That merry shout no more I hear, No laughing child I see, No little arms

are round my neck, No feet upon my knee;

No kisses drop upon my cheek, These lips are sealed to me. Dear Lord,

how could I give Ferguson up To any but to Thee?

It is strange what power the reiteration of an essentially poetical

thought has upon one's feelings. When we take up the _Ledger _and read

the poetry about little Clara, we feel an unaccountable depression of

the spirits. When we drift further down the column and read the poetry

about little Johnnie, the depression and spirits acquires an added

emphasis, and we experience tangible suffering. When we saunter along

down the column further still and read the poetry about little Ferguson,

the word torture but vaguely suggests the anguish that rends us.

In the _Ledger _(same copy referred to above) I find the following (I

alter surname, as usual):

Welch.--On the 5th inst., Mary C. Welch, wife of William B. Welch, and

daughter of Catharine and George W. Markland, in the 29th year of her

age.

A mother dear, a mother kind, Has gone and left us all behind. Cease to

weep, for tears are vain, Mother dear is out of pain.

Farewell, husband, children dear, Serve thy God with filial fear, And

meet me in the land above, Where all is peace, and joy, and love.

What could be sweeter than that? No collection of salient facts (without

reduction to tabular form) could be more succinctly stated than is done

in the first stanza by the surviving relatives, and no more concise and

comprehensive program of farewells, post-mortuary general orders, etc.,

could be framed in any form than is done in verse by deceased in the

last stanza. These things insensibly make us wiser and tenderer, and

better. Another extract:

Ball.--On the morning of the 15th inst., Mary E., daughter of John and

Sarah F. Ball.

'Tis sweet to rest in lively hope That when my change shall come Angels

will hover round my bed, To waft my spirit home.

The following is apparently the customary form for heads of families:

Burns.--On the 20th inst., Michael Burns, aged 40 years.

Dearest father, thou hast left us, Here thy loss we deeply feel; But

'tis God that has bereft us, He can all our sorrows heal.

Funeral at 2 o'clock sharp.

There is something very simple and pleasant about the following, which,

in Philadelphia, seems to be the usual form for consumptives of long

standing. (It deplores four distinct cases in the single copy of the

_Ledger _which lies on the Memoranda editorial table):

Bromley.--On the 29th inst., of consumption, Philip Bromley, in the 50th

year of his age.

Affliction sore long time he bore, Physicians were in vain-- Till God at

last did hear him mourn, And eased him of his pain.

That friend whom death from us has torn, We did not think so soon to

part; An anxious care now sinks the thorn Still deeper in our bleeding

heart.

This beautiful creation loses nothing by repetition. On the

contrary, the oftener one sees it in the _Ledger_, the more grand and

awe-inspiring it seems.

With one more extract I will close:

Doble.--On the 4th inst., Samuel Pervil Worthington Doble, aged 4 days.

Our little Sammy's gone, His tiny spirit's fled; Our little boy we loved

so dear Lies sleeping with the dead.

A tear within a father's eye, A mother's aching heart, Can only tell the

agony How hard it is to part.

Could anything be more plaintive than that, without requiring further

concessions of grammar? Could anything be likely to do more toward

reconciling deceased to circumstances, and making him willing to go?

Perhaps not. The power of song can hardly be estimated. There is an

element about some poetry which is able to make even physical suffering

and death cheerful things to contemplate and consummations to be

desired. This element is present in the mortuary poetry of Philadelphia,

and in a noticeable degree of development.

The custom I have been treating of is one that should be adopted in all

the cities of the land.

It is said that once a man of small consequence died, and the Rev. T.

K. Beecher was asked to preach the funeral sermon--a man who abhors the

lauding of people, either dead or alive, except in dignified and simple

language, and then only for merits which they actually possessed or

possess, not merits which they merely ought to have possessed. The

friends of the deceased got up a stately funeral. They must have had

misgivings that the corpse might not be praised strongly enough, for

they prepared some manuscript headings and notes in which nothing was

left unsaid on that subject that a fervid imagination and an unabridged

dictionary could compile, and these they handed to the minister as he

entered the pulpit. They were merely intended as suggestions, and so the

friends were filled with consternation when the minister stood in the

pulpit and proceeded to read off the curious odds and ends in ghastly

detail and in a loud voice! And their consternation solidified to

petrification when he paused at the end, contemplated the multitude

reflectively, and then said, impressively:

“The man would be a fool who tried to add anything to that. Let us

pray!”

And with the same strict adhesion to truth it can be said that the man

would be a fool who tried to add anything to the following transcendent

obituary poem. There is something so innocent, so guileless, so

complacent, so unearthly serene and self-satisfied about this peerless

“hog-wash,” that the man must be made of stone who can read it without a

dulcet ecstasy creeping along his backbone and quivering in his marrow.

There is no need to say that this poem is genuine and in earnest, for

its proofs are written all over its face. An ingenious scribbler

might imitate it after a fashion, but Shakespeare himself could not

counterfeit it. It is noticeable that the country editor who published

it did not know that it was a treasure and the most perfect thing of its

kind that the storehouses and museums of literature could show. He did

not dare to say no to the dread poet--for such a poet must have been

something of an apparition--but he just shoveled it into his paper

anywhere that came handy, and felt ashamed, and put that disgusted

“Published by Request” over it, and hoped that his subscribers would

overlook it or not feel an impulse to read it:

(Published by Request)

LINES

Composed on the death of Samuel and Catharine Belknap's children

by M. A. Glaze

Friends and neighbors all draw near, And listen to what I have to say;

And never leave your children dear When they are small, and go away.

But always think of that sad fate, That happened in year of '63; Four

children with a house did burn, Think of their awful agony.

Their mother she had gone away, And left them there alone to stay; The

house took fire and down did burn; Before their mother did return.

Their piteous cry the neighbors heard, And then the cry of fire was

given; But, ah! before they could them reach, Their little spirits had

flown to heaven.

Their father he to war had gone, And on the battle-field was slain; But

little did he think when he went away, But what on earth they would meet

again.

The neighbors often told his wife Not to leave his children there,

Unless she got some one to stay, And of the little ones take care.

The oldest he was years not six, And the youngest only eleven months

old, But often she had left them there alone, As, by the neighbors, I

have been told.

How can she bear to see the place. Where she so oft has left them there,

Without a single one to look to them, Or of the little ones to take good

care.

Oh, can she look upon the spot, Whereunder their little burnt bones lay,

But what she thinks she hears them say, ''Twas God had pity, and took us

on high.'

And there may she kneel down and pray, And ask God her to forgive; And

she may lead a different life While she on earth remains to live.

Her husband and her children too, God has took from pain and woe. May

she reform and mend her ways, That she may also to them go.

And when it is God's holy will, O, may she be prepared To meet her God

and friends in peace, And leave this world of care.

1. Written in 1870.

THE DANGER OF LYING IN BED

The man in the ticket-office said:

“Have an accident insurance ticket, also?”

“No,” I said, after studying the matter over a little. “No, I believe

not; I am going to be traveling by rail all day today. However, tomorrow

I don't travel. Give me one for tomorrow.”

The man looked puzzled. He said:

“But it is for accident insurance, and if you are going to travel by

rail--”

“If I am going to travel by rail I sha'n't need it. Lying at home in bed

is the thing _I_ am afraid of.”

I had been looking into this matter. Last year I traveled twenty

thousand miles, almost entirely by rail; the year before, I traveled

over twenty-five thousand miles, half by sea and half by rail; and the

year before that I traveled in the neighborhood of ten thousand miles,

exclusively by rail. I suppose if I put in all the little odd journeys

here and there, I may say I have traveled sixty thousand miles during

the three years I have mentioned. _And never an accident._

For a good while I said to myself every morning: “Now I have escaped

thus far, and so the chances are just that much increased that I shall

catch it this time. I will be shrewd, and buy an accident ticket.” And

to a dead moral certainty I drew a blank, and went to bed that night

without a joint started or a bone splintered. I got tired of that sort

of daily bother, and fell to buying accident tickets that were good

for a month. I said to myself, “A man _can't_ buy thirty blanks in one

bundle.”

But I was mistaken. There was never a prize in the the lot. I could read

of railway accidents every day--the newspaper atmosphere was foggy with

them; but somehow they never came my way. I found I had spent a good

deal of money in the accident business, and had nothing to show for it.

My suspicions were aroused, and I began to hunt around for somebody that

had won in this lottery. I found plenty of people who had invested,

but not an individual that had ever had an accident or made a cent. I

stopped buying accident tickets and went to ciphering. The result was

astounding. THE PERIL LAY NOT IN TRAVELING, BUT IN STAYING AT HOME.

I hunted up statistics, and was amazed to find that after all the

glaring newspaper headlines concerning railroad disasters, less than

_three hundred_ people had really lost their lives by those disasters

in the preceding twelve months. The Erie road was set down as the most

murderous in the list. It had killed forty-six--or twenty-six, I do not

exactly remember which, but I know the number was double that of any

other road. But the fact straightway suggested itself that the Erie was

an immensely long road, and did more business than any other line in

the country; so the double number of killed ceased to be matter for

surprise.

By further figuring, it appeared that between New York and Rochester the

Erie ran eight passenger-trains each way every day--16 altogether; and

carried a daily average of 6,000 persons. That is about a million in six

months--the population of New York City. Well, the Erie kills from 13 to

23 persons of _its_ million in six months; and in the same time 13,000

of New York's million die in their beds! My flesh crept, my hair stood

on end. “This is appalling!” I said. “The danger isn't in traveling by

rail, but in trusting to those deadly beds. I will never sleep in a bed

again.”

I had figured on considerably less than one-half the length of the Erie

road. It was plain that the entire road must transport at least eleven

or twelve thousand people every day. There are many short roads running

out of Boston that do fully half as much; a great many such roads. There

are many roads scattered about the Union that do a prodigious passenger

business. Therefore it was fair to presume that an average of 2,500

passengers a day for each road in the country would be almost correct.

There are 846 railway lines in our country, and 846 times 2,500 are

2,115,000. So the railways of America move more than two millions of

people every day; six hundred and fifty millions of people a year,

without counting the Sundays. They do that, too--there is no question

about it; though where they get the raw material is clear beyond the

jurisdiction of my arithmetic; for I have hunted the census through and

through, and I find that there are not that many people in the United

States, by a matter of six hundred and ten millions at the very least.

They must use some of the same people over again, likely.

San Francisco is one-eighth as populous as New York; there are 60 deaths

a week in the former and 500 a week in the latter--if they have luck.

