ore celestial corner of the system, behind the constellation
of Cassiopeia's Chair, far from noise and disturbance. I discovered that
my house actually had its site in such a withdrawn, but forever new and
unprofaned, part of the universe. If it were worth the while to settle
in those parts near to the Pleiades or the Hyades, to Aldebaran or
Altair, then I was really there, or at an equal remoteness from the life
which I had left behind, dwindled and twinkling with as fine a ray to
my nearest neighbor, and to be seen only in moonless nights by him. Such
was that part of creation where I had squatted;

"There was a shepherd that did live,
And held his thoughts as high
As were the mounts whereon his flocks
Did hourly feed him by."

What should we think of the shepherd's life if his flocks always
wandered to higher pastures than his thoughts?

Every morning was a cheerful invitation to make my life of equal
simplicity, and I may say innocence, with Nature herself. I have been as
sincere a worshipper of Aurora as the Greeks. I got up early and bathed
in the pond; that was a religious exercise, and one of the best things
which I did. They say that characters were engraven on the bathing tub
of King Tchingthang to this effect: "Renew thyself completely each
day; do it again, and again, and forever again." I can understand that.
Morning brings back the heroic ages. I was as much affected by the faint
hum of a mosquito making its invisible and unimaginable tour through
my apartment at earliest dawn, when I was sitting with door and windows
open, as I could be by any trumpet that ever sang of fame. It was
Homer's requiem; itself an Iliad and Odyssey in the air, singing its own
wrath and wanderings. There was something cosmical about it; a standing
advertisement, till forbidden, of the everlasting vigor and fertility of
the world. The morning, which is the most memorable season of the day,
is the awakening hour. Then there is least somnolence in us; and for an
hour, at least, some part of us awakes which slumbers all the rest of
the day and night. Little is to be expected of that day, if it can be
called a day, to which we are not awakened by our Genius, but by the
mechanical nudgings of some servitor, are not awakened by our own
newly acquired force and aspirations from within, accompanied by
the undulations of celestial music, instead of factory bells, and a
fr