whether they belong to the family of ladies and gentlemen, or to that of Charles Lamb's "Mr. H." Thackeray's hero could not have been more aghast to see his divine Ottilia consume with gusto the oysters which were no longer fresh than Romeo to learn by his Juliet's question to that urbane mentor of other years that his mistress must be of kin to the unmentionable family. The next time those boots are flung down in the reverberating hotel corridor there will be no harm in remarking to the clerk the next morning in the crowded office that it is not necessary for you to look upon the register to know that one of the Hog family arrived during the night. GEORGE WILLIAM CURTIS. From "Other Essays from the Easy Chair," by George William Curtis. Copyright, 1893, by Harper Bros., Publishers. FRIENDSHIP A RUDDY drop of manly blood The surging sea outweighs, The world uncertain comes and goes; The lover rooted stays. I fancied he was fled, And, after many a year, Glowed unexhausted kindliness, Like daily sunrise there. My careful heart was free again, Through thee alone the sky is arched, Through thee the rose is red; All things through thee take nobler form, And look beyond the earth, The mill-round of our fate appears A sun-path in thy worth. Me too thy nobleness has taught The fountains of my hidden life RALPH WALDO EMERSON. VOLUNTARIES III In an age of fops and toys, And quit proud homes and youthful dames For famine, toil and fray? Yet on the nimble air benign Speed nimbler messages, That waft the breath of grace divine To hearts in sloth and ease. So nigh is grandeur to our dust, So near is God to man, When Duty whispers low, Thou must, RALPH WALDO EMERSON. A BATTLE OF PEACE FORMERLY it was believed that nothing could be done to combat yellow fever. It came into southern cities like an invading army, and the people surrendered. Then they died in great numbers. And nobody knew how to stop it. In 1900, three United States medical officers were appointed from the army to attack yellow fever. They found a good battle field in Cuba. There they went, taking their lives in their hands, to fight an unseen enemy. They had a foe who fought in am bush, with poisoned weapons. not where to strike. They knew At last, Dr. Walter Reed, the leader of this almost hopeless crusade, came to the conclusion that yellow fever killed people by means of the stings of mosquitoes. His theory was that when a mosquito that has stung a yellow fever patient stings a well man, it carries the poison of the fever with it. But this theory had to be tested; and it had to be tested in the bodies of the doctors themselves. They deliberately tried it. They let the yellow fever mosquitoes sting them, and they had yellow fever. One of them died. No Christian martyr ever gave his life more devotedly to the cause for which he contended, than did this brave young doctor. Dr. Lazear died that thou sands of people might live. Then they exposed themselves in other ways. They slept in beds in which men had died of yellow fever, but under screens so that no mosquito could sting them. And this exposure did not cause disease. These men who took this chance were as brave as any soldier in a battle field. The courage that makes a man face the guns of an enemy and the courage that makes a man expose himself to a plague are of the same order. Thus the theory was proved. It was found that yellow fever is conveyed by mosquitoes. In 1900, when the doctors began this battle of peace, three hundred people died of yellow fever in the city of Havana: in 1902, the number was reduced to six. On a tablet erected to the memory of Dr. Lazear in Johns Hopkins Hospital, at Baltimore, there is this inscription written by President Eliot of Harvard University: 66 With more than the courage and the devotion of the soldier he risked and lost his life to show how a fearful pestilence is communicated, and how its ravages may be prevented." SIR GALAHAD My good blade carves the casques of men, The shattering trumpet shrilleth high, K |