I

The World is too much with us; late and soon
Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers;
Little we see in nature that is ours;
We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon.

* * * * *

Great God! I'd rather be
A Pagan suckled in a creed outworn,--
So might I, standing on this pleasant lea,
Have glimpses that would make me less forlorn;
Have sight of Proteus rising from the sea;
Or hear old Triton blow his wreathed horn.

WORDSWORTH.

They had been sitting by the fire in silence for a long time. Robin
had been sewing, but the blaze had sunk too low to see by it, and her
hands were folded idly upon her mending. She put it by, and went to
the window. It was a very dark night, and the stars shone brilliantly.
The stars had come to mean a great deal to them both, howbeit neither
had ever said so. The stars only were unchanged. "The thoughts of God
in the heavens" were the same, whatever might be His thought on earth.

She sighed so heavily, that Adam asked quickly, "What is it?" and she
answered, with a nervous laugh, "I was thinking of the old legend,
that the souls on other planets call ours 'the sorrowful world.' What
made it so sorrowful, Adam?"

"Ignorance would cover it all," he answered, "but to be specific,
intemperance, sensuality, avarice, and poverty. I don't mean
drunkenness only, when I say intemperance. I have known a few
prohibitionists in my time who were as intemperate in their eating as
any one could be in the matter of drink. I think intemperance in its
widest sense was the great curse of our time anyway; drink and tobacco
and tea and coffee; and as to our eating, there was too much, of
almost everything on earth that was not food, but which could be
over-salted and over-peppered, and treated with tabasco sauce. We
over-stimulated every activity of the body, and spent our lives doing
all kinds of things in which there was no sense. Think of reading one
or two morning and evening papers every day. To be sure we said there
was nothing in them, but we used up our eyesight over them, and let a
stream of silliness and scandal dribble through our minds. As to the
things we wore--"

Robin laughed. "I know," she said. "The sewing-machine didn't save
work; it only made ruffles. A dressmaker once said to me, 'It's a good
thing for me that these women haven't sense enough to spend their time
a