10 THE ACORN with her coarse grasp, and the second with her broad file, and the third with her silken sleeve, do so round off and smooth and polish the snow-white cubes of truth, that when they have got a little dingy by use it becomes hard to tell them from the rolling spheres of falsehood." Thus the habit of lying is not formed all at once but has a gradual though imperceptible growth. It is similar to the weeds in a flower garden. In the spring it is almost impossible to distinguish between the flower and the weed. They are both allowed to grow. But oh! the difference in their growth! The weed develops so much more rapidly by absorbing the nourishment from the soil, that the flower is dwarfed, if not entirely killed, and the garden becomes a bed of weeds, where might have been beautiful flowers. The Entrances to One's Feelings. There is a front door and a side door to everyone's feelings. The front door opens on the street. Some keep it locked, others keep it chained, so you can just peep in, while others keep it wide open. Only those whom you desire, to enter this door, and then only when you are ready for them. It leads into a hall from which you enter the inner apartments, and from them into the sacred chambers. The side door opens directly into the sacred chambers. And the one who holds the key enters whenever that one desires, no matter how that one feels. The key is usually held by mother until the time of marriage, when it is given to the one with whom we are united. When the keys are not exchanged man and wife never become as one. A person's happiness depends to a very great extent upon the possessor of this key. If it happen to fall into the hands of one who has the torturing instinct, Holmes exclaims, "The Lores have mercy on that soul." A stranger can not play upon the feelings as can a bosom companion. Marriage life produces the best artists. The man who practices every night and morning upon the feelings of a woman becomes very skillful ana is able by playing upon the nerve pulps to produce untold tones of agony. How careful ought we then to be in selecting our intimate friends. We meet people every day who always have their front door wide open, and we say they are very easy to get acquainted with. We also meet those who keep their door closed and it is almost impossible to find out their feelings, they are so reserved and make but few friends. Some allow many to enter at the side door, not realizing the danger of the position in which they place themselves, as very dear friends prove, at times, very untrue. How glorious will be the time when we all realize the necessity of building upon the firm foundation of truth, when the spheres will no longer have attraction for us, and when we know to whom to trust the side-door key. L. M. PROFESSOR CLARK'S LECTURES. One of the most instructive and interesting aids to a student is the association with the leading minds of the age. We may study a great deal for ourselves, but we like to look to those who have made literature a life study, to decide the different questions that THE ACORN 11 arise. The students and others interested in Shakespeare were particularly favored last week by having the privilege of hearing several lectures delivered by Professor S. H. Clark, of the University of Chicago. Professor Clark began the series of lectures by "The Spiritual Mission of Tragedy." By various interesting illustrations he showed the place that tragedy holds in literature; instead of occupying a minor position, tragedy is the height of literature. Men say they have enough trouble in their lives without seeking more in books; but everybody may profit more by the lessons learned from these dramas than by any other study. Tragedy is a losing struggle between a great though imperfect character and his inevitable fate. In it are seen men and women in the great crises of their lives. We see in Julius Caesar, in Othello and in King Lear that those who seem to be most virtuous are those who fail. We see Brutus' ideals thwarted; Desdemona's innocent life taken through the craft of the villainous Iago, and the loving Cordelia seemingly overcome by her wicked sisters. This power which brought our hero and heroines to such untimely ends was the inevitable law of fate, and nothing which they could do would have changed it. But still we cannot think of them as being defeated, for each one had gained a victory never to be lost. While Iago was crowned with success in a practical sense, he had come to a spiritual death his just dues for so wicked a life: while his victim, Desdemona, who had been vanquished by overpowering-circumstances had attained a spiritual height from which she was never more to descend. Likewise, in King Lear, although Cordelia met with such a terrible death, she had lived a life of ideal love, and had at last taught Lear, her father, the value of this love. It was this beautiful lesson that brought forth the remark, "Come, let's away to prison. We two alone will sing there like birds 'i the cage." Since we are here to work out our individual salvation, it is much more important that we should live for spiritual blessings than for the pleasures and ambitions of this life alone. So in these dramas we rejoice in the spiritual triumph of the good, and art-satisfied that the villains will receive justice in their spiritual death. We cannot think of telling a hundredth part of the beautiful thoughts received from this course of lectures; but there are one or two points in the interpretation of Julius Caesar that will probably be of interest to students who have taken up this drama. In this we have the tragedy or the idealist. The tragedy of the story lies in the one fact that poor, unsuspecting, impractical Brutus was so honest himself, that he supposed everybody else was so; and through his ignorance of mankind in general, he met his practical defeat. Cassius was a student of human nature, and a man who was practical, therefore he was able to lead Brutus on in his imagination until Brutus honestly belived he saw things as Cassius did, and so decided to join in the conspiracy. In his searching for an excuse' for Caesar's death, he reasoned, "What he is, augmented, may run to these and these extremities." But this was Brutus' first mistake, for it is not lawful to judge a man by what he might do; so Brutus' comparison of the serpent's egg, although apt, is not true. It is