him about it. Now Jo was argumentative and immediately produced a large marble with a cat inside, and with a grain of sand showed me that it was silly to suppose we could be on a round object that turned around and not fall off.

"I tried to convince him, but Jo had the best of me, and ended by pointing his finger and calling, 'Silly-nilly, sillynilly.' Well, I lit into him and when I had him down I said, 'Is she round?' "Yep,' Jo admitted. "Does she move?'

"Yep, she moves!""

"You see," Mrs. Holmes said, "that proves beyond the shadow of a doubt that he was meant for a teacher." The fellows chortled. "You 've changed your methods, sir," Henry said, laughing.

"Well, I hope so, but there are times when I see they 're not so strikingly changed as I would wish-afterwards. But I have always had that uncontrollable desire to have others see my new truth, and see it my way, too.

"The year before I graduated from the Law School I made up my mind that teach I would, and I went to the Dean. He encouraged me. 'You'll be happy,' I remember he said to me, 'and I believe you 'll do it so well that you 'll do a deal of good.' Thus encouraged, I went to the Pater. He had a good law practice, and we lived in a big house, and had money for servants and trips to Europe and such like. It had never occurred to me to consider whether we were rich or not.

"I shall never forget how grave my father looked when I told him what I had been thinking.

your salary. You won't like being poor the Curtis-Holmeses have n't ever been poor! If you teach you'll have to black your own boots, and carry your own bag, and shave yourself. Your sons can't go to Harvard; your wife will look dingy and your rugs will have hideous colors in them-colors that will make your flesh creep.'

"Well, boys, I had my eye on a certain tall, splendid-looking girl even then, and I could n't imagine her in a dingy downat-the-heel place, and I would n't try to imagine life without her, so I admitted that the Pater was right, and gave it up.

"The next year I went to work with him, and it was just as he said. There was plenty of money for everything. We had a royal honeymoon on the Mediterranean, Josephine and I, and afterwards there was Rome and Lucerne and London and all the rest of it. Then home again, where we had all the fleshpots imaginable.

"Through it all my heart was not satisfied and the old longing would come over me, and I knew that I'd give it all to stand before a class of young men, and teach them to see the right as I saw it. Of course, I kept it down. I felt bound to my father and Josephine.

"Well, ten years passed. My father was dead. I had pegged along studying and writing and one day the old Dean sent for me. "There's to be a new department established out at Eldorado University-a department of history and law. They mean to help men to see the right, not turn them out merely with sharpened wits so they may get ahead of their fellows,' he told me, and he insisted that I was the man for the place. You see the ideals for you in that far-away beginning," and the Doctor's smile was full of love as he looked about at us.

office. 'Love,' I said, 'you can 't realize how I'd love it, but I can't afford it. My wife' The Dean interrupted. Josephine will want you to have the best thing life has to give a man-the work he was born to do.' I thought he did n't know. He had n't seen Josephine with the shine in her face all because of a new Paris dress."

“It was n't that," Mrs. Holmes interrupted. "I won't have your boys think that of me.'

"Well, I 've seen it since over a ten dollar white muslin, but I did n't know then. You see in those days you 'd deceived the very elect," he said whimsically.

"I'll give you twenty-four hours to consider,' the Dean said as I left. 'Remember this means three thousand, and the work will more than balance the twenty or twenty-five thousand that you give up.'

“I did n't mean to say a word about it at home, but of course I told Josephine before I'd been in the house fifteen minutes, and I half threw the burden of choice upon her. You see the history of man repeating itself. Father Father decided for me before, and then I meant my wife should keep me in the path of duty.

'But she did n't. She looked up, a queer, surprised look on her face. 'You 'd enjoy teaching better than anything else?' she asked, wonderingly. "Then I'd think you 'd teach.'

"But we'd have to live out West, in a little house, and without servants,' I

argued. I confess I was scared myself at the black picture I was able to paint. "She called me a simpleton, or some such pet name, and insisted she 'd like the West. And then she called up the Dean, and told him that it was all settled, and we began right then to pack the china.

