NORTH SHORE BREEZE 
God and whose 
Pessimism acts 
whose centre was 
hope was Christ. 
as a deterrent to action. Optisism 
always inspires to action. Brown- 
ing was an optimist and this is no 
where more evident than in the 
same poem: 
“4 while I planned 
Youth shows but half: trust God: 
see all nor be afraid!”’ 
And the use of the symbol of the 
Potter’s wheel to teach this same 
beautiful lesson of good cheer is all 
the more impressive because of the 
pronounced pessimistic use of the 
same symbol in the Rubiyat. The 
Rubiyat says: 
‘And, strange to tell, among the 
Earthern lot 
Some could articulate, while others 
not: 
And suddenly one more impatient 
eried 
Who is the Potter, pray, and who 
The Pot?’’ 
The same pessimism in the Ru- 
biyat is written: 
For in the Market place, one Dusk 
of Day 
I watched the Potter thumping his 
wet clay: 
How Time is slipping underneath 
our Feet 
Unborn Tomorrow, and dead yes- 
terday, 
Why fret about them if Today be 
sweet.”’ 
One moment in annihilation’s waste 
One moment of the well of life to 
taste 
The stars are setting and the cara- 
van 
Starts for the dawn of nothing—oh 
make haste.’’ 
But Browning is so transparently 
cheerful with the same clay. His 
poem is a fitting antidote to the 
cheerless omar: 
Ay, note the Potter’s wheel, 
That metaphor and feel 
Why time spins fast, why passive 
lies our day, 
Thou, to whom fools profound 
When the wine makes its round, 
Since life fleets, all is change; the 
Past gone sieze today !”’ 
“Fool. All that is at all, 
Lasts ever, past recall: 
Earth changes, but thy soul and 
God stand sure: 
What entered into thee, 
That was, is and shall be: 
Time’s wheel runs back or stops: 
Potter and day endure. 
HKKKEKK KKH KK 
But I need now as then, 
Thee, God, who mouldest men! 
And since, not even while the 
world was worst, 
Did I,—to the wheel of life 
With shapes and colours rife 
Bound dizzily, mistake my end— 
to shake thy thirst.’’ 
‘‘So, take and use thy work, 
Amend what flows may lurk 
What strain, the stuff, what 
warpings past the air! 
My tunes be in thy hand! — 
Perfect the cup as planned! 
Let age approve of youth, and 
death compelte the same.’ 
Such a cheerful philosophy of life 
has been a comfort to countless 
numbers and will continue for years 
to come. 
Browning was a democrat in 
spirit and the supercilious and the 
snobbishness of the lordly class was 
never found in him, 
This quality of his purespirit is 
expressed with chaste beautiful 
English by Henry Van Dyke. 
How blind the toil that burrows like 
a mole, 
In winding graveyard pathways 
underground, 
For Browning linage! 
men have found. 
Poor footmen or rich merchants on 
What if 
the roll 
Of his forbears? Did they beget 
his soul? 
Nay, for he came of ancestry re- 
nowned 
Through all the world—the potes 
laurel-crowned 
With wreaths from which the au- 
tumn takes no toll. 
‘<The blazons on his coat-of-arms are 
these: 
The flaming sign of Shelley’s heart 
on fire, 
The golden globe of Shakespeare’s 
human stage, 
The staff and scrip of Chaucer’s 
pilgrimage, 
The rose of Dante’s deep, divine 
desire, 
The tragic mask of wise Euripides.”’ 
The President’s Heart. 
The President has shown his 
creat heart and his capacity for 
true friendship in his tribute to his 
Military Companion, Major Butt. 
These have been trying days for our 
ereat President and his character 
was never better shown in his tri- 
bute last week, when he left the 
arena of politics to let the heart 
have its way. His words are worth 
more than a passing thought. 
‘‘Rverybody knew Archie as Ar- 
chie,’’ the President said. ‘‘I can- 
not go into a box at a theatre, I 
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cannot turn around in my room, | 
ean’t go anywhere without expect- 
ing to see his smiling face or to hear 
his cheerful voice in greeting. The 
life of the President is rather iso- 
lated, and those appointed to live 
with him come much closer to him 
than anyone else. The bond is very 
close and it is difficult to speak on 
such an occasion. 
‘“‘Archie Butt’s character was 
single, simple, straightforward and 
incapable of intrigue. A_ clear 
sense of humor lightened his life 
and those about him. Life was not 
for him a troubled problem. He was 
a soldier, and when he was ap- 
pointed to serve under another, to 
that other he rendered implicit loy- 
alty. I never knew a man who had 
so much self-abnegation, so much 
self-sacrifice as Archie Butt. 
‘‘Oceasions like the sinking of the 
Titanic frequently develop unfore- 
seen traits in men, It makes them 
heroes when you don’t expect it. 
‘‘But with Archie it was just as 
natural for him to help those about 
him as it was for him to ask me to 
permit him to do something for 
me. 
‘‘He was on the deck of the Ti- 
tanic exactly what he was every- 
where. He leaves a void with those 
who loved him, but the circum- 
stances of his going are all what we 
would have had, and, while the 
tears fill the eyes and the voice is 
choked, we are felicitated by the 
memory of what he was.”’ 
That the President has lost Mary- 
land was not unexpected but the 
end is not yet. Only forty-six more 
delegates are now needed to elect 
him or the the first ballot. Mr. 
Roosevelt will need 299. Can he get 
them? If he doesn’t? Will he bolt? 
‘A letter from your wife, eh? 
Anything new or strange hap- 
pened ?”’ 
‘‘Well I should say so; she doesn’t 
ask for money.”’ 
