Even the town, whose ugliness has offended artistic taste and one's love of neatness all winter, clothes itself in foliage and hides its ungraceful outlines in bowery verdure. Lilacs scent the air, roses crowd through the broken fences, the milky floss of the cottonwood trees is strewed upon the sidewalks or floats like thistledown upon the air. To one sensitive to physical surroundings the change is like that from a sullen face to a smiling one, from a forbidding aspect to a cheerful one. The constant bracing of one's self against the influence of one's surroundings is relaxed: a feeling of relief and contentment comes instead. Our thirst for picturesque beauty may not be satisfied, but we accept with thankful hearts the quiet loveliness of spring. In this, as in deeper experiences, we learn that At best we gain not happiness, But peace, friends--peace in the strife. LOUISE COFFIN JONES. A FORGOTTEN AMERICAN WORTHY The pleasant agricultural village of Reading, in Fairfield county, Western Connecticut, presents much that is charming and picturesque in scenery, and is withal replete with historic incidents; but its chief claim to interest rests on the fact that it was the birthplace of Joel Barlow, who has decided claims to the distinction of being the father of American letters. Nearly seventy years have passed since the poet's tragic death, and the story of his life is still untold, while his memory has nearly faded from the minds of the living; nor would it be easy, at this late day, to collect sufficient material for an extended biography if such were demanded. Some pleasant traditions still linger in the sleepy atmosphere of his native village; a few of his letters and papers still remain in his family; contemporary newspapers had much to say both for and against him; the reviewers of his day noticed his poems, sometimes with approbation, sometimes with bitterness. There are fragmentary sketches of him in encyclopaedias and biographical dictionaries, and several pigeonholes in the State Department are filled with musty documents written by him when abroad in his country's diplomatic service. From these sources alone is the scholar of our times to glean his knowledge of one who in his day filled as large a space in the public eye as almost any of his contemporaries, and whose talents, virtues and public services entitled him to as lasting a fame as theirs.