Most minds take on learning by a miscellaneous accretion that results in information without individuality, but Miss Guiney hives in many fields and lands the quaint, the picturesque, the beautiful, to which her temperament calls her unerringly, and can no more be tempted to range outside her limit of attraction than a bee to waste his precious hours dipping into bloom that holds no nectar for him. To be sure, Miss Guiney’s range of attraction is wide, but it enlarges its own confines, and does not reach out to alien territory. It follows as a corollary to this fact that unless one be in the range of attraction with Miss Guiney, the subjects which claim her thought may be more or less alien to him, and the restrained, wholly individual manner of her work may be equally alien to his nature. He may require more warmth, more abandon, more of the element of to-day and to-morrow in the theme and mood; for Miss Guiney has little to do with the times and conditions in which she finds herself; contemporary life is only incidentally in her verse, and one would have difficulty from it in declaring her day and generation. Her poetry demands that synchronism of temperament by which one responds to her mood independent of the time or place to which it transports him. [Illustration: Louise Imogen Guiney] Take, for illustration, “A Friend’s Song for Simoisius,” with its charm of music, its beauty of expression, and its crystal clarity. Few would be unconscious of the poetic side of it; but to how many would the subject appeal? What’s Simoisius to them or they to Simoisius that they should weep for him? Let, however, this feeling for the atmosphere of myth and legend be added, and what charm do the lines take on: The breath of dew, and twilight’s grace, Be on the lonely battle-place; And to so young, so kind a face, The long, protecting grasses cling! (Alas, alas, The one inexorable thing!) In rocky hollows cool and deep, The bees our boyhood hunted sleep; The early moon from Ida’s steep Comes to the empty wrestling-ring, (Alas, alas, The one inexorable thing!) Upon the widowed wind recede No echoes of the shepherd’s reed, And children without laughter lead The war-horse to the watering. (Alas, alas, The one inexorable thing!) Thou stranger, Ajax Telamon! What to the loveliest hast thou done, That ne’er with him a maid may run Across the marigolds in spring? (Alas, alas, The one inexorable thing!) * * * * * The world to me has nothing dear Beyond the namesake river here: O Simois is wild and clear! And to his brink my heart I bring; (Alas, alas, The one inexorable thing!)