the schoolmistress. I did not say that I would not tell you something about them. Let me alone, and I shall talk to you more than I ought to, probably. We never tell our secrets to people that pump for them.

Books we talked about, and education. It was her duty to know something of these, and of course she did. Perhaps I was somewhat more learned than she, but I found that the difference between her reading and mine was like that of a man's and a woman's dusting a library. The man flaps about with a bunch of feathers; the woman goes to work softly, with a cloth. She does not raise half the dust, nor fill her own eyes and mouth with it, but she goes into all the corners and attends to the leaves as much as the covers. Books are the negative pictures of thought, and the more sensitive the mind that receives their images, the more nicely the finest lines are reproduced. A woman (of the right kind), reading after a man, follows him as Ruth followed the reapers of Boaz, and her gleanings are often the finest of the wheat.

But it was in talking of life that we came most nearly together. I thought I knew something about that, that I could speak or write about it somewhat to the purpose.

--

To take up this fluid earthly being of ours as a sponge sucks up water, to be steeped and soaked in its realities as a hide fills its pores lying seven years in a tan-pit, to have winnowed every wave of it as a mill-wheel works up the stream that runs through the flume upon its float-boards, to have curled up in the keenest spasms and flattened out in the laxest languors of this breathing-sickness which keeps certain parcels of matter uneasy for three or four-score years, to have fought all the devils and clasped all the angels of its delirium, — and then, just at the point when the white-hot passions have cooled down to cherry-red, plunge our experience into the ice-cold stream of some human language or other, one might think would end in a rhapsody with something of spring and temper in it. All this I thought my power and province.

The schoolmistress had tried life, too. Once in a while one meets with a single soul greater than all the living pageant that passes before it. As the pale astronomer sits in his study, with sunken eyes and thin fingers, and weighs Uranus or Nep

tune as in a balance, so there are meek, slight women who have weighed all this planetary life can offer, and hold it like a bauble in the palm of their slender hands. This was one of them. Fortune had left her, sorrow had baptized her; the routine of labor and the loneliness of almost friendless city-life were before her. Yet, as I looked upon her tranquil face, gradually regaining a cheerfulness that was often sprightly, as she became interested in the various matters we talked about and places we visited, I saw that eye and lip and every shifting lineament were made for love, unconscious of their sweet office as yet, and meeting the cold aspect of Duty with the natural graces which were meant for the reward of nothing less than the Great Passion.

I never spoke one word of love to the schoolmistress in the course of these pleasant walks. It seemed to me that we talked of everything but love on that particular morning. There was, perhaps, a little more timidity and hesitancy on my part than I have commonly shown among our people at the boarding-house. In fact, I considered myself the master at the breakfast-table; but, somehow, I could not command myself just then so well as usual. The truth is, I had secured a passage to Liverpool in the steamer which was to leave at noon, with the condition, however, of being released in case circumstances occurred to detain me. The schoolmistress knew nothing about all this, of course, as yet.

- –

It was on the Common that we were walking. The mall, or boulevard of our Common, you know, has various branches leading from it in different directions. One of these runs downward from opposite Joy Street southward across the whole length of the Common to Boylston Street. We called it the long path, and were fond of it.

I felt very weak indeed (though of a tolerably robust habit) as we came opposite the head of this patch on that morning. I think I tried to speak twice without making myself distinctly audible. At last I got out the question,- Will you take the long path with me? Certainly, said the schoolmistress, with much pleasure? Think, I said, before you answer; if you take the long path with me now, I shall interpret it that we are to part no more! The schoolmistress

stepped back with a sudden movement, as if an arrow had struck her.

One of the long granite blocks used as seats was hard by, the one you may still see close by the Gingko tree. Pray sit down, I said. No, no, she answered softly, I will walk the long path with you.

The old gentleman who sits opposite met us walking, arm in arm, about the middle of the long path, and said very charmingly: "Good morning, my dears!"

HOMER

HOMER. Author of the immortal "Iliad" and "Odyssey." The date of his birth is probably between one thousand and eight hundred years before Christ.

