 And so in mountain solitudes o'ertaken, 
 As by some spell divine 
 
 Their cares dropped froTn them like the needles shaken 
 From out the gusty pine. 
 Lost is that camp, and wasted all its fire 
 And he who wrought that spell, — 
 Ah, towering pine and stately Kentish spire — 
 Ye have one tale to tell. 
 
 Lost is that camp, but let its fragrant story 
 Blend with the breath that thrills 
 With hop-vines incense, all the pensive glory 
 That fills the Kentish hills. 
 
 And on that grave where English oak and holly 
 And laurel wreaths entwine. 
 Deem it not all a too presumptuous folly, 
 This spray of Western pine. 
 
 33 
 
Have We An American Literature? 
 
 (Sorosis, October 13th. 1899.) 
 
 jHPj question is occasionally asked, 
 "Have we an American Literature?" 
 We have to admit that American 
 Literature, so-called, belongs almost 
 wholly to the nineteenth century. 
 Early in that century, Sidney Smith, a noted English 
 essayist and writer, is said to have propounded this 
 query: "Who reads an American book?" When 
 Irving 's Sketch Book was published in 1820, winning 
 for its writer universal recognition, it gave a reply 
 to the query of the British Essayist, and the reply 
 has been echoed and re-echoed during all the years 
 since then, and today we can say proudly of many 
 of our authors — "There is no speech nor language 
 where their voice is not heard." 
 
 Ben Hur and Uncle Tom's Cabin have been 
 translated into the languages of all countries where 
 there is any regard for literature. There is, in 
 one of the art galleries of Boston, an exquisite 
 portrait of Louisa Alcott, in which she is represented 
 as surrounded by throngs of young people of every 
 
 34 
 
race and clime — their faces eager and bright with 
 the glow of youth. Do you not think that the sweet, 
 generous woman who so loved the boys and girls, 
 would have been glad to know (for she often dis- 
 trusted her powers) that the famous artist would 
 give to her helpful, wholesome writings, credit for 
 a world-wide influence? 
 
 There can be no better definition of the general 
 term literature than this of Brander Matthews, 
 and it is the one that for many years I have 
 asked my boys and girls to memorize. You will 
 recall it as brief and comprehensive: "Literature 
 is the reflection and the reproduction of the life of 
 any people." 
 
 English Literature, then, is the record of the 
 thoughts, and the feelings, and the acts of the English- 
 speaking race. 
 
 One writer has said, "Here in the United States, 
 in Canada, in Great Britain, in Australia, and in 
 India, there are new men and women keeping record 
 of their thoughts, their feelings, and their acts. All 
 that these men and women write, if only it be so 
 skillfully presented as to give pleasure to the reader 
 becomes a part of English Literature. It is no 
 matter where the author lives, whether in New 
 York or in Toronto, in Melbourne or in Bombay, 
 
 35 
 
what he writes in the English language belongs to 
 English Literature. It is no matter what the nation 
 ality of the author may be, whether he be a citizen 
 of the United States or a subject of the British 
 Crown, if he uses the English language, he con- 
 tributes to English Literature. ' ' 
 
 Until the Declaration of Lidependence, the unity 
 of the English race was unbroken, and until the 
 end of the eighteenth century the course of English 
 Literature had but a single channel. 
 
 Since we in the United States began to have 
 writers of our own, the record of our thoughts, 
 our feelings, and our acts, may be called American 
 Literature. But let us not forget that it is still 
 a part of English Literature. 
 
 Our best works, however, are not an echo of 
 the literature of the world. 
 
 Irving's writings, The Tales of Hawthorne, 
 the Hiawatha and Evangeline of Longfellow and 
 many others, are filled with American scenery, Ameri- 
 can thought and American characters. 
 
 The period of time lying between the war of 
 1812 and the Civil War has been called the blos- 
 soming time of our literature. To this period be- 
 long our greatest names — Irving, (^ooper, Bryant, 
 Hawthorne and Longfellow. 
 
 36 
 
The period beginning with the Civil War and 
 extending to the present, is broad and cosmopolitan 
 in its character, and we often leave the general 
 term American for a specific term, and speak of 
 our New England, oiir Southern and our Western 
 literature. Each of these sections has produced 
 eminent writers. 
 