That is 3,120 deaths a year in San Francisco, and eight times as many

in New York--say about 25,000 or 26,000. The health of the two places is

the same. So we will let it stand as a fair presumption that this will

hold good all over the country, and that consequently 25,000 out of

every million of people we have must die every year. That amounts to

one-fortieth of our total population. One million of us, then, die

annually. Out of this million ten or twelve thousand are stabbed, shot,

drowned, hanged, poisoned, or meet a similarly violent death in some

other popular way, such as perishing by kerosene-lamp and hoop-skirt

conflagrations, getting buried in coal-mines, falling off house-tops,

breaking through church, or lecture-room floors, taking patent

medicines, or committing suicide in other forms. The Erie railroad kills

23 to 46; the other 845 railroads kill an average of one-third of a man

each; and the rest of that million, amounting in the aggregate to that

appalling figure of 987,631 corpses, die naturally in their beds!

You will excuse me from taking any more chances on those beds. The

railroads are good enough for me.

And my advice to all people is, Don't stay at home any more than you can

help; but when you have _got _to stay at home a while, buy a package of

those insurance tickets and sit up nights. You cannot be too cautious.

(One can see now why I answered that ticket-agent in the manner recorded

at the top of this sketch.)

The moral of this composition is, that thoughtless people grumble more

than is fair about railroad management in the United States. When we

consider that every day and night of the year full fourteen thousand

railway-trains of various kinds, freighted with life and armed with

death, go thundering over the land, the marvel is, _not _that they kill

three hundred human beings in a twelvemonth, but that they do not kill

three hundred times three hundred!

PORTRAIT OF KING WILLIAM III

I never can look at those periodical portraits in _The Galaxy_ magazine

without feeling a wild, tempestuous ambition to be an artist. I have

seen thousands and thousands of pictures in my time--acres of them here

and leagues of them in the galleries of Europe--but never any that moved

me as these portraits do.

There is a portrait of Monsignore Capel in the November number, now

_could_ anything be sweeter than that? And there was Bismarck's, in the

October number; who can look at that without being purer and stronger

and nobler for it? And Thurlow and Weed's picture in the September

number; I would not have died without seeing that, no, not for anything

this world can give. But look back still further and recall my own

likeness as printed in the August number; if I had been in my grave a

thousand years when that appeared, I would have got up and visited the

artist.

I sleep with all these portraits under my pillow every night, so that I

can go on studying them as soon as the day dawns in the morning. I know

them all as thoroughly as if I had made them myself; I know every line

and mark about them. Sometimes when company are present I shuffle the

portraits all up together, and then pick them out one by one and call

their names, without referring to the printing on the bottom. I seldom

make a mistake--never, when I am calm.

I have had the portraits framed for a long time, waiting till my aunt

gets everything ready for hanging them up in the parlor. But first one

thing and then another interferes, and so the thing is delayed. Once she

said they would have more of the peculiar kind of light they needed in

the attic. The old simpleton! it is as dark as a tomb up there. But she

does not know anything about art, and so she has no reverence for it.

When I showed her my “Map of the Fortifications of Paris,” she said it

was rubbish.

Well, from nursing those portraits so long, I have come at last to have

a perfect infatuation for art. I have a teacher now, and my enthusiasm

continually and tumultuously grows, as I learn to use with more and

more facility the pencil, brush, and graver. I am studying under De

Mellville, the house and portrait painter. (His name was Smith when he

lived in the West.) He does any kind of artist work a body wants, having

a genius that is universal, like Michael Angelo. Resembles that great

artist, in fact. The back of his head is like his, and he wears his

hat-brim tilted down on his nose to expose it.

I have been studying under De Mellville several months now. The first

month I painted fences, and gave general satisfaction. The next month I

white-washed a barn. The third, I was doing tin roofs; the forth, common

signs; the fifth, statuary to stand before cigar shops. This present

month is only the sixth, and I am already in portraits!

The humble offering which accompanies these remarks (see figure)--the

portrait of his Majesty William III., King of Prussia--is my fifth

attempt in portraits, and my greatest success. It has received unbounded

praise from all classes of the community, but that which gratifies me

most is the frequent and cordial verdict that it resembles the _Galaxy_

portraits. Those were my first love, my earliest admiration, the

original source and incentive of my art-ambition. Whatever I am in Art

today, I owe to these portraits. I ask no credit for myself--I deserve

none. And I never take any, either. Many a stranger has come to my

exhibition (for I have had my portrait of King William on exhibition at

one dollar a ticket), and would have gone away blessing_ me_, if I had

let him, but I never did. I always stated where I got the idea.

King William wears large bushy side-whiskers, and some critics have

thought that this portrait would be more complete if they were added.

But it was not possible. There was not room for side-whiskers and

epaulets both, and so I let the whiskers go, and put in the epaulets,

for the sake of style. That thing on his hat is an eagle. The Prussian

eagle--it is a national emblem. When I say hat I mean helmet; but it

seems impossible to make a picture of a helmet that a body can have

confidence in.

I wish kind friends everywhere would aid me in my endeavor to attract a

little attention to the _Galaxy _portraits. I feel persuaded it can be

accomplished, if the course to be pursued be chosen with judgment. I

write for that magazine all the time, and so do many abler men, and if

I can get these portraits into universal favor, it is all I ask; the

reading-matter will take care of itself.

COMMENDATIONS OF THE PORTRAIT

There is nothing like it in the Vatican. Pius IX.

It has none of that vagueness, that dreamy spirituality about it, which

many of the first critics of Arkansas have objected to in the Murillo

school of Art. Ruskin.

The expression is very interesting. J.W. Titian.

(Keeps a macaroni store in Venice, at the old family stand.)

It is the neatest thing in still life I have seen for years.

Rosa Bonheur.

The smile may be almost called unique. Bismarck.

I never saw such character portrayed in a picture face before. De

Mellville.

There is a benignant simplicity about the execution of this work which

warms the heart toward it as much, full as much, as it fascinates the

eye. Landseer.

One cannot see it without longing to contemplate the artist.

Frederick William.

Send me the entire edition--together with the plate and the original

portrait--and name your own price. And--would you like to come over and

stay awhile with Napoleon at Wilhelmshohe? It shall not cost you a cent.

William III.

DOES THE RACE OF MAN LOVE A LORD?

Often a quite assified remark becomes sanctified by use and petrified by

custom; it is then a permanency, its term of activity a geologic period.

The day after the arrival of Prince Henry I met an English friend, and

he rubbed his hands and broke out with a remark that was charged to the

brim with joy--joy that was evidently a pleasant salve to an old sore

place:

“Many a time I've had to listen without retort to an old saying that is

irritatingly true, and until now seemed to offer no chance for a return

jibe: 'An Englishman does dearly love a lord'; but after this I shall

talk back, and say, 'How about the Americans?'”

It is a curious thing, the currency that an idiotic saying can get. The

man that first says it thinks he has made a discovery. The man he

says it to, thinks the same. It departs on its travels, is received

everywhere with admiring acceptance, and not only as a piece of rare and

acute observation, but as being exhaustively true and profoundly wise;

and so it presently takes its place in the world's list of recognized

and established wisdoms, and after that no one thinks of examining it to

see whether it is really entitled to its high honors or not. I call to

mind instances of this in two well-established proverbs, whose dullness

is not surpassed by the one about the Englishman and his love for a

lord: one of them records the American's Adoration of the Almighty

Dollar, the other the American millionaire-girl's ambition to trade cash

for a title, with a husband thrown in.

It isn't merely the American that adores the Almighty Dollar, it is the

human race. The human race has always adored the hatful of shells, or

the bale of calico, or the half-bushel of brass rings, or the handful of

steel fish-hooks, or the houseful of black wives, or the zareba full of

cattle, or the two-score camels and asses, or the factory, or the farm,

or the block of buildings, or the railroad bonds, or the bank stock, or

the hoarded cash, or--anything that stands for wealth and consideration

and independence, and can secure to the possessor that most precious of

all things, another man's envy. It was a dull person that invented the

idea that the American's devotion to the dollar is more strenuous than

another's.

Rich American girls do buy titles, but they did not invent that idea;

it had been worn threadbare several hundred centuries before America

was discovered. European girls still exploit it as briskly as ever;

and, when a title is not to be had for the money in hand, they buy the

husband without it. They must put up the “dot,” or there is no trade.

The commercialization of brides is substantially universal, except in

America. It exists with us, to some little extent, but in no degree

approaching a custom.

“The Englishman dearly loves a lord.”

What is the soul and source of this love? I think the thing could be

more correctly worded:

“The human race dearly envies a lord.”

That is to say, it envies the lord's place. Why? On two accounts, I

think: its Power and its Conspicuousness.

Where Conspicuousness carries with it a Power which, by the light of our

own observation and experience, we are able to measure and comprehend, I

think our envy of the possessor is as deep and as passionate as is

that of any other nation. No one can care less for a lord than the

backwoodsman, who has had no personal contact with lords and has seldom

heard them spoken of; but I will not allow that any Englishman has a

profounder envy of a lord than has the average American who has lived

long years in a European capital and fully learned how immense is the

position the lord occupies.

Of any ten thousand Americans who eagerly gather, at vast inconvenience,

to get a glimpse of Prince Henry, all but a couple of hundred will be

there out of an immense curiosity; they are burning up with desire to

see a personage who is so much talked about. They envy him; but it is

Conspicuousness they envy mainly, not the Power that is lodged in his

royal quality and position, for they have but a vague and spectral

knowledge and appreciation of that; through their environment and

associations they have been accustomed to regard such things lightly,

and as not being very real; consequently, they are not able to value

them enough to consumingly envy them.

But, whenever an American (or other human being) is in the presence,

for the first time, of a combination of great Power and Conspicuousness

which he thoroughly understands and appreciates, his eager curiosity and

pleasure will be well-sodden with that other passion--envy--whether he

suspects it or not. At any time, on any day, in any part of America,

you can confer a happiness upon any passing stranger by calling his

attention to any other passing stranger and saying:

“Do you see that gentleman going along there? It is Mr. Rockefeller.”

Watch his eye. It is a combination of power and conspicuousness which

the man understands.

When we understand rank, we always like to rub against it. When a man

is conspicuous, we always want to see him. Also, if he will pay us an

attention we will manage to remember it. Also, we will mention it now

and then, casually; sometimes to a friend, or if a friend is not handy,

we will make out with a stranger.

