G GOD'S MEASURE. OD measures souls by their capacity Who loveth most is nearest kin to God, He who sits And looks out on the palpitating world, His great Creator's standard, though he dwells A feast-day from a fast-day, or a line Of Scripture even. What God wants of us Is that outreaching bigness that ignores All littleness of aims, or loves, or creeds, And clasps all Earth and Heaven in its embrace. NOBLESSE OBLIGE. HOLD it the duty of one who is gifted To know no rest till his life is lifted Fully up to his great gifts' height. He must mold the man into rare completeness, He must fashion his thoughts into perfect sweetness, For he who drinks from a god's gold fountain Must sift from his soul the chaff of malice, And weed from his heart the roots of wrong. Great gifts should be worn, like a crown befitting! And not like gems in a beggar's hands. And the toil must be constant and unremitting Which lifts up the king to the crown's demands. A DOMESTIC CONVERSATION. SCENE: The family living-room. CHARACTERS: Elaine, just from boarding school-seventeen, voluptuous and romantic. Helen, her mother, married to her first lover, and as ignorant of men, women and children as such mothers usually are. Ralph, the father, who had sowed a large crop of wild oats before marriage, and then, as is customary with men, serenely expects his children to be seraphs. Marie, his sister, twice a widow, and knowing human nature in all its complexity-childless, but better able to rear children than are their fathers or mothers. Elaine, primping before the mirror in a new gown with a demi-train: "Now I have finished school, put up my hair The father, looking up from his paper, startled and "Tut, tut, I say, angry: What sort of talk is this for chit like you! Is that the theme you studied in your school? That old Italian's theory must be true About degenerates Aunt Marie, quietly interrupting: "Ralph, don't be a fool (Tho' forty years you've stood upon the brink); Elaine but speaks what other girls all think." The mother, mildly: "Elaine is but a child! She does not know The meaning of the words she uses; she There, Ralph, you've made our darling weep, you see; You should not let your temper fly so loose." Elaine, petulantly: "I will not be set down for such a goose, The mother, looking troubled: "Just hear her prattle on, the simple child." The father, throwing down his paper and bursting out anew: "A convent is the place for her! Egad! Aunt Marie, in an aside: ("Her mother's years were less By one, and yours by five, I think, were moreWhen you eloped! Nell lengthened down her dress By letting out the hem the night before. And Nell was not your first love, either. Queer, How apples grow on apple trees, Ralph dear, Aloud to Elaine: "Come close, my sweet Elaine, Your 'ather and your mother and myself |