As a Strong Bird on Pinions Free

BY WALT WHITMAN

(See pages 174, 268, 578, 726)

BEAUTIFUL World of new, superber Birth, that rises

to my eyes,

Like a limitless golden cloud, filling the western sky. . . . Thou Wonder World, yet undefined, unformed-neither do I define thee;

How can I pierce the impenetrable blank of the future?
I feel thy ominous greatness, evil as well as good;

I watch thee, advancing, absorbing the present, transcending the past;

I see thy light lighting and thy shadow shadowing, as if the entire globe;

But I do not undertake to define thee-hardly to comprehend thee;

I but thee name-thee prophesy-as now!

The Kingdom of Man

BY E. RAY LANKESTER

(English scientist, professor in the University of London, born 1847)

THE

HE new knowledge of Cature, the newly-ascertained capacity of man for a control of Nature so thorough as to be almost unlimited, has not as yet had an opportunity of showing what it can do. No power has called on man to arise and enter upon the possession of this kingdom-the "Kingdom of Man" foreseen by Francis

Bacon and pictured by him to an admiring but incredulous age with all the fervor and picturesque detail of which he was capable. And yet at this moment the mechanical difficulties, the want of assurance and of exact knowledge, which necessarily prevented Bacon's schemes from taking practical shape, have been removed. The will to possess this vast territory is alone wanting.

The weariness which is so largely expressed today in regard to human effort is greatly due to the fact that we have exhausted old sources of inspiration, and have not yet learned to believe in the new. It is time for man to take up whole-heartedly the Kingdom of Nature which it is his destiny to rule. New hope, new life will, when he does this, be infused into every line of human activity. To a community which believes in the destiny of man as the controller of Nature and has consciously entered upon its fulfilment, there can be none of the weariness and even despair which comes from an exclusive worship of the past. There can be only encouragement in every victory gained, hope and the realization of hope.

On a Steamship

BY UPTON SINCLAIR

(See pages 43, 143, 194, 274, 403, 776, 803)

ALL night, without the gates of slumber lying,

I listen to the joy of falling water,

And to the throbbing of an iron heart.

In ages past, men went upon the sea,

Waiting the pleasure of the chainless winds;

But now the course is laid, the billows part;
Mankind has spoken: "Let the ship go there!"

I am grown haggard and forlorn, from dreams
That haunt me, of the time that is to be,
When man shall cease from wantonness and strife,
And lay his law upon the course of things.
Then shall he live no more on sufferance,

An accident, the prey of powers blind;

The untamed giants of nature shall bow down—
The tides, the tempest and the lightning cease
From mockery and destruction, and be turned
Unto the making of the soul of man.

WE

BY THOMAS CARLYLE

(See pages 31, 74, 133, 488, 553, 652)

E must some day, at last and forever, cross the line between Nonsense and Common Sense. And on that day we shall pass from Class Paternalism, originally derived from fetish fiction in times of universal ignorance, to Human Brotherhood in accordance with the nature of things and our growing knowledge of it; from Political Government to Industrial Administration; from Competition in Individualism to Individuality in Co-operation; from War and Despotism, in any form, to Peace and Liberty.

Α AYE

The Rebolution

BY RICHARD WAGNER

(See pages 236, 747)

YE, we behold it, the old world crumbling; a new will rise therefrom; for the lofty goddess Reason comes rustling on the wings of storm, her stately head ringed round with lightnings, a sword in her right hand, a torch in her left. Her eye is stern, is punitive, is cold; and yet what warmth of purest love, what wealth of happiness streams forth toward him who dares to look with steadfast gazing into that eye! Rustling she comes, the ever-rejuvenating mother of mankind; destroying and fulfilling, she fares across the earth; before her soughs the storm, and shakes so fiercely at man's handiwork that vast clouds of dust eclipse the sky, and where her mighty foot is set, there falls in ruins what an idle whim had built for aeons; the hem of her robe sweeps its last remains away. But in her wake there opens out a never-dreamt paradise of happiness, illumined by kindly sunbeams; and where her foot had trodden down, spring fragrant flowers from the soul, and jubilant songs of freed mankind fill the air, scarce silent from the din of battle.

In Memoriam

BY ALFRED TENNYSON

(See pages 77, 486, 652)

ING out, wild bells, to the wild sky,

The flying clouds, the frosty light:

The year is dying in the night;

Ring out, wild bells, and let him die.