the unattainable, and nothing was put forth as worth while until it was polished and perfect.

"Opportunity" is the only thing Ingalls produced in later life at all creditable or that posterity will care to save. And its conception belongs to his earlier days. Its development was his life's experience misinterpreted. It was suggested to him by his fortunate and unexpected election to the United States Senate. But that was an event of consecution. It was his wife's ambition for him- not primarily his ambition. His marriage was the turning-point in the life of Ingalls, and with him, as with most men happily married-who secure the highest blessing and greatest treasure in matrimony - the poetical effusion celebrating that event would have to bear the title of "Importunity".

Of all men of his time Ingalls turned his back on Opportunity oftenest. She hung desperately on his neck and entreated him with tears many times, but he did not rise before she turned away. It is not, however, the province of this paper to indicate the occasions.

As a literary production, nothing in the English language surpasses "Opportunity". It will live

as long as man is charmed with the beautiful in any form. It is a diamond of purest water perfectly cut:

OPPORTUNITY.

Master of human destinies am I!

Fame, love and fortune on my footsteps wait.
Cities and fields I walk; I penetrate
Deserts and seas remote, and passing by
Hovel and mart and palace, soon or late
I knock unbidden once at every gate!
If sleeping, wake: if feasting, rise before
I turn away. It is the hour of fate,
And they who follow me reach every state
Mortals desire, and conquer every foe
Save death: but those who doubt or hesitate,
Condemned to failure, penury and woe,
Seek me in vain and uselessly implore.
I answer not, and I return no more!

The sentiment of this poem is not universally accepted. Efforts to controvert its teaching were early made. None of them compare with it in genius of conception or skill of construction. Some of these responses are here shown:

OPPORTUNITY.

By Walter Malone.

They do me wrong who say I come no more
When once I knock and fail to find you in;

For every day I stand outside your door,
And bid you wake, and rise to fight and win,

Wail not for precious chances passed away,
Weep not for golden ages on the wane;
Each night I burn the records of the day;
At sunrise every soul is born again.

Laugh like a boy at splendors that have sped,

To vanished joys be blind and deaf and dumb; My judgments seal the dead past with its dead, But never bind a moment yet to come.

Tho' deep in mire, wring not your hands and weep;
I lend my arm to all who say "I can!"
No shamefaced outcast ever sank so deep
But yet might rise and be a man again.
Dost thou behold thy lost youth all aghast?
Dost reel from righteous retribution's blow?
Then turn from blotted archives of the past
And find the future's page as white as snow,

Art thou a mourner?

Rouse thee from thy spell; Art thou a sinner? Sins may be forgiven; Each morning gives thee wings to flee from hell, Each night a star to guide thy feet to heaven.

OPPORTUNITY

By F. O'Neill Gallagher.

One searched the town and country through,
In winter's snows and summer's heat,

Nor was there any path but knew

The pacings of his weary feet.

He watched through the lingering night
With lamp well-filled and door ajar,
And listened lest some footfall light
Should hint the freakish god afar.

The god came not. But there was one
Who recked not of the flitting days,
Nor any thought of deeds undone
Disturbed the tenor of his ways.
He toiled not, sought no goodly prize;
E'en as he slept the god came there
And poured before his dream-dimmed eyes
His store of treasure, rich and fair.

OPPORTUNITY

By Edward Rowland Sill.

This I beheld, or dreamed it in a dream:
There spread a cloud of dust along a plain;
And underneath the cloud, or in it, raged

A furious battle, and men yelled, and swords
Shocked upon swords and shields. A Prince's banner
Wavered, then staggered backward, hemmed by foes.
A craven hung along the battle's edge,

And thought, "Had I a sword of keener steel-
The blue blade that the King's son bears-but this
Blunt thing!" he snapped and flung it from his hand,
And lowering crept away, and left the field.

Then came the King's son, wounded and sore bestead,
And weaponless, and saw the broken sword
Hilt-buried in the dry and trodden sand,

And ran and snatched it, and with battle shout
Lifted afresh he hewed his enemy down
And saved a great cause that heroic day.

As compared to the poem of Ingalls these fall to the place of the glow of the firefly at midnight when compared to the sun in the splendor of

noonday. As to the sentiment of the one and that of the others aye, there's the rub! As to these sentiments no agreement or determination can ever be made. The difference is that between fatalism and hope.