MARTIN V. MERLE,
in The Vagabond Prince, Act IV.

DECEMBER 15.

It was one of those wonderful warm winter days given to San Francisco instead of the spring she has never experienced.  After a week’s rain the sun shone out of a sky as warmly blue as late spring brings in other climates.  The world seemed in a very rapture of creation.  The bay below the garden, new washed and sparkling like a pale emerald, spread gaily out, and the city’s streets terraced down to meet it.  The peculiar delicacy and richness of California roses coaxed by the softness of the climate to live out-doors sent up a perfume that hot-house flowers cannot yield.  The turf was of a thick, healthy, wet green, teeming with life.  The hills beyond were green as summer in California cannot make them, and off to the west against the tender sky the cross on Lone Mountain was etched.

MIRIAM MICHELSON,
in Anthony Overman.

DECEMBER 16.

The story is never fully told, and the power of paint or pen can never express entirely the glory or the strength of the conception which impelled it.  The best is still withheld, inexpressible in human terms.

Our best songs are still unsung; our best thoughts are still unuttered and must so remain until eyes and ears and hands are quickened by a diviner life to a keener sensibility.

W.L.  JUDSON,
in The Building of a Picture.

Another value in dialect is the fact that sounds are often retained that are lost in the standard speech, or softer, sweeter tones are fostered and developed.

JAMES MAIN DIXON,
in Dialect in Literature.

DECEMBER 17.

It is a compensation for many ills to awaken some December morning and feel in the air the warmth of summer and see in the foliage the glad green of spring.  Children play in the parks, and the sun shines, and even the older folks grew merry. * * * It had been such a day as comes during Indian summer in other countries.  The air had been very kindly and had breathed nothing but gentleness toward man and vegetation.  Toward February people would be out searching for wild flowers on the suburban hills.

FRANCES CHARLES,
in The Siege of Youth.

DECEMBER 18.

FROM THE FRENCH.

  How vain is life! 
    Love’s little spell,
  Hate’s little strife,
    And then—­farewell! 
  How brief is life! 
    Hope’s lessening light
  With dreams is rife,
    And then—­good night!

BLANCHE M. BURBANK.

“Everyone for himself,” is the law of the jungle.  But slowly a new form of expression is shaping and we are beginning to take pride in the things that are “ours,” rather than in that which alone is “mine.”