he wire;
down it flows the current that was there all the time up in the air; in a
jiffy the car is in motion and ablaze with light. So your search for
inspiration in literature may be long and unsuccessful; you are dark and
motionless. But the life-giving current from some great man's brain is
flowing through some book not far away. One day you will make the
connection and your life will in a trice be filled with light and instinct
with action.

And before we leave this subject of inspiration, let us dwell for a moment
on that to be obtained from one's literary setting in general--from the
totality of one's literary associations and impressions, as distinguished
from that gained from some specific passage or idea.

It has been said that it takes two to tell the truth; one to speak and one
to listen. In like manner we may say that two persons are necessary to a
great artistic interpretation--one to create and one to appreciate. And of
no art is this more true than it is of literature. The thought that we are
thus cooperating with Shakespeare and Schiller and Hugo in bringing out
the full effect of their deathless conceptions is an inspiring one and its
consideration may aid us in realizing the essential oneness of the human
race, so far as its intellectual life is concerned.

Would you rather be a citizen of the United States than, we will say, of
Nicaragua? You might be as happy, as well educated, as well off, there as
here. Why do you prefer your present status? Simply and solely because of
associations and relationships. If this is sentiment, as it doubtless is,
it is the kind of sentiment that rules the world--it is in the same class
as friendship, loyalty, love of kin, affection for home. The links that
bind us to the past and the threads that stretch out into the future are
more satisfactory to us here in the United States, with the complexity of
its interests for us, than they would be in Nicaragua, or Guam, or
Iceland.

Then of what country in the realm of literature do you desire to be a
citizen? Of the one where Shakespeare is king and where your familiar and
daily speech is with the great ones of this earth--those whose wise,
witty, good, or inspiring words, spoken for centuries past, have been
recorded in books? Or would you prefer to dwell with triviality and
banality--perhaps with Laura Jean Libbey or even with Mary J. Holmes, and
those a little better than these--or a little worse.

I am one of those