OCTOBER 8.
I love the mocking-bird; not because he is a wonderful musician, for—as I have heard him—that he is not; nor because he has a sweet disposition, for that he certainly has not, but because of his mysterious habit of singing at night, which seems to differentiate him from his kind, and approach him to the human; because of his rapturous manner of song, his joy of living; because he shows so much character, and so much intelligence.
OLIVE THORNE MILLER.
The lift of every man's heart is upward; to help another human soul in its upward evolution is life's greatest and most joyful privilege; to lend ourselves each to the other as an inspiration to grander living is life's highest ministry and reward.
DANA W. BARTLETT,
in The Better City.
OCTOBER 9.
THE WATER OUZEL.
The vertical curves and angles of the most precipitous torrents he traces with the same rigid fidelity, swooping down the inclines of cascades, dropping sheer over dizzy falls amid the spray, and ascending with the same fearlessness and ease, seldom seeking to lessen the steepness of the acclivity by beginning to ascend before reaching the base of the fall. No matter though it may be several hundred feet in height he holds straight on, as if about to dash headlong into the throng of booming rockets, and darts abruptly up ward, and, after alighting at the top of the precipice to rest a moment, proceeds to feed and sing.