"Finely expressed," said Mr. Pickwick.

"All point, sir, all point; but you shall hear Mrs. Leo Hunter repeat it. She can do justice to it, sir.” -Charles Dickens.

THE ELF-CHILD.

Little Orphant Annie's come to our house to stay, An' wash the cups an' saucers up, an' brush the crumbs away,

An' shoo the chickens off the porch, an' dust the hearth an' sweep,

An' make the fire, an' bake the bread, an' earn her board an' keep;

An' all us other children, when the supper things is

done,

We set around the kitchen fire an' has the mostest

fun

A-list'nin' to the witch tales 'at Annie tells about, An' the gobble-uns 'at gits you ef you don't watch

out!

Onct they was a little boy, wouldn't say his pray'rs―

An' when he went to bed at night, away upstairs, His mamma heerd him holler, an' his daddy heerd him

bawl,

An' when they turn't the kivvers down he wasn't there at all!

An' they seeked him in the rafter-room, an' cubbyhole an' press,

An' seeked him up the chimney-flue, au' everywheres,

I guess,

But all they ever found was thist his pants an' roundabout!

An' the gobble-uns 'll git you ef you don't watch out!

An' one time a little girl 'ud allus laugh an' grin, An' make fun of ever one an' all her blood-an-kin, An' onct, when there "was company," an' ole folks was there.

She mocked 'em an' shocked 'em, an' said she didn't care!

An' thist as she kicked her heels, an' turnt to run an' hide,

They was two great, big, Black Things a-standin' by her side,

An' they snatched her through the ceilin' 'fore she knowed what she's about!

An' the gobble-uns 'll git you ef you don't watch out!

An' little Orphant Annie says when the blaze is blue, An' the lamp wick sputters, an' the wind goes Woo-00!

An' you hear the crickets quit, an' the moon is gray,

An' the lightnin' bugs in dew is all squenched away— You better mind your parents, an' your teachers, fond an' dear,

An' cherish them 'at loves you, an' dry the orphant's tear,

An' he'p the po' an' needy ones 'at clusters all about, Er the gobble-uns 'll git you ef you don't watch out! James Whitcomb Riley.

By permission of the Bowen-Merrill Pub. Co., Indianapolis.

MACBETH AND THE DAGGER.

Is this a dagger which I see before me, The handle toward my hand?

thee;

Come, let me clutch

I have thee not, and yet I see thee still.
Art thou not, fatal vision, sensible

To feeling as to sight? . . . . Or art thou but
A dagger of the mind,

a false creation,

Proceeding from the heat-oppressed brain?....
I see thee yet, in form as palpable

As this which now I draw.

Thou marshal'st me the way that I was going;
And such an instrument I was to use.

Mine eyes are made the fools o' the other senses
Or else worth all the rest...

....

I see thee still;

And on thy blade and dudgeon gouts of blood,
Which was not so before...

There's no such thing:

It is the bloody business which informs

Thus to mine eyes. . . . Now o'er the one half world Nature seems dead, and wicked dreams abuse

The curtain'd sleeper; . . . . witchcraft celebrates
Pale Hecate's offerings; and wither'd murder, . .
Alarum'd by his sentinel, the wolf,

Whose howl's his watch, thus with his stealthy pace,
With Tarquin's ravishing strides, toward his design
Moves like a ghost. ... .

Thou sure and firm set earth,

Hear not my steps, which way they walk, for fear
Thy very stones prate of my whereabout,
And take the present horror from the time,

Which now suits with it. . . . . Whiles I threat, he lives.
Words to the heat of deeds too cold breath gives.
[A bell rings.

I go

and it is done.

...

The bell invites me

Hear it not, Duncan: for it is a knell
That summons thee to heaven... or to hell.

Shakespeare.

HAMLET.

To

To

Hamlet! Wonderful art of the magician! sway with a shadow a shadow's love, a shadow's grief, a shadow's intellect and the madness of a shade! make this phantasm not only what it is as such, but to make its phantom mind a problem forever. For

this Hamlet never was.

The past held him not nor shall we meet him "in the court of heaven." He mouldered with the creative brain under the chancel of Stratford Church.

But, after all, is he unreal? What is reality in such cases! The fleshliest incubus is real: the grossest prince who lives and dies is an actual being. But for this earth his reality ends with his death. Seldom does a vibration from him reach beyond his generation. A few years and no one hears him. As well lay the ear over his grave to listen for his soliloquies. Not so this ideal prince. He stands apparelled in imperial robes-not a statue-but one of each successive generation; not shunned like the Wandering Jew, but loved and obeyed and pitied. He has no successor. His kingdom widens as years go on. He sets up his monarchy in empires and republics alike; in Indian cities to survive their gods; in Australasian continents and islands. Ships gliding over lonely seas hold him. He sways the mind in the long winter of Arctic horror and in African deserts.

Is he not then a most enduring reality? No other character in literature has this omnipresence and immortality. Why is this so? It is because "Hamlet" is man, and he is every man. He is kept alive by all men, by that self-love and recognition which yearns. for and claims immortality as the heritage of every human soul. We see in him our inmost parts, our most evanescent spiritualism; our most enduring attributes. He is our life. We come face to face with life. There it is all stretched before us, so beautiful to see that we cannot think it has an end. From the very dew and flowers of spring exhales a poison which blasts us forever.

Our great purposes are beaten down by some malign force; our wills become infirm; we resolve that we will act the part of men, but fail to do it-and we are "Hamlet."

We are snatched up from the accordant masses of humanity, and are hurried to and fro as if the powers

of the air were making their devilish sport v.th us in the coldest regions of outer darkness-and we are "Hamlet."

Love, Paphian at once and pure, comes toward us like a dawn, garlanded and bearing wreaths of all the flowers. But her face wans, her mind fades darkling away; the flowers fade, and she hands us fennel and rue rosemaries for remembrance, and pansies for thought all withered, and we are "Hamlet."

And then we change. Melancholy claims us. We make delusions our familiars, and our home is darkness. Life ends with no purpose accomplished-ourselves a riddle-and we are "Hamlet" to the grave. -Ex-Gov. Davis of Minnesota.

MIRACLES.

"An egg a chicken! don't tell me!
For didn't I break an egg to see?
There was nothing inside but a yellow ball
With a bit of mucilage round it all.
Neither beak nor bill, nor toe, nor quill,
Not even a feather to hold it together;
Not a sign of life could any one see.
An egg a chicken! You can't fool me!

"An egg a chicken! Didn't I pick up the shell That had held the chick, so they said?

And didn't I work half a day

To pack him in where he wouldn't stay?

Let me try as I please with squeeze upon squeeze; There is scarce space to meet his head and his feet, No room for any of the rest of him, so

That

egg never held that chicken, I know!"

Mamma heard the logic of her little man,
Felt his trouble and helped him as mothers can,