Will no one tell me what she sings?- Or is it some more humble lay, Whate'er the theme, the maiden sang CXXXIII. VALUE OF THE PRESENT. Ralph Waldo Emerson, 1803-1882, the celebrated essavist and philosopher, was born in Boston. His father was a Unitarian minister, and the son, after graduating at Harvard University, entered the ministry also, and took charge of a Unitarian congregation in Boston. His peculiar ideas on religious topics soon caused him to retire from the ministry, and he then devoted himself to literature. As a lecturer, Emerson attained a wide reputation, both in this country and in England, and he is considered as one of the most independent and original thinkers of the age. His style is brief and pithy, dazzling by its wit, but sometimes paradoxical. He wrote a few poems, but they are not generally admired, being didactic in style, bare, and obscure. Among his best known publications are his volume "Nature," and his lectures, "The Mind and Manners of the Nineteenth Century," "The Superlative in Manners and Literature," "English Character and Manners," and "The Conduct of Life." In 1850 appeared "Representative Men," embracing sketches of Plato, Swedenborg, Montaigne, Shakespeare, Napoleon, and Goethe. SUCH are the days,—the earth is the cup, the sky is the cover, of the immense bounty of nature which is offered us for our daily aliment; but what a force of illusion begins life with us, and attends us to the end! We are coaxed, flattered, and duped, from morn to eve, from birth to death; and where is the old eye that ever saw through the deception? The Hindoos represent Maia, the illusory energy of Vishnu, as one of his principal attributes. As if, in this gale of warring elements, which life is, it was necessary to bind souls to human life as mariners in a tempest lash themselves to the mast and bulwarks of a ship, and Nature employed certain illusions as her ties and straps, a rattle, a doll, an apple, for a child; skates, a river, a boat, a horse, a gun, for the growing boy;—and I will not begin to name those of the youth and adult, for they are numberless. Seldom and slowly the mask falls, and the pupil is permitted to see that all is one stuff, cooked and painted under many counterfeit appearances. Hume's doctrine was that the circumstances vary, the amount of happiness does not; that the beggar cracking fleas in the sunshine under a hedge, and the duke rolling by in his chariot, the girl equipped for her first ball, and the orator returning triumphant from the debate, had different means, but the same quantity of pleasant excitement. This element of illusion lends all its force to hide the values of present time. Who is he that does not always find himself doing something less than his best task? "What are you doing?" "Oh, nothing; I have been doing thus, or I shall do so or so, but now I am only-' Ah! poor dupe, will you never slip out of the web of the master juggler?-never learn that, as soon as the irrecoverable years have woven their blue glory between to-day and us, these passing hours shall glitter and draw us, as the wildest romance and the homes of beauty and poetry? How difficult to deal erect with them! The events they bring, their trade, entertainments, and gossip, their urgent work, all throw dust in the eyes and distract attention. He is a strong man who can look them in the eye, see through this juggle, feel their identity, and keep his own; who can know surely that one will be like another to the end of the world, nor permit love, or death, or politics, or money, war, or pleasure, to draw him from his task. The world is always equal to itself, and every man in moments of deeper thought is apprised that he is repeating the experiences of the people in the streets of Thebes or Byzantium. An everlasting Now reigns in nature, which hangs the same roses on our bushes which charmed the Roman and the Chaldean in their hanging gardens. "To what end, then," he asks, "should I study languages, and traverse countries, to learn so simple truths?" History of ancient art, excavated cities, recovery of books and inscriptions,—yes, the works were beautiful, and the history worth knowing; and academies convene to settle the claims of the old schools. What journeys and measurements,-Niebuhr and Müller and Layard,--to identify the plain of Troy and Nimroud town! And your homage to Dante costs you so much sailing; and to ascertain the discoverers of America needs as much voyaging as the discovery cost. Poor child! that flexible clay of which these old brothers molded their admirable symbols was not Persian, nor Memphian, nor Teutonic, nor local at all, but was common lime and silex and water, and sunlight, the heat of the blood, and the heaving of the lungs; it was that clay which thou heldest but now in thy foolish hands, and threwest away to go and seek in vain in sepulchers, mummy pits, and old bookshops of Asia Minor, Egypt, and England. It was the deep to-day which all men scorn; the rich poverty, which men hate; the populous, all-loving solitude, which men quit for the tattle of towns. He lurks, he hides,—he who is success, reality, joy, and power. One of the illusions is that the present hour is not the critical, decisive hour. Write it on your heart that every day is the best day in the year. No man has learned anything rightly, until he knows that every day is Doomsday. 