THE CONGRESS OF WOMEN.

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drama is to be woven. It is Goethe himself speaking again, when the jester says in a meditative way that there are two great classes in an audience which are typical of the world at large—those who grow, and those who do not. There are those who, grown to a certain point, have stopped there, marked out certain lines as sure and fast, sat down within them, and with steadfast rejection of new ideas have never been pleased with progress. While on the other hand are those who are alive to each breath of thought, who drink in all truth as they can find it, seeking eagerly for means of growth, and those, he concludes, as are known to the poet will be ever grateful.

The poet has been met upon his own ground; still the task before him gives no hint of inspiration. His heart fails, and like many another, weary in the service of art, he for the moment forgets to look upward and onward, and with a purely human impulse turns to the remembered days of youth when, as he says, he had nothing, yet had all things.

“When like a fount the crowding measures,

Uninterrupted gushed and sprang.”

Illusion was his, and as for truth, vigor of love and hate,

If he must write, give him his youth again.

The jester listens. We can almost see his gentle, quizzical smile as he, quietly surveying the whole of life, replies to this natural, yet inferior attitude of the poet. Touching him gently, pointing this and this w r ay, with intention to lead his artist to a nobler, greater state of mind, he says that youth was very well in its place and season; it was well for love and dancing, and for combat and the winning of prizes, but he says (and again we know how the words indicate Goethe’s own feeling), to play upon the harp of life itself, to play with strength of love and skill of hand,

“With grace and bold expression,”

comes only from experience. He shakes his head. “They say age makes us childish, but ’tis not true.”

This is the jester’s closing word. A powerful man he has shown himself to be, far­sighted, large of heart, adaptable in temperament and a master of philosophy touch­ing the doctrine of growth and the brotherhood of man.

As the jester ceases speaking the manager begins, bringing the business and the scene to a close. They have talked quite long enough, he says. ’Tis deeds that I prefer to see. They can be more useful if they will drop compliments, talks about inspiration and all that, and without further delay let the poet go to work. The man­ager is not making himself disagreeable, however. Having gained his point, he now desires to aid the poet in every way that he can. So, although he says to him briefly:

“ If poetry be your vocation,

Let poetry your will obey,”

he s-till recognizes the mood of the poet, who stands despondently silent, weighted with the sense of what he has to do; and as if to reassure him, even while he urged him forward, the manager, too, drifts into philosophy, and touches a point in life which well appeals to us, according with experience and with that upward progressive spirit, which is one of the leadings of today. He says:

“ Tomorrow will not do.

Waste not a day.”

Then most kindly, with true sympathy, he bids his author be resolute and courageous, and above all trustful to the power within. He bids him look abroad for incentive and thought, and so looking, to seize upon every impression, catching and holding and using what first may come. “You’ll then work on because you must.” Evidently the manager had himself battled with discouragement, and had learned the value of

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