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with stripes; for I am in a rage." He would not strike him, for the very reason for which another man would have struck him. "I am in a rage," said he; "I should beat him more than I ought I should take more pleasure than I ought in doing so let not that slave fall into the power of one who is not in his own power." Can any one wish to grant the power of revenge to an angry man, when Plato himself gave up his own right to exercise it? While you are angry, you ought not to be allowed to do anything. "Why?" do you ask? Because when you are angry there is nothing that you do not wish to be allowed to do.

Fight hard with yourself and if you cannot conquer anger, do not let it conquer you: you have begun to get the better of it if it does not show itself, if it is not given vent. Let us conceal its symptoms, and as far as possible keep it secret and hidden. It will give us great trouble to do this, for it is eager to burst forth, to kindle our eyes and to transform our face; but if we allow it to show itself in our outward appearance, it is our master. Let it rather be locked in the innermost recesses of our breast, and be borne by us, not bear us: nay, let us replace all its symptoms by their opposites; let us make our countenance more composed than usual, our voice milder, our step slower. Our inward thoughts gradually become influenced by our outward demeanor. With Socrates it was a sign of anger when he lowered his voice, and became sparing of speech; it was evident at such times that he was exercising restraint over himself. His friends, consequently, used to detect him acting thus, and convict him of being angry; nor was he displeased at being charged with concealment of anger; indeed, how could he help being glad that many men should perceive his anger, yet that none should feel it? they would, however, have felt it had not he granted to his friends the same right of criticising his own conduct which he himself assumed over theirs. How much more needful is it for us to do this? let us beg all our best friends to give us their opinion with the greatest freedom at the very time when we can bear it least, and never to be compliant with us when we are angry. While we are in our right senses, while we are under our own control, let us call for help against so powerful an evil, and one which we regard with such unjust favor. Those who cannot carry their wine discreetly, and fear to be betrayed into some rash and insolent act, give their slaves orders to take them away from the ban

quet when they are drunk; those who know by experience how unreasonable they are when sick give orders that no one is to obey them when they are in ill health. It is best to prepare obstacles beforehand for vices which are known, and above all things so to tranquilize our mind that it may bear the most sudden and violent shocks either without feeling anger, or, if anger be provoked by the extent of some unexpected wrong, that it may bury it deep, and not betray its wound.

THE VANITY OF FORTUNE'S GIFTS.

BY BOETHIUS.

(From "The Consolation of Philosophy": translated by H. R. James.)

[ANICIUS MANLIUS SEVERINUS BOETHIUS, the illustrious Roman philosopher and statesman, was born in Rome about 475 A.D. He came of a wealthy patrician family and received an education befitting his rank, giving particular attention to philosophy, mathematics, and poetry. He was chosen consul (510), and having won the favor of Theodoric, king of the Ostrogoths, was appointed by that monarch court minister. His probity and integrity, however, excited the enmity of certain corrupt courtiers, who succeeded in prejudicing the king against him. He was accused of treasonable designs, thrown into prison at Pavia, and executed in 525 A.D. During his imprisonment he wrote the "Consolation of Philosophy," partly in prose and partly in verse. It was translated into Anglo-Saxon by King Alfred, into English by Chaucer, and enjoyed great popularity in the Middle Ages. He also made Greek learning accessible to his contemporaries by means of translations of, and commentaries upon, Greek books on philosophy, mathematics, rhetoric, and grammar. His translation of the logic of Aristotle was extensively used as a manual by mediæval scholars.]

THEN said I: "Thou knowest thyself that ambition for worldly success hath but little swayed me. Yet I have desired opportunity for action, lest virtue, in default of exercise, should languish away.

Then she "This is that last infirmity' which is able to allure minds which, though of noble quality, have not yet been molded to any exquisite refinement by the perfecting of the virtues I mean, the love of glory- and fame for high services rendered to the commonweal. And yet consider with me how poor and unsubstantial a thing this glory is! The whole of this earth's globe, as thou has learnt from the demonstration of astronomy, compared with the expanse of heaven, is

found no bigger than a point; that is to say, if measured by the vastness of heaven's sphere, it is held to occupy absolutely no space at all. Now, of this so insignificant portion of the universe, it is about a fourth part, as Ptolemy's proofs have taught us, which is inhabited by living creatures known to us. If from this fourth part you take away in thought all that is usurped by seas and marshes, or lies a vast waste of waterless desert, barely is an exceeding narrow area left for human habitation. You, then, who are shut in and prisoned in this merest fraction of a point's space, do ye take thought for the blazoning of your fame, for the spreading abroad of your renown? Why, what amplitude or magnificence has glory when confined to such narrow and petty limits?

