end that justifies itself. Until lately the best thing that I was able to think of in favor of civilization, apart from blind acceptance of the order of the universe, was that it made possible the artist, the poet, the philosopher, and the man of science. But I think that is not the greatest thing. Now I believe that the greatest thing is a matter that comes directly home to us all. When it is said that we are too much occupied with the means of living to live, I answer that the chief work of civilization is just that it makes the means of living more complex; that it calls for great and combined intellectual efforts, instead of simple, uncoördinated ones, in order that the crowd may be fed and clothed and housed and moved from place to place. Because more complex and intense intellectual efforts mean a fuller and richer life. They mean more life. Life is an end in itself, and the only question as to whether it is worth living is whether you have enough of it.

I will add but a word. We are all very near despair. The sheathing that floats us over its waves is compounded of hope, faith in the unexplainable worth and sure issue of effort, and the deep, subconscious content which comes from the exercise of our powers. In the words of a touching negro song: "Sometimes I's up, sometimes I's down, sometimes I's almost to the groun'," but these thoughts have carried me, as I hope they will carry the young men who hear me, through long years of doubt, self-distrust and solitude. They do now, for, although it might seem that the day of trial was over, in fact it is renewed each day. The kindness which you have shown me makes me bold in happy moments to believe that the long and passionate struggle has not been quite in vain. [Applause.]

JULIA WARD HOWE

TRIBUTE TO OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES

Speech of Julia Ward Howe at the breakfast in celebration of the seventieth birthday of Oliver Wendell Holmes, given by the publishers of the Atlantic Monthly, Boston, Mass., December 3, 1870. Mrs. Howe sat at the right of Mr. Howells, then the editor of the Atlantic, who presided at one of the tables, with Mr. Emerson on his left. Dr. Holmes sat on the right of Mr. Houghton, who presided at the other end of the table, with Mrs. Stowe on his left. Mrs. Howe was called up by the toast, "The girls we have not left behind us.'

LADIES AND GENTLEMEN:-One word in courtesy I must say in replying to so kind a mention as that which is made, not only of me, but those of my sex who are so happy as to be present here to-day. I think, in looking on this scene, of a certain congress which took place in Paris more than a year ago, and it was called a congress of literary people, gens de lettres. When I heard that this was to take place I immediately bestirred myself to attend its sittings and went at once to the headquarters to find how I might do so. I then learned to my great astonishment that no women were to be included among these gens de lettres, that is, literary people. [Laughter.] Now, we have thought it a very modest phrase sometimes to plead that, whatever women may not be, they are people. [Laughter and applause.] And it would seem to-day that they are recognized as literary people, and I am very glad that you gentlemen have found room for the sisterhood to-day, and have found room to place them so numerously here, and I must say that to my eyes the banquet looks very much more cheerful than it would without them. [Applause.] It looks to me as though it had all blossomed out under a new social influence, and beside each dark stem I see a rose. [Laughter and ap

plause.] But I must say at once that I came here entirely unprovided with a speech, and, not dreaming of one, yet I came provided with something. I considered myself invited as a sort of grandmother—indeed, I am, and I know a grandmother is usually expected to have something in her pocket. And I have a very modest tribute to the illustrious person whom we are met to-day to honor. With your leave I will read it.

Thou metamorphic god!

Who mak'st the straight Olympus thy abode,
Hermes to subtle laughter moving,

Apollo with serener loving,

Thou demi-god also!

Who dost all the powers of healing know;

Thou hero who dost wield

The golden sword and shield,—

Shield of a comprehensive mind,

And sword to wound the foes of human kind;

Thou man of noble mold!

Whose metal grows not cold

Beneath the hammer of the hurrying years;

A fiery breath doth blow

Across its fervid glow,

And still its resonance delights our ears;

Loved of thy brilliant mates,

Relinquished to the fates,

Whose spirit music used to chime with thine,
Transfigured in our sight,

Not quenched in death's dark night,

They hold thee in companionship divine.

O autocratic muse!

Soul-rainbow of all hues,

Packed full of service are thy bygone years;

Thy wingèd steed doth fly

Across the starry sky,

Bearing the lowly burthens of thy tears.

I try this little leap,

Wishing that from the deep,

I might some pearl of song adventurous bring.
Despairing, here I stop,

And my poor offering drop,

Why stammer I when thou art here to sing?

CLARK HOWELL

OUR REUNITED COUNTRY

Speech of Clark Howell at the Peace Jubilee banquet in Chicago, October 19, 1898, in response to the toast, "Our Reunited Country: North and South."

MR. TOASTMASTER, AND MY FELLOW COUNTRYMEN:-In the mountains of my State, in a country remote from the quickening touch of commerce, and railroads and telegraphs-so far removed that the sincerity of its rugged people flows unpolluted from the spring of nature-two vine-covered mounds, nestling in the solemn silence of a country churchyard, suggest the text of my response to the sentiment to which I am to speak tonight. A serious text, Mr. Toastmaster, for an occasion like this, and yet out of it there is life and peace and hope and prosperity, for in the solemn sacrifice of the voiceless grave can the chief lesson of the Republic be learned, and the destiny of its real mission be unfolded. So bear with me while I lead you to the rust-stained slab, which for a third of a century -since Chickamauga-has been kissed by the sun as it peeped over the Blue Ridge, melting the tears with which the mourning night had bedewed the inscription:

Here lies a Confederate soldier.
He died for his country.

The September day which brought the body of this mountain hero to that home among the hills which had smiled upon his infancy, been gladdened by his youth, and strengthened by his manhood, was an ever memorable one with the sorrowing concourse of friends and neighbors who followed his shot-riddled body to the grave. And of that number no man gainsaid the honor of his death, lacked full loyalty to the flag for which he

fought, or doubted the justice of the cause for which he gave his life.

Thirty-five years have passed; another war has called its roll of martyrs; again the old bell tolls from the crude latticed tower of the settlement church; another great pouring of sympathetic humanity, and this time the body of a son, wrapped in the Stars and Stripes, is lowered to its everlasting rest beside that of the father who sleeps in the Stars and Bars.

There were those there who stood by the grave of the Confederate hero years before, and the children of those were there, and of those present no one gainsaid the honor of the death of this hero of El Caney, and none were there but loved, as patriots alone can love, the glorious flag that enshrines the people of a common country as it enshrouds the form that will sleep forever in its blessed folds. And on this tomb will be written:

Here lies the son of a Confederate soldier.

He died for his country.

And so it is that between the making of these two graves human hands and human hearts have reached a solution of the vexed problem that has baffled human will and human thought for three decades. Sturdy sons of the South have said to their brothers of the North that the people of the South had long since accepted the arbitrament of the sword to which they had appealed. And likewise the oft-repeated message has come back from the North that peace and good will reigned, and that the wounds of civil dissension were but as sacred memories. Good fellowship was wafted on the wings of commerce and development from those who had worn the blue to those who had worn the gray. Nor were these messages delivered in vain, for they served to pave the way for the complete and absolute elimination of the line of sectional differences by the only process by which such a result was possible. The sentiment of the great majority of the people of the South was rightly spoken in the message of the immortal Hill, and in the burning eloquence of Henry Grady-both Georgians-the record of whose blessed work for the restoration of peace between the sections becomes a national heritage, and whose names are stamped in