had liberty to study geography, and were ruled
by politicians instead of priests?

* * * * *

'May I ask your candid opinion of the great moral effect of so many
holidays on an uneducated population?' inquired Caper one day of
Rocjean, while speaking of the festivals of the Papal States.

'Certainly you may! My opinion is that the head of the state, carrying
out the gigantic policy of his predecessors, believes: 'That that
government governs best that gives the greatest amount of fiddling to
the greatest amount of its children.''

'But,' objected Caper, 'I don't see where the fiddling comes in.'

'In the churches!' sententiously remarked the Sieur de Rocjean.

'Oh,' quoth Caper, 'I was thinking of festivals.'

Reader, do you think likewise, when you are with the Romans.

THOUGHT.

Life is but an outer wall
Round the realm of thought unseen;
Ah! to let the drawbridge fall
Leading to that magic hall!
Ah! to let creation in.

Kings that with the world contended,
What remains of all the splendid
Misery their hands have wrought?
Hushed and silent now the thunder
They have made the world rock under;
But the ages bow in wonder
To a thought.

Ah! the many tragic parts
That are played by human hearts
In that golden drama, fame.
These are minor actors truly,
That should not be seen unduly,
Letting idle recollection
Trifle with the play's perfection,
Letting an unwritten anguish
Make the brilliant pageant languish.
Alas for every hero's story,
That the woes which chiefly make it
Must surge from the heart, or break it,
And show the stuff that fashions glory.

Pyramids and templed wonders
At the best are wise men's blunders;
The subtle spell of thought and fancy,
It is Nature's necromancy.
In that land where all things real
Blossom into the ideal,
In that realm of hidden powers
Moving this gross world of ours,
He that would inherit fame,
Let him on the magic wall
Of some bright, ideal hall
Write his name;
He and glory then shall be
Comrades through eternity.

While the deeds of mighty kings
Sleep the sleep of meaner things,
Thoughts enclosed in words of granite
Revolutionize our planet.
And, itself a new creation,
Many an enchanted tune,
As of nightingale's in June,
Comes floating down in long vibra