"FROM OLD FIELDS" 443 



compared with the mighty secrets which are really written in the book of 

 nature, and which, with time and patience, will be read there. 



Two other dramas, "Alfred the Great" and "Curtius," writ- 

 ten at this period, were never published. "Valor," a poem de- 

 livered before the Phi Beta Kappa, June 26, 1902, was warmly 

 appreciated by those who heard it. As to his manner of speak- 

 ing, the accompanying letter from the then teacher of elocution 

 at Harvard gives the best and most competent representa- 

 tion: 



You perhaps know that I hurt my knee a short time ago, and for some days 

 I was unable to walk. This morning, I am glad to say, I could hobble over 

 to Sanders Theatre to hear you. You were so real, and so entirely individ- 

 ual in your delivery, as well as in your matter, that I found myself thor- 

 oughly absorbed in your thought, and forgot entirely about your manner. 

 That to my mind is the greatest praise that can be given to a speaker. Your 

 form of speaking was indeed a true reflection of the man back of it, whom 

 to know is to honor. An old war veteran who sat near me said that you did 

 not fire Gatling guns in your talk, but you dwelt on the happy and peaceful 

 side of the relations of our people, which he said to his mind was the side 

 to dwell upon. This morning you quoted one of the Scriptural sayings that 

 I use a good deal in talking of my work " What does it profit a man if he 

 gain the whole world, and lose his own soul? " Your soul was in the topmast 

 of your being. 



"From Old Fields," the last volume Mr. Shaler ever wrote 

 (published after his death), took even stronger hold upon the 

 author than any of his previous poetic writings. This collection 

 of short poems is the record, in many instances, of personal 

 experiences. In writing them he lives over the grim days of the 

 Civil War, qualifying the youthful ardor by the sad reflection 

 time brings to the man who revives the dead passions, who 

 hears the voiceless call of the dead past. Of these last poems 

 Dr. William James writes: 



Dec. 25, 1906. 



Dear Mrs. Shaler: I have been waiting, ere I wrote to you, to finish 

 reading the Poems of the Civil War which you so generously sent. I read 

 the last line only night before last, so that my letter falls, most felicitously, 



