BRYANT blushed like a bashful miss when asked to play on the piano. There was evidently a struggle between his modesty and his desire to be obliging. After a moment's pause, he said: "I would rather read anything than my own writings; but if it will be of any pleasure to you I will do as you say." Taking the book, he advanced to the middle of the room, looked up at the chandelier and then looked at the book. "Take my spectacles," said Mr. Tupper. "No, no," said Mr. Bryant, "I do not need spectacles." The type of the book was rather small, but he made no hesitation. There he stood, at eighty-two years of age, about to read without spectacles a poem he had published in the North American Review in 1816, when he was eighteen years of age. He turned round and said: "You will understand that I do not recite this from memory, for I am not familiar with it. I only read it." With calm, slow accent he read on. EXERCISE is almost necessary for longevity. The poet Bryant took an air bath daily and used his dumb-bells; lived to be eighty-four; killed then by walking in the excessive heat to a friend's house after his speech on Mazzini in Central Park. USE Time well, and you will get from his hand more than he will take from yours. Miss Wetherell. BERNHARDT'S SECRET. 66 SARAH BERNHARDT seems to have discovered the secret of perpetual youth. I am young," she says, because I work. I must work. I am never idle. If I had stayed quietly in Paris, as the Parisians wanted me to do some years ago, I should look at least sixty-five. Possibly I might be dead. I love travel, change of scene, incessant occupation, and the result is I am young." WITHIN yourself lies the cause of whatever enters into your life. To come into the full realization of your own awakened powers is to be able to condition your life in exact accord with what you would have it. Ralph Waldo Trine. THE TWILIGHT OF THE HEART. WHEN day is dying in the west, As if to symbolize above How shines a fair young mother's love. I watch the sun depart; A whisper seems to say: So comes the twilight of the heart The listless summer sleeps in green Like shadows cold and gray, To show the twilight of the heart WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT. MR. BRYANT's industry kept pace with his longevity. It is notable that some of his severest work was done in his old age. It was in his seventy-first year that he began the translation of the Iliad. The whole translation of Homer was accomplished during the space of six years. The achievement at this time of life is an extraordinary one in the history of literature, and if he had done nothing else in these late days this would insure a brilliant fame. Besides giving proper attention to the Evening Post, editing "Picturesque America," revising a collection of choice poetry and the "Popular History of the United States," he constantly pursued his literary studies and produced original poems not surpassed by any in his prime. "The Flood of Years," written in his eighty-second year, has all the grace, the strength, the statuesque beauty, the sublime movement that makes verse immortal. It is granted to but few to stand as did Bryant on the summit of a long life made so beautiful by virtue and so endeared to men by noble service and exalted genius. Horatio N. Powers. POST-MERIDIAN. I. Afternoon. WHEN in thy glass thou studiest thy face, And half attracted; when thou hast beheld Of Time's slow ravages the crumbling trace, (Deciphered now with many an interspace The characters erewhile that Beauty spelled,) Would seem to thee transfigured; thou wouldst bless |