one element of unhappiness in their lot, namely, the disproportion between their designs and their deeds. Even the greatest cannot execute one tenth part of what they conceive."

Of how few can be said what has been said of Longfellow, that "he not only wrote no line which, dying, he would wish to blot, but not one which, living, he had not a right to be proud of."

He helped to realize for humanity the last words which he ever penned :

"Out of the shadow of night
The world moves into light;
It is daybreak everywhere!"

WASHINGTON IRVING.

EVER

VER since I have been old enough to distinguish good from evil in literary composition, your writings have been my familiar study. And, if I have done anything that deserves half the commendation you bestow on me, it is in a great measure from the study I have made of you and two or three others of the great masters of our language."

Thus wrote the delightful historian, William H. Prescott, to Washington Irving.

The youngest of eleven children, Irving was born in the city of New York, April 3, 1783. The father, a merchant, was a Scotchman by birth, a strict Presbyterian, who lived up to the letter of the law; the mother, an English woman, the granddaughter of a clergyman, was sweet-tempered, more lenient with the children, holding their devotion through life.

This child, born at the close of the Revolutionary War, was named for the man to whom all eyes were turned Washington. A young Scotch maid in the family determined that the great man should see his namesake, and followed him into a

shop, saying, "Please, your honor, here's a bairn was named after you."

The President put his hand upon the boy's head. and gave his blessing, little thinking that in the years to come the child would give to the world, as his last and greatest work, the "Life of Washington."

The Irving household was a merry one, though Washington used to say that, when he was young, "he was led to think, somehow or other, that everything which was pleasant was wicked." He early had a passion for books. "Robinson Crusoe," "Sindbad the Sailor," and "The World Displayed" (a collection of twenty small volumes of voyages and travels) were his especial delight. The latter he used to read under his desk at school, and, when found out by the teacher, though kindly reprimanded, was praised for his good taste in selection.

He had no love for mathematics, and frequently exchanged work with his school-fellows, they performing his examples, while he wrote their compositions. His great longing was to see the world. In his preface to the Sketch-Book he wrote, “How wistfully would I wander about the pier-heads in fine weather, and watch the parting ships bound to distant climes; with what longing eyes would I gaze after their lessening sails, and waft myself in imagination to the ends of the earth."

While his brothers, Peter and John, were sent