entering her atmosphere, shuddered, hung for a moment in the air, then
dropped in its final agony. Her love was poison; her embrace death.
This tale has held a place in literature because it stands for men of
evil all compact, whose presence has consumed integrities and exhaled
iniquities. Happily the forces that bless are always more numerous and
more potent than those that blight. Cast a bushel of chaff and one
grain of wheat into the soil and nature will destroy all the chaff but
cause the one grain of wheat to usher in rich harvests.

As a force-producer, man's primary influence is voluntary in nature.
This is the capacity of purposely bringing all the soul's powers to
bear upon society. It is the foundation of all instruction. The
parent influences the child this way or that. The artist-master plies
his pupil. The brave general or discoverer inspires and stimulates his
men by multiform motives. The charioteer holds the reins, guides his
steeds, restrains or lifts the scourge. Similarly man holds the reins
of influence over man, and is himself in turn guided. So friend shapes
and molds friend. This is what gives its meaning to conversation,
oratory, journalism, reforms. Each man stands at the center of a great
network of voluntary influence for good. Through words, bearing and
gesture, he sends out his energies. Oftentimes a single speech has
effected great reforms. Oft one man's act has deflected the stream of
the centuries. Full oft a single word has been like a switch that
turns a train from the route running toward the frozen North, to a
track leading into the tropic South.

Not seldom has a youth been turned from the way of integrity by the
influence of a single friend. Endowed as man is, the weight of his
being effects the most astonishing results. Witness Stratton's
conversation with the drunken bookbinder whom we know as John B. Gough,