surely here in the homes of the people are lodged at last the strength and the

responsibility of this government, the hope and the promise of this republic."

 

--HENRY W. GRADY.

 

_SUGGESTIVE SCENES_

 

One thing in life calls for another; there is a fitness in events and places.

The sight of a pleasant arbor puts it in our mind to sit there. One place

suggests work, another idleness, a third early rising and long rambles in the

dew. The effect of night, of any flowing water, of lighted cities, of the peep

of day, of ships, of the open ocean, calls up in the mind an army of anonymous

desires and pleasures. Something, we feel, should happen; we know not what, yet

we proceed in quest of it. And many of the happiest hours in life fleet by us in

this vain attendance on the genius of the place and moment. It is thus that

tracts of young fir, and low rocks that reach into deep soundings, particularly

delight and torture me. Something must have happened in such places, and perhaps

ages back, to members of my race; and when I was a child I tried to invent

appropriate games for them, as I still try, just as vainly, to fit them with the

proper story. Some places speak distinctly. Certain dank gardens cry aloud for a

murder; certain old houses demand to be haunted; certain coasts are set aside

for shipwreck. Other spots again seem to abide their destiny, suggestive and

impenetrable, "miching mallecho." The inn at Burford Bridge, with its arbours

and green garden and silent, eddying river--though it is known already as the

place where Keats wrote some of his _Endymion_ and Nelson parted from his