The Helena independent. [volume] (Helena, Mont.) 1875-1943, 1890-05-18

threatening element predominated too
much to suit the taste of boys who had an
extreme consciousness of their own dignity
and position in the world. Still. like the
other and more popular form, it differed SO
much from the ordinary run of poetry in
its .Ret-there mess that it was Thought in
advisable to neglect it's use altogether.
True poetry was not such a drug in the
market that we could afford to give any of
it the cold shoulder.
came to school one term. Aqueer little
fellow, no good at cricket and football, but
You would think me guilty of hyperbole
i told you how easily he used to talk
French with "Mossoo," as we called our
~ seemed to like to talk French! Well.
he brought some books with him from
France, and one day he showed me in one
OF them -. The other boys used to call
hum Froggy and in the bedrooms they used
to lie awake at nights to hear if they could
catch him :. munching frogs legs, and once
they fancied they heard his jaws going. and
searched his bed-clothes for surreptitious
food. But said it was shame to i'll treat
the young 'un, and, as / was saying,
he showed me on the cover of one of his
books a mountebank suspended from eat-
lows, and underneath was written:
"Aspice Pierrot pendn,
QuOd ibrum n q pas rendu.
81 ibrum reddidisset,
Pierrot pendu non fuisset."
I supposed it meant pretty much the
same as ours; I copied it at the time,
know, or should have forgotten it, dare
say. long ago. What language it was writ
ten in did not exactly know either; some
of the words looked like Latin and some
like French, and was not aware that any
people I had ever heard of spoke tumble
Of the two; such thing was possible; but,
If thov did T did mt IN krnvv IL
What with French verbs that to my heated
fancy seemed irregular to the very verge of
indecency, what with Latin ones that put
on ''side' and refused to have an ordinary
respectable accusative in their train, but
insisted, for no possible reason except the
short boys recess, on the attendance of
some idiotic genitive or wretched dative
case, my life was sufficient burden to me-.
So far l agreed with Shakspere that it
was "better to bear the ills we have than
fly to others that we know not Of" A
crash of the logs and a shower of sparks
that imperilled my slippers woke me from
my boyish reverie to renewed consciousness
of manhood and the serious gaps, in my
bookcase.
It is true might even now write the old
boyish rhymes on the fly-leaves of my
books, but somehow or other I have lost
faith in their virtue; and it may be that my
poetic taste has deteriorated but it is certain
no longer find in them the same beauties
as of yore. It seems to be plank in, the
ethical platform of to-day that neither
in books nor in umbrellas has any man in
alienable right of possession. Your warm
est friend will borrow your umbrella when
an untime!y shower catches him unpre-
pared, and will look surprised if you ven
ture to remind him months afterwards that
he is carrying it as his own, will shrug his
shoulders and probably look upon you ever
afterwards as person of pitifully parsi-
monious habits; and the deacon of your
church, a man who would scarcely
use pin he had not paid
for, a man who gives largely of his sub
stance to the widow and the fatherless, will
borrow one of your favorite volumes and
retain it for months with the utmost sang
froid, and you may deem yourself fortunate
if at last it comes back to you. soiled, dogs
cared, and pitifuiiy broken down in the
binding, I may be, I suppose am, straight
laced in this matter of book borrowing,
falsely so called, but confess my utter in
ability to understand why in this particular
instance the eighth commandment should
be 'more honored in the breach than in the
observance
Books are my best friends. To my ordi-
nary friends, borrowing my best friends
and returning them when read, have. like
many other men, not the slightest objec-
ton. On the contrary, SO catholic is my