G

GOD'S MEASURE.

OD measures souls by their capacity
For entertaining his best Angel, Love.

Who loveth most is nearest kin to God,
Who is all Love, or Nothing.

He who sits

And looks out on the palpitating world,
And feels his heart swell in him large enough
To hold all men within it, he is near

His great Creator's standard, though he dwells
Outside the pale of churches, and knows not

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
And specially dowered in all men's sight,

To know no rest till his life is lifted

Fully up to his great gifts' height.

He must mold the man into rare completeness,
For gems are set only in gold refined.

He must fashion his thoughts into perfect sweetness,
And cast out folly and pride from his mind.

For he who drinks from a god's gold fountain
Of art or music or rhythmic song

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
And down my skirts, I think it is my right
To learn about the world which seems so fair.
I hear of girls who win all hearts at sight-
Tell me, dear parents, and dear aunt, I pray,
How can I make men love-

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
Has not a thought that is not pure as snow.

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,
Mamma, as you would make me out: I'm sure
I know quite well what I am talking of.
Where is the sin, and, pray, what is impure
In craving knowledge of a thing like love?
I heard a man last night tell Aunt Marie
She must have taken the thirty-third degree
In Cupid's order! And the way he smiled
I know he did not think dear auntie bad."

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!
She's too precocious! It's a pretty pass
When subjects such as these absorb a lass
Of seventeen!"

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,
Now, isn't it?")

Aloud to Elaine:

"Come close, my sweet Elaine,

Your 'ather and your mother and myself
Will listen to your questions. Now be plain
(If that could be with such a charming elf);
Tell us your thoughts, reveal your very heart.
Who but your elders should life's truths impart?
Your father does but jest, and play a role;
Your mother too! They both know, as I do,