makes a pie.  I think cooking should be considered one of the fine arts—­and the woman who prepares a dainty, appetizing dish of food, which appeals to the sense of taste, should be considered as worthy of praise as the artist who paints a fine picture to gratify our sense of sight.  I try to mix all the poetry possible in prosaic every-day life.  We country farmers’ wives, not having the opportunities of our more fortunate city sisters, such as witnessing plays from Shakespeare, listening to symphony concerts, etc., turn to ‘The Friendship of Books,’ of which Washington Irving writes:  ’Cheer us with the true friendship, which never deceived hope nor deserted sorrow.’”

“Yes,” said Mary, “but remember, Aunt Sarah, Chautauqua will be held next Summer in a near-by town, and, as Uncle John is one of the guarantors, you will wish to attend regularly and will, I know, enjoy hearing the excellent lectures, music and concerts.”

“Yea,” replied her Aunt, “Chautauqua meetings will commence the latter part of June, and I will expect you and Ralph to visit us then.  I think Chautauqua a godsend to country women, especially farmers’ wives; it takes them away from their monotonous daily toil and gives them new thoughts and ideas.”

“I can readily understand, Aunt Sarah, why the poem, ’Life’s Common Things,’ appeals to you; it is because you see beauty in everything.  Aunt Sarah, where did you get this very old poem, ’The Deserted City’?”

“Why, that was given me by John’s Uncle, who thought the poem fine.”

    “Sad is the sight, the city once so fair! 
    An hundred palaces lie buried there;
      Her lofty towers are fallen, and creepers grow
      O’er marbled dome and shattered portico.

    “Once in the gardens, lovely girls at play,
    Culled the bright flowers, and gently touched the spray;
      But now wild creatures in their savage joy
      Tread down the flowers and the plants destroy.

    “By night no torches in the windows gleam;
    By day no women in their beauty beam;
      The smoke has ceased—­the spider there has spread
      His snares in safety—­and all else is dead.”

“Indeed, it is a ‘gem,’” said Mary, after slowly reading aloud parts of several stanzas.

“Yes,” replied her Aunt, “Professor Schmidt tells me the poem was written by Kalidasa (the Shakespeare of Hindu literature), and was written 1800 years before Goldsmith gave us his immortal work, ’The Deserted Village.’”

“I like the poem, ‘Abou Ben Adhem and the Angel,’” said Mary, “and I think this true by Henry Ward Beecher:” 

    “’Do not be troubled because you have not great virtues,
    God made a million spears of grass where He made one tree;
    The earth is fringed and carpeted not with forests but with grasses,
    Only have enough of little virtues and common fidelities,
    And you need not mourn because you are neither a hero nor a saint.’