 To me there is nothing more delightful than 
 the comradeship which has been evinced in so many 
 pleasant ways between literary people of our own 
 country and those of England. Not long ago, 
 an English resident of our city, a man of broad 
 education, and, above all, a profound lover of his 
 own country, said to me, "Do you know what poet 
 is best loved in England?" I said, "Tennyson, 
 of course." He replied, "To my mind, No; — Tenny- 
 son is greatly honored and admired, but we love 
 Longfellow." Then he repeated in a dreamy way, 
 as if forgetful of every thing around him, line 
 after line of the "Famine," from Hiawatha. I 
 recalled then a story that I had once read of an 
 incident that occurred when the poet was an honored 
 guest of the people of England. A reception had 
 been given to him at a hall in Birmingham. As 
 he was walking with his host to the carriage, a 
 laborer with hands grimy from work in the foundry, 
 
 approached him and said : ' ' Excuse me, sir, but 
 
 37 
 
are you Mr. Longfellow!" **Yes." "And you 
 wrote the Psalm of Life! May I take your hand?" 
 The golden-hearted poet and the laboring man 
 clasped hands warmly, and the poet considered 
 this one of the greatest compliments which he ever 
 received. 
 
 Once there appeared in one of our magazines a 
 charming poem, anonymous in its publication, and 
 so, perhaps we shall have to class it among the 
 "waifs of literature," and yet it is so beautiful, 
 not only in its appreciation of our loved poet, but 
 in its graceful recognition of the generosity of 
 the English people in giving room in the crowded 
 Abbey for a memorial to him, that I wish you to 
 hear it. 
 
 Child! when you pace with hushed delight 
 The cloistered aisles across the sea, 
 Where ashes old of monk and knight 
 Eenew the legends heavenly bright 
 That charmed you from your mother's knee, 
 
 And steal across the Abbey 's nave 
 With War's superbest trophies set 
 To some lone minstrel 's narrow grave 
 Who more unto his country gave 
 Than Tudor or Plantagenet, 
 
 Scorn not the carven names august 
 Where England strews immortal flowers, 
 But, circled by her precious dust — 
 Salute, athrill with pride and trust, 
 Your own dear poet, child of ours! 
 He stands among her mightiest, 
 We craved it not, yet be it so, 
 If his sweet art were least or best 
 Is judged hereafter. For the rest 
 Speak fondly, that the world may know: 
 Not any with God's gift of song 
 
 38 
 
Served men with purer ministries; 
 Not one of all the lauded throng 
 Held half the light he shed so long 
 From that high, sunny heart of his. 
 
 We are glad to know, too, that Irving and 
 Hawthorne and Lowell were loved and admired in 
 England. 
 
 Tennyson and Longfellow were friends. Do 
 you recall the tribute to Longfellow in Tennyson's 
 matchless "In Memoriam"? 
 
 I hold it true with him who sings 
 To one clear harp with divers tones, 
 That men may rise on stepping stones 
 Of their dead selves to higher things. 
 
 Mrs. Browning greatly admired the beauty of 
 the lines of Poe's Raven, and we must remember 
 that there is one writer whom we hold in com- 
 mon, for while he is by birth an Englishman, he 
 is loved and honored and at home as an American — 
 I do not need to give you the name, Rudyard 
 Kipling. 
 
 For many years, we are told, that the author 
 of John Halifax, Gentleman, held in her memory 
 a little sketch which she found one day in reading 
 one of our American periodicals. This was entitled 
 "Sometime/' and runs: " 'Tis a sweet, sweet song," 
 etc., etc. 
 
 On the other hand, we are glad to know that 
 in that sad summer so long ago, when Dickens laid 
 
 39 
 
down his magic pen, leaving a half-told tale, not 
 one of the many tributes to his worth was more 
 appreciated or exquisite than that by our own Bret 
 Harte.* 
 
 Several of our American poets have written 
 sonnets, and have you thought how many of those 
 essaying this delicate form of poetical composi- 
 tion, have paid honor to the earlier writers! Have 
 you read the description of the Sonnet written by 
 Gilder, of the Century Magazine! 
 
 What is the sonnet? 'Tis the pearly shell 
 Which murmurs of the far-off sounding sea. 
 
 This was the flame that shook with Dante 's breath, 
 
 The solemn organ whereon Milton played, 
 
 And the clear glass where Shakespeare 's shadow falls. 
 
 Students of literature have been pleased to couple 
 the names of several English and American writers 
 because of a certain indefinable something in their 
 productions which seems to make them akin. Thus : 
 Irving and Goldsmith, Wordsworth and Bryant. 
 
 I do not wish to be presumptuous, but in this 
 way I have often of late placed side by side two 
 poems which seem to me to have a striking similarity 
 in gracefulness and perfect simplicity. One of these 
 you all know — Wordsworth's classic — We Are Seven. 
 The other is by Henry C. Bunner, a New York 
 writer who died a few years ago. 
 
 *Page 33. 
 
