left us all in emotion and wonder. 'Farewell to
you,' he said, as he rose and turned toward the door. 'You will come
again?' asked the host and hostess in a breath. 'Yes, yes,' said
Beethoven hurriedly, 'I will come again, and give the young lady some
lessons. Farewell!' Then to me he added: 'Let us make haste back,
that I may write out that sonata while I can yet remember it.' We did
return in haste, and not until long past the dawn of day did he rise
from his table with the full score of the Moonlight Sonata in his hand."

Michael Angelo studied anatomy twelve years, nearly ruining his health,
but this course determined his style, his practice, and his glory. He
drew his figures in skeleton, added muscles, fat, and skin
successively, and then draped them. He made every tool he used in
sculpture, such as files, chisels, and pincers. In painting he
prepared all his own colors, and would not let servants or students
even mix them.

Raphael's enthusiasm inspired every artist in Italy, and his modest,
charming manners disarmed envy and jealousy. He has been called the
only distinguished man who lived and died without an enemy or
detractor. Again and again poor Bunyan might have had his liberty; but
not the separation from his poor blind daughter Mary, which he said was
like pulling the flesh from his bones; not the need of a poor family
dependent upon him; not the love of liberty nor the spur of ambition
could induce him to forego his plain preaching in public places. He
had so forgotten his early education that his wife had to teach him
again to read and write. It was the enthusiasm of conviction which
enabled this poor, ignorant, despised Bedford tinker to write his
immortal allegory with such fascination that a whole world has read it.

Only thoughts that breathe in words that burn can kindle the spark
slumbering in the heart of another.

Rare consecration to a great enterprise is found in the work of the
late Francis Parkman. While a student at Harvard he determined to
write the history of the French and English in North America. With a
steadiness and devotion seldom equaled he gave his life, his fortune,
his all to this one great object. Although he had, while among the
Dakota Indians, collecting material for his history, ruined his health
and could not use his eyes more than five minutes at a time for fifty
years, he did not swerve a hair's breadth from the high purpose formed
in his youth, until