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Sweet Frailty.
I should rather be
A slow'r for a day
Than an age-old rock
Grown harden'd and gray.
I'd rather be the tiniest flow'r
That blinks in wonder at King Sun.
And shivers at rough North Wind's pow'r;
That glows with hope, trusts Nature's heart,
And sweetly lives for Just one hour,
And then--is crush'd by careless feet!
Than be the mighty boulder grim
That crowns some overhanging cliff
For ages long, pois'd on the brim,
Defying storm and avalanche,
Untouch'd by dew or starlight din.
Then--falls to kill a caravan!
I should rather be
A flow'r for a day
Than an age-old rock
Grown harden'd and gray.
Mary Henrietta Lehr
In the Editor's Study.
A Remarkable Document.
Friends of the Temperance cause, to whom the existence of the drink habit seems as inexplicable as it is lamentable and criminal, will take phenomenal interest in the article by Mr. Booth Tarkington entitled "Nipskillions", which appeared in The American Magazine for January, and which was reprinted in The National Enquirer for April 12. This terse little essay, which takes its name from the slang word applied in certain circles to a man who has turned from drink to temperance through satiation, tells in remarkably vivid fashion of the precise sensations of the drinker, and of the damnably seductive false cheer of the cup which leads in so many cases to complete mental, moral and physical degradation. Denying the incurable addiction of the average drinker to his poison, the article throws an unusually grave responsibility upon the persistent tippler.
Mr. Tarkington, relating the true story of an artist friend who saved himself at the last moment from the clutches of alcoholism, makes a notable contribution to the temperance cause; not only through the authenticity of his account, but from the fact that he writes not as a moral or religious doctrinaire, but as a rational