"Well, I 've liked it tremendously. You fellows pay me twice over for what was left. Someway we do n't miss things, and this rug is n't bad. Is it fellows? Though Josephine bought it in San Francisco for fifteen dollars.

"We 've got to get back to the heart of things after all. It is n't things, so much as people and ideals, that count."

"Lord," said McVey; it was n't an oath, but a prayer. "I see my way clear now. You 've shown me the road. What do you say, Bess?"

"Why, that I've wanted it all the time," was the answer.

We did n't know then what it all meant, but we knew it was a tremendous thing, for the tears were in the Doctor's eyes as he said good-night, and as we stood a moment enjoying the moonlight on the red tiles of the old Quad we heard him say:

66

Josephine, I never thought I'd be paid like this. Why, it's more than a hundred-fold. He 's my best man, the best I've ever had, and he turns down a big corporation deal, and goes to help Satterley out with his work for the people.'

WILMATTE PORTER COCKERELL Boulder, Colo.

A

MONG the men of genius and penetration who made the nineteenth century a period of awakening and of genuine growth, Robert Browning will ever hold a deservedly high place. As a philosopher he was preeminent. As a poet he possessed great power and virility, and in spite of obscurity and serious defects in his method of presentation, his message is one of the most important utterances of the greatest century in the history of civilization.

It is a melancholy fact that the message of genius is almost invariably ignored, disregarded or ridiculed and opposed when first delivered. The man endowed with a rich imagination and overmastered by idealism ascends the mountain and beholds that which is hidden from the people in the valley with eyes intent on the ground. He not only sees what is hidden from their sight, but he hears the voice of the Infinite. God comes very near to the child of genius who opens the windows of the soul that look toward the heights. With a broader vision of life, with a glad new word for the people, he descends as Moses of old descended from cloud-robed Sinai, only to behold the multitude absorbed in the worship of the golden calf,—that is, engrossed in sordid materialistic pursuits which exclude idealism and darken the windows that open toward the glory-clad peaks of spirituality. Nevertheless he delivers the message and awakens to the fact that either he has spoken in an unknown tongue or he has aroused the bitter animosity of the Scribes and Pharisees who assume the leadership of the conventional order.

In America, Emerson, one of the noblest thinkers and most clear-visioned ethical philosophers of the nineteenth century, aroused. a storm of bitter opposition when he spoke and whenever he published words of light and leading; and when this serene and most lovable of men published his poems, even his own disciples looked coldly upon them, not merely because the great philosopher, absorbed in presenting mighty truths, had been more concerned with the thought than with its

robings, but because their eyes were not opened to the master lessons they contained. Yet these poems carried the most profoundly suggestive and helpful truths to be found in the writings of the Sage of Concord.

In Europe the same phenomenon was presented in even a more striking manner. Three of the greatest men of genius in the fields of literature and art of the last century were compelled to encounter a storm of merciless opposition from conventionalism and the popular critics before they conquered their place among the foremost thinkers of the age, Victor Hugo in France, Richard Wagner in Germany, and Robert Browning in England. With Hugo the conflict was short, sharp and vigorous; but around the illustrious Frenchman the literary youths rallied, and there was in his innovations that which appealed to the imagination of the people, and made victory more certain than in the cases of the Shakespeare of music and the Plato of poetry. Again, neither Wagner nor Browning was willing to throw any sops to the Philistines. They both sacrificed beauty to strength, and both were deeply philosophical, possessing imaginations capable of sweeping a horizon far more extended than comes within the unaided intellectual vision of the general thinker. Thus these men had to conquer a place. They could hope for little sympathy, appreciation or even broad-visioned justice from critics accustomed to hard and fast rules, and to thoughts and ideals which at no time taxed the mediocre imagination.

