Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1908-06-26
BATES.
Continued from Page One.)


He loved his Horace said Oliver
Wendell Holmes of his dear friend the
scholar, John Osborne Sargent He
lover his Horace'-it is ren1arka BILE
now many times one q. comes across
those words in the biographies of ia
nous men of letters and reads that a
well thumbed every day copy of Hor-
aces 'Odes' lay always at hand, while
the more elegant works of Virgil and
Ovid looked down from the shelves
with a Sunday air Yes, there is
something about the lyrics of Horace
that is irresistible to the student. Per-
haps it is the wholesome, hearty, per-
sonal tone, the little familiar touches
of everyday life, of friends, of self, Of
good fellowship, perhaps his sprghtly
views of life and love, his 'man-of- the
world air and certainly it is the in
bern gentleness of a true gentleman.
1T is as a lyric poet that Horace is
most loved and known, and it is his
odes that most catch the popular fancy
Written between the mature ages of
80 and 40 they have the subtle light
touches of the man-of-the-w world, the
man who has seen all sides of life and
is not ,embittered thereby. The at
mosphere of his measures is pure
sweet, wide and clear as the morn
ing, running over with the ripping of
| streams, piping with the shepherds in
| spring, dancing with the grdled maid
| ems. He rouseS in us no fierce pas
| sion, no unrest, no vigor of thought or
action. His verses are vacation lays,
things to dream over and to catch
ones self far off in some loved spot of
youth fitting our own lives to his
| magic measures.
Love Of nature is the accompani-
ment of leisure. culture and refine
ment and the beauty of Italian seem
cry gives the most distinctive charm
| to Horace's poetry. Some of his odes
are little paintings of nature en-
balmed in amber verse where we may
perpetually sec the fairness of his ma
tive land. No tribute fails of a tribute
from his loving pen.
| "Whatever was most worthy to sur
vive in the spirit which animated the
AleXandrian poetry, Horace preserved
in greater beauty and vitality, combir-
ing it with the ideas, feelings and pas
sions of a more vigorous race. There
We're other aspirants in those days
Ovid, Propertius, Virgil, who elected
| from the organ of the Latin Ian
guage the most delicate and varied
combination, but among them all
| Horace alone found in his notes the
beauty of the dying swans song.
struck the golden chord to which the
hearts of all men vibrate suddenly,
uncorsciously, and make true his own
prophecy
Think not the words will perish that
Born where the waters of Giants roar;
Words which, by poets art unknown be
Set to the. Tyre are echoed from its
| string
Thomas S. Bridges spoke on 'Legis-
lation ard Public Opinion Bridges
is one of the best speakers in college
and his speech was very clearly given.
y" said in part:
| "FeW questions have been more dis
cussed during recent years than the
| Increasing tendency of legislative bod
les to propose and to enact new laws.
Scarcely any agitation of a public or a
moral question is so unimportant that
it does not produce in nearly hum
dred state capitols a series of bills
| supposed to represent it in all it's va
ried and shifting phases. This striv-
ing Of the people to meet new or sup
| pCsedly new conditions is significant
"Changes in statute law are evil
denccs to the philosophical student of
that ceaseless evolution which marks
the growth of a political organism.
government, the recognition OF
mutual rights and mutual obligations.
is perhaps the highest achievement of
the race. How slow and hating has
been the upward march, we can Judge
if we trace it back through the writ
ten record, though tradition and
myth, to the unpenetrable silence and
mystery of the primeval world
He said that to some extent we have
srasped the meaning of duty, and
right, and obligation, and the conccp-
ton of government and law and So
cie.y; that the Improvement of or
garizatiOn means the shrinkagc of in
dividuals.
am this country it is certain that the
| Shrinkage- is increasing every day;
that the individual under the legisla :
tive policy of our state and federal
government is giving up more and
more, but is he or is he not receiving
more and more?'
He said that our system of govern
ment was perhaps the most perfect
but questioned the fact that it paid
GLOW stands the individual every
where throughout the world, in rela-
ton to the social or political or
n ganization in which he finds himself?
he surrenders the simplicity
Il of barbarism for the complicated
artificial idea of civilization. and
what does he get in return? The I'M
satisfied aspirations, the eager desire
for better conditions, the constant
pressure. upward and outward. show
that reasonable or unreasonably there
is everywhere a profound feeling that
Stree so much has been given, some
thing more ought to have been re-
ceivcd." Mr.. Bridges gave this ex-
PLANTATION that every improvement in
human conditions has been accom-
II nliShed nv diSSatiSfa ct ion