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Bok's collection with such thoughts, ...and you will cease to wonder at his pertinacity and applaud the conquests of his enthusiasm. "Oliver Wendell Holmes." Whenever biographers of the New England school of writers have come to write of John Greenleaf Whittier, they have been puzzled as to the scanty number of letters and private papers left by the poet.

But while Bok lacked musical knowledge, his instinct led him to adhere to his belief in Hofmann; and for twelve years, until Bok's retirement as editor, the pianist was a regular contributor to the magazine. His success was, of course, unquestioned.

Then the editor of the Cincinnati Times-Star discovered the letter in the New York Star, and asked that it be supplied weekly with the letter. These newspapers renamed the letter "Bok's Literary Leaves," and the feature started on its successful career.

Bok felt somehow that he had been given a new draft of Americanism; the word took on a new meaning for him; it stood for something different, something deeper and finer than before. And every subsequent talk with Roosevelt deepened the feeling and stirred Bok's deepest ambitions. "Go to it, you Dutchman," Roosevelt would say, and Bok would go to it.

It was the beginning of Sullivan's subsequent journalistic career, and he justified Bok's confidence in him. He exposed the testimonials to patent medicines from senators and congressmen then so widely published, showed how they were obtained by a journalist in Washington who made a business of it.

Of course, Bok, as editor of the Tonic, promptly pigeon-holed the reporter's "copy"; then relented, and, in a fine spirit of large-mindedness, "printed" Kipling's pæans of rapture over Bok's subscriber. The preparation of the paper was a daily joy: it kept the different members busy, and each evening the copy was handed to "the large circle of readers" the two women of the party to read aloud.

The success of the series was beyond Bok's own best hopes. He was printing and selling one and three-quarter million copies of each issue of his magazine; and before he was through he had presented to American homes throughout the breadth of the country over seventy million reproductions of forty separate master-pieces of art. The dream of years had come true.

He consulted baby-specialists in New York and Philadelphia, and, with one accord, they declared the plan not only absolutely impracticable but positively dangerous. Bok's confidence in woman's instinct, however, persisted, and he asked Doctor Coolidge to map out a plan.

There was no challenging the actual facts as shown by the photographic lens: the slaughter of the mother-bird, and the starving baby-birds; and the importers of the feather wisely remained quiet, not attempting to answer Bok's accusations. Letters poured in upon the editor from Audubon Society workers; from lovers of birds, and from women filled with the humanitarian instinct.

Bok's next enterprise was to get his pictures into the homes of the country on a larger scale; he determined to work through the churches. He selected the fifty best pictures, made them into a set and offered first a hundred sets to selected schools, which were at once taken. Then he offered two hundred and fifty sets to churches to sell at their fairs.