"Besides, the straitened bounds of this scant dwelling place are inhabited by many nations differing widely in speech, in usages, in mode of life; to many of these, from the difficulty of travel, from diversities of speech, from want of commercial intercourse, the fame not only of individual men, but even of cities, is unable to reach. Why, in Cicero's days, as he himself somewhere points out, the fame of the Roman Republic had not yet crossed the Caucasus, and yet by that time her name had grown formidable to the Parthians and other nations of those parts. Seest thou, then, how narrow, how confined, is the glory ye take pains to spread abroad and extend! Can the fame of a single Roman penetrate where the glory of the Roman name fails to pass? Moreover, the customs and institutions of different races agree not together, so that what is deemed praiseworthy in one country is thought punishable in another. Wherefore, if any love the applause of fame, it shall not profit him to publish his name among many peoples. Then, each must be content to have the range of his glory limited to his own people; the splendid immortality of fame must be confined within the bounds of a single race.

"Once more, how many of high renown in their own times have been lost in oblivion for want of a record! Indeed, of what avail are written records even, which, with their authors, are overtaken by the dimness of age after a somewhat longer time? But ye, when ye think on future fame, fancy it an immortality that ye are begetting for yourselves. Why, if thou scannest the infinite spaces of eternity, what room hast thou left for rejoicing in the durability of thy name? Verily, if a single moment's space be compared with ten thousand years,

it has a certain relative duration, however little, since each period is definite. But this same number of years—ay, and a number many times as great - cannot even be compared with endless duration; for, indeed, finite periods may in short be compared one with another, but a finite and an infinite never. So it comes to pass that fame, though it extend to ever so wide a space of years, if it be compared to never-lessening eternity, seems not short-lived merely, but altogether nothing. But as for you, ye know not how to act aright, unless it be to court the popular breeze, and win the empty applause of the multitude nay, ye abandon the superlative worth of conscience and virtue, and ask a recompense from the poor words of others. Let me tell thee how wittily one did mock the shallowness of this sort of arrogance. A certain man assailed one who had put on the name of philosopher as a cloak to pride and vainglory, not for the practice of real virtue, and added: Now shall I know if thou art a philosopher if thou bearest reproaches calmly and patiently.' The other for a while affected to be patient, and, having endured to be abused, cried out derisively: Now, do you see that I am a philosopher?' The other, with biting sarcasm, retorted: I should have, hadst thou held thy peace.' Moreover, what concern have choice spirits for it is of such men we speak, men who seek glory by virtue — what concern, I say, have these with fame after the dissolution of the body in death's last hour? For if men die wholly, which our reasonings forbid us to believe, there is no such thing as glory at all, since he to whom the glory is said to belong is altogether non-existent. But if the mind, conscious of its own rectitude, is released from its earthly prison, and seeks heaven in free flight, doth it not despise all earthly things when it rejoices in its deliverance from earthly bonds, and enters upon the joys of heaven?"

SONG: GLORY MAY NOT Last.

Oh, let him, who pants for glory's guerdon,
Deeming glory all in all,

Look and see how wide the heaven expandeth,
Earth's inclosing bounds how small!

Shame it is, if your proud-swelling glory

May not fill this narrow room!

Why, then, strive so vainly, oh, ye proud ones!
To escape your mortal doom?

Though your name, to distant regions bruited,
O'er the earth be widely spread,
Though full many a lofty-sounding title
On your house its luster shed,

Death at all this pomp and glory spurneth
When his hour draweth nigh,
Shrouds alike th' exalted and the humble,
Levels lowest and most high.

Where are now the bones of stanch Fabricius?
Brutus, Cato where are they?
Lingering fame, with a few graven letters,
Doth their empty name display.

But to know the great dead is not given
From a gilded name alone;

Nay, ye all alike must lie forgotten,
'Tis not you that fame makes known.

Fondly do ye deem life's little hour

Lengthened by fame's mortal breath;
There but waits you— when this, too, is taken-
At the last a second death.

THE VOYAGE OF MAELDUNE.

(FOUNDED ON AN OLD IRISH Legend.)

BY ALFRED TENNYSON.

[ALFRED TENNYSON, BARON TENNYSON: English poet; born at Somersby, England, August 6, 1809; died at Aldworth, October 6, 1892. His first poems were published with his brother Charles' in a small volume entitled "Poems of Two Brothers," in 1827. Two years later he won the chancellor's gold medal for his prize poem, "Timbuctoo." The following year came his "Poems, Chiefly Lyrical." In 1832 a new volume of miscellaneous poems was published, and was attacked savagely by the Quarterly Review. Ten years afterward another volume of miscellaneous verse was collected. In 1847 he published "The Princess," which was warmly received. In 1850 came "In Memoriam," and he was appointed poet laureate to succeed Wordsworth. Among his other works may be mentioned: "Idylls of the King," 1859; "Enoch Arden"