c souls might struggle with despair; impetuous
streams with their rapids terrible as Scylla, where men might go down
fighting: thus Nature built the stage and set the scenes. And that the
arrangements might be complete, she left a vast tract unfinished, where
still the building of the world goes on--a place of awe in which to feel
the mighty Doer of Things at work. Indeed, a setting vast and weird
enough for the coming epic. And as the essence of all story is struggle,
tribes of wild fighting men grew up in the land to oppose the coming
masters; and over the limitless wastes swept the blizzards.

I remember when I first read the words of Vergil beginning _Ubi tot
Simois_, "where the Simois rolls along so many shields and helmets and
strong bodies of brave men snatched beneath its floods." The far-seeing
sadness of the lines thrilled me; for it was not of the little stream of
the _AEneid_ that I thought while the Latin professor quizzed me as to
constructions, but of that great river of my own epic country--the
Missouri. Was I unfair to old Vergil, think you? As for me, I think I
flattered him a bit! And in this modern application, the ancient lines
ring true. For the Missouri from Great Falls to its mouth is one long
grave of men and boats. And such men!

It is a time-honored habit to look back through the ages for the epic
things. Modern affairs seem a bit commonplace to some of us. A horde of
semi-savages tears down a town in order to avenge the theft of a
faithless wife who was probably no better than she should have been--and
we have the _Iliad_. A petty king sets sail for his native land, somehow
losing himself ten years among the isles of Greece--and we have the
_Odyssey_. (I would back a Missouri River "rat" to make the distance in
a row boat within a few months!) An Argive captain returns home after an
absence of ten years to find his wife interested overmuch in a friend
who went not forth to battle; a wrangle ensues; the tender spouse
finishes her lord with an axe--and you have the _Agamemnon_. (To-day we
should merely have a sensational trial, and hysterical scareheads in the
newspapers.) Such were the ancient stories that move us all--sordid
enough, be sure, when you push them hard for fact. But time and genius
have glorified them. Not the deeds, but Homer and AEschylus and the
hallowing years are great.

We no longer write epics--we live them. To create an epic, it has been
said somewhere, the poet must wr