and daughters. I want to know just what kind of short, pithy articles you would select if you were sitting here with me at my editorial desk. You are constantly reading stories and anecdotes in the magazines, books, newspapers, or religious periodicals. Perhaps you have clipped them or pasted them in your scrap-book, or you may have remembered where you have seen such a story, and said to yourself, "Well, that's about as bright as it could be." That is the kind of a story I want. I have placed on deposit with the First National Bank, of Boston, ten thousand dollars ($10,000). This money to be held in trust until the time specified below, when it will be divided among those who help me. To ten persons sending in the best clippings, I will give each one A PILE OF SILVER DOLLARS AS HIGH AS EACH SUCCESSFUL CONTESTANT. That is, if you secure one of the first ten awards, and measure six feet high, or four feet five, I will send by express as many silver dollars as will measure your exact height, one silver dollar placed flat upon the other. The others will be 10 awards of $50 each for the next best stories; 20 awards of $25 each for the next best stories; 100 awards of $10 each for the next best stories; 200 awards of $5 each for the next best stories; 500 awards of $1 each for the next best stories. EIGHT HUNDRED AND FORTY AWARDS IN ALL. Remember you may clip the stories or verse out of an old newspaper or magazine, or an old book, or you may remember a story some one else has told you, or you have read in years past but cannot give the source. Write it out and send it in, but I would like to know where it was published and when, so as to give due credit, but this is not binding, if your memory fails you. They may be bright, cheerful, humorous, pathetic or biographical, or anecdotal-anything you would call a good story. United States Senator Allison and Admiral George Dewey will make the final awards on behalf of the Judges. JOE CHAPPLE, NATIONAL MAGAZINE, Boston, Mass. This programme has been carried out to the letter, and every prize awarded and paid to the value of OVER $10,000; since in the multiplicity of contributors and contributions some few were omitted in the first allotment of prizes. In consequence of the great apparent value of this unique collection, and a very large number of requests for their publication, HEART THROBS is now offered to American readers. It should be remembered that this collection of short poems, essays, anecdotes, apothegms and stories has been gleaned from a vast mass of contributions, every one of which had been set aside and especially preserved by the contributor because in some way it had appealed with unusual force to the affections, hopes, experience, fancy, judgment or interests of the sender, and become dear to the heart; in short a veritable "heart throb" of the contributor. It would have been too much to expect that every one of the myriads of clippings and copyings would be a gem of literary excellence and refined taste; but every one was the chosen treasure of a human heart, endeared to it by the pleasure, encouragement, or consolation, with which its few printed or written words had, like the spell of the ancient magician, evoked blooming spring, radiant summer or fruitful autumn out of the lowering and chilling wintry days of human life. It should also be remembered that, unlike previous collections made by one or more scholarly editors, or compilers, this volume is made up of selections, nearly every one of which was accompanied by a personal letter telling of the circumstances or incidents which had endeared it to the sender. Many of these selections were yellow with age, worn threadbare, and carefully repaired and strengthened; odorous with lavender, rose and orris; stained with tears; printed on silk, or deftly limned and illuminated, and is otherwise self-proven to be of a heart's treasure-trove. It scarcely needed the letters, often written by toil-stiffened and age-trembling hands, to tell of the sacred memories recalled by these little scraps of written or printed paper, or of the helpful, hopeful lives which had been strengthened and uplifted by their silent ministrations. These letters were indeed oftentimes the real "heart throbs," revealing the normal ambitions and aspirations of the American people in all the vocations and walks of life, and their dominant note was that fearless optimism which has faith that in the end all will be well. Love, patriotism, faith, hope, charity, lofty aims and noble purposes; an honest reverence for al family ties and affections; a manly and womanly regret for failure to do the very best that is in us; a deep and tender sense of bereavement blended with the noblest resignation in the hope of a blessed and immortal life; these and such as these are patent, not only in the matters contributed, but even more frankly and feelingly in the letters containing them. Thus of two universally known poems, one wrote: "Longfellow's 'Psalm of Life,' although worn by years of use in text-books, is still full of inspiration." And another enclosing the noble threnody on "Resignation" said feelingly: "Occasions when such poems are applicable to our own experience, make them immortal to us. These lines are fixed in my heart forever, as they fell, beautifully modulated, from the lips of a pure-hearted, sympathetic lady, at a memorial service in honor of my deceased cousin, a girl of eighteen summers, the companion of my boyhood." Many expressions were too personal, tender and sacred for publication, but their testimony to the immense