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Other men pay the money; I take the pleasure, and they the anxious care!

4. The Yacht Club have been very obliging to me. At great expense they have equipped unequaled boats, that suit me to a nicety. I ask nothing better. They are graceful as swans, beautiful as butterflies. If I had them all to care for, my pleasure would cost me rather dear. But, with extreme delicacy, the gentlemen of the Club relieve me of all that gross and material part of it, and leave me the boats, the pleasure, the poetry of the thing; and once or twice in a season I go down the bay, on a breezy morning, and see these fine fellows sail their craft, and I do believe that if they were doing it for their own selves, instead of for my enjoyment, they would not exert themselves more.

5. Then, how much have I to thank the enterprising shop-keepers, who dress out their windows with such beautiful things, changing them every few days lest I should tire. It is a question of duty and delicacy with me whether I ought not to go in often as thus: "Good morning, Mr. Stewart-good morning, Mr. Lord, or Mr. Taylor. I am greatly obliged to you for those fine goods in the window. I have enjoyed them amazingly, as I did the other patterns of last week. Pray, sirs, do not put yourselves to all this trouble on my account. Yet, if your kindness insists upon it, I shall be but too happy to come and look every day at such rare productions of the loom."

6. In the same way I am put under very great obligations to Messrs. Appleton & Co. It is affecting to see such kindness as they have shown, in going to great expense to procure fine stereoscopic views for the entertainment of their friends. It must be a great expense to them. But there they are displayed, free as grass in meadow or dandelions by the roadside, and any one can look for nothing, and without any other risk than that of purchasing!

7. On the same side of Broadway is a firm so benevolent that some Dickens ought to embalm them as a "Cheeryble Brothers," of course I mean Messrs. Williams and Stevens, who pay out great sums every year, in order to fill their windows with pleasant sights for passers-by. Some surly old rich men there are in New York who hoard and hide their

pictorial treasures.

Not so these benevolent gentlemen.

They let their light shine; and, with rare delicacy, lest the eye should tire of repetition, they change their pictures every

week.

8. Then here is Mr. Seitz, who has ransacked all Europe for brilliant impressions of the rarest classical engravings, and has brought together a collection which can not probably be equaled or approached by any similar concern in the world. Only to think of such pains-taking kindness! And then if one loves books, how many are there besides Messrs. Appleton or Mr. Scribner who will rejoice in seeing you before their shelves, warming in kindred feeling to these children dressed in calf. I am sometimes overwhelmed with the sense of my riches in crockery and china, in sewing-machines, in jewelry, in furniture, in fine wall-paper, in new inventions.

9. And then how many men build handsome houses for me to look at, and fill their yards with flowers for me to nod to, and place the most beautiful faces of the family in the window to cheer me as I pass! Surely this is a kind-hearted world! And then how many fine country-seats are built, and grounds laid out, for my enjoyment. The fee-simple may be in some other man, but I own them. For he owns a thing who understands it best, and gets the most enjoyment from it!

10. This world was made for poor men, and therefore the greater part of it was left out of doors, where every body could enjoy it. And though men have been building and fencing for six thousand years, they have succeeded in getting very little of the universal treasure sequestered and out of sight. Suppose you can not plow that fertile field, or own the crops, or reap the harvests, is there no pleasure to you in a fine field, a growing crop, a good harvest? In fact, I sometimes fancy that I enjoy plowing and mowing more when other people are engaged in them than if I were working myself. Sweat away, my hearties, I say; I am in the shade of this tree watching you, and enjoying the scene amazingly.

11. I love to go into the pasture and look over those sleck Devonshires. The owner is very kind. He has paid thousands of dollars for them; he has spent I know not how

much for the barns and premises; he keeps several careful men to tend them, and all for my enjoyment and yours! We walk through the fields, handle their silky vests, discuss their points, and enjoy the whole herd, full as much as the so-called owner!

12. Sometimes I go out to look after my farms, for I own all the best ones hereabouts. And the orchards, the gardens, the greenhouses, the stately forests and exquisite meadows that I possess, divested too of all vexation of taxes, care, or work, are enough to make one's heart swell with gratitude.