 40 
 
WE ARE SEVEN. 
 
 I met a little cottage girl, 
 
 She was eight years old, she said; 
 Her hair was thick with many a curl 
 That clustered round her head. 
 
 She had a rustic, woodland air, 
 
 And she was wildly clad; 
 Her eyes were fair, so very fair, 
 
 Her beauty made me glad. 
 
 "Sisters and brothers, little Maid, 
 
 How many may you be?" 
 "How many? Seven in all," she said. 
 
 And wondering, looked at me. 
 
 "And where are they, I pray you tell," 
 She answered ' ' Seven are we, 
 And two of us at Conway dwell, 
 And two are gone to sea. 
 
 Two of us in the church-yard lie. 
 
 My sister and my brother; 
 And, in the church-yard cottage, I 
 
 Dwell near them with my mother." 
 
 "You say that two at Conway dwell, 
 And two are gone to sea, 
 Yet ye are seven! I pray you tell. 
 Sweet Maid, how this may be. 
 
 You run about, my little Maid, 
 
 Your limbs they are alive; 
 If two are in the church-yard laid. 
 
 Then ye are only five. 
 
 How many are you then, ' ' said I, 
 "If they two are in heaven?" 
 Quick was the little Maid's reply, 
 "O Master! we are seven." 
 
 "But they are dead, those two are dead! 
 Their spirits are in heaven!" 
 'Twas throwing words away; for still 
 The little Maid would have her will. 
 And said, "Nay, we are seven! " 
 
 The one written by Henry C. Bunner, of New 
 York, is entitled, 
 
 ONE, TWO THREE! 
 
 It was an old, old, old, old lady, 
 And a boy that was half -past three; 
 
 41 
 
AuJ the way that they played together 
 Was beautiful to see. 
 
 She couldn't go running and jumping, 
 And the boy, no more could he; 
 For he was a thin little fellow. 
 With a thin little twisted knee. 
 
 It was Hide-and-go-seek they were playing, 
 Though you'd never have known it to be — 
 With an old, old, old, old lady. 
 And a boy with a twisted knee. 
 
 The boy would bend his face down 
 On his one little sound right knee, 
 And he 'd guess where she was hiding. 
 In guesses One, Two, Three! 
 
 "You are in the china-closet!" 
 He would cry, and laugh with glee — 
 It wasn't the china-closet; 
 But he still had Two and Three. 
 
 "You are up in papa's big bed-room. 
 In the chest with the queer old key! " 
 And she said: "You are warm and warmer; 
 But you're not quite right," said she. 
 
 "It can't be the little cupboard 
 Where Mama's things used to be — 
 So it must be the clothes-press, Gran-ma!" 
 And he caught her with his Three. 
 
 Then she covered her face with her fingers. 
 That were wrinkled and white and wee. 
 And she guessed where the boy was hiding. 
 With a One and a Two and a Three. 
 
 And they never had stirred from their places, 
 
 Right under the maple tree — 
 
 This old, old, old, old lady. 
 
 And the boy with the lame little knee — 
 
 This dear, dear, dear old lady. 
 
 And the boy who was half-past three. 
 
 This, then, is our claim — we have an American 
 Literature, and a noble one. 
 
 Let us be modest, however. 
 In the past quarter of a century many his- 
 torical novels have been written by American authors. 
 
 42 
 
How many of these, think you, will be likely to 
 stand the test of years with Henry Esmond, The 
 Last Days of Pompeii, and A Tale of Two Cities? 
 
 Again, our literature is a part of English litera- 
 ture. As one writer has said, "The English litera- 
 ture of the past is as much our heritage as it is 
 that of the British. It belongs to us as it does 
 to them, and we have an equal right in the splendid 
 possession." 
 
 43 
 
Some American Historians, Well- 
 Recognized and Otherwise. 
 
 (Sorosis, October 24tH. 1910.) 
 
 NE of the most remarkable examples 
 of descriptive writing in literature is 
 Victor Hugo's description in Les 
 Miserables of tlie field on which was 
 
 fought the Battle of Waterloo. Many 
 of you will probably recall the graphic words: "The 
 Battle of Waterloo was fought on a piece of ground 
 resembling the capital letter A. The English were 
 at the apex, the French were at the feet, and the 
 battle was decided at about the center." 
 
 Some one has written: "We do not so much 
 want history explained after the manner of science 
 as we want it portrayed and interpreted after the 
 manner of literature and life." 
 
 Last summer there passed "into the silence" 
 an old lady who had been honored for many years 
 by the older residents of Spokane and of the Oregon 
 country. Many of you knew and loved Mrs. Pringle, 
 who was an adopted child in the household of 
 Marcus Whitman, and when eleven years old was 
 a witness of the terrible massacre. 
 
