his coach to stuff a fowl with snow to determine whether or not ice
would preserve flesh. With his life the philosopher purchased for us
the principle that does so much to preserve our fruits and foods
through the summer's heat and lend us happiness and comfort. And
Pascal, whose thoughts are the seeds that have sown many a mental life
with harvests, bought his splendid ideas by burning up his brain. The
professors who guided and loved him knew that the boy would soon be
gone, just as those who light a candle in the evening know that the
light, burning fast, will soon flicker out in the deep socket. One of
our scientists foretells the time when, by the higher mathematics, it
will be possible to compute how many brain cells must be torn down to
earn a given sum of money; how much vital force each Sir William Jones
must give in exchange for one of his forty languages and dialects; what
percentage of the original vital force will be consumed in experiencing
each new pleasure, or surmounting each new pain; how much nerve
treasure it takes to conquer each temptation or endure each
self-sacrifice. Too often society forgets that the song, law or reform
has cost the health and life of the giver. Tradition says that,
through much study, the Iliad cost Homer his eyes. There is strange
meaning in the fact that Dante's face was plowed deep with study and
suffering and written all over with the literature of sorrow.

To gain his vision of the hills of Paradise, Milton lost his vision of
earth's beauteous sights and scenes. In explanation of the early death
of Raphael and Burns, Keats and Shelley, it has been said that few
great men who are poor have lived to see forty. They bought their
greatness with life itself. A few short years ago there lived in a
western state a boy who came up to his young manhood with a great, deep
passion for the plants and shrubs. While other boys loved the din and
bustle of the city, or lingered long in the library, or turned eager