Boldly though they had taken and held that hill, prudence came to the Boer riflemen as these eager bayonets bore down upon them. For a moment they shot the Devons through and through, and then they ran. At that moment not a man amongst our common-place, drinking, swearing Tommies but was exalted, deified--but so many of them were something less of interest on earth than even a common soldier. Where the regiment had gone seventy of its dead and wounded littered the hilltop, but still it was the moment of victory, not of lamentations. It may sound strange to say that the prelude to a battle, like the preface to a book, can be greater than the actual battle or the book. But so it seemed to me. Others might view it differently, but challenge our impressions as we may in the light of riper history, we shall never alter them. They are indelible. Overhaul the plates again and again as we please, it will always be the same picture. DONALD MACDONALD ("How we Kept the Flag Flying"). _THE GAME OF LIFE._ There's a game much in fashion--I think it's called _Euchre_ (Though I never have played for pleasure or lucre), In which, when the cards are in certain conditions, The players appear to have changed their positions, And one of them cries in a confident tone, "I think I may venture to 'go it alone!'" While watching the game, 'tis a whim of the bard's A moral to draw from that skirmish of cards, And to fancy he finds in the trivial strife Some excellent hints for the battle of Life; Where--whether the prize be a ribbon or throne-- The winner is he who can "go it alone!" When great Galileo proclaimed that the world In a regular orbit was ceaselessly whirled, And got--not a convert--for all of his pains, But only derision and prison and chains, "It moves, _for all that!_" was his answering tone, For he knew, like the earth, he could "go it alone!" When Kepler, with intellect piercing afar, Discovered the laws of each planet and star, And doctors, who ought to have lauded his name, Derided his learning and blackened his fame, "I can wait," he replied, "till the truth you shall own;" For he felt in his heart he could "go it alone!" Alas! for the player who idly depends, In the struggle of life, upon kindred or friends; Whatever the value of blessings like these, They can never atone for inglorious ease, Nor comfort the coward who finds, with a groan, That his clutches have left him to "go it alone!" There's something, no doubt, in the hand you may hold: Wealth, family, culture, wit, beauty and gold, The fortunate owner may fairly regard As, each in its way, a most excellent card; Yet the game may be lost, with all these for your own, Unless you've the courage to "go it alone!"