cause. He had opposed slavery before the war, and he had been through the war itself. He was a man of action and of compromise. He had had no academic education. His provocation to intemperate speech seems as great as Sumner's. Of slavery itself, in almost his last words, he spoke thus "Oneeighth of the whole population were colored slaves, not distributed generally over the Union, but localized in the southern part of it. "These slaves constituted a peculiar and powerful interest. All knew that this interest was somehow the cause of the war. To strengthen, perpetuate and extend this interest was the object for which the insurgents would rend the Union, even by war, while the government claimed no right to do more than to restrict the territorial enlargement of it. "Neither party expected for the war the magnitude or the duration. which it has already attained. Neither anticipated that the cause of the conflict might cease with, or even before, the conflict itself should cease. Each looked for an easier triumph, and a result less fundamental and astounding. "Both read the same Bible, and pray to the same God; and each invokes His aid against the other. "It may seem strange that any man would dare to ask a just God's assistance in wringing their bread from the sweat of other men's faces; but let us judge not, that we be not judged." Then follows the passage which must be so familiar to you that I dare not repeat it, though it illustrates better than the words which I have quoted the temperance of Mr. Lincoln. A generation has passed since Sumner and Lincoln spoke, and history has had a chance to judge them. Allowance must be made, of course, for the fact that Lincoln's rhetoric suits the present taste better than Sumner's. But the difference between them is not merely one of rhetoric. There can be no doubt whose words were the more temperate, and therefore the more truthful. There is no doubt that Lincoln's temperance did not hinder vigorous and successful action. The secret of his temperance is found in his own comment on the speech from which I have quoted, “It is a truth which I thought needed to be told, and, as whatever of humiliation there is in it falls most directly on myself, 1 thought others might afford for me to tell it." Humility is a virtue akin to temperance. If, in the case of a magnanimous man, speaking on a great moral question, and with much provocation given him, intemperate speech offends us, how much greater is the offense when the intemperance is manifested in academic discussion. Is not Lincoln's example one to be followed? I have tried to show that Truth is an appropriate motto for students and scholars, for this and for any college. I have tried to point out the danger to truth from compromise, from intolerance, from dependence, from haste, from intemperance. The love of truth and of sound learning, which is uncompromising and yet tolerant, independent, careful, accurate and temperate, is confined to no country or race. Its home is in this country, as well as elsewhere. Harvard is its monument. But that we of Harvard may not boast ourselves too much concerning our own foundation, we may take an example from the neighboring colony of Plymouth. There William Bradford, by birth a yeoman, by trade a silk-weaver, by genius and opportunity a statesman, wrote thus a very few years after Harvard college was founded: "Though I am growne aged, yet I have had a longing desire to see with my own eyes, something of that most ancient language and holy tongue, in which the Law, and oracles of God were write; and in which God and angels, spake to the holy patriarchs, of old time and what names were given to things from the creation. And though I cannot attain to much herein, yet I am refreshed, to have seen some glimpse hereof; (as Moses saw the land of Canaan afar off) my aim and desire is, to see how the words and phrases lye in the holy text; and to discern somewhat of the same for my own content." The place of Hebrew in liberal education today may not be precisely what it was in the time of Bradford, but his love of truth and sound learning is that which should inspire every college-bred man. Francis Cabot Lowell. ON A CERTAIN RETAINING-WALL. The quiet scholar's meditative mind A locked gate, leading-heaven knows to what ; We who have set it as a text for youth? Not yet. There is another sign, in sooth: Above that gateway shines our motto Truth; The gate is barred! Then why not grave the jeer, J. B. Fletcher. THE TOWER OF SILENCE; A PLAY.* 66 Das kommt von Alleinsein. Wer allein ist, der muss viel leiden von den Andern.” GERHART HAUPTMANN: Einsame Menschen “Über das Geheimnis seines Leben soll man nicht weinen-das Gefuhl davon ist über allem Schmerz." GEORG HIRSCHFELD: Agnes Jordan Peter Kingdon. Lydia Kingdon, his wife. The Persons. Mrs. Edward Walcott, her mother. Charles Fairfax. A Man Servant. The play passes at the present day at MR. KINGDON's house in a suburb of a large American city. (The scene is a circular-shaped room at the top of a tower at Kingdon Court. The first thing one notes is a great dome, occupying about threequarters of the ceiling. At the bottom of the dome are visible the tops of rolling shutters. The rest of the ceiling is beamed in heavy oak, and the walls are also oak. The pictures are photographs of Holbeins, Dürers, Rembrandts, Velasquezes, and of Titian's "Man with the Glove,” “The Sistine Madonna," and Leonardo's "Head of Christ." At right is a door, and near it are two electric buttons. At left is another door. There are easy chairs and in the centre, underneath the dome, is a round table set for dinner. The table has been cleared, only the coffee cups remain, and the man is no longer waiting. In the centre of the table is a large bowl of vrolets.) (Discover PETER and LYDIA KINGDON. PETER KINGDON is seated at the end of the table to the audience's left. He is twenty-six, thin, light-haired, with angular features and long delicate hands, altogether with what Pater *Copyright applied for. All rights reserved. would have called "ascesis." He is not, however, too great an ascetic to have an admirably cut evening suit. In his face there is a suggestion of great sadness. Yet melancholy, for the moment, is left far behind. His coffee cup is pushed back, his left arm is on the table, with his hand supporting his head. To his wedding ring he is not accustomed, as he is wriggling it nervouslyon his finger. He is gazing with intense, almost dog-like devotion,with selfcomplacent bliss at his wife opposite him. LYDIA is twenty-four, and dark, her Oriental beauty thrown into relief by a vivid yellow gown clearly from Paris. She wears a long, turquoise necklace. With her chair pushed back sideways and her feet stretched out before her, she sits there, correct, cold, a little bored. And yet underneath her correctness and boredom, she has for the observer with her Oriental appearance, an Oriental longing for somewhat sensual love. Altogether she may be called Mona Lisa without the intellect, and with a dash of Cleopatra.) PETER:(with the cager conventionality of a lover.) Dearest Lydia, do you love me very, very much? LYDIA: (correctly, but without passion.) Peter, of course I love you. What absurd questions you do pop at one. For once in a way it is all very well, but (with a laugh) for the thousandth time! On the first night after one's honeymoon, something really might be taken for granted. PETER The first night after our honeymoon. That is just it. Dearest, think, here we are for the first time at our dinner table-our dinner table— mark the our! That we have never had before, not even in our honeymoon. We had all the joy and the glory, but we had it at other people's tables, at anybody's table. But now, Lydiachen, we have our own. LYDIA: (her eyes straying around the room.) Our own! Are we always going to dine up here? It really looks rather odd-and underneath the stars! PETER: Not always, of course, you silly child! We have the great, normal place down stairs. But tonight, nothing normal, surely. Tonight, believe me, darling, there was no other place in the whole world but here, underneath the stars,-Tonight! Think what tonight is. Our first evening in our |