A noble thought rightly expressed sweeps the higher nerve centres as the touch of a perfect performer the strings of an instrument; but if the instrument is poor and irresponsive, the appeal is made in vain. Life has the power to propagate itself, and if the words thou utterest are living, they will strike root somewhere and bud and blossom and bear fruit; but if there is no life in them, be content to have them fall and lie amid the dust of the dead. God and the universe are what they are, and the best even genius can do is to throw over them a revealing light. He who feels that he is always in the presence of God will strive as religiously to think only what is true as he will strive to do only what is right. A phrase which leaps forth aglow with life from the heart and brain of genius, not only lives forever, but retains forever the power to awaken, when brought into contact with a brain and heart, the thrill with which it first came into being. Only a few know and love the poet, but they are young and fair, and the music of high thoughts and pure love is rhythmic with the current of their blood; and if among them there be found some who are old, they are choice spirits who have risen from out the lapses of time into regions where what is true and beautiful is so forever. This little band of chosen ones accompanies him adown the centuries, and listens to the melody which wells in his heart and breaks into songs that shall give delight as long as the air of spring is pleasant and the flowers fragrant and the carollings of birds delightful; and while the poet strolls on the outskirts of time, thus loved and thus attended, the stormy and glittering favorites of the crowd drop from sight and are forgotten, or remembered but as the echo of a name. A line from Homer, which sounds like a response from our own heart, is clothed with the mystery of diviner power, because it makes us feel that we were alive thousands of years ago amid the Grecian isles, thus revealing to us the unreality of time and space, and the everlasting nature of truth and beauty.