Well, then, what is rank, and what is conspicuousness? At once we

think of kings and aristocracies, and of world-wide celebrities in

soldierships, the arts, letters, etc., and we stop there. But that is a

mistake. Rank holds its court and receives its homage on every round of

the ladder, from the emperor down to the rat-catcher; and distinction,

also, exists on every round of the ladder, and commands its due of

deference and envy.

To worship rank and distinction is the dear and valued privilege of all

the human race, and it is freely and joyfully exercised in democracies

as well as in monarchies--and even, to some extent, among those

creatures whom we impertinently call the Lower Animals. For even they

have some poor little vanities and foibles, though in this matter they

are paupers as compared to us.

A Chinese Emperor has the worship of his four hundred millions of

subjects, but the rest of the world is indifferent to him. A Christian

Emperor has the worship of his subjects and of a large part of

the Christian world outside of his domains; but he is a matter of

indifference to all China. A king, class A, has an extensive worship; a

king, class B, has a less extensive worship; class C, class D, class

E get a steadily diminishing share of worship; class L (Sultan of

Zanzibar), class P (Sultan of Sulu), and class W (half-king of Samoa),

get no worship at all outside their own little patch of sovereignty.

Take the distinguished people along down. Each has his group of

homage-payers. In the navy, there are many groups; they start with the

Secretary and the Admiral, and go down to the quartermaster--and below;

for there will be groups among the sailors, and each of these groups

will have a tar who is distinguished for his battles, or his strength,

or his daring, or his profanity, and is admired and envied by his group.

The same with the army; the same with the literary and journalistic

craft; the publishing craft; the cod-fishery craft; Standard Oil; U. S.

Steel; the class A hotel--and the rest of the alphabet in that line; the

class A prize-fighter--and the rest of the alphabet in his line--clear

down to the lowest and obscurest six-boy gang of little gamins, with

its one boy that can thrash the rest, and to whom he is king of Samoa,

bottom of the royal race, but looked up to with a most ardent admiration

and envy.

There is something pathetic, and funny, and pretty, about this human

race's fondness for contact with power and distinction, and for the

reflected glory it gets out of it. The king, class A, is happy in the

state banquet and the military show which the emperor provides for him,

and he goes home and gathers the queen and the princelings around him in

the privacy of the spare room, and tells them all about it, and says:

“His Imperial Majesty put his hand upon my shoulder in the most friendly

way--just as friendly and familiar, oh, you can't imagine it!--and

everybody _seeing _him do it; charming, perfectly charming!”

The king, class G, is happy in the cold collation and the police parade

provided for him by the king, class B, and goes home and tells the

family all about it, and says:

“And His Majesty took me into his own private cabinet for a smoke and a

chat, and there we sat just as sociable, and talking away and laughing

and chatting, just the same as if we had been born in the same bunk; and

all the servants in the anteroom could see us doing it! Oh, it was too

lovely for anything!”

The king, class Q, is happy in the modest entertainment furnished him by

the king, class M, and goes home and tells the household about it,

and is as grateful and joyful over it as were his predecessors in the

gaudier attentions that had fallen to their larger lot.

Emperors, kings, artisans, peasants, big people, little people--at the

bottom we are all alike and all the same; all just alike on the inside,

and when our clothes are off, nobody can tell which of us is which. We

are unanimous in the pride we take in good and genuine compliments paid

us, and distinctions conferred upon us, in attentions shown. There is

not one of us, from the emperor down, but is made like that. Do I

mean attentions shown us by the guest? No, I mean simply flattering

attentions, let them come whence they may. We despise no source that can

pay us a pleasing attention--there is no source that is humble enough

for that. You have heard a dear little girl say to a frowzy and

disreputable dog: “He came right to me and let me pat him on the head,

and he wouldn't let the others touch him!” and you have seen her eyes

dance with pride in that high distinction. You have often seen that. If

the child were a princess, would that random dog be able to confer the

like glory upon her with his pretty compliment? Yes; and even in her

mature life and seated upon a throne, she would still remember it, still

recall it, still speak of it with frank satisfaction. That charming

and lovable German princess and poet, Carmen Sylva, Queen of Roumania,

remembers yet that the flowers of the woods and fields “talked to her”

when she was a girl, and she sets it down in her latest book; and that

the squirrels conferred upon her and her father the valued compliment of

not being afraid of them; and “once one of them, holding a nut between

its sharp little teeth, ran right up against my father”--it has the very

note of “He came right to me and let me pat him on the head”--“and when

it saw itself reflected in his boot it was very much surprised,

and stopped for a long time to contemplate itself in the polished

leather”--then it went its way. And the birds! she still remembers with

pride that “they came boldly into my room,” when she had neglected her

“duty” and put no food on the window-sill for them; she knew all the

wild birds, and forgets the royal crown on her head to remember with

pride that they knew her; also that the wasp and the bee were personal

friends of hers, and never forgot that gracious relationship to her

injury: “never have I been stung by a wasp or a bee.” And here is that

proud note again that sings in that little child's elation in being

singled out, among all the company of children, for the random dog's

honor-conferring attentions. “Even in the very worst summer for wasps,

when, in lunching out of doors, our table was covered with them and

every one else was stung, they never hurt me.”

When a queen whose qualities of mind and heart and character are able to

add distinction to so distinguished a place as a throne, remembers

with grateful exultation, after thirty years, honors and distinctions

conferred upon her by the humble, wild creatures of the forest, we are

helped to realize that complimentary attentions, homage,

distinctions, are of no caste, but are above all cast--that they are a

nobility-conferring power apart.

We all like these things. When the gate-guard at the railway-station

passes me through unchallenged and examines other people's tickets, I

feel as the king, class A, felt when the emperor put the imperial hand

on his shoulder, “everybody seeing him do it”; and as the child felt

when the random dog allowed her to pat his head and ostracized the

others; and as the princess felt when the wasps spared her and stung

the rest; and I felt just so, four years ago in Vienna (and remember it

yet), when the helmeted police shut me off, with fifty others, from a

street which the Emperor was to pass through, and the captain of the

squad turned and saw the situation and said indignantly to that guard:

“Can't you see it is the Herr Mark Twain? Let him through!”

It was four years ago; but it will be four hundred before I forget the

wind of self-complacency that rose in me, and strained my buttons when I

marked the deference for me evoked in the faces of my fellow-rabble, and

noted, mingled with it, a puzzled and resentful expression which said,

as plainly as speech could have worded it: “And who in the nation is the

Herr Mark Twain _um gotteswillen?_”

How many times in your life have you heard this boastful remark:

“I stood as close to him as I am to you; I could have put out my hand

and touched him.”

We have all heard it many and many a time. It was a proud distinction

to be able to say those words. It brought envy to the speaker, a kind of

glory; and he basked in it and was happy through all his veins. And

who was it he stood so close to? The answer would cover all the grades.

Sometimes it was a king; sometimes it was a renowned highwayman;

sometimes it was an unknown man killed in an extraordinary way and made

suddenly famous by it; always it was a person who was for the moment the

subject of public interest of a village.

“I was there, and I saw it myself.” That is a common and envy-compelling

remark. It can refer to a battle; to a hanging; to a coronation; to the

killing of Jumbo by the railway-train; to the arrival of Jenny Lind at

the Battery; to the meeting of the President and Prince Henry; to the

chase of a murderous maniac; to the disaster in the tunnel; to the

explosion in the subway; to a remarkable dog-fight; to a village

church struck by lightning. It will be said, more or less causally, by

everybody in America who has seen Prince Henry do anything, or try to.

The man who was absent and didn't see him to anything, will scoff. It

is his privilege; and he can make capital out of it, too; he will seem,

even to himself, to be different from other Americans, and better.

As his opinion of his superior Americanism grows, and swells, and

concentrates and coagulates, he will go further and try to belittle the

distinction of those that saw the Prince do things, and will spoil their

pleasure in it if he can. My life has been embittered by that kind of

person. If you are able to tell of a special distinction that has fallen

to your lot, it gravels them; they cannot bear it; and they try to make

believe that the thing you took for a special distinction was nothing

of the kind and was meant in quite another way. Once I was received in

private audience by an emperor. Last week I was telling a jealous person

about it, and I could see him wince under it, see him bite, see

him suffer. I revealed the whole episode to him with considerable

elaboration and nice attention to detail. When I was through, he asked

me what had impressed me most. I said:

“His Majesty's delicacy. They told me to be sure and back out from the

presence, and find the door-knob as best I could; it was not allowable

to face around. Now the Emperor knew it would be a difficult ordeal for

me, because of lack of practice; and so, when it was time to part, he

turned, with exceeding delicacy, and pretended to fumble with things on

his desk, so I could get out in my own way, without his seeing me.”

It went home! It was vitriol! I saw the envy and disgruntlement rise

in the man's face; he couldn't keep it down. I saw him try to fix up

something in his mind to take the bloom off that distinction. I enjoyed

that, for I judged that he had his work cut out for him. He struggled

along inwardly for quite a while; then he said, with a manner of a

person who has to say something and hasn't anything relevant to say:

“You said he had a handful of special-brand cigars on the table?”

“Yes; _I_ never saw anything to match them.”

I had him again. He had to fumble around in his mind as much as another

minute before he could play; then he said in as mean a way as I ever

heard a person say anything:

“He could have been counting the cigars, you know.”

I cannot endure a man like that. It is nothing to him how unkind he is,

so long as he takes the bloom off. It is all he cares for.

“An Englishman (or other human being) does dearly love a lord,” (or

other conspicuous person.) It includes us all. We love to be noticed by

the conspicuous person; we love to be associated with such, or with

a conspicuous event, even in a seventh-rate fashion, even in the

forty-seventh, if we cannot do better. This accounts for some of our

curious tastes in mementos. It accounts for the large private trade in

the Prince of Wales's hair, which chambermaids were able to drive in

that article of commerce when the Prince made the tour of the world in

the long ago--hair which probably did not always come from his brush,

since enough of it was marketed to refurnish a bald comet; it accounts

for the fact that the rope which lynches a negro in the presence of

ten thousand Christian spectators is salable five minutes later at

two dollars and inch; it accounts for the mournful fact that a royal

personage does not venture to wear buttons on his coat in public.

