han a dead human carcass is a man. Can he who has discovered
only some of the values of whalebone and whale oil be said to have
discovered the true use of the whale? Can he who slays the elephant
for his ivory be said to have 'seen the elephant'? These are petty
and accidental uses; just as if a stronger race were to kill us in
order to make buttons and flageolets of our bones; for everything
may serve a lower as well as a higher use. Every creature is better
alive than dead, men and moose and pine trees, and he who
understands it aright will rather preserve its life than destroy
it.

'Is it the lumberman, then, who is the friend and lover of the
pine, stands nearest to it, and understands its nature best? Is it
the tanner who has barked it, or he who has boxed it for
turpentine, whom posterity will fable to have changed into a pine
at last? No! no! it is the poet; he it is who makes the truest use
of the pine--who does not fondle it with an axe, nor tickle it with
a saw, nor stroke it with a plane--who knows whether its heart is
false without cutting into it--who has not bought the stumpage of
the town on which its stands. All the pines shudder and heave a
sigh when _that_ man steps on the forest floor. No, it is the poet,
who loves them as his own shadow in the air, and lets them stand. I
have been into the lumber yard, the carpenter's shop, the tannery,
the lamp-black factory, and the turpentine clearing; but when at
length I saw the tops of the pines waving and reflecting the light
at a distance over all the rest of the forest, I realized that the
former were not the highest use of the pine. It is not their bones
or hide or tallow that I love most. It is the living spirit of the
tree, not its spirit of turpentine, with which I sympathize, and
which heals my cuts. It is as immortal as I am, and, perchance, may
go to as high a heaven, there to tower above me still.'

Reader, was not this man a nature lover, a nature limner, worthy to take
his place among our Giffords, Whittredges, McEntees, Bierstadts, and
Beards? Truly original, natural, and American, who among our descriptive
writers can surpass H. D. Thoreau?

PRIMARY LESSONS FOR DEAF MUTES. By J. A. JACOBS,
A. M., Principal of the Kentucky Institution for the Education of
Deaf Mutes. New York: John F. Tro