e scepter; and he sits at the feet of his mother
and imbibes her gracious spirit.

=Transfusion of life.=--And then he writes; and as he writes his pen
drips life. He knows and feels, and, therefore, he expresses, and his
words are the distillations of life. His spiritual percipience has
rendered his soul a veritable garden of emotions, and with his pen he
transplants these in the written page. And men see and come to pluck the
flowers to transplant again in their own souls that they, too, may have
a garden like unto his. His _elan_ carries over into the lives of these
men and they glow with the ardor of his emotions and are inspired to
deeds of courage, of service, and of solace. For every flower plucked
from his garden another grows in its stead more beautiful and more
fragrant than its fellow, and he is reinspired as he inspires others.
And thus in this transfusion of life there is an undertow that carries
back into his own life and makes his spirit more fertile.

=Aspiration.=--When he would teach men to aspire he writes "Excelsior"
and so causes them to know that only he who aspires really lives. They
see the groundling, the boor, the drudge, and the clown content to dwell
in the valley amid the loaves and fishes of animal desires, while the
man who aspires is struggling toward the heights whence he may gain an
outlook upon the glories that are, know the throb and thrill of new
life, and experience the swing and sweep of spiritual impulses. He makes
them to know that the man who aspires recks not of cold, of storm, or of
snow, if only he may reach the summit and lave his soul in the glory
that crowns the marriage of earth and sky. They feel that the aspirant
is but yielding obedience to the behests of his better self to scale the
heights where sublimity dwells.

=Perseverance.=--Or he writes the fourth "AEneid" to make men feel that
the palm of victory comes only to those who persevere to the end; that
duty does not abdicate in favor of inclination; and that the high gods
will not hold guiltless the man who stops short of Italy to loiter and
dally in Carthage even in the sunshine of a Dido's smile. When Italy is
calling, no siren song of pleasure must avail to lure him from his
course, nor must his sail be furled until the keel grates upon the
Italian shore. His navigating skill must guide him through the perils of
Scylla and Charybdis and the stout heart of manhood must bear him past
Mount AEtna's fiery menace.