that
Inmost Self is a viper's sting. To satisfy the demands of the God within
is the poet's prayer.

What doubts beset, what taunting fears surround, what crouching sorrows
lie in wait, what dead hopes drag, what hot desires pursue, and what
kindly lights do beckon on--ah! "'tis we musicians know."

Thackeray came to America to get a pot of money, and was in a fair way of
securing it, when he chanced to pick up a paper in which a steamer was
announced to sail that evening for England. A wave of homesickness swept
over the big boy--he could not stand it. He hastily packed up his effects
and without saying good-by to any one, and forgetting all his
engagements, he hastened to the dock, leaving this note for the kindest
of kind friends: "Good-by, Fields; good-by, Mrs. Fields--God bless
everybody, says W.M.T."

CHARLES DICKENS

I hope for the enlargement of my mind, and for the improvement of
my understanding. If I have done but little good, I trust I have
done less harm, and that none of my adventures will be other than
a source of amusing and pleasant recollection. God bless you all!

--_Pickwick_

[Illustration: CHARLES DICKENS]

The path of progress in certain problems seems barred as
by a flaming sword.

More than a thousand years before Christ, an Arab chief asked, "If a man
die shall he live again?" Every man who ever lived has asked the same
question, but we know no more today about the subject than did Job.

There are one hundred five boy babies born to every one hundred girls.
The law holds in every land where vital statistics have been kept; and
Sairey Gamp knew just as much about the cause why as Brown-Sequard,
Pasteur, Agnew or Austin Flint.

There is still a third question that every parent, since Adam and Eve,
has sought to solve: "How can I educate this child so that he will attain
eminence?" And even in spite of shelves that groan beneath tomes and
tomes, and advice from a million preachers, the answer is: Nobody knows.

"There is a divinity that shapes our ends,
Rough-hew them how we will."

Moses was sent adrift, but the tide carried him into power. The brethren
of Joseph "deposited him into a cavity," but you can not dispose of
genius that way!

Demosthenes was weighted (or blessed) with every disadvantage;
Shakespeare got into difficulty with a woman eight years his senior,
stole deer, ran away, and--became the very first among English poets;
Erasm