guess you'll have to put up with a collection."

I like Robert Burns and think his "To Mary in Heaven" is his finest
poem. But the critics seem to prefer his "Highland Mary." So I
suppose these critics will look at me, with something akin to pity in
the look, and say: "Don't you wish you could?" Years ago some one
planted trees about my house for shade, and selected poplar. Now the
roots of these trees invade the cellar and the cistern, and prove
themselves altogether a nuisance. Of course, I can cut out the
trees, but then I should have no shade. That man, whoever he was,
might just as well have planted elms or maples, but, by some sort of
perversity or ignorance, planted poplars, and here am I, years
afterward, in a state of perturbation about the safety of cellar and
cistern on account of those pesky roots. I do wish that man had
taken a course in arboriculture before he planted those trees. It
might have saved me a deal of bother, and been no worse for him.

Back home, after we had passed through the autograph-album stage of
development, we became interested in another sort of literary
composition. It was a book in which we recorded the names of our
favorite book, author, poem, statesman, flower, name, place, musical
instrument, and so on throughout an entire page. That experience was
really valuable and caused us to do some thinking. It would be well,
I think, to use such a book as that in the examination of teachers
and pupils. I wish I might come upon one of the books now in which I
set down the record of my favorites. It would afford me some
interesting if not valuable information.

If I were called upon to name my favorite flower now I'd scarcely
know what to say. In one mood I'd certainly say lily-of-the-valley,