he has his work.

What can bronze or marble do for him? Malachite and alabaster are of no
avail; jasper, serpentine, basalt, porphyry, granite: stones from Paros
and marble from Carrara--they are all a waste of pains: genius can do
without them.

What is as indestructible as these: "The Tempest," "The Winter's Tale,"
"Julius Caesar," "Coriolanus"? What monument sublimer than "Lear," sterner
than "The Merchant of Venice," more dazzling than "Romeo and Juliet,"
more amazing than "Richard III"?

What moon could shed about the pile a light more mystic than that of "A
Midsummer Night's Dream"? What capital, were it even in London, could
rumble around it as tumultuously as Macbeth's perturbed soul? What
framework of cedar or oak will last as long as "Othello"? What bronze can
equal the bronze of "Hamlet"?

No construction of lime, or rock, of iron and of cement is worth the deep
breath of genius, which is the respiration of God through man. What
edifice can equal thought? Babel is less lofty than Isaiah; Cheops is
smaller than Homer; the Colosseum is inferior to Juvenal; the Giralda of
Seville is dwarfish by the side of Cervantes; Saint Peter's of Rome does
not reach to the ankle of Dante.

What architect has the skill to build a tower so high as the name of
Shakespeare? Add anything if you can to mind! Then why a monument to
Shakespeare?

I answer, not for the glory of Shakespeare, but for the honor of England!

THOMAS A. EDISON

The mind can not conceive what man will do in the
Twentieth Century with his chained lightning.
--_Thomas A. Edison_

[Illustration: THOMAS A. EDISON
_Photogravure from drawing by Gaspard_]

Some years ago, a law was passed out in Ohio, making any
man ineligible to act as a magistrate who had not studied law and been
duly admitted to the bar. Men who had not studied law were deemed lacking
in the sense of justice. This law was designed purely for one man--Samuel
M. Jones of Toledo. Was ever a Jones so honored before?

In Athens, of old, a law was once passed declaring that every man, either
of whose parents was an alien, was not a citizen and therefore ineligible
to hold office.

This law was aimed at the head of one man--Themistocles.

"And so you are an alien?" was the taunting remark flung at the mother of
Themistocles.

And the Greek matron proudly answered, "Yes, I am an alien--but my son is
Themistocles."

Down at Lil