ord!
If curses must be, choose another
To send thy curse against my brother.

For I am bound by gratitude,
By love and blood,
To brothers of mine across the sea,
Who stretch out kindly hands to me."
"Therefore," the voice said, "shalt thou write
My curse to-night;
From the summits of love a curse is driven,
As lightning is from the tops of heaven."

THE GRANDEUR OF DESTINY.

WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT, an eminent American poet. Born at
Cummington, Mass., November 3, 1794; died, June 12, 1878.

Oh, Mother of a mighty race,
Yet lovely in thy youthful grace!
The elder dames, thy haughty peers,
Admire and hate thy blooming years;
With words of shame
And taunts of scorn they join thy name.

They know not, in their hate and pride,
What virtues with thy children bide;
How true, how good, thy graceful maids
Make bright, like flowers, the valley shades;
What generous men
Spring, like thine oaks, by hill and glen;

What cordial welcomes greet the guest
By the lone rivers of the West;
How faith is kept, and truth revered,
And man is loved, and God is feared,
In woodland homes,
And where the solemn ocean foams.

Oh, fair young Mother! on thy brow
Shall sit a nobler grace than now.
Deep in the brightness of thy skies,
The thronging years in glory rise,
And, as they fleet,
Drop strength and riches at thy feet.

AMERICAN NATIONAL HASTE.

JAMES BRYCE, M. P. Born at Belfast, Ireland, May 10, 1838.
Appointed Regius Professor of Civil Law to the University of
Oxford, England, 1870. From his "American Commonwealth."

Americans seem to live in the future rather than in the present; not
that they fail to work while it is called to-day, but that they see the
country, not merely as it is, but as it will be twenty, fifty, a hundred
years hence, when the seedlings shall have grown to forest trees. Time
seems too brief for what they have to do, and result always to come
short of their desire. One feels as if caught and whirled along in a
foaming stream chafing against its banks, such is the passion of these
men to accomplish in their own lifetimes what in the past it took
centuries to effect. Sometimes, in a moment of pause--for even the
visitor finds himself infected by the all-pervading eagerness--one is
inclined to ask them: "Gentlemen, why in