monly does; it is not a symbol to him of anything beyond, it never drives him back upon himself, and he never imposes upon it the color of his own moods. He looks upon field and mountain, islands and the sea for what they are, and his pictures are frankly objective. The fact only reinforces what has been said of his literary temper in general: that he was unwilling to distort any fact for purposes of art, and that he preferred to contemplate all things in their entirety. One of the most characteristic of his pieces is the "Woodman," where he succeeds in making poetry of science. The picture contrasts the seeming peace of the woods with the real struggle for life among the plants growing there-"vegetable king and priest and stripling." Your garden is a field of battle "Saunter and see roses bloom, That these might live, what thousands died! The ambulance barrow rolled all day; Your wife, the tender, kind, and gay, Donned her long gauntlets, caught the spud, And bathed in vegetable blood." Nature he is content to see as a plain factor in the sum of human existence; he writes of the frank pleasure it gives as a mere spectacle, and lets its cooling influence have room in his bosom. "To make this earth, our hermitage, He has a spot in his heart for men who see nature after this fashion without reading themselves into it, and he wrote many pleasant verses of the rovers who wander willy-nilly as the wind blows; his tramp songs and verses of travel: the Ganges, Song of the Road, Wandering Willie, and one or two vignettes from "Travels with a Donkey." One of the best is a call to life in the open that might be printed side by side with Marlowe's "The Passionate Shepherd to his Love": "I will make you brooches and toys for your delight Of bird song at morning and star-shine at night, I will make a palace fit for you and me Of green days in forests and blue days at sea." Another of his "possessions of the mind" is his love for books, and his gratefulness to them as companions faithful always. Half-hidden references to books are innumerable in his writings, sometimes in the mere word he uses to round out a thought. The trick is quite distinct from imitation; it is a sort of courtesy or sly humour. To a reader he seems appealing to memories held in common of days when the wisdom of books came upon him as a discovery. "See," he says, "here is another fact wrapped up in what your author said; we did not suspect it before." Or, "here is the old life over again, dressed in a modern coat." Most frequent of his silent allusions are those to the poetry of the classics. He dearly loves a simile in the classic manner, and one of his happiest pieces is that entitled "To a Gardiner," after the style of Martial. His love of the classics brings me to a final word touching his poems by way of an analogy, perhaps fanciful, perhaps just. Without insisting on the comparison, or attempting to reduce the two men concerned to a common denominator, one may say that the poet to whom Stevenson approaches nearest is Horace. Not that he repeats the Roman poet, but that his mental temperament toward modern life is in some aspects like the temper of Horace toward his contemporaries and his environment. They are alike in the capacity for enjoying and deserving manly friendships, and giving them delicate expression. Both, by a rare literary tact, succeeded in making poetry out of the sober reflection of middle life. Both delight in the conversation of equals, in the garden and the open air, in books. They prefer the freedom of the mind to wealth, and are persuaded that a man's possessions consist in what he can appreciate and enjoy. The chief message that can be gathered from either is a summons to live, to seize the best in each moment, and that moment spent, to leave it without regret save as it bequeathes a permanent pleasure to the memory. Supremely conscious of the present and of fact, they both keep the level with a fear of the exaggeration in lyric flights, and even in moments when an emotional word is on the lips, they write in airy style as if to assure us they have not lost their heads. Both men had a scholarly bent, both wrote essays of men and things, and both let the sub ject of love on the whole alone. And finally, both were masters of style, so that the ease and felicity with which they manage an unpretentious vocabulary and make finest literature out of what barely escapes ordinary talk is little short of a miracle. With Horace this was more of a main business than with Stevenson, whose verses seem almost an accident, and the Roman as a versifier attempted more. But he, like Stevenson, loved best and used chiefly one or two metres in which he had come to be perfectly at home. His experiments in metre were mainly in the earlier part of his work. It is easy to over-do a matter of this sort-though the list of similarities, and similarities that go deep, is by no means complete. But it would be futile to base upon them any conjecture as to the future place of Stevenson's verse. Indeed, whether he dies or lives faintly does not much concern us. It does concern us that he is one of that company of wit to which every man seeks admittance, where all, in greater or lesser degree, are friends. And every one who loves wise thought uttered simply and finds pleasure in hearing another say better what he himself has felt and would like to say, will keep Mr. Stevenson's "Underwoods" within the inner circle of his books. More than that, he will find their stray fancies pregnant, and take ship with the author for many a voyage of discovery on the seas of thought. George C. Hirst. AMERICA'S THANKSGIVING. Hallowed by long memorial, Cherished from days of meagre fame, Our fathers' ancient festival We keep in honor to Thy name, Though death in our high place hath wrought And smote our hearts with love and awe, We thank Thee for the lesson taught,— To breed our people to the Law,Law that Thy stern command hath made And on the erring nations laid. Though still Thou sufferest our hands. The pledge our rulers straitly swore, At home we render thanks to Thee. If in our vaulting pride of power Teach us to know thine awful might, For thy swift chastisement in sin, For thy strong comfort by the way, For newer hope that shines within, We offer on this holy day R. M. Green. Editorial. The Yale Bicentennial has come and gone. Yale had looked forward to it for a generation; and after three years of preparation, of the hard, conscientious work that only Yale men know how to do, the great event was celebrated with brilliant success. A distinguished company of guests did honor to the College and to her history, as she did honor to them in the bestowal of academic degrees. For four days Yale gave herself over to honest rejoicing in her past and present, while the world of Letters, Art, and Science rejoiced with her. And now that the shouting and the tumult has died, it is pleasant to reflect what was the meaning of this two hundredth anniversary. To Yale men, first of all, it meant the attainment of an ideal,—the ideal established by President Woolsey in his "memorable prayer" at the time of the third Jubilee, in 1850. The development through which the College has been passing in the last fifty years, the improvement and increase of her buildings, the enlargement of her money resources, the gradual revision of her method of study, seems to have culminated under the administration of President Hadley at the moment of the Bicentennial. Yale has reached a memorable stage in her growth, and with double fitness could mark the epoch by frank exultation; for the attainment of one goal only opens the path to another. As she girds herself, Yale may well rejoice in her strength for the race, and in the Light and Truth that guide her way. Nor was the Bicentennial of significance to Yale men alone. To the city, it meant increase of the dignity that belongs to the seat of a great University; to the State, the well-being of the College it is proud of; to the country, the prosperity of one of its foremost institutions for training public men; to foreign nations, an event so important in academic history that their leading Universities sent representatives to its celebration. And finally, to us of Harvard, Yale's Bicentennial meant and means perhaps more than most of us realize. To those who went down to New Haven last month, it meant a new conception of the men whom they had |