ies, have
threaded them upon this string. It will be seen that they do not all
belong to the same constellation. Most of them shed their luster over
the stern realities of life: a few glittered in the firmament of
fiction. It matters little. A great romance is a portrait of humanity,
painted by a master-hand. When the novelist employs the majestic words
of revelation to transfigure the lives of his characters, he does so
because, in actual experience, he finds those selfsame words indelibly
engraven upon the souls of men. And, after all, _Sydney Carton's Text_
is really _Charles Dickens' Text_; _Robinson Crusoe's Text_ is _Daniel
Defoe's Text_; the text that stands embedded in the pathos of _Uncle
Tom's Cabin_ is the text that Mrs. Harriet Beecher Stowe had enthroned
within her heart. Moreover, to whatever group these splendid orbs
belong, their deathless radiance has been derived, in every case, from
the perennial Fountain of all Beauty and Brightness.

Frank W. Boreham.

Armadale, Melbourne, Australia.

I

WILLIAM PENN'S TEXT

I

The Algonquin chiefs are gathered in solemn conclave. They make a wild
and striking and picturesque group. They are assembled under the
wide-spreading branches of a giant elm, not far from the banks of the
Delaware. It is easy to see that something altogether unusual is afoot.
Ranging themselves in the form of a crescent, these men of scarred limbs
and fierce visage fasten their eyes curiously upon a white man who,
standing against the bole of the elm, comes to them as white man never
came before. He is a young man of about eight and thirty, wearing about
his lithe and well-knit figure a sash of skyblue silk. He is tall,
handsome and of commanding presence. His movements are easy, agile and
athletic; his manner is courtly, graceful and pleasing; his voice,
whilst deep and firm, is soft and agreeable; his face inspires instant
confidence. He has large lustrous eyes which seem to corroborate and
confirm every word that falls from his lips. These tattooed warriors
read him through and through, as they have trained themselves to do, and
they feel that they can trust him. In his hand he holds a roll of
parchment. For this young man in the skyblue sash is William Penn. He is
making his famous treaty with the Indians. It is one of the most
remarkable instruments ever completed. 'It is the only treaty,' Voltaire
declares, 'that was ever made without an oath, and the only treaty that