practicing upon others with decent appearances, he will find that his reputation, good in fair weather, will be good for nothing in storms and trials. And then, when he needs most sympathy and respect, he will have the least. If it is a little harder to build up character than reputa- 5 tion, it is so only in the beginning. For reputation, like a poorly built house, will cost as much for patching and repairs as would have made it thorough at first.

Besides, an honorable soul ought to be ashamed of credit which he does not deserve. One hardly knows 10 how to interpret a nature that can deliberately take praise for things which he knows does not belong to him. This is particularly true of young men. . . What shall we think of a man who begins life on a lie? who deliberately sets out to build up a reputation 15 without caring for his character?

NOTE.

THE CHAMBERED NAUTILUS

OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES

One variety of nautilus has a shell which is divided into many chambers, cut off from one another by curved plates of pearl. The animal always lives in the outer and larger chamber, walling it up and making a still larger one as his body grows.

This is the ship of pearl, which, poets feign,

Sails the unshadowed main.

The venturous bark that flings

20

On the sweet summer wind its purpled wings
In gulfs enchanted, where the siren sings,

And coral reefs lie bare,

Where the cold sea-maids rise to sun their streaming hair.

10

5 Its webs of living gauze no more unfurl; Wrecked is the ship of pearl!

And every chambered cell,

Where its dim dreaming life was wont to dwell,
As the frail tenant shaped his growing shell,

Before thee lies revealed,

Its irised ceiling rent, its sunless crypt unsealed!

Year after year beheld the silent toil

That spread his lustrous coil;

Still, as the spiral grew,

15 He left the past year's dwelling for the new,

Stole with soft step its shining archway through,

Built up its idle door,

Stretched in his last-found home, and knew the old no

more.

Thanks for the heavenly message brought by thee,

Child of the wandering sea,

Cast from her lap, forlorn!

From thy dead lips a clearer note is born

Than ever Triton blew from wreathèd horn!

While on mine ears it rings,

5

Through the deep caves of thought I hear a voice that 10 sings:

Build thee more stately mansions, O my soul,

As the swift seasons roll!

Leave thy low-vaulted past!

Let each new temple, nobler than the last,

Shut thee from heaven with a dome more vast,

Till thou at length art free,

Leaving thine outgrown shell by life's unresting sea!

waves.

poets feign: it is only a pretty fancy that the nautilus sails over the siren: see note on "The Oasis," page 93.-irised: colored like the rainbow. Iris was the goddess of the rainbow. - Triton: the son of the sea god Neptune. He was represented in Greek art and poetry as a fish with a human head. When the ocean roared Triton was said to be

blowing his shell, or horn.

Or hear old Triton blow his wreathed horn. - Wordsworth.

wreathed horn: the spiral conch shell, often used as a horn or trumpet.

15

THE HAUNT OF A BIRD LOVER

MAURICE THOMPSON

JAMES MAURICE THOMPSON (1844-1901) was an American author whose novels and poems deal with the life of the South and West.

Without preliminary negotiations or special preparations of any kind I took possession of an old building 5 which once had been a ginhouse. Now bear in mind that I do not mean gin mill when I write ginhouse, for the words are far from synonymous.

My new abode was picturesquely dilapidated, and stood in the midst of a dense growth of young pine trees. From 10 a window I had a view, through a rift in the foliage, of a small blue lake and a wide stretch of green, rush-covered marsh. An ancient peach and pear orchard was close at hand, the venerable, old, neglected trees standing kneedeep in a mass of scrubby scions.

15 This ginhouse, instead of having once been a place where intoxicating drinks were concocted and sold, was simply the wreck of an old plantation cotton-ginning establishment; indeed, here was an abandoned and overgrown estate which formerly had been the pride of a Southern 20 planter of great wealth and social and political power.

The stately mansion had disappeared, saving the ruins of some brick columns and the rubbish suggestive of chimneys and foundation pillars; nor was there much left to

remind one of the agricultural wealth, formerly the largest of this broad area, now given over to a thrifty growth of strong young trees and to a wild, musical mob of birds.

A considerable marsh, once drained by a rude windmill and cultivated in sea-island cotton, had been reclaimed by 5 the tide water (which now crept in rhythmically through many breaks in the little dike) and had become a home of the herons and bitterns. Remnants, more pathetic than picturesque, of the tall shaft and pumping apparatus belonging to the mill lay in a moldering and rusting heap 10 beside the water.

My ginhouse was a poor shelter if it should rain, but I could supplement it with my waterproof blanket; and then the climate was very kind at worst. How, indeed, could a climate be more tender in its concessions to one's prefer- 15 ences? A breeze from the gulf, salty and exhilarating, or a waft from the pine woods, fragrantly heavy with terebinth and balm, was blowing day and night, and the medley of bird songs was accompanied with the effective counterpoint of the distant sea moan.

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On one side a fresh-water lakelet, on the other side the gulf of Mexico, - great marsh meadows and reaches of sand bar-dense forests, thickets, old fields given over to nature, orchards left to the will of the mocking birds and their friends and foes, —everything, indeed, to favor my 25 quest was in view, with the romance and the beauty thrown in for good measure.