13. Besides all this, there is a royal artist that rises earlier than I do every day, and works gloriously every hour, painting pictures in the heavens, and over all the earth, giving inimitable colors, unexampled chiar-oscuro, filling the day and the world with scenes that the canvas never equaled. And this stately gallery, with a dome like heaven, stands open, without fee or impudent janitor, to every poor man that has eyes. And the best of all is, that, glorious as is this manifestation, it is but a hint and outlying suggestion of a world transcendently better, not made with hands, eternal in the heavens !

LXIV.-THE HIGHLAND LIGHT-HOUSE.

HENRY D. THOREAU.

1. The Highland Light-house is a substantial-looking building of brick, painted white, and surmounted by an iron сар. Attached to it is the dwelling of the keeper, one story high, also of brick, and built by the government. As we were going to spend the night in a light-house, we wished to make the most of so novel an experience, and therefore told our host that we would like to accompany him when he went to light up. At rather early candle-light he lighted a small japan lamp, allowing it to smoke rather more than we like on ordinary occasions, and told us to follow him.

2. He led the way first through his bedroom, which was placed nearest to the light-house, and then through a long, narrow, covered passage-way, between whitewashed walls like a prison entry, into the lower part of the light-house, where

many great butts of oil were arranged around; thence we ascended by a winding and open iron stairway, with a steadily increasing scent of oil and lamp-smoke, to a trap-door in an iron floor, and through this into the lantern.

3. It was a neat building, with every thing in apple-pie order, and no danger of any thing rusting there for want of oil. The light consisted of fifteen argand lamps, placed within smooth concave reflectors twenty-one inches in diameter, and arranged in two horizontal circles one above the other, facing every way excepting directly down the Cape. These were surrounded, at a distance of two or three feet, by large plate-glass windows, which defied the storms, with iron sashes, on which rested the iron cap.

4. All the iron-work, except the floor, was painted white. And thus the light-house was completed. We walked slowly round in that narrow space as the keeper lighted each lamp in succession, conversing with him at the same moment that many a sailor on the deep witnessed the lighting of the Highland Light. His duty was to fill and trim and light his lamps, and keep bright the reflectors. He filled them every morning, and trimmed them commonly once in the course of the night.

5. He spoke of the anxiety and sense of responsibility which he felt in cold and stormy nights in the winter; when he knew that many a poor fellow was depending on him, and his lamps burned dimly, the oil being chilled. Sometimes he was obliged to warm the oil in a kettle in his house at midnight, and fill his lamps over again, for he could not have a fire in the light-house, it produced such a sweat on the windows. His successor told me that he could not keep too hot a fire in such a case.

6. Our host said that the frost, too, on the windows caused him much trouble, and in sultry summer nights the moths covered them and dimmed his lights; sometimes even small birds flew against the thick plate-glass, and were found on the ground beneath in the morning with their necks broken. In the spring of 1855 he found nineteen small yellow-birds, perhaps goldfinches or myrtle-birds, thus lying dead around the light-house; and sometimes in the fall he had seen where a golden plover had struck the glass in the

night, and left the down and the fatty part of its breast on it.

7. Thus he struggled by every method to keep his light shining before men. Surely the light-house keeper has a responsible, if an easy office. When his lamp goes out, he goes out; or, at most, only one such accident is pardoned.

LXV.-PSALM OF LIFE.

H. W. LONGFELLOW.

1. Tell me not, in mournful numbers,
Life is but an empty dream;
For the soul is dead that slumbers,

And things are not what they seem.

2. Life is real! Life is earnest !

And the grave is not its goal;
"Dust thou art, to dust returnest,"
Was not spoken of the soul.

3. Not enjoyment, and not sorrow
Is our destined end or way;
But to act that each to-morrow
Find us farther than to-day.

4. Art is long and time is fleeting,

And our hearts, though stout and brave,
Still, like muffled drums, are beating
Funeral marches to the grave.

5. In the world's broad field of battle,
In the bivouac of Life,

Be not like dumb driven cattle!
Be a hero in the strife!

6. Trust no Future howe'er pleasant!
Let the dead Past bury its dead!
Act-act in the living Present!

Heart within, and God o'erhead!

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