 44 
 
Some American Historians, Well 
 Recognized and Otherwise. 
 
 (Soiosis, October 24l!i, 19iO.) 
 
 NE of the most remarkable examples 
 of descriptive writing- in' literature is 
 Victor J lingo's description in Les 
 Miserables of tile field on which was 
 fought the Battle of Waterloo. Many 
 of you will probably recall the graphic words: "The 
 Battle of Waterloo was fought on a piece of ground 
 resembling the cai)it^'TO(^-^W3"'^1^if9^.nglis]i were 
 at the apex, tlie 'r'rench were at the feet, and the 
 battle was decided at about tbe center.-' 
 
 Some one has written: "We do not so much 
 want history explained after tbe manner of science 
 as we want it portrayed and interpreted after the 
 manner of literature and life." 
 
 Last summer there pass silence" 
 'id lady who liad been honored for many years 
 by the older residents of Spokane and of the Oregon 
 country. Many of you knew and loved Mrs. Pringle, 
 who was an adopted child in the household of 
 Marcus AVhitman, and when eleven ^ ^^ was 
 
 44 
 
Probably many of you heard her tell in her 
 vivid, unaffected way, of that tragic event and of 
 her subsequent captivity. I think of the fact that 
 hundreds of our young people heard the story from 
 her own lips, as of great historic value to them. 
 
 One day several years ago, a teacher of his- 
 tory and myself, combined our classes of history 
 and English and asked Mrs. Pringle to talk to 
 them during the fourth period, which you know 
 is, in our schools, the last period of the morning 
 session. I am definite about this because I wish 
 to remind you that it is not an easily accomplished 
 feat to hold the undivided attention of a throng 
 of hungry boys and girls, especially when the odor 
 of the noon-tide lunch pervades the building. 
 
 Few of the pupils knew the plainly but neatly 
 dressed old lady with earnest though wrinkled face, 
 as she entered the room, but with the respect for 
 elderly people which more than one person has 
 found to be characteristic of our boys and girls, 
 she was greeted with enthusiasm. And as she told 
 them of her experiences and assured them that, not- 
 withstanding the terrors of that time, through all 
 the years she had held warm regard for the Indian, 
 feeling that even the killing of Dr. Whitman was 
 the result of frenzy to which they were incited by 
 some outside influence, they were entranced, and 
 
 45 
 
when the lunch signal sounded, not a pupil rose 
 or took his eyes from her until she said: "Go, 
 now, and eat your lunch. You shall hear more 
 some other day." 
 
 This interesting woman was an honored friend 
 of Prof. Meany of the Seattle University, and was 
 enthusiastic over his historical researches of the 
 Northwest. May I not rightly call Mrs. Pringle 
 a true historian? 
 
 I thought of her as I walked through the 
 tangled old orchard to the home of Mrs. Stillman 
 
 H. T. COWLEY 
 
 at the last meeting of our club, and felt that she 
 would have been glad to know that the beautiful 
 
 46 
 
historic place may become a city park. Here was 
 the Indian school established by Mr. Cowley in 
 the earliest days of the history of Spokane Falls, and 
 here many of the Spokane Indians were led to 
 trust the white men; for their teacher, gentle in 
 manner and speech, and truly Interested in their 
 welfare, was looked upon as their friend by the 
 unique procession of pupils, many of them in bright 
 blankets, who wended their way day after day 
 along the trails to the little school building on the 
 wooded south hillside. I must think that such 
 a school was a powerful factor in making the Spo- 
 kanes a more tractable and x^G^ceable tribe than 
 were the Nez Perces, the Walla Wallas and other 
 neighboring tribes. Should we not then rejoice 
 in the possibility of perpetuating the beauties and 
 associations of that historic spot? 
 
 If I were to make an extended list of the names 
 of American Historians, it would include the names 
 of many authors whose works we have studied 
 and enjoyed during the last two years, for in our 
 literature there has been many times a faithful 
 chronicle of our country's history. But you would, 
 I am sure, expect me to mention Bancroft, who, 
 after his graduation from Harvard, founded a 
 school at Round Hill, in Northampton, was minister 
 to Great Britain and also to Berlin, but is remem- 
 
 47 
 
bered principally as the author of the history that 
 bears his name. 
 
 Wlien a noted London clergyman visited our 
 country, for the first time, he was asked what im- 
 pressed him most strongly. He replied, "When 
 I went through the magnificent public library in 
 Boston, more lasting than my memory of books, 
 marvelous pictures or marbles, was that of a bare- 
 foot boy curled up in one of the luxurious chairs, 
 reading a copy of Bancroft's History of the United 
 States." 
 
