elative in the wide world; but he was good and rich and generous. He
reared me in the lap of luxury. I knew no want that money could satisfy.

In the fullness of time I was graduated, and went with two of my
servants--my chamberlain and my valet--to travel in foreign countries.
During four years I flitted upon careless wing amid the beauteous
gardens of the distant strand, if you will permit this form of speech in
one whose tongue was ever attuned to poesy; and indeed I so speak with
confidence, as one unto his kind, for I perceive by your eyes that you
too, sir, are gifted with the divine inflation. In those far lands I
reveled in the ambrosial food that fructifies the soul, the mind, the
heart. But of all things, that which most appealed to my inborn esthetic
taste was the prevailing custom there, among the rich, of making
collections of elegant and costly rarities, dainty objets de vertu,
and in an evil hour I tried to uplift my uncle Ithuriel to a plane of
sympathy with this exquisite employment.

I wrote and told him of one gentleman's vast collection of shells;
another's noble collection of meerschaum pipes; another's elevating and
refining collection of undecipherable autographs; another's
priceless collection of old china; another's enchanting collection of
postage-stamps--and so forth and so on. Soon my letters yielded fruit.
My uncle began to look about for something to make a collection of.
You may know, perhaps, how fleetly a taste like this dilates. His soon
became a raging fever, though I knew it not. He began to neglect his
great pork business; presently he wholly retired and turned an elegant
leisure into a rabid search for curious things. His wealth was vast, and
he spared it not. First he tried cow-bells. He made a collection which
filled five large salons, and comprehended all the different sorts of
cow-bells that ever had been contrived, save one. That one--an antique,
and the only specimen extant--was possessed by another collector. My
uncle offered enormous sums for it, but the gentleman would not sell.
Doubtless you know what necessarily resulted. A true collector attaches
no value to a collection that is not complete. His great heart
breaks, he sells his hoard, he turns his mind to some field that seems
unoccupied.

Thus did my uncle. He next tried brickbats. After piling up a vast and
intensely interesting collection, the former difficulty supervened;
his great heart broke again; he sold out h