The message of Robert Browning, like that of Richard Wagner, was marked by deep philosophic thought that called for sustained thinking, never pleasing to the many; and in the English poet's verse there is the concision or economy of expression and subjective rather than objective treatment of his themes that further detract from the popularity of his work. It is, however, a fact very significant of the rapid awakening going on in civilized lands that each of these great men above alluded to lived to see the

triumph of their work, and the scorn and ridicule that had long been aimed at them turned to enthusiastic appreciation, and in some instances to almost unqualified praise. Before noticing Browning's writings, it is well to frankly recognize the fact that his splendid thought, so free and stimulating, can only be enjoyed by those who care enough for that which is high and morally and mentally invigorating to seriously study the poet. No thoughtful person can peruse Browning without being made better for the effort. The atmosphere of his writings suggests the mountain-peaks. In the presence of his thought the soul feels all the exhilaration that the body experiences when ascending some lofty peak, but, like mountain climbing, Browning calls for work and yields his treasures only to those who are willing to study him. It is to be regretted that there is often a degree of obscurity in his writings that discourages the general reader who will not dig deep enough to uncover the gold that lies in rich deposits.

In his delightful book, The Best of Browning,* Dr. Mudge emphasizes this fact in the following criticism of one of the poet's important creations which has proved a stumbling block to many eminent men who sincerely admire Browning:

"Sordello,' for example,-and this, though probably the worst of its class, does not stand altogether alone, has been called, with some degree of justice, ‘a melancholy waste of human power,' 'a derelict upon the ocean of poetry' a magnificent failure.' Tennyson -with whom Browning had the pleasantest of personal relations, dedicating to him one of his volumes with the words, 'In poetry illustrious and consummate, in friendship noble and sincere,'-tried to read 'Sordello,' and in bitterness of spirit declared that 'there were only two lines in it which he understood, and they were both lies' He referred to the opening and closing lines. 'Who will may hear Sordello's story told,' and 'Who would has heard Sordello's story told.' Carlyle said, 'My wife has read through "Sordello" without being able to make out whether Sordello was a man, a city, or a book.' M. Odysse Barot, in an article on this poem in a French magazine, quotes the poet as saying, 'God gave man *The Best of Browning. By James Mudge, D.D. Cloth. Pp. 252. Price, $1.25. New York: Eaton

& Mains.

to

two faculties,' and adds, "I wish, while He was about it, God had supplied another-the understand Mr. Browning." Douglas Jerrold, when slowly convalescing from a serious illness, found among some new books sent him by a friend, a copy of 'Sordello.' A few lines put him in a state of alarm. Sentence after sentence brought no consecutive thought to his brain. At last the idea occurred to him that in his illness his mental faculties had been wrecked. The perspiration rolled from his forehead, and smiting his head he sank back upon the sofa, crying, 'O God, I am an idiot!' A little later, when his wife and sister entered, he thrust 'Sordello' into their hands, demanding what they thought of it. He watched them intently while they read. When at last Mrs. Jerrold remarked, 'I do n't understand what this man means; it is gibberish,' her delighted husband gave a sigh of relief and exclaimed, 'Thank God, I am not an idiot!""

Like Plato, who is Greek to the flippant and shallow-minded who do not love to think, but who is a veritable mine of wealth to those of deeply philosophical and idealistic turn of mind, Browning is a never-failing source of delight and helpfulness to those who love that which is strong, virile and stimulating; that which taxes the intellect and feeds the spiritual aspirations; for he is preeminently the eagle-hearted poet among the great singers of the nineteenth century, the poet of freedom, faith and optimism. But his freedom is that of St. Paul rather than that of Marat; the freedom of the spiritually awakened one who has risen above the bondage of greed and selfishness. His faith is the conviction of a man who has dared to look all things in the face and who refuses to be the slave of dogmatism, tradition or ancient ideals that affront reason and man's sense of justice; while his optimism is the reverse of the miserable time-serving pseudooptimism of those who to win the favor of the lords of the material vantage-grounds, seek to gloss over iniquity and divert the attention of the people from the deadly evils that are undermining the moral foundations of individual character and national greatness. Robert Browning ever dared to uncover wrong and iniquity and to unsparingly rebuke those who, like the pseudo-optimists of our time, are crying "Peace, peace!" in order to curry favor with the princes of privilege and