We do love a lord--and by that term I mean any person whose situation

is higher than our own. The lord of the group, for instance: a group of

peers, a group of millionaires, a group of hoodlums, a group of sailors,

a group of newsboys, a group of saloon politicians, a group of college

girls. No royal person has ever been the object of a more delirious

loyalty and slavish adoration than is paid by the vast Tammany herd to

its squalid idol of Wantage. There is not a bifurcated animal in that

menagerie that would not be proud to appear in a newspaper picture in

his company. At the same time, there are some in that organization who

would scoff at the people who have been daily pictured in company with

Prince Henry, and would say vigorously that _they _would not consent

to be photographed with him--a statement which would not be true in any

instance. There are hundreds of people in America who would frankly say

to you that they would not be proud to be photographed in a group

with the Prince, if invited; and some of these unthinking people would

believe it when they said it; yet in no instance would it be true. We

have a large population, but we have not a large enough one, by several

millions, to furnish that man. He has not yet been begotten, and in fact

he is not begettable.

You may take any of the printed groups, and there isn't a person in the

dim background who isn't visibly trying to be vivid; if it is a crowd of

ten thousand--ten thousand proud, untamed democrats, horny-handed sons

of toil and of politics, and fliers of the eagle--there isn't one who

is trying to keep out of range, there isn't one who isn't plainly

meditating a purchase of the paper in the morning, with the intention of

hunting himself out in the picture and of framing and keeping it if he

shall find so much of his person in it as his starboard ear.

We all love to get some of the drippings of Conspicuousness, and we

will put up with a single, humble drip, if we can't get any more. We may

pretend otherwise, in conversation; but we can't pretend it to ourselves

privately--and we don't. We do confess in public that we are the

noblest work of God, being moved to it by long habit, and teaching,

and superstition; but deep down in the secret places of our souls we

recognize that, if we _are _the noblest work, the less said about it the

better.

We of the North poke fun at the South for its fondness of titles--a

fondness for titles pure and simple, regardless of whether they are

genuine or pinchbeck. We forget that whatever a Southerner likes the

rest of the human race likes, and that there is no law of predilection

lodged in one people that is absent from another people. There is no

variety in the human race. We are all children, all children of the one

Adam, and we love toys. We can soon acquire that Southern disease if

some one will give it a start. It already has a start, in fact. I have

been personally acquainted with over eighty-four thousand persons who,

at one time or another in their lives, have served for a year or two

on the staffs of our multitudinous governors, and through that

fatality have been generals temporarily, and colonels temporarily, and

judge-advocates temporarily; but I have known only nine among them who

could be hired to let the title go when it ceased to be legitimate. I

know thousands and thousands of governors who ceased to be governors

away back in the last century; but I am acquainted with only three who

would answer your letter if you failed to call them “Governor” in it.

I know acres and acres of men who have done time in a legislature in

prehistoric days, but among them is not half an acre whose resentment

you would not raise if you addressed them as “Mr.” instead of “Hon.”

The first thing a legislature does is to convene in an impressive

legislative attitude, and get itself photographed. Each member

frames his copy and takes it to the woods and hangs it up in the most

aggressively conspicuous place in his house; and if you visit the house

and fail to inquire what that accumulation is, the conversation will be

brought around to it by that aforetime legislator, and he will show you

a figure in it which in the course of years he has almost obliterated

with the smut of his finger-marks, and say with a solemn joy, “It's me!”

Have you ever seen a country Congressman enter the hotel breakfast-room

in Washington with his letters?--and sit at his table and let on to

read them?--and wrinkle his brows and frown statesman-like?--keeping a

furtive watch-out over his glasses all the while to see if he is being

observed and admired?--those same old letters which he fetches in every

morning? Have you seen it? Have you seen him show off? It is _the_

sight of the national capital. Except one; a pathetic one. That is the

ex-Congressman: the poor fellow whose life has been ruined by a two-year

taste of glory and of fictitious consequence; who has been superseded,

and ought to take his heartbreak home and hide it, but cannot tear

himself away from the scene of his lost little grandeur; and so he

lingers, and still lingers, year after year, unconsidered, sometimes

snubbed, ashamed of his fallen estate, and valiantly trying to look

otherwise; dreary and depressed, but counterfeiting breeziness and

gaiety, hailing with chummy familiarity, which is not always welcomed,

the more-fortunates who are still in place and were once his mates. Have

you seen him? He clings piteously to the one little shred that is left

of his departed distinction--the “privilege of the floor”; and works it

hard and gets what he can out of it. That is the saddest figure I know

of.

Yes, we do so love our little distinctions! And then we loftily scoff

at a Prince for enjoying his larger ones; forgetting that if we only had

his chance--ah! “Senator” is not a legitimate title. A Senator has no

more right to be addressed by it than have you or I; but, in the several

state capitals and in Washington, there are five thousand Senators who

take very kindly to that fiction, and who purr gratefully when you call

them by it--which you may do quite unrebuked. Then those same Senators

smile at the self-constructed majors and generals and judges of the

South!

Indeed, we do love our distinctions, get them how we may. And we work

them for all they are worth. In prayer we call ourselves “worms of the

dust,” but it is only on a sort of tacit understanding that the remark

shall not be taken at par._ We_--worms of the dust! Oh, no, we are

not that. Except in fact; and we do not deal much in fact when we are

contemplating ourselves.

As a race, we do certainly love a lord--let him be Croker, or a duke, or

a prize-fighter, or whatever other personage shall chance to be the head

of our group. Many years ago, I saw a greasy youth in overalls standing

by the _Herald _office, with an expectant look in his face. Soon a large

man passed out, and gave him a pat on the shoulder. That was what the

boy was waiting for--the large man's notice. The pat made him proud and

happy, and the exultation inside of him shone out through his eyes; and

his mates were there to see the pat and envy it and wish they could have

that glory. The boy belonged down cellar in the press-room, the large

man was king of the upper floors, foreman of the composing-room. The

light in the boy's face was worship, the foreman was his lord, head of

his group. The pat was an accolade. It was as precious to the boy as it

would have been if he had been an aristocrat's son and the accolade had

been delivered by his sovereign with a sword. The quintessence of the

honor was all there; there was no difference in values; in truth there

was no difference present except an artificial one--clothes.

All the human race loves a lord--that is, loves to look upon or be

noticed by the possessor of Power or Conspicuousness; and sometimes

animals, born to better things and higher ideals, descend to man's level

in this matter. In the Jardin des Plantes I have see a cat that was so

vain of being the personal friend of an elephant that I was ashamed of

her.

EXTRACTS FROM ADAM'S DIARY

MONDAY.--This new creature with the long hair is a good deal in the way.

It is always hanging around and following me about. I don't like this; I

am not used to company. I wish it would stay with the other animals....

Cloudy today, wind in the east; think we shall have rain.... _We?_ Where

did I get that word--the new creature uses it.

TUESDAY.--Been examining the great waterfall. It is the finest thing on

the estate, I think. The new creature calls it Niagara Falls--why, I am

sure I do not know. Says it _looks _like Niagara Falls. That is not a

reason, it is mere waywardness and imbecility. I get no chance to name

anything myself. The new creature names everything that comes along,

before I can get in a protest. And always that same pretext is

offered--it _looks _like the thing. There is a dodo, for instance. Says

the moment one looks at it one sees at a glance that it “looks like a

dodo.” It will have to keep that name, no doubt. It wearies me to fret

about it, and it does no good, anyway. Dodo! It looks no more like a

dodo than I do.

WEDNESDAY.--Built me a shelter against the rain, but could not have it

to myself in peace. The new creature intruded. When I tried to put it

out it shed water out of the holes it looks with, and wiped it away with

the back of its paws, and made a noise such as some of the other animals

make when they are in distress. I wish it would not talk; it is always

talking. That sounds like a cheap fling at the poor creature, a slur;

but I do not mean it so. I have never heard the human voice before, and

any new and strange sound intruding itself here upon the solemn hush of

these dreaming solitudes offends my ear and seems a false note. And this

new sound is so close to me; it is right at my shoulder, right at my

ear, first on one side and then on the other, and I am used only to

sounds that are more or less distant from me.

FRIDAY. The naming goes recklessly on, in spite of anything I can do.

I had a very good name for the estate, and it was musical and

pretty--_Garden Of Eden._ Privately, I continue to call it that, but not

any longer publicly. The new creature says it is all woods and rocks and

scenery, and therefore has no resemblance to a garden. Says it

_looks _like a park, and does not look like anything _but _a park.

Consequently, without consulting me, it has been new-named _Niagara

Falls Park_. This is sufficiently high-handed, it seems to me. And

already there is a sign up:

KEEP OFF THE GRASS

My life is not as happy as it was.

SATURDAY.--The new creature eats too much fruit. We are going to run

short, most likely. “We” again--that is _its_ word; mine, too, now, from

hearing it so much. Good deal of fog this morning. I do not go out in

the fog myself. This new creature does. It goes out in all weathers,

and stumps right in with its muddy feet. And talks. It used to be so

pleasant and quiet here.

SUNDAY.--Pulled through. This day is getting to be more and more trying.

It was selected and set apart last November as a day of rest. I had

already six of them per week before. This morning found the new creature

trying to clod apples out of that forbidden tree.

MONDAY.--The new creature says its name is Eve. That is all right, I

have no objections. Says it is to call it by, when I want it to come.

I said it was superfluous, then. The word evidently raised me in its

respect; and indeed it is a large, good word and will bear repetition.

It says it is not an It, it is a She. This is probably doubtful; yet it

is all one to me; what she is were nothing to me if she would but go by

herself and not talk.

TUESDAY.--She has littered the whole estate with execrable names and

offensive signs:

This way to the Whirlpool

This way to Goat Island

Cave of the Winds this way

She says this park would make a tidy summer resort if there was any

custom for it. Summer resort--another invention of hers--just words,

without any meaning. What is a summer resort? But it is best not to ask

her, she has such a rage for explaining.

FRIDAY.--She has taken to beseeching me to stop going over the Falls.

What harm does it do? Says it makes her shudder. I wonder why; I have

always done it--always liked the plunge, and coolness. I supposed it was

what the Falls were for. They have no other use that I can see, and

they must have been made for something. She says they were only made for

scenery--like the rhinoceros and the mastodon.

I went over the Falls in a barrel--not satisfactory to her. Went over

in a tub--still not satisfactory. Swam the Whirlpool and the Rapids in

a fig-leaf suit. It got much damaged. Hence, tedious complaints about

my extravagance. I am too much hampered here. What I need is a change of

scene.

