"Oh May I Join the Choir Invisible."

GEORGE ELIOT.

Oh may I join the choir invisible

Of those immortal dead who live again

In minds made better by their presence: live

In pulses stirred to generosity,

In deeds of daring rectitude, in scorn

For miserable aims that end with self,

In thoughts sublime that pierce the night like stars, And with their mild persistence urge man's search To vaster issues.

So to live is heaven.

To make undying music in the world,
Breathing as beauteous order that controls
With growing sway the growing life of man.
So we inherit that sweet purity

For which we struggled, failed, and agonized
With widening retrospect that bred despair.
Rebellious flesh that would not be subdued,
A vicious parent shaming still its child
Poor anxious penitence, is quick dissolved;
Its discords, quenched by meeting harmonies,
Die in the large and charitable air.
And all our rarer, better, truer self,

That sobbed religiously in yearning song,
That watched to ease the burden of the world,
Laboriously tracing what must be,
And what may yet be better-saw within
A worthier image for the sanctuary,
And shaped it forth before the multitude
Divinely human, raising worship so

To higher reverence more mixed with love

That better self shall live till human Time
Shall fold its eyelids, and the human sky
Be gathered like a scroll within the tomb
Unread forever.

This is life to come,

Which martyred men have made more glorious
For us who strive to follow. May I reach
That purest heaven, be to other souls
The cup of strength in some great agony,
Enkindle generous ardor, feed pure love,
Beget the smiles that have no cruelty-
Be the sweet presence of a good diffused,
And in diffusion ever more intense
So shall I join the choir invisible
Whose music is the gladness of the world.

IRONY.

(See Tone Drill No. 126.)

[Strictly speaking Irony has no tone, and yet it may belong to all tones. Foreknowledge of the attitude of the speaker is, usually, the key to Irony. Its intelligibility as a tone rests upon a slight exaggeration of the genuine tone.]

Duluth.

J. PROCTOR KNOTT.

As I said, Sir, I was utterly at a loss to determine where the terminus of this great and indispensable road should be, until I accidentally overheard some gentleman the other day mention the name of "Duluth." Duluth! The word fell upon my ear with peculiar and indescribable charm, like the gentle murmur of a low fountain stealing forth in the midst of roses, or the soft, sweet accents of an angel's whisper, in the bright joyous dream of sleeping innocence. Duluth.

"Twas the name for which my soul had panted for years, as the heart panteth for water-brooks. But where was Duluth? Never, in all my limited reading, had my vision been gladdened by seeing the celestial word in print.

Nevertheless, I was confident it existed somewhere, and that its discovery would constitute the crowning glory of the present century, if not of all modern times. I knew it was bound to exist in the very nature of things; that the symmetry and perfection of our planetary system would be incomplete without it, that the elements of material nature would long since have resolved themselves back into original chaos if there had been such a hiatus in creation as would have resulted from leaving out Duluth. In fact, Sir, I was overwhelmed with the conviction that Duluth not only existed somewhere, but that wherever it was, it was a great and glorious place.

I was convinced that the greatest calamity that ever befell the benighted nations of the ancient world was in their having passed away without a knowledge of the actual existence of Duluth; that their fabled Atlantis, never seen save by the hallowed vision of inspired poesy, was, in fact, but another name for Duluth; that the golden orchard of Hesperides was but a poetical synonym for the beer gardens in the vicinity of Duluth. I knew that if the immortal spirit of Homer could look down from another heaven than that created by his own celestial genius upon the long lines of pilgrims from every nation of the earth to the gushing fountain of poesy opened by the touch of his magic wand, if he could be permitted to behold the vast assemblage of grand and glorious productions of the lyric art called into being by his own inspired strains, he would weep tears of bitter anguish that instead of lavishing all the stores of his mighty genius upon the fall of Troy it had not been his more blessed lot to crystallize in deathless song the rising glories of Duluth.

TONE OF SOOTHING.

(See Tone Drill No. 53.)

[The tone of Soothing is akin to Assurance, and has in it, at times, Affection and Consolation. It calms and lulls.]

Sweet and Low, Sweet and Low.

ALFRED TENNYSON.

Sweet and low, sweet and low,

Wind of the western sea,
Low, low, breathe and blow,
Wind of the western sea!
Over the rolling waters go,

Come from the dying moon, and blow,

Blow him again to me;

While my little one, while my pretty one, sleeps.

Sleep and rest, sleep and rest,

Father will come to thee soon;

Rest, rest, on mother's breast,

Father will come to thee soon;

Father will come to his babe in the nest,

Silver sails all out of the west

Under the silver moon:

Sleep, my little one, sleep, my pretty one, sleep.

She Is Sleeping.

CHRISTINA G. ROSSETTI.

Some are laughing, some are weeping;

She is sleeping, only sleeping:

Round her rest wild flowers are creeping
There the wind is heaping, heaping
Sweetest sweets of summer's keeping,
By the corn-fields, ripe for reaping.

There are lilies, and there blushes
The deep rose, and there the thrushes
Sing till latest sunlight flushes

In the west; a fresh wind brushes
Through the leaves while evening hushes.

There by day the lark is singing,

And the grass and weeds are springing;
There by night the bat is winging;
There for ever winds are bringing
Far-off chimes of church bells ringing.

Night and morning, noon and even,
Their sound fills her dreams with heaven;
The long strife at length is striven,
Till her grave-bands shall be riven.
Such is the good portion given

To her soul at rest and shriven.

TONE OF WARNING.

(See Tone Drill No. 210.)

[This tone implies caution or threatening; in its higher form it has a touch of prophecy.]

Our Duty.

DANIEL WEBSTER.

The world, at this moment, is regarding us with a willing, but something of a fearful admiration. Its deep and awful anxiety is to learn whether free states may be stable as well as free; whether popular power may be trusted as well as feared; in short, whether wise, regular, and virtuous selfgovernment is a vision for the contemplation of theorists, or a truth established, illustrated, and brought into practice in the country of Washington. Sir, for the earth which we