 You would wish me to mention Prescott who, 
 though nearly blind from an accident when he 
 was an undergraduate at Harvard, made most care- 
 ful resarches, especially in Spanish history, and 
 obtained from Spain a large number of manu- 
 scripts of priceless value — -"Reign of Ferdinand and 
 Isabella, " " Reign of Philip II. " 
 
 Prof. John Fiske of Harvard has added to our 
 historical lore works particularly valuable because 
 of their polished, scholarly character. You will 
 remember that he was lecturer on American history 
 not only at Harvard but in other leading colleges 
 in this country and in England, and his books, 
 "The Beginnings of New England," "The American 
 
 48 
 
Revolution," etc., were compiled from these finished 
 and scholarly lectures. 
 
 We must not omit the name of Woodrow Wilson, 
 whose election as Governor of New Jersey was one 
 of the many democratic victories of last year. After 
 his graduation at Princeton, he became a lawyer, 
 but later returned to the study which was his de- 
 light, the study of history and political science. 
 '* Division and Reunion," Little Classic series, 1829- 
 1889. He is still in his prime, and I am sure we 
 shall hear of him in future days. 
 
 I will not extend the list of these writers of 
 plain historic facts longer than to mention Charles 
 Carleton Coffin, whose works show him to be a 
 conscientious historian of revolutionary times. He 
 is very popular with the patriotic societies, the 
 Sons and Doughters of the Revolution, and their 
 unqualified approval is given to all his books, among 
 which may be mentioned ''The Drum Beat of the 
 Nation," "Building of a Nation," and "The Daugh- 
 ters of the Revolution and Their Times." The 
 reader of these books is convinced that the author 
 realizes the fact that the revolutionary period was 
 characterized by sublime enthusiasm, self-sacrifice 
 and devotion, not only by the patriots but by loyalists 
 who conscientiously adhered to the crown, and he 
 reminds us that in our admiration for those who 
 
 49 
 
secured the independence of the colonies, we must 
 not overlook the sacritices and sutTerings of the 
 loyalists, their distress during the siege of Boston, 
 the agony of the hour when confronted with the 
 appalling fact that they must become aliens, exiles 
 and wanderers, leaving behind all their possessions 
 and estates, an hour when there was a sundering 
 of tender ties, the breaking of hearts. 
 
 The books are illustrated by fine pictures, many 
 of which are photographic copies of rare old prints. 
 It was the great privilege of Mr. Coffin in his 
 boyhood to have the story of the Battle of Bunker 
 Rill told to him by three men who participated 
 in the fight. In one of these books, "The Daugh- 
 ters of the Revolution," the narrative of events 
 takes the form of a story, a slight thread of romance 
 being used to picture more vividly the scenes, and 
 the parts performed by the actors in the great 
 historic drama. In this plan he has followed the 
 idea of many educators of eminence who believe 
 that history may be more successfully taught through 
 the medium of fiction than by any other form of 
 diction. 
 
 It has been said of Scott that he brought life 
 out of the dead part of English history when he 
 gave to the world his wonderful historical romances. 
 Do you not remember your joy in the first read- 
 
 50 
 
ing of ''Kenilworth" and "The Heart of Mid- 
 lothian?" Many writers since that time have at- 
 tempted the historical novel, bnt few have met 
 with the remarkable success of Scott. 
 
 In our own country this form of writing was 
 at one time over-done. When we read of the pre- 
 posterous doings of prominent figiires in our his- 
 tory, we were shocked. A few American writers 
 have taken unpatriotic pleasure in showing that 
 such heroes as Washington and Lincoln were far 
 from saint-like. We are glad to think of them 
 as human, for so we can feel in sympathy with 
 them and gain a more vi^dd idea of the men 
 themselves. But we cannot have them brought too 
 near. We want to idealize them just enough to 
 strengthen our patriotic sentiments, but no more, 
 else the historical romance will become what some 
 have declared it to be — the enemy of the study of 
 plain history. The distortion of true history in a 
 romance is of more harm than good unless realized 
 as such by the reader. 
 
 The American humorist, with all his daring and 
 irreverence, has not ventured very far upon the 
 ground of the historian, but do you remember in 
 Bill Nye's History of the United States, the story 
 of Ben Franklin, and did you ever think of it as 
 anything but the most delicious nonsense, and in 
 
 51 
 
no way destined to lower the reader's estimate of 
 the noble life of that historic character? 
 