SATURDAY.--I escaped last Tuesday night, and traveled two days, and

built me another shelter in a secluded place, and obliterated my tracks

as well as I could, but she hunted me out by means of a beast which she

has tamed and calls a wolf, and came making that pitiful noise again,

and shedding that water out of the places she looks with. I was obliged

to return with her, but will presently emigrate again when occasion

offers. She engages herself in many foolish things; among others; to

study out why the animals called lions and tigers live on grass and

flowers, when, as she says, the sort of teeth they wear would indicate

that they were intended to eat each other. This is foolish, because to

do that would be to kill each other, and that would introduce what, as

I understand, is called “death”; and death, as I have been told, has not

yet entered the Park. Which is a pity, on some accounts.

SUNDAY.--Pulled through.

MONDAY.--I believe I see what the week is for: it is to give time to

rest up from the weariness of Sunday. It seems a good idea. ... She has

been climbing that tree again. Clodded her out of it. She said nobody

was looking. Seems to consider that a sufficient justification for

chancing any dangerous thing. Told her that. The word justification

moved her admiration--and envy, too, I thought. It is a good word.

TUESDAY.--She told me she was made out of a rib taken from my body.

This is at least doubtful, if not more than that. I have not missed any

rib.... She is in much trouble about the buzzard; says grass does not

agree with it; is afraid she can't raise it; thinks it was intended to

live on decayed flesh. The buzzard must get along the best it can with

what is provided. We cannot overturn the whole scheme to accommodate the

buzzard.

SATURDAY.--She fell in the pond yesterday when she was looking at

herself in it, which she is always doing. She nearly strangled, and said

it was most uncomfortable. This made her sorry for the creatures which

live in there, which she calls fish, for she continues to fasten names

on to things that don't need them and don't come when they are called

by them, which is a matter of no consequence to her, she is such a

numbskull, anyway; so she got a lot of them out and brought them in last

night and put them in my bed to keep warm, but I have noticed them now

and then all day and I don't see that they are any happier there then

they were before, only quieter. When night comes I shall throw them

outdoors. I will not sleep with them again, for I find them clammy and

unpleasant to lie among when a person hasn't anything on.

SUNDAY.--Pulled through.

TUESDAY.--She has taken up with a snake now. The other animals are glad,

for she was always experimenting with them and bothering them; and I am

glad because the snake talks, and this enables me to get a rest.

FRIDAY.--She says the snake advises her to try the fruit of the tree,

and says the result will be a great and fine and noble education. I told

her there would be another result, too--it would introduce death into

the world. That was a mistake--it had been better to keep the remark to

myself; it only gave her an idea--she could save the sick buzzard, and

furnish fresh meat to the despondent lions and tigers. I advised her to

keep away from the tree. She said she wouldn't. I foresee trouble. Will

emigrate.

WEDNESDAY.--I have had a variegated time. I escaped last night, and rode

a horse all night as fast as he could go, hoping to get clear of the

Park and hide in some other country before the trouble should begin; but

it was not to be. About an hour after sun-up, as I was riding through

a flowery plain where thousands of animals were grazing, slumbering, or

playing with each other, according to their wont, all of a sudden they

broke into a tempest of frightful noises, and in one moment the plain

was a frantic commotion and every beast was destroying its neighbor. I

knew what it meant--Eve had eaten that fruit, and death was come into

the world. ... The tigers ate my house, paying no attention when

I ordered them to desist, and they would have eaten me if I had

stayed--which I didn't, but went away in much haste.... I found this

place, outside the Park, and was fairly comfortable for a few days,

but she has found me out. Found me out, and has named the place

Tonawanda--says it _looks _like that. In fact I was not sorry she came,

for there are but meager pickings here, and she brought some of those

apples. I was obliged to eat them, I was so hungry. It was against my

principles, but I find that principles have no real force except when

one is well fed.... She came curtained in boughs and bunches of leaves,

and when I asked her what she meant by such nonsense, and snatched them

away and threw them down, she tittered and blushed. I had never seen

a person titter and blush before, and to me it seemed unbecoming and

idiotic. She said I would soon know how it was myself. This was correct.

Hungry as I was, I laid down the apple half-eaten--certainly the best

one I ever saw, considering the lateness of the season--and arrayed

myself in the discarded boughs and branches, and then spoke to her with

some severity and ordered her to go and get some more and not make a

spectacle of herself. She did it, and after this we crept down to where

the wild-beast battle had been, and collected some skins, and I made her

patch together a couple of suits proper for public occasions. They are

uncomfortable, it is true, but stylish, and that is the main point about

clothes.... I find she is a good deal of a companion. I see I should be

lonesome and depressed without her, now that I have lost my property.

Another thing, she says it is ordered that we work for our living

hereafter. She will be useful. I will superintend.

TEN DAYS LATER.--She accuses _me _of being the cause of our disaster!

She says, with apparent sincerity and truth, that the Serpent assured

her that the forbidden fruit was not apples, it was chestnuts. I said

I was innocent, then, for I had not eaten any chestnuts. She said the

Serpent informed her that “chestnut” was a figurative term meaning an

aged and moldy joke. I turned pale at that, for I have made many jokes

to pass the weary time, and some of them could have been of that sort,

though I had honestly supposed that they were new when I made them. She

asked me if I had made one just at the time of the catastrophe. I was

obliged to admit that I had made one to myself, though not aloud. It

was this. I was thinking about the Falls, and I said to myself, “How

wonderful it is to see that vast body of water tumble down there!” Then

in an instant a bright thought flashed into my head, and I let it

fly, saying, “It would be a deal more wonderful to see it tumble_ up_

there!”--and I was just about to kill myself with laughing at it when

all nature broke loose in war and death and I had to flee for my life.

“There,” she said, with triumph, “that is just it; the Serpent mentioned

that very jest, and called it the First Chestnut, and said it was coeval

with the creation.” Alas, I am indeed to blame. Would that I were not

witty; oh, that I had never had that radiant thought!

NEXT YEAR.--We have named it Cain. She caught it while I was up country

trapping on the North Shore of the Erie; caught it in the timber a

couple of miles from our dug-out--or it might have been four, she isn't

certain which. It resembles us in some ways, and may be a relation. That

is what she thinks, but this is an error, in my judgment. The difference

in size warrants the conclusion that it is a different and new kind of

animal--a fish, perhaps, though when I put it in the water to see,

it sank, and she plunged in and snatched it out before there was

opportunity for the experiment to determine the matter. I still think it

is a fish, but she is indifferent about what it is, and will not let

me have it to try. I do not understand this. The coming of the creature

seems to have changed her whole nature and made her unreasonable about

experiments. She thinks more of it than she does of any of the

other animals, but is not able to explain why. Her mind is

disordered--everything shows it. Sometimes she carries the fish in her

arms half the night when it complains and wants to get to the water. At

such times the water comes out of the places in her face that she looks

out of, and she pats the fish on the back and makes soft sounds with her

mouth to soothe it, and betrays sorrow and solicitude in a hundred ways.

I have never seen her do like this with any other fish, and it troubles

me greatly. She used to carry the young tigers around so, and play with

them, before we lost our property, but it was only play; she never took

on about them like this when their dinner disagreed with them.

SUNDAY.--She doesn't work, Sundays, but lies around all tired out, and

likes to have the fish wallow over her; and she makes fool noises to

amuse it, and pretends to chew its paws, and that makes it laugh. I have

not seen a fish before that could laugh. This makes me doubt.... I have

come to like Sunday myself. Superintending all the week tires a body so.

There ought to be more Sundays. In the old days they were tough, but now

they come handy.

WEDNESDAY.--It isn't a fish. I cannot quite make out what it is. It

makes curious devilish noises when not satisfied, and says “goo-goo”

when it is. It is not one of us, for it doesn't walk; it is not a bird,

for it doesn't fly; it is not a frog, for it doesn't hop; it is not

a snake, for it doesn't crawl; I feel sure it is not a fish, though I

cannot get a chance to find out whether it can swim or not. It merely

lies around, and mostly on its back, with its feet up. I have not seen

any other animal do that before. I said I believed it was an enigma; but

she only admired the word without understanding it. In my judgment it is

either an enigma or some kind of a bug. If it dies, I will take it apart

and see what its arrangements are. I never had a thing perplex me so.

THREE MONTHS LATER.--The perplexity augments instead of diminishing. I

sleep but little. It has ceased from lying around, and goes about on

its four legs now. Yet it differs from the other four legged animals,

in that its front legs are unusually short, consequently this causes the

main part of its person to stick up uncomfortably high in the air, and

this is not attractive. It is built much as we are, but its method of

traveling shows that it is not of our breed. The short front legs and

long hind ones indicate that it is a of the kangaroo family, but it is a

marked variation of that species, since the true kangaroo hops, whereas

this one never does. Still it is a curious and interesting variety,

and has not been catalogued before. As I discovered it, I have felt

justified in securing the credit of the discovery by attaching my name

to it, and hence have called it _Kangaroorum Adamiensis_.... It must

have been a young one when it came, for it has grown exceedingly since.

It must be five times as big, now, as it was then, and when discontented

it is able to make from twenty-two to thirty-eight times the noise

it made at first. Coercion does not modify this, but has the contrary

effect. For this reason I discontinued the system. She reconciles it by

persuasion, and by giving it things which she had previously told me she

wouldn't give it. As already observed, I was not at home when it first

came, and she told me she found it in the woods. It seems odd that it

should be the only one, yet it must be so, for I have worn myself out

these many weeks trying to find another one to add to my collection, and

for this to play with; for surely then it would be quieter and we

could tame it more easily. But I find none, nor any vestige of any; and

strangest of all, no tracks. It has to live on the ground, it cannot

help itself; therefore, how does it get about without leaving a track?

I have set a dozen traps, but they do no good. I catch all small animals

except that one; animals that merely go into the trap out of curiosity,

I think, to see what the milk is there for. They never drink it.

THREE MONTHS LATER.--The Kangaroo still continues to grow, which is

very strange and perplexing. I never knew one to be so long getting its

growth. It has fur on its head now; not like kangaroo fur, but exactly

like our hair except that it is much finer and softer, and instead of

being black is red. I am like to lose my mind over the capricious and

harassing developments of this unclassifiable zoological freak. If I

could catch another one--but that is hopeless; it is a new variety, and

the only sample; this is plain. But I caught a true kangaroo and brought

it in, thinking that this one, being lonesome, would rather have that

for company than have no kin at all, or any animal it could feel a

nearness to or get sympathy from in its forlorn condition here among

strangers who do not know its ways or habits, or what to do to make it

feel that it is among friends; but it was a mistake--it went into such

fits at the sight of the kangaroo that I was convinced it had never seen

one before. I pity the poor noisy little animal, but there is nothing

I can do to make it happy. If I could tame it--but that is out of the

question; the more I try the worse I seem to make it. It grieves me to

the heart to see it in its little storms of sorrow and passion. I wanted

to let it go, but she wouldn't hear of it. That seemed cruel and not

like her; and yet she may be right. It might be lonelier than ever; for

since I cannot find another one, how could_ it_?

