The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1870-08-04

coined. 1t may, by the superhuman energy
it inspires, carry the dreamer safely across
the weird and trackless valley, or it may but
lengthen a little the little span of life.
The mirage of life is ever arouad us all.
It paints the bright prospective that crowds
before you. 1t is the happy creation of the
ideal; the unfailing source of hopeful effort,
and blissful dreams of bountiful rewards.
There is no fountain of happiness it cannot
make to flow to quicken you. There is no
measure of success or distinction it cannot
present as a~ttainable. What you most wish
it freely offers you, and presses you onward
to grasp it. And you will go onward, ever
hoping, ever striving, ever dreaming, until,
in the calm evening of your dreams, hope will
gently point to the better life beyond.
Think not that the ideal life is to be
Stunned as a delusion and a snare. Delusive
it may be in its promises you cherish most;
but it will nevertheless be the parent of your
sweetest hours. 1t will lead you to your
noblest and best endeavors. 1t will arm you
for the incalculable disappointments and sor-
rows which beset the most successful lives;
for no life escapes the common inheritance
of grief. In each ''some rain must fall"
duu I've v ~ AAuoN INN w pobh
ways strewn with blasted hopes. Were 1
empowered to paint your lives before you as
they will be, not one of all those present
could face the picture and go hence to battle
hopefully. Could l even tell you that you
will win high attainments in usefulness and
honors; that your lives will be free from
marked affection and adversely, and that the
world will wonder at the fullness of your cups
of human happiness, the faithful picture
would be none the less unwelcome. Could l
reach out into the curtained future, and pre-
sent before you the wisely hidden panorama
of your actual lives, dispel all your bright
dreams never to be realized, Danish the sunny
ideal from your destiny, and send you to face
the known, memorable actual-even those of
you to whom fate has been most indulgent
would b. stricken with despl ir. Infinite
wisdom has given US the ideal to be ever
present, as the angel of mercy; and the
actual is shut out in the yelled hereafter,
until the true life is reached in Immortality.
Look back on those who have gone before
you, and who, as the world judges, have
achieved greatness; what strange lessons the
inner history of human achievements teaches!
We learn that "one Caesar lives, a thousand
are forgot" Again, we see same cruelty
mocking her chosen favorites, and painful
wrecks marking the path of distinction.
Look how YEARLY and laboriously names have
been made memorable. Dream as you will,
none are born to greatness. They may in
herit crowns and titles and estates, but true
greatness is not the birthright of any one.
The ideal tells us pleasing stories of such des-
TIMES, but they are unknown in the stubborn
actual. Those who have become great have
found life well. nigh too short to achieve it.
We have all read and re-read "Gray's
Elegy." Its sublimity has made us hang upon
each line to gather the fullness of its beauty.
It made one name immortal; but think what
long months and years of c~easeless thought
were devoted to the work. To fashion q sin
gle line was at times the task of restless
nights and weary days. Decades were mum
bered between its inception and completion
seven years elapsed after its actual commence
ment before it was finished; and when
finished, the ideal creation of the author was
not realized. He wrote much more, but
what of it is remembered? The. bitter
school of adversely gave to the world the
Goldsmith we know. His 'Deserted
Village is the dream-picture of a
happiness he had never found. More than
two score years of grim penury and consum.
ing disappointment made those immortal
verses. Millions Paradise Lost" was the
patient work of half q century. We are told
of him that never was a mind more richly
furnished, but life was too brief for more
than one masterpiece. He had sorrow
~enough-the poets fruitful inspiration-and
wrote much that was beautiful, but the world
speaks of him only as the author of one poem.
He dreamed of a paradise Regained"-
nothing more.
But it may be answered that poetry is the
child of bitter memories and cruel misfor
tunes. Lives may be brighter in the list Of
names memorable in oratory and statesman
ship and heroism and literature and science
The ideal orator reads of Demosthenes-hov
his voice was t~uneless, his speech unready
and his action ungraceful. He took the peb
BILE to educate a clumsy tongue-he declaimet
to the pillows of the sea-practiced with &C
tors and before mirrors-and climbed rugged
hills to fit himself for a calling that nature
seemed to have forbidden to him. Cicero
was schooled from youth to oratory. Train,
ing in Rome and Greece in those days i'm
piled a measure of assiduity to which our stu
dents now are strangers. He was twenty-sil
before he began TO speak in public
and thenceforth his labors nevel
were relaxed. Brougham wa.
the soul of eloquence. His career as an advo
oafa waa unrivaIled in hio dau Va, nil