ome sailor from his oar
And drink his weary life;
O fear this chance of strife!
Or what may be
Else, dead monotony.
Give o'er thy headlong haste, dwell here with me,
Why lose thyself in the vast, hungry sea?

These thoughts I cast into the wiser stream,
And lay and heard it run the hours away;
And then above
The beauty and the peace,
It sang of love;
And in that glad release
I knew my thoughts had run beyond my dream,
Had seen the laboring river and the bay.
"'Tis joy to run!
Else life would ne'er be done,
I ne'er should know the triumphing of death,
Nor its revealing;
Nor the eager feeling
Of fuller life, the promise of the breath
That fleets the open sea:
All this was given to me
Once as I won
My first great leap; the sun
I knew my king, and laughed, and since that day
I run and sing; he wills, and I obey."

EDITORIAL NOTES.

OPTIMISM, REAL AND FALSE.

Much has been written of late about the pessimistic spirit pervading
modern reformative literature. When an earnest writer presents a gloomy
picture of life as it really is, he is frequently judged by that most
shallow of all standards, "Is it pleasing or amusing?" His fidelity to
the ideal of truth is often overlooked or dismissed with a flippant
word. We all know that great and dangerous evils exist and menace our
civilization. They are growing under the fostering influence of the
"conspiracy of silence"; yet we are seriously informed that we must not
expose them to view; that there is so much tragedy in real life that
society should not be annoyed by sombre pictures in fiction or the
drama. "Prophesy to us smooth things or hold thy peace," is the tenor of
much of the criticism of the hour. Optimism is at present a popular
Shibboleth, hence many thoughtlessly echo the cry against every exposure
of growing evils. Writers who are popularly known as optimists belong
mainly to three classes. Those who after a general survey of life become
thorough pessimists, believing that the social, economic, religious, and
ethical problems can never be justly or equitably solved; that in the
weary age long struggle of right against might, of justice against
greed, of liberty against slavery, of truth against error, the baser
will win the battle, because there is more evil than good present in the
world, and therefore, i