 '^ Benjamin Franklin, formerly of Boston, came 
 very near being an only child. If seventeen children 
 had not come to bless the home of his parents, 
 they would have been childless. 
 
 ' ' Think of getting up in the morning and pick- 
 ing out your shoes and stockings from among seven- 
 teen pairs of them! Imagine yourself in a family 
 where you would be called on to select your own 
 wad of chewing gum from a collection of seventeen 
 different wads on a window sill ! And yet Ben- 
 jamin never murmured or repined. 
 
 "Franklin became a good printer, and finally 
 got to be foreman. He made an excellent fore- 
 man, for he knew just how to conduct himself so 
 that strangers would think he owned the paper. 
 He grew to be a great journalist and spelled hard 
 words with great fluency, and everybody respected 
 him. 
 
 "Along about 1746 he began to study the habits 
 and construction of lightning. After every thunder- 
 storm, armed with a string and an old door key, 
 he would go out on the hills and get enough light- 
 ning for a mess. 
 
 "Franklin frequently went over to England in 
 those days, partly on business and partly to shock 
 
 52 
 
the king. It looked odd to the English, of course, 
 to see him come into the royal presence and, lean- 
 ing his wet umbrella up against the throne, ask 
 the king, 'How's trade!' 
 
 "He did his best to prevent the Revolutionary 
 War, but he couldn't do it. Patrick Henry had 
 said the war was inevitable and had given it per- 
 mission to come, and it came." 
 
 It may be questioned whether any work of 
 fiction in the world's history has been so widely 
 read and so productive of good as Ben Hur, by 
 Lew Wallace, and surely none so far-reaching in 
 its influence as the portrayal of the institution of 
 slavery by Mrs. Stowe in Uncle Tom's Cabin. In 
 an article in a late magazine among other remin- 
 iscences of Lincoln, the story is told that when 
 for the first time he met Mrs. Stowe during the 
 dark days of '62, he looked at her earnestly and 
 pathetically and said: "And are you the woman 
 who brought on this terrible war?" 
 
 Our poets have immortalized many events in 
 our history. Longfellow was congratulated by Ban- 
 croft on the success of the sweet pastoral "Evan- 
 geline," and that part of Nova Scotia where the 
 Arcadian line settled is known only as "Evangeline's 
 Land," and as such is visited by thousands of tourists 
 every summer. 
 
 53 
 
Numberless persons date the beginning of their 
 enjoyment of Amerioan history from the reading 
 in the old school "reading book" of Paul Revere 's 
 Ride, and as one goes today over the storied way 
 from Boston to Lexington, these stirring lines are 
 sure to be recalled: 
 
 "A voice iu the darkness, a knock at the door, 
 And a word that shall echo for evermore. ' ' 
 
 When Dr. Holmes wrote "Grandmother's Story 
 of Bunker Hill," he made the student of Colonial 
 
 MRS. ADELAIDE GALLAND. 
 
 history his debtor. I have asked Mrs. Galland, 
 who loves England as the home of her childhood 
 
 54 
 
and young womanhood, but wlio is in her mature 
 womanhood a true American, to read this story. 
 
 GRANDMOTHER'S STORY OF BUNKER HILL BATTLE. 
 
 As She Saw It From the Belfry. 
 
 'Tis like stirring living embers when^ at eighty, one remembers 
 All the achings and the quakings of "the times that tried men's 
 souls"; 
 
 When I talk of Whig and Tory, when I tell the Rebel story. 
 To you the words are ashes, but to me they're burning coals. 
 
 At length the men have started, with a cheer (it seemed faint-hearted), 
 In their scarlet regimentals, with their knapsacks on their backs. 
 
 And the reddening, rippling water, as after a sea-fight 's slaughter. 
 Round the barges gliding onward blushed like blood along their 
 tracks. 
 
 So they crossed to the other border, and again they formed in order; 
 
 And the boats came back for soldiers, came for soldiers, soldiers 
 still; 
 The time seemed everlasting to us women faint and fasting, — 
 
 At last they're moving, marching, marching proudly up the hill. 
 
 We can see the bright steel glancing all along the lines advancing, — 
 Now the front rank fires a volley, — they have thrown away their 
 shot; 
 
 For behind the earthwork lying, all the balls above them flying. 
 Our people need not hurry; so they wait and answer not. 
 
 Then the Corporal, our old cripple (he would swear sometimes and 
 tipple), — 
 
 He had heard the bullets whistle (in the old French war) before, — 
 Calls out in words of jeering, just as if they all were hearing, — 
 
 And his wooden leg thumps fiercely on the dusty belfry floor: 
 
 "Oh! fire away, ye villains, and earn King George's shillin's. 
 But ye '11 waste a ton of powder before a 'rebel' falls; 
 
 You may bang the dirt and welcome, they're as safe as Dan '1 Malcolm 
 Ten foot beneath the gravestone that you've splintered with your 
 balls!" 
 
