The Birmingham age-herald., 1909-11-28
OF THE GOLDEN FLEECE-By Dr.. w.

action The owner of the horse, pleased at the compliment, dashed of down the
 road at a great rate and as he did so
 Sheridan took to his heels in the opposite
 direction
 The financial reverses of Sir Walter Scott are well knownj they were brought about by tho failure of the publishing house with which he had become con nected. Ruin stared him in the face. Friends came forward to offer aid, but he said. "No. this right hand shall work off all this debt" His health was all ready poor. yet, as he put 1t, he wrote like tiger" In quick succession he gave the world woodstock" the "IAfe of Na- poleon," 'Chronicles of the Canongate," |" Tales of Grandfather" 'sThe Fair Maid of Perths" and many articles of length and research did he write for en- cyclopaedias magazines. quarterlies and the like. The profits from the sale of these productions substantially dinin- ished his debts. but as migfft have been expected, his great labors brought on the physical disability which caused the pen to drop from his hand forever, leav- ing part of the great debt unpaid. But never did man try more earnestly to bal ance his accounts with his fellow men before going hence than did he whom the world has called ''The Wizard of the North"-the Jason of the Scotch Argon- auts.
 NIGHT SHOWS THE STARS.
 As the trials and dangers of his quest were met by Jason with an undaunted spirit of heroism that revealed 6 person. ality worthy the Golden Fleece, so, also, have the difficulties that men have mas tered shown them to be worthy the lofty ends at which they aimed
 Adversity, like night, reveals the stars" used to be @ favorite subject for essays among college boys. It is. also, today comprehensive of a sublime truth in character and in achievement Adversity reveals the stars of human kind Those who are less than stars it overwheins or submerges
 Horace tells us that poverty drove him to poetry, and poetry introduced him to varus, to Virgil and to Maeoenas. He travelled the road from poverty to tho Grove of Mars, where hung the Golden Fleece
 Such Journey as that from obsourity to fame. together with the suffering im- piled. awakens the best of mans na- turo and fits him for eminence. Suffering is essential to men Dumas asked Re- bout, ''What made you a poetr' The answer was, Suffering"
 Tom Hood often carried a sunny faos when his very heart was aching, and these lines which he wrote apply to his own lifet
 There's not string attuned to mfrth But has its chord in melancholy"
 A musician of prominence once said of promising singer whose tones were without passion. She sings well, but she wants something, and in that something everything. If were single. would court her I would marry her would maltreat her, I would break her heart, and in sfx months she would be the greatest singer in Europe" What the woman would be doing all that time of maltreatment fe another story. But I do not question that many a singer has learned her song through suffering. God sends the night and the nightingale sinss- God sends the night and the stars flash Into view.
 soul whose existence men never before dreamed.
 A young. proud knight set out with his followers for the east to fight in tho cause of the Crusaders. Leaving his an- cestrd castle he counted 1t life's highest Joy to share in the defeat of the infidels and to rescue the Holy Sepulchre. But his dreams and hopes were not to be realized; for before he could leave his own land he was thrown from his horse and so disabled that he was compelled to aba ndon his ardent purpose. But this he could do and dfd-he could 50 to the blacksmith and learn to draw steel. to shape it. to temper it. to polish 1t, to carve the hilt with some stirring device that would nerve the heart and strength en the arm in the day of battle. This he did. and placing swords of his own devising in the hands of the happier