John B. Horner

“ Those who have become intimately acquainted with many of them often pause in reading their inspiring strains to muse sadly over the wrecked hopes, and unhappy lives of those who have tuned to rhythm and set to melody the hearts of all the peoples of earth. ”

“ But it maybe readily understood it is a source of unhappiness for one to feel the possession of talents whose cultivation is calculated to benefit mankind and leave an enduring name, and yet to be so environed by circumstances as to render such cultivation impossible. The cry of the poor caged starling, "I can't get out," is echoed by many a talented mind when its possessor is surrounded by poverty and other circumstances unfavorable to mental development. ”

“ We cannot but imagine that though his journey by day and his campfires by night do not bring him the pleasure of social companionship, he has abundant joy and the keenest delight in the thought that ere long a joyous crowd shall come along his path hailing with pleasure the landmarks he has made for guidance in their journey through a beautiful and virgin land. ”

“ We candidly confess our inability at this time to summon sufficient testimony to decide these questions, but would suggest that should their affirmative be established then must the world feel additional gratitude to its songsters, to those who have followed the bent of their genius in striving to elevate and ennoble mankind while destroying their own share of its happiness. ”

“ MINNIE MYRTLE MILLER, POETESS OF THE COQUELLE. as well as physical organization and development, that we incline to the belief that poetic talents no more than those which enrich the fields of science, literature and art should contain an inherent tendency to render their possessor unhappy. All pioneers, in whatever line of thought or action their labors may lie, must feel at times a sense of loneliness and isolation, akin to that felt by one who has been selected for his peculiar fitness to go into a strange land to mark the way for the coming multitude. ”