igh presents his
compliments and praises God that he is sick so he has to be cared for by
two tender, loving fairies. Was ever a man so blest?"

Again he begins the day by inditing a poem, "To the bare, brown feet of
my wife and daughter dear." And this, be it remembered, was after the
bare, brown feet had been running errands for him for thirteen years.
And think you that women so loved, and by such a man, would not fetch
and carry and run and find their highest joy in ministering to him? If
he were thrice blest in having them, as he continually avowed, how about
them? It only takes a small dole of love when fused with loyalty to win
the abject, doglike devotion of a good woman. On the day of his death
Stevenson said to his wife, "You have already given me fourteen years of
life." And this is the world's verdict--fourteen years of life and love,
and without these fourteen years the name and fame of Robert Louis
Stevenson were writ in water; with them "R. L. S." has been cut deep in
the granite of time, but better still, the gentle spirit of Stevenson
lives again in the common heart of the world in lives made better.

JOSIAH AND SARAH WEDGWOOD

Admitting my inexperience, I must say that I think the instinct for
beauty and all the desire to produce beautiful things, which you and
Goethe refer to as the "Art Impulse," is a kind of sex quality, not
unlike the song of birds or their beautiful plumage.

--_Josiah Wedgwood to Doctor Erasmus Darwin_

[Illustration: JOSIAH WEDGWOOD]

Once upon a day a financial panic was on in Boston. Real estate was
rapidly changing hands, most all owners making desperate efforts to
realize. Banks which were thought to be solvent and solid went soaring
skyward, and even collapsed occasionally, with a loud, ominous, R. G.
Dun report. And so it happened that about this time Henry Thoreau
strolled out of his cabin and looking up at the placid moon, murmured,
"Moonshine, after all, is the only really permanent thing we possess."

This is the first in the series of twelve love-stories--or "tales of
moonshine," to use the phrase of Thomas Carlyle.

In passing, let us note the fact that the doughty Thomas was not a
lover, and he more than once growled out his gratitude in that he had
never lost either his head or his heart, for men congratulate themselves
on everything they have, even their limitations. Thomas Carlyle was not
a lover.