FIVE MONTHS LATER.--It is not a kangaroo. No, for it supports itself by

holding to her finger, and thus goes a few steps on its hind legs, and

then falls down. It is probably some kind of a bear; and yet it has

no tail--as yet--and no fur, except upon its head. It still keeps on

growing--that is a curious circumstance, for bears get their growth

earlier than this. Bears are dangerous--since our catastrophe--and I

shall not be satisfied to have this one prowling about the place much

longer without a muzzle on. I have offered to get her a kangaroo if she

would let this one go, but it did no good--she is determined to run us

into all sorts of foolish risks, I think. She was not like this before

she lost her mind.

A FORTNIGHT LATER.--I examined its mouth. There is no danger yet: it has

only one tooth. It has no tail yet. It makes more noise now than it ever

did before--and mainly at night. I have moved out. But I shall go over,

mornings, to breakfast, and see if it has more teeth. If it gets a

mouthful of teeth it will be time for it to go, tail or no tail, for a

bear does not need a tail in order to be dangerous.

FOUR MONTHS LATER.--I have been off hunting and fishing a month, up

in the region that she calls Buffalo; I don't know why, unless it is

because there are not any buffaloes there. Meantime the bear has learned

to paddle around all by itself on its hind legs, and says “poppa” and

“momma.” It is certainly a new species. This resemblance to words may

be purely accidental, of course, and may have no purpose or meaning;

but even in that case it is still extraordinary, and is a thing which no

other bear can do. This imitation of speech, taken together with general

absence of fur and entire absence of tail, sufficiently indicates that

this is a new kind of bear. The further study of it will be exceedingly

interesting. Meantime I will go off on a far expedition among the

forests of the north and make an exhaustive search. There must certainly

be another one somewhere, and this one will be less dangerous when it

has company of its own species. I will go straightway; but I will muzzle

this one first.

THREE MONTHS LATER.--It has been a weary, weary hunt, yet I have had no

success. In the mean time, without stirring from the home estate, she

has caught another one! I never saw such luck. I might have hunted these

woods a hundred years, I never would have run across that thing.

NEXT DAY.--I have been comparing the new one with the old one, and it

is perfectly plain that they are of the same breed. I was going to stuff

one of them for my collection, but she is prejudiced against it for some

reason or other; so I have relinquished the idea, though I think it is

a mistake. It would be an irreparable loss to science if they should

get away. The old one is tamer than it was and can laugh and talk like

a parrot, having learned this, no doubt, from being with the parrot so

much, and having the imitative faculty in a high developed degree. I

shall be astonished if it turns out to be a new kind of parrot; and yet

I ought not to be astonished, for it has already been everything else it

could think of since those first days when it was a fish. The new one is

as ugly as the old one was at first; has the same sulphur-and-raw-meat

complexion and the same singular head without any fur on it. She calls

it Abel.

TEN YEARS LATER.--They are _boys_; we found it out long ago. It was

their coming in that small immature shape that puzzled us; we were not

used to it. There are some girls now. Abel is a good boy, but if Cain

had stayed a bear it would have improved him. After all these years, I

see that I was mistaken about Eve in the beginning; it is better to

live outside the Garden with her than inside it without her. At first

I thought she talked too much; but now I should be sorry to have that

voice fall silent and pass out of my life. Blessed be the chestnut that

brought us near together and taught me to know the goodness of her heart

and the sweetness of her spirit!

EVE'S DIARY

Translated from the Original

SATURDAY.--I am almost a whole day old, now. I arrived yesterday.

That is as it seems to me. And it must be so, for if there was a

day-before-yesterday I was not there when it happened, or I should

remember it. It could be, of course, that it did happen, and that I

was not noticing. Very well; I will be very watchful now, and if any

day-before-yesterdays happen I will make a note of it. It will be best

to start right and not let the record get confused, for some instinct

tells me that these details are going to be important to the historian

some day. For I feel like an experiment, I feel exactly like an

experiment; it would be impossible for a person to feel more like an

experiment than I do, and so I am coming to feel convinced that that is

what I _am_--an experiment; just an experiment, and nothing more.

Then if I am an experiment, am I the whole of it? No, I think not; I

think the rest of it is part of it. I am the main part of it, but

I think the rest of it has its share in the matter. Is my position

assured, or do I have to watch it and take care of it? The latter,

perhaps. Some instinct tells me that eternal vigilance is the price of

supremacy. (That is a good phrase, I think, for one so young.)

Everything looks better today than it did yesterday. In the rush of

finishing up yesterday, the mountains were left in a ragged condition,

and some of the plains were so cluttered with rubbish and remnants that

the aspects were quite distressing. Noble and beautiful works of art

should not be subjected to haste; and this majestic new world is indeed

a most noble and beautiful work. And certainly marvelously near to being

perfect, notwithstanding the shortness of the time. There are too many

stars in some places and not enough in others, but that can be remedied

presently, no doubt. The moon got loose last night, and slid down and

fell out of the scheme--a very great loss; it breaks my heart to think

of it. There isn't another thing among the ornaments and decorations

that is comparable to it for beauty and finish. It should have been

fastened better. If we can only get it back again--

But of course there is no telling where it went to. And besides, whoever

gets it will hide it; I know it because I would do it myself. I believe

I can be honest in all other matters, but I already begin to realize

that the core and center of my nature is love of the beautiful, a

passion for the beautiful, and that it would not be safe to trust me

with a moon that belonged to another person and that person didn't know

I had it. I could give up a moon that I found in the daytime, because I

should be afraid some one was looking; but if I found it in the dark,

I am sure I should find some kind of an excuse for not saying anything

about it. For I do love moons, they are so pretty and so romantic. I

wish we had five or six; I would never go to bed; I should never get

tired lying on the moss-bank and looking up at them.

Stars are good, too. I wish I could get some to put in my hair. But I

suppose I never can. You would be surprised to find how far off they

are, for they do not look it. When they first showed, last night,

I tried to knock some down with a pole, but it didn't reach, which

astonished me; then I tried clods till I was all tired out, but I never

got one. It was because I am left-handed and cannot throw good. Even

when I aimed at the one I wasn't after I couldn't hit the other one,

though I did make some close shots, for I saw the black blot of the clod

sail right into the midst of the golden clusters forty or fifty times,

just barely missing them, and if I could have held out a little longer

maybe I could have got one.

So I cried a little, which was natural, I suppose, for one of my age,

and after I was rested I got a basket and started for a place on the

extreme rim of the circle, where the stars were close to the ground and

I could get them with my hands, which would be better, anyway, because I

could gather them tenderly then, and not break them. But it was farther

than I thought, and at last I had to give it up; I was so tired I

couldn't drag my feet another step; and besides, they were sore and hurt

me very much.

I couldn't get back home; it was too far and turning cold; but I found

some tigers and nestled in among them and was most adorably comfortable,

and their breath was sweet and pleasant, because they live on

strawberries. I had never seen a tiger before, but I knew them in a

minute by the stripes. If I could have one of those skins, it would make

a lovely gown.

Today I am getting better ideas about distances. I was so eager to get

hold of every pretty thing that I giddily grabbed for it, sometimes when

it was too far off, and sometimes when it was but six inches away but

seemed a foot--alas, with thorns between! I learned a lesson; also I

made an axiom, all out of my own head--my very first one; _The scratched

experiment shuns the thorn_. I think it is a very good one for one so

young.

I followed the other Experiment around, yesterday afternoon, at a

distance, to see what it might be for, if I could. But I was not able

to make out. I think it is a man. I had never seen a man, but it looked

like one, and I feel sure that that is what it is. I realize that I feel

more curiosity about it than about any of the other reptiles. If it is a

reptile, and I suppose it is; for it has frowzy hair and blue eyes, and

looks like a reptile. It has no hips; it tapers like a carrot; when

it stands, it spreads itself apart like a derrick; so I think it is a

reptile, though it may be architecture.

I was afraid of it at first, and started to run every time it turned

around, for I thought it was going to chase me; but by and by I found it

was only trying to get away, so after that I was not timid any more, but

tracked it along, several hours, about twenty yards behind, which made

it nervous and unhappy. At last it was a good deal worried, and climbed

a tree. I waited a good while, then gave it up and went home.

Today the same thing over. I've got it up the tree again.

SUNDAY.--It is up there yet. Resting, apparently. But that is a

subterfuge: Sunday isn't the day of rest; Saturday is appointed for

that. It looks to me like a creature that is more interested in resting

than in anything else. It would tire me to rest so much. It tires me

just to sit around and watch the tree. I do wonder what it is for; I

never see it do anything.

They returned the moon last night, and I was_ so_ happy! I think it

is very honest of them. It slid down and fell off again, but I was

not distressed; there is no need to worry when one has that kind of

neighbors; they will fetch it back. I wish I could do something to show

my appreciation. I would like to send them some stars, for we have more

than we can use. I mean I, not we, for I can see that the reptile cares

nothing for such things.

It has low tastes, and is not kind. When I went there yesterday evening

in the gloaming it had crept down and was trying to catch the little

speckled fishes that play in the pool, and I had to clod it to make it

go up the tree again and let them alone. I wonder if _that _is what it

is for? Hasn't it any heart? Hasn't it any compassion for those little

creature? Can it be that it was designed and manufactured for such

ungentle work? It has the look of it. One of the clods took it back of

the ear, and it used language. It gave me a thrill, for it was the first

time I had ever heard speech, except my own. I did not understand the

words, but they seemed expressive.

When I found it could talk I felt a new interest in it, for I love to

talk; I talk, all day, and in my sleep, too, and I am very interesting,

but if I had another to talk to I could be twice as interesting, and

would never stop, if desired.

If this reptile is a man, it isn't an_ it_, is it? That wouldn't be

grammatical, would it? I think it would be _he_. I think so. In

that case one would parse it thus: nominative, _he_; dative, _him_;

possessive, _his'n._ Well, I will consider it a man and call it he until

it turns out to be something else. This will be handier than having so

many uncertainties.

NEXT WEEK SUNDAY.--All the week I tagged around after him and tried

to get acquainted. I had to do the talking, because he was shy, but

I didn't mind it. He seemed pleased to have me around, and I used

the sociable “we” a good deal, because it seemed to flatter him to be

included.

