tivate sick headache around the
base-burner--there's a life that ye never guess!

But Charlotte knew the clouds by night and the swift-sailing moon that
gave just one peep out and disappeared. She knew the rifts where the stars
shone through, and out alone in the breeze that blew away her cares she
lifted her voice in thankfulness for the joy of mixing with the elements,
and that her spirit was one with the boisterous winds of heaven.

People who live in beautiful, quiet valleys, where roses bloom all the
year through, are not necessarily happy.

Southern California--the Garden of Eden of the world--evolves just as many
cases per capita of melancholia as bleak, barren Maine. Wild, rocky,
forbidding Scotland has produced more genius to the acre than beautiful
England: and I have found that sailor Jack, facing the North Atlantic
winter storms, year after year, is a deal jollier companion than the
Florida cracker whose chief adversary is the mosquito.

Charlotte Bronte wrote three great books: "Jane Eyre," "Shirley" and
"Villette." From the lonely, bleak parsonage on that stony hillside she
sent forth her swaying filament of thought and lassoed the world. She
lived to know that she had won. Money came to her, all she needed, honors,
friends and lavish praise. She was the foremost woman author of her day.
Her name was on every tongue. She had met the world in fair fight; without
patrons, paid advocates, or influential friends she made her way to the
very front. Her genius was acknowledged. She accomplished all that she set
out to do and more--far more. The great, the learned, the titled, the
proud--all those who reverence the tender heart and far-reaching
mind--acknowledged her as queen.

So why prate of her sorrows! Did she not work them up into art? Why weep
over her troubles when these were the weapons with which she won? Why sit
in sackcloth on account of her early death, when it is appointed unto all
men once to die, and with her the grave was swallowed up in victory?

CHRISTINA ROSSETTI

My life is but a working-day,
Whose tasks are set aright:
A while to work, a while to pray,
And then a quiet night.
And then, please God, a quiet night
Where Saints and Angels walk in white.
One dreamless sleep from work and sorrow,
But reawakening on the morrow.
--_In Patience_

[Illustration: CHRISTINA ROSSETTI]

As a study in heredity, the Rossetti fa