 Just a glimpse (the air is clearer), they are nearer, — nearer, — nearer, — 
 When a flash — a curling smoke-wreath — then a crash — the steeple 
 shakes — 
 
 The deadly truce is ended; the tempest's shrould is rended; 
 
 Like a morning mist it gathered, like a thunder-cloud it breaks! 
 
 55 
 
Oh! the sight our eyes discover as the blue-black smoke blows over! 
 
 The red-coats stretched in windrows as a mower rakes his hay; 
 Here a scarlet heap is lying, there a headlong crowd is flying 
 
 Like a billow that is broken and is shivered into spray. 
 
 All at once, as we are gazing, lo! the roofs of Charlestown blazing! 
 
 They have fired the harmless village; in an hour it will be down! 
 The lord of heaven confound them, rain His fire and brimstone 'round 
 them, — 
 
 The robbing, murdering red-coats, that would burn a peaceful town! 
 
 They are marching, stern and solemn; we can see each massive column 
 As they near the naked earth-mound with the slanting walls so 
 steep. 
 
 Have our soldiers got faint-hearted, and in noiseless haste departed? 
 Are they panic-struck and helpless? Are they palsied or asleep? 
 
 Now! the walls they're almost under! scarce a rod the foes asunder! 
 Not a firelock flashed against them! up the earth-work they will 
 swarm! 
 But the words have scarce been spoken, when the ominous calm is 
 broken, 
 And a bellowing crash has emptied all the vengeance of the storm! 
 
 Etc., etc. 
 
 Mrs. Howe's "Battle Hymn" and many songs 
 of the North and South during the Civil War have 
 become classics, and to them belongs a snre place 
 in the history of those times. 
 
 When the war had ended, Lowell wrote the 
 matchless Commemoration Ode, and read it before 
 a distinguished assemblage at the dedication of 
 the Harvard Memorial in 1865, shortly after the 
 tragic death of Lincoln. As we read it now, nearly 
 a half century after the death of Lincoln, it seems 
 to us to have been a prophecy which has indeed 
 been fulfilled. I have asked Mrs. Galland to read 
 these lines, for I am sure that her admiration of 
 
 56 
 
the character of Lincoln, and her appreciation of 
 this tribute will be a delight to the ladies of Sorosis 
 and to the friends who are with us today, as it 
 has been to me. 
 
 FROM LOWELL'S COMMEMORATION ODE. 
 
 Life may be given in may ways, 
 
 And loyalty to Truth be sealed 
 As bravely in the closet as in the field, 
 
 So bountiful is Fate; 
 
 But then to stand beside her, 
 
 When craven churls deride her. 
 To front a lie in arms and not to yield, 
 
 This shows, methinks, God 's plan 
 
 And measure of a stalwart man, 
 
 Limbed like the obi heroic breeds. 
 
 Who stands self poised on manhood 's solid earth 
 
 Not forced to frame excuses for his birth, 
 Fed from within with all the strength he needs. 
 Such was he, our Martyr-Chief, 
 
 Whom late the nation he had led. 
 
 With ashes on her head. 
 Wept with the passion of an angry grief: 
 Forgive me if from present things I turn 
 And hang my wreath on his world-honored urn. 
 
 Nature, they say, doth dote. 
 
 And cannot make a man 
 
 Save on some worn-out plan, 
 
 Eepeating us by rote: 
 For him her Old-World moulds aside she threw, 
 
 And, choosing sweet clay from the breast 
 
 of the unexhausted West, 
 With stuff untainted shaped a hero new. 
 Wise, steadfast in the strength of God, and true. 
 
 How beautiful to see 
 Once more a shepherd of mankind indeed, 
 Who loved his charge, but never loved to lead; 
 One whose meek flock the people joyed to be. 
 
 Not lured by any cheat of birth. 
 
 But by his clear-grained human worth. 
 And brave old wisdom of sincerity! 
 
 They knew that outward grace is dust; 
 
 They could not choose but trust 
 In that sure-footed mind's unfaltering skill. 
 
 And supple-tempered will 
 That bent like perfect steel to spring again and thrust. 
 
 His was no lonely mountain-jjeak of mind, 
 
 Thrusting to thin air o 'er our cloudy bars, 
 
 A sea-mark now, now lost in vapors blind; 
 
 Broad prairie rather, genial, level-lined, 
 
 Fruitful and friendly for all human kind, 
 Yet also nigh to heaven and loved of loftiest stars. 
 
