beauty is beyond words. Prom my feet 'across field and valley
and hilltop extends a glittering pathway of gold to the moon. It
is like looking out to sea.
I have passed the evening with Samuel Longfellow's life of the
poet Longfellow, a delightful book full of inspiration and help
for every young man. What impresses me more than all else is
the thought that his was a success without a halt. Others have
devoted themselves from childhood to an idea, but who else has
had circumstances bend to his every wish ? who else has reached
the top without weary disheartening days of unrequited toil ? His
college days had scarcely ended; he had hardly begun to look
anxiously out into the world and the future, ere he was called by
his Alma male, to one of the most honorable positions at her com
mand. Three years in Europe—Paris, Madrid, The Alhambra,
Rome, Florence, Venice—meeting Lafayette and the other lions
of the old world; living for weeks in close fellowship with Irving
and Everett; making the acqu'antance and winning the friendship
of those who were to become the intellectual leaders of America,
what youth of nineteen could ask for more than this ? and then
professor in a college of high rank at twenty-two ! Hardly had
the first glow of his early experience as a leader of young men
began to dim when the offer came of the Harvard chair; Harvard
then the intellectual center of the new world. Again in Europe
revelling in its treasures of literature and art, and then years when
every day he dined and throught with Sumner, and Felton, and
Emerson, and Hawthorne, the giants of a golden age. His tasks
as revealed by his journal seem almost beyond belief, his literary
successes seem marvellous, his friendships ideal. He had genius,
who doubts it ? he had the charm of a personality such as is
granted to but few men in a generation, but what earnest, thofight
ful young man could not accomplish wonders with such oppor
tunities' and such and environment ?
Fun. i. February brings cheer. The farmer repeats the old
rhyme :
"To-morrow is Candlemas day
Half your grain, half your hay;"
but he is merry nevertheless. " A short month," he says,
" and March is the first month 'of spring." February, like all
the months, has its own peculiarities and charms. It is the
borderland on which are fought the first feeble skirmishes. with
Winter. Till now he has ruled supreme, but with the second
The Free Lance
[ FEBRUARY,