value of every noble song and utterance in encouraging and inciting men to righteous, courageous and hopeful living and dying, was a mighty revelation to all who took part in the work of reading and comparing this wonderful tribute of the heart-treasures of fifty thousand American readers. They might, and often did grow weary of reading, comparing and filing the immense flood of correspondence and selections, but no one regretted the wonderful opportunity afforded them to see and know the tender, romantic, chivalrous, hopeful, patriotic, enduring virtues which underlie the apparently material and sordid aims so largely ascribed to the men of today. The larger proportion of contributors from the Eastern and Middle States favored the standard poets of the 18th and 19th centuries, with a decided inclination toward American illuminati; the South drew largely on the romantic and chivalrous school of antebellum days; and the Western, Northwestern and Pacific States were more breezy, virile and original in the choice of topics and method of treatment. All sections, however, joined in seeking to make "household words" of selections from Eugene Field, James Whitcomb Riley, Ben King, Nixon Waterman, Frank L. Stanton, Bret Harte, Joaquin Miller, Margaret Sangster, Ella Wheeler Wilcox, Hezekiah Butterworth, John Boyle O'Reilly, David Bates, J. G. Holland, Eliza Cooke, and others living or dead, who in the years to come will be numbered with the great singers of their age and people. There could be mighty essays written upon this simple contest and the lessons it has taught and will continue to inculcate for years to come; but the book itself, will teach them, without much need of comment or explanation. He who reads it understandingly will learn what thoughts and sentiments move the hearts of a people, who for the most part have a simple love for "Mother, Home and Heaven", which only needs to be fittingly appealed to, to evoke a hearty and generous response. There be many who affect more artificial, and "advanced" views of life and duty; for among eighty millions, the vast sea of public opinion must be foam-tipped, as well as underlain by ooze and decaying matter, but the mighty depths are crystalline, pure, and unvexed; moving only with the great currents which mitigate the rigors of heat and cold, and keep the universe sweet and beautiful forever. But little of this more artificial literature will be found in this collection; not because it has been ignored, but because it was not largely represented. Agnosticism, destructive evangelism; the iconoclasm of faith, may attract attention, but do not awaken the loving loyalty of Anglo-Saxon, Celt and Norseman, and the races who have affiliated with these to build up the American people. The judges have not always decided, according to the arbitrary standards of literary taste and elegance, but have rather sought out the latent, earnest emotions of myriads of the readers of the NATIONAL; of the people, as a people meeting and communing on a common ground of human sympathy. Their choice reflects, in my opinion, the heart value of a vast number of selections from contemporary literature, and that heart-value is in the end the supreme test by which men and art must fail or become immortal. If this book affords the reader the pleasure and inspiration its creation has afforded to its contributors and compilers it will richly repay the heavy cost, in time, labor and expense, involved in its preparation. It is certain that such sentiment and humor are dear to all Americans, and these heart throbs of the sons and daughters of the people are the pulse beats of the nation. JOE MITCHELL CHAPPLE. ANENT COPYRIGHTS The publishers of this book claim no title by copyright in its contents, except what They regret to announce the utter refusal of the publishers of the poems of Ella Wheeler Perhaps should a second volume be compiled out of the thousands of interesting and All the following articles, protected by existing copyright, are used by the consent Houghton, Mifflin & Co., Boston; Alice Cary, "Pictures of Memory," "Love," "Nobility"; Henry W. Longfellow, "The Arrow and the Song," "The Day Is Done," "Resignation," "A Psalm of Life," "Fame," "The Rainy Day"; Oliver Wendell Holmes' poems, "The Boys." "The Chambered Nautilus," "The Crooked Foot Path," "Old fronsides," "Pluck"; J. Russell Lowell's poems, "The Present Crisis," "Spring" and "June" in "The Vision of Sir Launfal"; Thos. Bailey Aldrich's poem, A Persian Love- song"; Mrs. Margaret E. Sangster's poems, "Sins of Omission," Song for the Flag," Our Own"; Edgar Allen Poe's poem, "The Raven"; Robert Browning's poem, Forward"; Bret Harte's poem, "Master Johnnie's Next Door Neighbor"; John G. Whittier's poems, "Barbara Frietchie," 66 Forgiveness"; John G. Saxe's poem, Story of Life"; Edmund Clarence Stedman's poem, "The Door Step"; John Hay's "A June Morning"; Adelaide Procter's poems, "The Lost Chord," "Per Patrem ad Lucem"; Edward Rowland Sill's poem, "The Fool's Prayer"; Lucy Larcom's poem, The Bobbs-Merrill Co., publishers, Indianapolis, Ind., grant special permission: James Whitcomb Riley's poems, "A Song," "Afterwhile," "Away." in " Afterwhiles," Rev. Henry Van Dyke: "Footpaths to Peace." Copyright reserved by the Outlook Edmund Vance Cooke, author of "Chronicles of the Little Tot" and "Rimes to be Read," Dodge Publishing Co., New York City, and "Impertinent Poems," Forbes & Joaquin Milier: "The Bravest Battle," "Columbus," "For Those Who Fall," Miss Frances E. Willard's poem, "While We May." Published in The Independent. |