Page:The Pacific Monthly volumes 1-3.djvu/238

202 the reduction that may take place in bringing the atoms or parts of the completed whole back to their original comprehension.

Putting a two-foot point of iron on a ten-foot wooden spear does not extend the wood. It may extend the line on which the spear was begun: it certainly cannot be said to extend the wood. Extension is not the same as tension, any more than comprehension is the same as prehension or separation is the same as partition. Extension implies the drawing out either of one mass in length or breadth or the development of a germ by the addition or introduction of similar material, — material that has an affinity for the cell-structure already begun in the germ itself.

Similar material, similar substance, similar conceptions of the mind,—these may be extended by the similar, but otherwise never. The law will ever be similia similibus.

Out of this proper conception of extension comes naturally that of parallelism so apparent in expression.

LIMITATION, which should be thought of as an act and a fact, approaching and ended, represents that condition of the physical and mental activities which is denoted by temporary or per- manent position, actual or assumed, as well as by full development from a germ, so far at least as the physical world is concerned. If vegetable life could be continued indefinitely, then in the torrid zone under favorable conditions one vine might cover a million acres, one tree overshadow a continnent; but each plant has its prearranged possibilities, and be- yond these it cannot pass. So in the animal world: none can exceed the lim- its of pre-organized possibilities.

In the intellectual world, we find the same rule holds: man's powers are lim- ited. "Thus far" is not found decreed for the waters alone, but also for the workings of mind.

In the spiritual world alone there seems to be no limitation.

Former categories do not explain or even indicate a single act in the natural world. Language and Nature are thus divorced, and the man who has not made language a study does not understand the scientists who speak of the world immediately around our homes.

{{c|{{larger block|Will You Be My Valentine?}}

i.

Sweetest, dearest baby mine, Will you be my valentine?

I will love you fond and true,

I will kiss and cuddle you.

Every night upon my breast

I will rock you into rest.

Sweetest, dearest baby mine, Come and be my valentine!

II.

Into Dreamland we will go Where the golden poppies blow. When the daylight fades and fails, In a boat with silken sails, We will cross the Slumber Sea, Where the winds are fair and free. Sweetest, dearest baby mine Will you be my valentine?

III.

All along the shores of sleep Dreamland children laugh and leap. Up and down and to and fro, With feet as light and white as snow, Bright locks tossing in the sun, Robes by fairy fingers spun —

Hear them, see them, baby mine, Precious Dreamland valentine.

Lischen M. Miller.