Page:St. Nicholas (serial) (IA stnicholasserial322dodg).pdf/637

1905.] ter; to have created the best of magazines for  children, and to have made it vital with the best thought and fancy of the time; to have written poems which touch the soul to a new love of beauty and a stronger faith in God—many a writer would be proud to have achieved any one of these successes, She achieved them all, and with seeming ease. But the reason is not far to seek; for what she did was merely the expression of what she was. All that she wrote and accomplished was as natural as the fruit upon the bough or the blossom on the stem. It was but the flowering of a royal nature—of noble gifts patiently and faithfully used for noble ends.

Her best memorial is already builded by her own life-work, for the volumes of and the copies of her books that are to be found in thousands of homes to-day will never lie dust-covered, but will continue to gladden the family life, and to inspire a love for goodness, truth, and beauty in the hearts of those who are to come after us. It is given to few to exercise so far-reaching an influence upon young minds, and thus upon the future of the nation. She left the world not only happier, but better than she found it. Few lives have been more worthy and high-minded, more useful and successful, more devoted and unselfish. Perhaps it was a part of her recompense that she retained to the last the charm of inexhaustible youth—the radiance of the morning-time of life. Through all her cares, responsibilities, and sorrows, as through all her laureled years of triumph and success, her heart was as the heart of a little child. William Fayal Clarke.