1In tbe mooi^e voitb tbe Bow 



SOME person — a pessimist — said, just 

 when I do not know, that the stories 

 were all told before Homer's time. Another 

 added the remark that there were but five 

 stories to begin with. Art doubtless has 

 limitations which confine strict originality 

 to a very small space; but nature defies 

 all peripheries — she browses at will up the 

 slopes of countless Helicons. Her stories 

 are in number as the sands of the sea, as 

 the leaves of summer, as the changes on 

 sky and clouds when the wind aloft is 

 strong and the sun burns bonfires along 

 the hills that notch the horizon. Books 

 may be but variations of ancient monot- 

 onies; I do not deny it. Men may have 

 nothing new under the sun to think, to 

 say, to write — the poor fellows ; it is little 



20I 



