“O brother, who would be greater than I! For what hast thou bartered to me the golden rod of thy wealth and thy dominion over the flocks and the herds? For seven chords strung on a shell—for a melody not even thine own! For a lyre outshone by my syrinx hast thou sold all thine empire to me. Will human ears give heed to thy song now thy sceptre has passed to my hands? Immortal music only is left thee, and the vision foreseeing the future. O god! O hero! O fool! what shall these profit thee now?” Thus to the artist by whom they had been begotten the dim white shapes of the deities sometimes speak. Thus he sees them, thus he hears, whilst the pale and watery sunlight lights up the form of the toiler in Pherae. For even as it was with the divinity of Delos, so is it likewise with the genius of a man, which, being born of a god, yet is bound as a slave to the grind-stone. Since even as Hermes mocked the Lord of the Unerring Bow, so is genius mocked of the world, when it has bartered the herds, and the grain, and the rod that metes wealth, for the seven chords that no ear, dully mortal, can hear. He can bend great thoughts to take the shapes that he choose, as the chained god in Pherae bound the strong kings of the desert and forest to carry his yoke; yet, like the god, he likewise stands fettered to the mill to grind for bread. OUIDA. “IF LOVE WERE ALL.” (PRISONER OF ZENDA.) “If love were all!” Can love be less than all Here in the world the God of Love hath made? If love _were_ all—and love were unafraid, And knew not death’s corrupting funeral pall! Oh Princess, with thy soul by heavenly call In love’s divinest panoply arrayed, Hath thy soul-sight thy love-sight so betrayed That love from his supremest place should fall? Yet wert thou right. Thy woman’s heart divined The soul of love’s transcendent perfectness: For like a star within a mist confined And burning thro’ love’s soul is righteousness. Thus love _is_ all—tho’, as on Calvary, Renunciation love’s fulfillment be! EDITH NEIL. THE MAN ON A BICYCLE. The man on a bicycle came panting up a hill at the beginning of a large town. “Hello! Knickerbockers,” cried the man on foot; “do you call that the gait for a scorcher? Why, it aint more’n a pair uv bars.” “That’s all right, little boy,” returned he of the wheel. “Little boy, yourself! Didn’t you know it was five dollars fine for ridin’ on the sidewalk?” “Is it? All right? I’ll pay when I come back;” and the man on a bicycle, encountering a level piece of road, put an end to further conversation by a sudden spurt.