WEDNESDAY.--We are getting along very well indeed, now, and getting

better and better acquainted. He does not try to avoid me any more,

which is a good sign, and shows that he likes to have me with him. That

pleases me, and I study to be useful to him in every way I can, so as

to increase his regard. During the last day or two I have taken all the

work of naming things off his hands, and this has been a great relief to

him, for he has no gift in that line, and is evidently very grateful.

He can't think of a rational name to save him, but I do not let him see

that I am aware of his defect. Whenever a new creature comes along I

name it before he has time to expose himself by an awkward silence. In

this way I have saved him many embarrassments. I have no defect like

this. The minute I set eyes on an animal I know what it is. I don't have

to reflect a moment; the right name comes out instantly, just as if it

were an inspiration, as no doubt it is, for I am sure it wasn't in me

half a minute before. I seem to know just by the shape of the creature

and the way it acts what animal it is.

When the dodo came along he thought it was a wildcat--I saw it in his

eye. But I saved him. And I was careful not to do it in a way that

could hurt his pride. I just spoke up in a quite natural way of pleased

surprise, and not as if I was dreaming of conveying information,

and said, “Well, I do declare, if there isn't the dodo!” I

explained--without seeming to be explaining--how I know it for a dodo,

and although I thought maybe he was a little piqued that I knew the

creature when he didn't, it was quite evident that he admired me.

That was very agreeable, and I thought of it more than once with

gratification before I slept. How little a thing can make us happy when

we feel that we have earned it!

THURSDAY.--my first sorrow. Yesterday he avoided me and seemed to wish

I would not talk to him. I could not believe it, and thought there was

some mistake, for I loved to be with him, and loved to hear him talk,

and so how could it be that he could feel unkind toward me when I had

not done anything? But at last it seemed true, so I went away and sat

lonely in the place where I first saw him the morning that we were made

and I did not know what he was and was indifferent about him; but now it

was a mournful place, and every little thing spoke of him, and my

heart was very sore. I did not know why very clearly, for it was a new

feeling; I had not experienced it before, and it was all a mystery, and

I could not make it out.

But when night came I could not bear the lonesomeness, and went to the

new shelter which he has built, to ask him what I had done that was

wrong and how I could mend it and get back his kindness again; but he

put me out in the rain, and it was my first sorrow.

SUNDAY.--It is pleasant again, now, and I am happy; but those were heavy

days; I do not think of them when I can help it.

I tried to get him some of those apples, but I cannot learn to throw

straight. I failed, but I think the good intention pleased him. They

are forbidden, and he says I shall come to harm; but so I come to harm

through pleasing him, why shall I care for that harm?

MONDAY.--This morning I told him my name, hoping it would interest him.

But he did not care for it. It is strange. If he should tell me his

name, I would care. I think it would be pleasanter in my ears than any

other sound.

He talks very little. Perhaps it is because he is not bright, and is

sensitive about it and wishes to conceal it. It is such a pity that he

should feel so, for brightness is nothing; it is in the heart that the

values lie. I wish I could make him understand that a loving good heart

is riches, and riches enough, and that without it intellect is poverty.

Although he talks so little, he has quite a considerable vocabulary.

This morning he used a surprisingly good word. He evidently recognized,

himself, that it was a good one, for he worked it in twice afterward,

casually. It was not good casual art, still it showed that he possesses

a certain quality of perception. Without a doubt that seed can be made

to grow, if cultivated.

Where did he get that word? I do not think I have ever used it.

No, he took no interest in my name. I tried to hide my disappointment,

but I suppose I did not succeed. I went away and sat on the moss-bank

with my feet in the water. It is where I go when I hunger for

companionship, some one to look at, some one to talk to. It is not

enough--that lovely white body painted there in the pool--but it is

something, and something is better than utter loneliness. It talks when

I talk; it is sad when I am sad; it comforts me with its sympathy; it

says, “Do not be downhearted, you poor friendless girl; I will be your

friend.” It_ is_ a good friend to me, and my only one; it is my sister.

That first time that she forsook me! ah, I shall never forget

that--never, never. My heart was lead in my body! I said, “She was all

I had, and now she is gone!” In my despair I said, “Break, my heart; I

cannot bear my life any more!” and hid my face in my hands, and there

was no solace for me. And when I took them away, after a little, there

she was again, white and shining and beautiful, and I sprang into her

arms!

That was perfect happiness; I had known happiness before, but it was not

like this, which was ecstasy. I never doubted her afterward. Sometimes

she stayed away--maybe an hour, maybe almost the whole day, but I waited

and did not doubt; I said, “She is busy, or she is gone on a journey,

but she will come.” And it was so: she always did. At night she would

not come if it was dark, for she was a timid little thing; but if there

was a moon she would come. I am not afraid of the dark, but she is

younger than I am; she was born after I was. Many and many are the

visits I have paid her; she is my comfort and my refuge when my life is

hard--and it is mainly that.

TUESDAY.--All the morning I was at work improving the estate; and I

purposely kept away from him in the hope that he would get lonely and

come. But he did not.

At noon I stopped for the day and took my recreation by flitting all

about with the bees and the butterflies and reveling in the flowers,

those beautiful creatures that catch the smile of God out of the sky and

preserve it! I gathered them, and made them into wreaths and garlands

and clothed myself in them while I ate my luncheon--apples, of course;

then I sat in the shade and wished and waited. But he did not come.

But no matter. Nothing would have come of it, for he does not care for

flowers. He called them rubbish, and cannot tell one from another, and

thinks it is superior to feel like that. He does not care for me, he

does not care for flowers, he does not care for the painted sky at

eventide--is there anything he does care for, except building shacks to

coop himself up in from the good clean rain, and thumping the melons,

and sampling the grapes, and fingering the fruit on the trees, to see

how those properties are coming along?

I laid a dry stick on the ground and tried to bore a hole in it with

another one, in order to carry out a scheme that I had, and soon I got

an awful fright. A thin, transparent bluish film rose out of the hole,

and I dropped everything and ran! I thought it was a spirit, and I _was

_so frightened! But I looked back, and it was not coming; so I leaned

against a rock and rested and panted, and let my limbs go on trembling

until they got steady again; then I crept warily back, alert, watching,

and ready to fly if there was occasion; and when I was come near, I

parted the branches of a rose-bush and peeped through--wishing the man

was about, I was looking so cunning and pretty--but the sprite was gone.

I went there, and there was a pinch of delicate pink dust in the hole. I

put my finger in, to feel it, and said _ouch_! and took it out again. It

was a cruel pain. I put my finger in my mouth; and by standing first on

one foot and then the other, and grunting, I presently eased my misery;

then I was full of interest, and began to examine.

I was curious to know what the pink dust was. Suddenly the name of it

occurred to me, though I had never heard of it before. It was _fire_! I

was as certain of it as a person could be of anything in the world. So

without hesitation I named it that--fire.

I had created something that didn't exist before; I had added a new

thing to the world's uncountable properties; I realized this, and was

proud of my achievement, and was going to run and find him and tell him

about it, thinking to raise myself in his esteem--but I reflected, and

did not do it. No--he would not care for it. He would ask what it

was good for, and what could I answer? for if it was not _good _for

something, but only beautiful, merely beautiful-- So I sighed, and did

not go. For it wasn't good for anything; it could not build a shack,

it could not improve melons, it could not hurry a fruit crop; it was

useless, it was a foolishness and a vanity; he would despise it and say

cutting words. But to me it was not despicable; I said, “Oh, you fire, I

love you, you dainty pink creature, for you are _beautiful_--and that is

enough!” and was going to gather it to my breast. But refrained. Then

I made another maxim out of my head, though it was so nearly like

the first one that I was afraid it was only a plagiarism: “_The burnt

experiment shuns the fire_.”

I wrought again; and when I had made a good deal of fire-dust I emptied

it into a handful of dry brown grass, intending to carry it home and

keep it always and play with it; but the wind struck it and it sprayed

up and spat out at me fiercely, and I dropped it and ran. When I looked

back the blue spirit was towering up and stretching and rolling away

like a cloud, and instantly I thought of the name of it--smoke!--though,

upon my word, I had never heard of smoke before.

Soon brilliant yellow and red flares shot up through the smoke, and I

named them in an instant--flames--and I was right, too, though these

were the very first flames that had ever been in the world. They climbed

the trees, then flashed splendidly in and out of the vast and increasing

volume of tumbling smoke, and I had to clap my hands and laugh and

dance in my rapture, it was so new and strange and so wonderful and so

beautiful!

He came running, and stopped and gazed, and said not a word for many

minutes. Then he asked what it was. Ah, it was too bad that he should

ask such a direct question. I had to answer it, of course, and I did. I

said it was fire. If it annoyed him that I should know and he must ask;

that was not my fault; I had no desire to annoy him. After a pause he

asked:

“How did it come?”

Another direct question, and it also had to have a direct answer.

“I made it.”

The fire was traveling farther and farther off. He went to the edge of

the burned place and stood looking down, and said:

“What are these?”

“Fire-coals.”

He picked up one to examine it, but changed his mind and put it down

again. Then he went away. _Nothing _interests him.

But I was interested. There were ashes, gray and soft and delicate

and pretty--I knew what they were at once. And the embers; I knew the

embers, too. I found my apples, and raked them out, and was glad; for

I am very young and my appetite is active. But I was disappointed; they

were all burst open and spoiled. Spoiled apparently; but it was not so;

they were better than raw ones. Fire is beautiful; some day it will be

useful, I think.

FRIDAY.--I saw him again, for a moment, last Monday at nightfall, but

only for a moment. I was hoping he would praise me for trying to improve

the estate, for I had meant well and had worked hard. But he was not

pleased, and turned away and left me. He was also displeased on another

account: I tried once more to persuade him to stop going over the Falls.

That was because the fire had revealed to me a new passion--quite new,

and distinctly different from love, grief, and those others which I

had already discovered--fear. And it is horrible!--I wish I had never

discovered it; it gives me dark moments, it spoils my happiness, it

makes me shiver and tremble and shudder. But I could not persuade him,

for he has not discovered fear yet, and so he could not understand me.