 57 
 
Nothing of Europe here, 
 Or, then, of Europe fronting moruward still. 
 
 Ere any names of Serf and Peer 
 Could Nature 's equal scheme deface 
 And thwart her genial will; 
 Here was a type of the true elder race, 
 And one of Plutarch's men talked with us face to face. 
 
 I praise him not; it were too late; 
 And some innative weakness there must be 
 In him who condescends to victory 
 
 Such as the present gives, and cannot wait, 
 Safe in himself as in a fate. 
 
 So always firmly he: 
 He knew to bide his time, 
 And can his fame abide, 
 Still patient in his simple faith sublime, 
 Till the wise years decide. 
 Great captains, with their guns and drums, 
 Disturb our judgment for the hour, 
 
 But at last silence comes; 
 These are all gone, and, standing like a tower. 
 Our children shall behold his fame, 
 
 The kindly-earnest, brave, foreseeing man, 
 Sagacious, patient, dreading praise, not blame, 
 
 New birth of our new soil, the first American. 
 
 Mrs, Galland will also read Father Ryan's 
 tribute to Robert Lee. 
 
 THE SWORD OF ROBERT LEE. 
 
 Forth from its scabbard, pure and bright, 
 
 Flashed the sword of Lee! 
 Far in the front of the deadly fight. 
 High o'er the brave in the cause of right, 
 Its stainless sheath, like a beacon light. 
 
 Led us to victory. 
 
 Out of its scabbard, where, full long. 
 
 It slumbered peacefully. 
 Roused from its rest by the battle song. 
 Shielding the feeble, smiting the strong, 
 Guarding the right, avenging the wrong. 
 
 Gleamed the sword of Lee. 
 
 Forth from its scabbard, high in air. 
 
 Beneath Virginia 's sk}' — 
 And they who saw it gleaming there, 
 And knew who bore it, knelt to swear 
 That where that sword led they would dare. 
 
 To follow — and to die. 
 
 58 
 
Out of its scabbard! Never hand 
 
 Waved sword from stain as free, 
 Nor purer sword led braver band, 
 Nor braver bled for brighter land, 
 Nor brighter land had a cause so grand, 
 
 Nor cause a chief like Lee! 
 
 Forth from its scabbard! How we prayed 
 
 That sword might victor be. 
 And when our triumph was delayed, 
 And many a heart grew sore afraid, 
 We still hoped on while gleamed the blade 
 
 Of noble Eobert Lee. 
 
 Forth from its scabbard all in vain 
 
 Bright flashed the sword of Lee; 
 'Tis shrouded now in its sheath again, 
 It sleeps the sleep of our noble slain. 
 Defeated, yet without a stain. 
 
 Proudly and peacefully. 
 
 As particularly fitting the career of the idolized 
 hero, Gen. Robert Lee, I am reminded of this 
 stanza: 
 
 We hold him great who wears the crown 
 Of a deserved and pure success; 
 But he who knoweth how to fail 
 
 Wears one whose lustre is not less. 
 
 A representative citizen of Spokane, who was 
 himself a colonel in the Civil War, who knew Lin- 
 coln personally, and whose home was in St. Louis, 
 where, you will remember the scene is laid of much 
 of Winston Chnrchill's story "The Crisis," has 
 told me that he has read the book again and again, 
 and reads it always with new interest and with a 
 strengthened admiration for the author. He de- 
 clares the book to be historically correct. 
 
 In this respect surely "The Crisis" stands 
 pre-eminent among the books of its kind written 
 
 59 
 
ill the last twenty-five years by our own authors, 
 for we must remember that the object of the his- 
 torical novel is dramatic and not historic. The novelist 
 takes history as he finds it and always chooses his 
 facts. He does not, of course, give all the facts, 
 which will give a perfect reproduction of the time. 
 The result is that we have a one-sided picture. 
 
 The historical novel may, however, give us a 
 personal touch which we cannot get from the his- 
 torical work. In the second place, it often awakens 
 an interest in some matter which sends one to the 
 study of the real history. 
 
 History has been likened to a view from a 
 mountain-top — the historical novel to an hour spent 
 in the valley. The far-reaching scene viewed from 
 the summit gives us the vast extent, but the hour 
 in the valley gives us the detail needed to com- 
 plete the whole. 
 
 Tlieii let us enjoy the historical novels pure 
 and simple. Write for us the song and the story, 
 ye weavers of romance, that we may correctly re- 
 view through the long vale of past days some 
 distant, lovely scene under the soul-hallowed twi- 
 light of time. 
 
 60 
 
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