The daily morning journal and courier., 1901-11-23

tne WOfld or DOCKS IS democratic.
 have lived in New York. but have never
 attended the soirees of the -Four Hun
 dred' l was in London once. at the
 time of the diamond jubilee" of the
 queen, when a few very choice invita-
 tions were sent out to a reception on
 St, James street, but my name was not
 In the number, And yet dear old Sir
 Thomas Browne invites me to come and
 moralize with him whenever I wish;
 and Sir Walter Scott invites me to his
 castle, to behold his pictures of gene
 rosity heroism, manliness and truth
 and l can sit down with Aeschylus at any time while he shows me the ghost of Clytemnestra rushing into ApoHo's
 temple to rouse the sleeping furies.
 We speak of the Republic of Letters;" and such it is. It is not an empire, or an oligarchy, with privileges for the few. How many thousands in our city turned longing eyes toward that dinner table, few weeks ago, where about a dozen chosen people sat down with the president of the United States. What would we not have given to be among the number? And yet there is not a
 
 not fireman or an engineer so grimy, there is not a mechanic so obscure, or a dltch- digger so humble that he can not sit by the side of Macaulay while he pours forth the passion of his soul in sublime and luxuriant sentences, or walk through the world with Aesop while the birds and brooks and trees and stones speak words of sweetness and wisdom, or sit down at the break fast table with the Autocrat while his keen and entertaining philosophy speaks words of humor and pathos There is a great dinnerparty to be held every night this week, at which there will be present, without one letter of wittiest and the most exalted men this world has produced in three thousand years, who will pour forth un- reservedly in after dinner speech the sublimest conceptions of their minds and the deepest impulses of their hearts concealing nothing from policy and covering up nothing from fear; and at the door of this banquet ing hall there stands one who asks us, not the size of our bank account and the purity of our blood, but, Do you know the alphabet, and can you read?" If so this We can answer Yes the door is thrown wide open, and we can enter beneath the bright lamps of truth to hold sweet communion with the noblest and best of all ages and all lands. Suppose l had been invited to that little dinner party down there, and had bee placed next to the president, and in the course of the hour had turn ed to him and said, MT Roosevelt as a Dutchman, will you kindly tell me frankly your opinion of the South African war;" What would he have He would have said, We are having very pleasant weather for the bicentennial, aren't we?" And yet at the great banquet of my books, when l sit next to the wise and exalted Elmer son, the caustic and roaring Carlyle, the scholarly and witty Lowell, the in- cisive and satirical Thackeray or the soaring and philosophical Goethe, I am sure that they have nothing to conceal If cynieism seizes me, and I am in dan ger of losing my faith in men, l can sit down by Robbie" Burns until the mu- sic of his sweet humanitarianism con- vinces me that "a mans a man for a , that" If the storm and stress of life ! wearies me, and I tire of it's cant and shams, I can sit down and smile at the puns of Ella, or commune with the serene and healthy soul of Jane Aus tin. If clouds of sense gather about me, and narrow visions and low ideals reign in my soul, l can climb up into Paradise with Milton and when I lay his book aside I am ready to exclaim with Keats, after reading Chapman's Homer
 Then felt I like some watcher of the
 skies
 When a new planet swims into his
 ken,
 Or like stout Cortez when with eagle
 eyes
 He stared at the Pacific-and all his
 men
 Looked at each other with wild sur
 mise
 Silent upon a peak in Darien.'
 Thank God for books! But most of Ill let us thank Him for the Books of Books. How often have men thought, If I only could have lived in the time if Jesus, and have seen him as he walk d in Nazareth, or rested at Sychar or aught in Capernium! If l could but lave stood on the shore when he utter d the Parable of the Sower, or have ,eheld him when he took the children n his arms and blessed! or, most : precious privilege of all, if I could have tood on the mount when the glory of ,eaven was about him, and his raiment vas white as snow! o then I should rave understood Him" Alas, then we hould have understood Him less than ye do now. The inhabitants of Beth ny, the visitor al Jerusalem, the dwell- r in Cana, say but fragments of his fife, heard but snatches of his words, nd misinterpreted and misunderstood ecause his vision was so limited. But y means of these few printed pages, whose paragraphs echo with music from infinite depths whose words drop hon.