rom being an evidence of intellectual distinction.
Mediocrity is as much forbidden to the poet in our days as it was in
those of Horace, and the immense majority of the verses written are
stamped with hopeless mediocrity.

When one of the ancient poets found he was trying to grind out verses
which came unwillingly, he said he was writing--

INVITA MINERVA.

Vex not the Muse with idle prayers,
--She will not hear thy call;
She steals upon thee unawares,
Or seeks thee not at all.

Soft as the moonbeams when they sought
Endymion's fragrant bower,
She parts the whispering leaves of thought
To show her full-blown flower.

For thee her wooing hour has passed,
The singing birds have flown,
And winter comes with icy blast
To chill thy buds unblown.

Yet, though the woods no longer thrill
As once their arches rung,
Sweet echoes hover round thee still
Of songs thy summer sung.

Live in thy past; await no more
The rush of heaven-sent wings;
Earth still has music left in store
While Memory sighs and sings.

I hope my special Minerva may not always be unwilling, but she must not
be called upon as she has been in times past. Now that the teacups have
left the table, an occasional evening call is all that my readers must
look for. Thanking them for their kind companionship, and hoping that I
may yet meet them in the now and then in the future, I bid them goodbye
for the immediate present, then in the future, I bid them goodbye for the
immediate present.

ELSIE VENNER

By Oliver Wendell Holmes

PREFACE.

This tale was published in successive parts in the "Atlantic Monthly,"
under the name of "The Professor's Story," the first number having
appeared in the third week of December, 1859. The critic who is curious
in coincidences must refer to the Magazine for the date of publication of
the chapter he is examining.

In calling this narrative a "romance," the Author wishes to make sure of
being indulged in the common privileges of the poetic license. Through
all the disguise of fiction a grave scientific doctrine may be detected
lying beneath some of the delineations of character. He has used this
doctrine as a part of the machinery of his story without pledging his
absolute belief in it to the extent to which it is asserted or implied.
It was adopted as a convenient medium of truth rather than as an accepted
scientific conclusion.