the lords of the market. Do you question this? Then call to mind those lines of his on Wordsworth, written when the poet had been recreant to his high ideal and for an easy place and popular applause became an apostate to the things he had long championed. In all English poetry there is no more stinging rebuke than is found in "The Lost Leader," unless we except the terrible poem by Whittier entitled "Ichabod" which was penned when Webster became recreant to his high trust. It was of Wordsworth's apostacy, when the poet opposed such great measures as the Reform Bill, that Browning

wrote:

"Just for a handful of silver he left us,

Just for a riband to stick in his coatFound the one gift of which fortune bereft us, Lost all the others she lets us devote;

They, with the gold to give, doled him out silver, So much was theirs who so little allowed:

the battle was fought all along the line, for the democratic sentiment had already taken firm hold on the brain of the Anglo-Saxon world. In politics there was first the great Reform-Bill battle, followed by the AntiCorn-Law campaign and the Chartist movement. Against these the reactionaries waged a battle marked by the greatest bitterness.

In religion the upheaval was no less marked. The Oxford Movement convulsed England. Newman and Manning fled to the sheltering arms of Rome to escape the great wave of liberalism that was permeating the church and striving to reconcile religious dogmas with reason, Christianity with the revelations of science. While Cardinal Newman seeking a refuge in Rome, his brilliant brother was following his rationalistic leanings into the camp of the extreme liberals. And this ranging of brother against brother was

was

him.

Lived in his mild and magnificent eye, Learned his great language, caught his clear

accents.

Made him our pattern to live and to die! Shakespeare was of us, Milton was for us,

Burns, Shelley, were with us,-they watch from their graves!

He alone breaks from the van and the freemen, -He alone sinks to the rear and the slaves!

"Blot out his name, then, record one lost soul more, One task more declined, one more footpath

untrod,

One more devils'-triumph and sorrow for angels, One wrong more to man, one more insult to God!"

Browning appeared on the scene of public activity at a moment when the forces of freedom and progress were engaged in a fierce conflict with reactionary and class interests. The great democratic revolution had transformed the face of western civilization. The success of the American Revolution was followed by the overthrow of the old régime in France, and for a time it seemed that the old order in state, church and even in literature was doomed. But the excesses of the French Revolution followed by the imperial rule of Napoleon, the Concordat and other alliances that strengthened the arm of the enemies of democracy and liberty in the religious and thought worlds, gave new impetus to the reactionaries and all upholders of the old autocratic order and of classes or privileged interests. Everywhere these organized for aggressive warfare. In England

In literature romanticism was battling with reactionary classicism, while physical science, led by Spencer, Darwin and Wallace, was already in the thick of the fight with a wealth of new facts that were revolutionary in their potentiality.

From the hurly-burly of the hour, from the noise and tumult of the conflict, Tennyson turned to the legendary past and sang songs diverting the attention of the people from the conflict that was raging. In influence Tennyson was a reactionary rather than an aggressive force for progress, and his wonderfully beautiful verse, his rhythmic flow of words, exerted a far greater influence than many people imagined on the side of the old order.

"Tennyson," says Professor Genung, "appeasing the meditative reader by poetic fragrance, rhythm, imagery, music, or, not less potently, entering his ready memory by a wealth of finished inevitable phrase, makes him move obediently through a finely ordered poetic world as it were in the natural way of living; so that almost without conscious reaction his mind is impregnated, like the Lotos Eaters."

His influence, which Professor Genung thinks was valuable as a steadying power at the time, was, we believe, extremely unfortunate. If Tennyson had wrought as wrought Hugo and Shelley, Lowell and Whittier, on the side of democracy, social justice and freedom, it is probable that the promise of the middle part of the nineteenth century in England would have been splendidly fulfilled,