The ridge, ascending from seaward in a gradual coquetry of foot-hills, broad low ranges, cross-systems, canyons, little flats, and gentle ravines, inland dropped off almost sheer to the river below.  And from under your very feet rose range after range, tier after tier, rank after rank, in increasing crescendo of wonderful tinted mountains to the main crest of the Coast Range, the blue distance, the mightiness of California’s western systems. * * * And in the far distance, finally, your soul grown big in a moment, came to rest on the great precipices and pines of the greatest mountains of all, close under the sky.

STEWART EDWARD WHITE,
in The Mountains.

MARCH 11.

TO YOU, MY FRIEND.

  To you, my friend, where’er you be,
  Though known or all unknown to me;
  To you, who love the things of God,
  The dew-begemmed and velvet sod,
  The birds that trill beside their nest. 
  “Oh, love, sweet love, of life is best;”
  To you, for whom each sunset glows. 
    This message goes.

  To you, my friend.  Mayhap ’tis writ
  We ne’er shall meet.  What matters it? 
  Where’er we roam, God’s light shall gleam
  For us on hill and wold and stream. 
  And we shall hold the blossoms dear,
  And baby lips shall give us cheer,
  And, loving these, leal friends are we,
    Where’er you be.

  To you, my friend, who know right well
  That life is more than money’s spell,
  Who hear the universal call,
  “Let all love all, as He loves all,”
  Oh, list me in your ranks benign,
  Accept this falt’ring hand of mine
  Which, though unworthy, I extend. 
    And hold me friend.

A.J.  WATERHOUSE.

MARCH 12.

  Strength is meant for something more than merely to be strong;
  And Life is not a lifetime spent in strain to keep alive.

CHARLES F. LUMMIS,
in The Transplantation.

MARCH 13.

HER KING.

  A winsome maiden planned her life—­
  How, when she was her hero’s wife,
  He should be royal among men,
  And worthy of a diadem. 
  Through all the devious ways of earth
    She sought her king;
  The snows of Winter fell before—­
    She walked o’er flowers of vanished Spring
  Into the Summer’s fragrant heat;
  She bent her quest, with rapid feet,
  Then saddened; still she journeyed down
  The Autumn hillsides, bare and brown,
  Through shadowy eves and golden morns;
  And lo! she found him—­crowned with thorns.

ANNA MORRISON REED.

MARCH 14.