EXTRACT FROM ADAM'S DIARY

Perhaps I ought to remember that she is very young, a mere girl and make

allowances. She is all interest, eagerness, vivacity, the world is to

her a charm, a wonder, a mystery, a joy; she can't speak for delight

when she finds a new flower, she must pet it and caress it and smell

it and talk to it, and pour out endearing names upon it. And she is

color-mad: brown rocks, yellow sand, gray moss, green foliage, blue sky;

the pearl of the dawn, the purple shadows on the mountains, the golden

islands floating in crimson seas at sunset, the pallid moon sailing

through the shredded cloud-rack, the star-jewels glittering in the

wastes of space--none of them is of any practical value, so far as I can

see, but because they have color and majesty, that is enough for her,

and she loses her mind over them. If she could quiet down and keep still

a couple minutes at a time, it would be a reposeful spectacle. In that

case I think I could enjoy looking at her; indeed I am sure I could,

for I am coming to realize that she is a quite remarkably comely

creature--lithe, slender, trim, rounded, shapely, nimble, graceful; and

once when she was standing marble-white and sun-drenched on a boulder,

with her young head tilted back and her hand shading her eyes, watching

the flight of a bird in the sky, I recognized that she was beautiful.

MONDAY NOON.--If there is anything on the planet that she is not

interested in it is not in my list. There are animals that I am

indifferent to, but it is not so with her. She has no discrimination,

she takes to all of them, she thinks they are all treasures, every new

one is welcome.

When the mighty brontosaurus came striding into camp, she regarded it as

an acquisition, I considered it a calamity; that is a good sample of

the lack of harmony that prevails in our views of things. She wanted to

domesticate it, I wanted to make it a present of the homestead and move

out. She believed it could be tamed by kind treatment and would be a

good pet; I said a pet twenty-one feet high and eighty-four feet long

would be no proper thing to have about the place, because, even with the

best intentions and without meaning any harm, it could sit down on the

house and mash it, for any one could see by the look of its eye that it

was absent-minded.

Still, her heart was set upon having that monster, and she couldn't give

it up. She thought we could start a dairy with it, and wanted me to help

milk it; but I wouldn't; it was too risky. The sex wasn't right, and we

hadn't any ladder anyway. Then she wanted to ride it, and look at the

scenery. Thirty or forty feet of its tail was lying on the ground, like

a fallen tree, and she thought she could climb it, but she was mistaken;

when she got to the steep place it was too slick and down she came, and

would have hurt herself but for me.

Was she satisfied now? No. Nothing ever satisfies her but demonstration;

untested theories are not in her line, and she won't have them. It is

the right spirit, I concede it; it attracts me; I feel the influence of

it; if I were with her more I think I should take it up myself. Well,

she had one theory remaining about this colossus: she thought that if we

could tame it and make him friendly we could stand him in the river

and use him for a bridge. It turned out that he was already plenty tame

enough--at least as far as she was concerned--so she tried her theory,

but it failed: every time she got him properly placed in the river and

went ashore to cross over him, he came out and followed her around like

a pet mountain. Like the other animals. They all do that.

FRIDAY.--Tuesday--Wednesday--Thursday--and today: all without seeing

him. It is a long time to be alone; still, it is better to be alone than

unwelcome.

I _had _to have company--I was made for it, I think--so I made friends

with the animals. They are just charming, and they have the kindest

disposition and the politest ways; they never look sour, they never let

you feel that you are intruding, they smile at you and wag their tail,

if they've got one, and they are always ready for a romp or an excursion

or anything you want to propose. I think they are perfect gentlemen. All

these days we have had such good times, and it hasn't been lonesome for

me, ever. Lonesome! No, I should say not. Why, there's always a swarm

of them around--sometimes as much as four or five acres--you can't count

them; and when you stand on a rock in the midst and look out over the

furry expanse it is so mottled and splashed and gay with color and

frisking sheen and sun-flash, and so rippled with stripes, that you

might think it was a lake, only you know it isn't; and there's storms

of sociable birds, and hurricanes of whirring wings; and when the sun

strikes all that feathery commotion, you have a blazing up of all the

colors you can think of, enough to put your eyes out.

We have made long excursions, and I have seen a great deal of the world;

almost all of it, I think; and so I am the first traveler, and the only

one. When we are on the march, it is an imposing sight--there's nothing

like it anywhere. For comfort I ride a tiger or a leopard, because it is

soft and has a round back that fits me, and because they are such pretty

animals; but for long distance or for scenery I ride the elephant. He

hoists me up with his trunk, but I can get off myself; when we are ready

to camp, he sits and I slide down the back way.

The birds and animals are all friendly to each other, and there are no

disputes about anything. They all talk, and they all talk to me, but it

must be a foreign language, for I cannot make out a word they say; yet

they often understand me when I talk back, particularly the dog and the

elephant. It makes me ashamed. It shows that they are brighter than I

am, for I want to be the principal Experiment myself--and I intend to

be, too.

I have learned a number of things, and am educated, now, but I wasn't at

first. I was ignorant at first. At first it used to vex me because, with

all my watching, I was never smart enough to be around when the water

was running uphill; but now I do not mind it. I have experimented and

experimented until now I know it never does run uphill, except in the

dark. I know it does in the dark, because the pool never goes dry, which

it would, of course, if the water didn't come back in the night. It is

best to prove things by actual experiment; then you _know_; whereas if

you depend on guessing and supposing and conjecturing, you never get

educated.

Some things you _can't_ find out; but you will never know you can't

by guessing and supposing: no, you have to be patient and go on

experimenting until you find out that you can't find out. And it is

delightful to have it that way, it makes the world so interesting. If

there wasn't anything to find out, it would be dull. Even trying to find

out and not finding out is just as interesting as trying to find out and

finding out, and I don't know but more so. The secret of the water was

a treasure until I _got _it; then the excitement all went away, and I

recognized a sense of loss.

By experiment I know that wood swims, and dry leaves, and feathers, and

plenty of other things; therefore by all that cumulative evidence you

know that a rock will swim; but you have to put up with simply knowing

it, for there isn't any way to prove it--up to now. But I shall find a

way--then _that _excitement will go. Such things make me sad; because

by and by when I have found out everything there won't be any more

excitements, and I do love excitements so! The other night I couldn't

sleep for thinking about it.

At first I couldn't make out what I was made for, but now I think it was

to search out the secrets of this wonderful world and be happy and thank

the Giver of it all for devising it. I think there are many things to

learn yet--I hope so; and by economizing and not hurrying too fast I

think they will last weeks and weeks. I hope so. When you cast up a

feather it sails away on the air and goes out of sight; then you throw

up a clod and it doesn't. It comes down, every time. I have tried it

and tried it, and it is always so. I wonder why it is? Of course it

_doesn't_ come down, but why should it _seem _to? I suppose it is an

optical illusion. I mean, one of them is. I don't know which one. It

may be the feather, it may be the clod; I can't prove which it is, I can

only demonstrate that one or the other is a fake, and let a person take

his choice.

By watching, I know that the stars are not going to last. I have seen

some of the best ones melt and run down the sky. Since one can melt,

they can all melt; since they can all melt, they can all melt the same

night. That sorrow will come--I know it. I mean to sit up every night

and look at them as long as I can keep awake; and I will impress those

sparkling fields on my memory, so that by and by when they are taken

away I can by my fancy restore those lovely myriads to the black sky and

make them sparkle again, and double them by the blur of my tears.

After the Fall

When I look back, the Garden is a dream to me. It was beautiful,

surpassingly beautiful, enchantingly beautiful; and now it is lost, and

I shall not see it any more.

The Garden is lost, but I have found _him_, and am content. He loves

me as well as he can; I love him with all the strength of my passionate

nature, and this, I think, is proper to my youth and sex. If I ask

myself why I love him, I find I do not know, and do not really much

care to know; so I suppose that this kind of love is not a product

of reasoning and statistics, like one's love for other reptiles and

animals. I think that this must be so. I love certain birds because of

their song; but I do not love Adam on account of his singing--no, it is

not that; the more he sings the more I do not get reconciled to it.

Yet I ask him to sing, because I wish to learn to like everything he is

interested in. I am sure I can learn, because at first I could not stand

it, but now I can. It sours the milk, but it doesn't matter; I can get

used to that kind of milk.

It is not on account of his brightness that I love him--no, it is not

that. He is not to blame for his brightness, such as it is, for he did

not make it himself; he is as God made him, and that is sufficient.

There was a wise purpose in it, _that _I know. In time it will develop,

though I think it will not be sudden; and besides, there is no hurry; he

is well enough just as he is.

It is not on account of his gracious and considerate ways and his

delicacy that I love him. No, he has lacks in this regard, but he is

well enough just so, and is improving.

It is not on account of his industry that I love him--no, it is not

that. I think he has it in him, and I do not know why he conceals it

from me. It is my only pain. Otherwise he is frank and open with me,

now. I am sure he keeps nothing from me but this. It grieves me that he

should have a secret from me, and sometimes it spoils my sleep, thinking

of it, but I will put it out of my mind; it shall not trouble my

happiness, which is otherwise full to overflowing.

It is not on account of his education that I love him--no, it is not

that. He is self-educated, and does really know a multitude of things,

but they are not so.

It is not on account of his chivalry that I love him--no, it is not

that. He told on me, but I do not blame him; it is a peculiarity of sex,

I think, and he did not make his sex. Of course I would not have told on

him, I would have perished first; but that is a peculiarity of sex, too,

and I do not take credit for it, for I did not make my sex.

Then why is it that I love him? _Merely because he is masculine_, I

think.

At bottom he is good, and I love him for that, but I could love him

without it. If he should beat me and abuse me, I should go on loving

him. I know it. It is a matter of sex, I think.

He is strong and handsome, and I love him for that, and I admire him

and am proud of him, but I could love him without those qualities. If

he were plain, I should love him; if he were a wreck, I should love

him; and I would work for him, and slave over him, and pray for him, and

watch by his bedside until I died.

Yes, I think I love him merely because he is _mine _and is _masculine_.

There is no other reason, I suppose. And so I think it is as I first

said: that this kind of love is not a product of reasonings and

statistics. It just _comes_--none knows whence--and cannot explain

itself. And doesn't need to.

It is what I think. But I am only a girl, the first that has examined

this matter, and it may turn out that in my ignorance and inexperience I

have not got it right.

Forty Years Later

It is my prayer, it is my longing, that we may pass from this life

together--a longing which shall never perish from the earth, but shall

have place in the heart of every wife that loves, until the end of time;

and it shall be called by my name.

But if one of us must go first, it is my prayer that it shall be I;

for he is strong, I am weak, I am not so necessary to him as he is to

me--life without him would not be life; how could I endure it? This

prayer is also immortal, and will not cease from being offered up while

my race continues. I am the first wife; and in the last wife I shall be

repeated.

AT EVE'S GRAVE

ADAM: Wheresoever she was, _there_ was Eden.