“Suppose,” said Mr. Carnegie, “Great Britain were to send her war fleets to America.  It would amount to nothing.  All that the President of the United States would have to do would be to say, ’Stop exporting cotton.’  The war would be ended in four days, for England cannot do without our cotton.

“We don’t need a navy; we are impregnable.  Because we have 9,000,000 colored men anxious and willing to work we hold this strong position, and I am interested in the negro from this material standpoint, as well as from the more humane point of view.”

MY FAVORITE POEMS

Verses

    On a green slope, most fragrant with the Spring,
      One sweet, fair day I planted a red rose,
    That grew, beneath my tender nourishing,
      So tall, so riotous of bloom, that those
    Who passed the little valley where it grew
      Smiled at its beauty.  All the air was sweet
    About it!  Still I tended it, and knew
      That he would come, e’en as it grew complete.

    And a day brought him!  Up I led him, where
      In the warm sun my rose bloomed gloriously—­
    Smiling and saying, Lo, is it not fair? 
      And all for thee—­all thine!  But he passed by
    Coldly, and answered, Rose?  I see no rose,—­
      Leaving me standing in the barren vale
    Alone! alone! feeling the darkness close
      Deep o’er my heart, and all my being fail.

    Then came one, gently, yet with eager tread,
      Begging one rose-bud—­but my rose was dead.

Verses

    The old, old Wind that whispers to old trees,
      Round the dark country when the sun has set,
    Goes murmuring still of unremembered seas
      And cities of the dead that men forget—­
    An old blind beggar-man, distained and gray,
      With ancient tales to tell,
    Mumbling of this and that upon his way,
      Strange song and muttered spell—­
    Neither to East or West, or South or North,
      His habitation lies,
    This roofless vagabond who wanders forth
      Aye under alien skies—­
    A gypsy of the air, he comes and goes
      Between the tall trees and the shadowed grass,
    And what he tells only the twilight knows ... 
      The tall trees and the twilight hear him pass.

    To him the Dead stretch forth their strengthless hands,
      He who campaigns in other climes than this,
    He who is free of the Unshapen Lands,
      The empty homes of Dis.

Verses

    Out of the scattered fragments
      Of castles I built in the air
    I gathered enough together
      To fashion a cottage with care;
    Thoughtfully, slowly, I planned it,
      And little by little it grew—­
    Perfect in form and in substance,
      Because I designed it for you.