I started him at solitaire, a fooling, piffling game. 
  He played it ninety-seven hours and failed to find it tame. 
  In all the times he dealt the cards no two games were the same.

  He never tumbled to its tricks nor mastered all its curves. 
  He grunted, “Well, this takes the cake, the pickles and preserves! 
  Its infinite variety is getting on my nerves.”

  “Its infinite variety!” I scoffed.  “Just fifty-two
  Poor trifling bits of pasteboard!—­their combinations few
  Compared to what there is in man!—­the poorest!—­even you!

  “Variety!  You’ll never find in forty-seven decks
  One tenth of the variety found in the gentler sex. 
  Card combinations are but frills to hang around their necks.

  “The sun won’t rise to-morrow as it came to us to-day,
  ’Twill be older, we’ll be older, and to Time this debt we pay. 
  For nothing can repeat itself, for nothing knows the way.”

  Then the Grumpy Guy was silent as a miser hoarding pelf. 
  He knew ’twas time to put his grouch away upon the shelf. 
  And so he did.—­You see, I was just talking to myself!

Griffith Alexander.

From “The Pittsburg Dispatch.”

THE FIGHTER

If life were all easy, we should degenerate into weaklings—­into human mush.  It is the fighting spirit that makes us strong.  Nor do any of us lack for a chance to exercise this spirit.  Struggle is everywhere; as Kearny said at Fair Oaks, “There is lovely fighting along the whole line.”

  I fight a battle every day
    Against discouragement and fear;
  Some foe stands always in my way,
    The path ahead is never clear! 
  I must forever be on guard
    Against the doubts that skulk along;
  I get ahead by fighting hard,
    But fighting keeps my spirit strong.

  I hear the croakings of Despair,
    The dark predictions of the weak;
  I find myself pursued by Care,
    No matter what the end I seek;
  My victories are small and few,
    It matters not how hard I strive;
  Each day the fight begins anew,
    But fighting keeps my hopes alive.

  My dreams are spoiled by circumstance,
    My plans are wrecked by Fate or Luck;
  Some hour, perhaps, will bring my chance,
    But that great hour has never struck;
  My progress has been slow and hard,
    I’ve had to climb and crawl and swim,
  Fighting for every stubborn yard,
    But I have kept in fighting trim.

  I have to fight my doubts away,
    And be on guard against my fears;
  The feeble croaking of Dismay
    Has been familiar through the years;
  My dearest plans keep going wrong,
    Events combine to thwart my will,
  But fighting keeps my spirit strong,
    And I am undefeated still!

S.E.  Kiser.