AFTER DEATH

EDWIN ARNOLD

SIR EDWIN ARNOLD (1832- ) is an English poet whose long residence in India has made him familiar with Eastern legends. His most popular poem is "The Light of Asia."

While the man whom ye call "dead"
In unspoken bliss instead

Lives, and loves you; lost, 't is true,
To the light which shines for you;
But in light ye cannot see

Of unfulfilled felicity,

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And enlarging paradise,

Lives the life that never dies.

Farewell, friends! Yet not farewell;
Where I am ye too shall dwell.
I am gone before your face
A moment's time, a little space.
When ye come where I have stepped,
Ye will wonder why ye wept;
Ye will know, by wise love taught,
That here is all and there is naught.
Weep awhile if ye are fain, —
Sunshine still must follow rain,
Only not at death; for death,
Now I see, is that first breath

Which our souls draw when we enter
Life, which is of all life center.

He who died at Azan gave

This to those who made his grave.

Adapted from the Arabic.

CHARACTER OF PRESIDENT LINCOLN

RALPH WALDO EMERSON

NOTE. - This address was delivered at the exercises held in memory of Lincoln at Concord, Mass., April 19, 1865.

The President stood before us as a man of the people. He was thoroughly American, had never crossed the sea, 5 had never been spoiled by English insularity or French dissipation; a quite native, aboriginal man, as an acorn from the oak; no aping of foreigners, no frivolous accomplishments, Kentuckian born, working on a farm, a flatboatman, a captain in the Black Hawk war, a country 10 lawyer, a representative in the rural legislature of Illinois; on such modest foundations the broad structure of his fame was laid. How slowly, and yet by happily prepared steps, he came to his place!

A plain man of the people, an extraordinary fortune 15 attended him. He offered no shining qualities at the first encounter; he did not offend by superiority. He had a face and manner which disarmed suspicion, which inspired confidence, which confirmed good will. He was a man without vices. He had a strong sense of duty, which 20 it was very easy for him to obey. Then he had what

farmers call a long head; was excellent in working out the sum for himself; in arguing his case and convincing you fairly and firmly.

Then it turned out that he was a great worker; had prodigious faculty of performance; worked easily. In a host of young men that start together and promise so many brilliant leaders for the next age, each fails on trial; one by bad health, one by conceit, or by love of 5 pleasure, or lethargy, or an ugly temper, each has some disqualifying fault that throws him out of the career. But this man was sound to the core, cheerful, persistent, all right for labor, and liked nothing so well. . . .

Then his broad good humor, running easily into jocular 10 talk, in which he delighted and in which he excelled, was a rich gift to this wise man. It enabled him to keep his secret; to meet every kind of man and every rank in society; to take off the edge of the severest decisions; to mask his own purpose and sound his companion; and 15 to catch with true instinct the temper of every company he addressed. And, more than all, it is to a man of severe labor, in anxious and exhausting crises, the natural restorative, good as sleep, and is the protection of the overdriven brain against rancor and insanity.

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He is the author of a multitude of good sayings, so disguised as pleasantries that it is certain they had no reputation at first but as jests; and only later, by the very acceptance and adoption they find in the mouths of millions, turn out to be the wisdom of the hour. I am 25 sure if this man had ruled in a period of less facility in printing, he would have become mythological in a very

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