Plato called Homer the first of tragic poets, and such seems to have been the universal verdict of antiquity. Whether Homer himself wrote all that is commonly attributed to him, or not, the unity of the work is such as to preclude the idea that it is largely a compilation of poems by various authors.

(From the "ILIAD," Pope's translation)

THE CONTENTION OF ACHILLES AND AGAMEMNON

ACHILLES' wrath, to Greece the direful spring
Of woes unnumber'd, heavenly goddess, sing!
That wrath which hurled to Pluto's gloomy reign
The souls of mighty chiefs untimely slain;
Whose limbs unburied on the naked shore,
Devouring dogs and hungry vultures tore:

Since great Achilles and Atrides strove,

Such was the sovereign doom, and such the will of
Jove!

Declare, O Muse! in what ill-fated hour

Sprung the fierce strife, from what offended power

Latona's son a dire contagion spread,

And heap'd the camp with mountains of the dead:
The king of men his reverent priest defied,
And for the king's offense the people died.

For Chryses sought with costly gifts to gain
His captive daughter from the victor's chain.
Suppliant the venerable father stands;
Apollo's awful ensigns grace his hands:
By these he begs; and lowly bending down,
Extends the scepter and the laurel crown.
He sued to all, but chief implored for grace
The brother-kings, of Atreus' royal race.

"Ye king and warriors! may your vows be crowned
And Troy's proud walls lie level with the ground.
May Jove restore you when your toils are o'er
Safe to the pleasures of your native shore.
But, oh! relieve a wretched parent's pain,
And give Chryseïs to these arms again;
If mercy fail, yet let my presents move,
And dread avenging Phoebus, son of Jove."

The Greeks in shouts their joint assent declare,
The priest to reverence, and release the fair.
Not so Atrides: he, with kingly pride,
Repulsed the sacred sire, and thus replied:

"Hence on thy life, and fly these hostile plains,
Nor ask, presumptuous, what the king detains:
Hence, with thy laurel crown, and golden rod;
Nor trust too far those ensigns of thy god.
Mine is thy daughter, priest, and shall remain;
And prayers, and tears, and bribes, shall plead in vain.
Till time shall rifle every youthful grace,

And age dismiss her from my cold embrace.
In daily labors of the loom employ'd,

Or doom'd to deck the bed she once enjoy'd.
Hence then; to Argos shall the maid retire,
Far from her native soil or weeping sire."
The trembling priest along the shore return'd,
And in the anguish of a father mourn'd.
Disconsolate, not daring to complain,

Silent he wander'd by the sounding main;
Till, safe at distance, to his god he prays,
The god who darts around the world his rays.
"O Smintheus! sprung from fair Latona's line,
Thou guardian power of Cilla the divine,
Thou source of light! whom Tenedos adores,
And whose bright presence gilds thy Chrysa's shores,
If e'er with wreaths I hung thy sacred fane,
Or fed the flames with fat of oxen slain;
God of the silver bow! thy shafts employ,
Avenge thy servant, and the Greeks destroy."

Thus Chryses pray'd: - the favoring power attends, And from Olympus' lofty tops descends.

Bent was his bow, the Grecian hearts to wound;
Fierce as he moved, his silver shafts resound.
Breathing revenge, a sudden night he spread,
And gloomy darkness roll'd about his head.
The fleet in view, he twang'd his deadly bow,
And hissing fly the feather'd fates below.
On mules and dogs the infection first began;
And last, the vengeful arrows fix'd in man.
For nine long nights, through all the dusky air,
The pyres, thick-flaming, shot a dismal glare.
But ere the tenth revolving day was run,
Inspired by Juno, Thetis' godlike son
Convened to council all the Grecian train;
For much the goddess mourn'd her heroes slain.
The assembly seated, rising o'er the rest,
Achilles thus the king of men address'd:

"Why leave we not the fatal Trojan shore, And measure back the seas we cross'd before?

The plague destroying whom the sword would spare.
'Tis time to save the few remains of war.
But let some prophet, or some sacred sage,
Explore the cause of great Apollo's rage;
Or learn the wasteful vengeance to remove
By mystic dreams, for dreams descend from Jove.
If broken vows this heavy curse have laid,
Let altars smoke, and hecatombs be paid.