'Tis the old secret of the gods that they come in low disguises. 'Tis the vulgar great who come dizened with gold and jewels. Real kings hide away their crowns in their wardrobes, and affect a plain and poor exterior. In the Norse legend of our ancestors, Odin dwells in a fisher's hut, and patches a boat. In the Hindoo legends, Hari dwells a peasant among peasants. In the Greek legend, Apollo lodges with the shepherds of Admetus; and Jove liked to rusticate among the poor Ethiopians. So, in our history, Jesus is born in a barn, and his twelve peers are fishermen. 'Tis the very principle of science that Nature shows herself best in leasts; 't was the maxim of Aristotle and Lucretius; and, in modern times, of Swedenborg and of Hahnemann. The order of changes in the egg determines the age of fossil strata. So it was the rule of our poets, in the legends of fairy lore, that the fairies largest in power were the least in size. In the Christian graces, humility stands highest of all, in the form of the Madonna; and in life, this is the secret of the wise. We owe to genius always the same debt, of lifting the curtain from the common, and showing us that divinities are sitting disguised in the seeming gang of gypsies and peddlers. In daily life, what distinguishes the master is the using those materials he has, instead of looking about for what are more renowned, or what others have used well. "A general," said Bonaparte, "always has troops enough, if he only knows how to employ those he has, and bivouacs with them." Do not refuse the employment which the hour brings you, for one more ambitious. The highest heaven of wisdom is alike near from every point, and thou must find it, if at all, by methods native to thyself alone. NOTES.-The Brahmanic religion teaches a Trinity, of which Vishnu is the savior of mankind. Thebes, the ancient capital of Upper Egypt, was at its most flourishing period about 1500 B. C. Byzantium was an important Greek city during the second and third centuries B. C. Niebuhr (b. 1776, d. 1831), Müller (b. 1797, d. 1840), and Layard (b. 1817, d. 1894), are celebrated archeologists. first two were Germans, and the last an Englishman. The CXXXIV. HAPPINESS. Alexander Pope, 1688-1744, was the shining literary light of the socalled Augustan reign of Queen Anne, the poetry of which was distinguished by the highest degree of polish and elegance. Pope was the son of a retired linen draper, who lived in a pleasant country house near the Windsor Forest. He was so badly deformed that his life was "one long disease;" he was remarkably precocious, and had a most intelligent face, with great, flaming, tender eyes. In disposition Pope was the reverse of admirable. He was extremely sensitive, petulant, and supercilious; fierce and even coarse in his attacks on opponents; boastful of his self-acquired wealth and of his intimacy with the nobility. The great redeeming feature of his character was his tender devotion to his aged parents. As a poet, however, Pope challenges the highest admiration. At the age of sixteen he commenced his "Pastorals," and when only twenty-one published his "Essay on Criticism," pronounced "the finest piece of argumentative and reasoning poetry in the English language." His reputation was now firmly established, and his literary activity ceased only at his death; although, during the latter portion of his life, he was so weak physically that he was unable to dress himself or even to rise from bed without assistance. Pope's great admiration was Dryden, whose style he studied and copied. He lacks the latter's strength, but in elegance and polish he remains unequaled. Pope's most remarkable work is "The Rape of the Lock;" his greatest, the translation into English verse of Homer's "Iliad" and "Odyssey." His "Epistle of Eloisa to Abelard," "The Dunciad," and the "Essay on Man" are also famous productions. He published an edition of "Shakespeare," which was awaited with great curiosity, and received with equal disappointment. During the three years following its appearance, he united with Swift and Arbuthnot in writing the "Miscellanies," an extensive satire on the abuses of learning and the extravagances of philosophy. His "Epistles," addressed to various distinguished men, and covering a period of four years, were copied after those of Horace; they were marked by great clearness, neatness of diction, and good sense, and by Pope's usual elegance and grace. His "Imitations of Horace" was left unfinished at his death. The following selection is an extract from the "Essay on Man:" OH, sons of earth! attempt ye still to rise, |