ead. Here is a type of domestic
industry,--perhaps, too, something of municipal institutions,--perhaps
likewise--who knows?--the very model of a community, which Fourierites
and others are stumbling in pursuit of. Possibly the student of such
philosophies should go to the ant, and find that Nature has given him
his lesson there. Meantime, like a malevolent genius, I drop a few
grains of sand into the entrance of one of these dwellings, and thus
quite obliterate it. And behold, here comes one of the inhabitants, who
has been abroad upon some public or private business, or perhaps to
enjoy a fantastic walk, and cannot any longer find his own door. What
surprise, what hurry, what confusion of mind are expressed in all his
movements! How inexplicable to him must be the agency that has effected
this mischief! The incident will probably be long remembered in the
annals of the ant-colony, and be talked of in the winter days, when they
are making merry over their hoarded provisions. But now it is time to
move. The sun has shifted his position, and has found a vacant space
through the branches, by means of which he levels his rays full upon my
head. Yet now, as I arise, a cloud has come across him, and makes
everything gently sombre in an instant. Many clouds, voluminous and
heavy, are scattered about the sky, like the shattered ruins of a
dreamer's Utopia; but I will not send my thoughts thitherward now, nor
take one of them into my present observations.

And now how narrow, scanty, and meagre is the record of observations,
compared with the immensity that was to be observed within the bounds
which I prescribed to myself! How shallow and thin a stream of thought,
too,--of distinct and expressed thought,--compared with the broad tide
of dim emotions, ideas, associations, which were flowing through the
haunted regions of imagination, intellect, and sentiment,--sometimes
excited by what was around me, sometimes with no perceptible connection
with them! When we see how little we can express, it is a wonder that
any man ever takes up a pen a second time.

* * * * *

To find all sorts of ridiculous employments for people that have nothing
better to do;--as to comb out the cows' tails, shave goats, hoard up
seeds of weeds, etc., etc.

* * * * *

The baby, the other day, tried to grasp a handful of sunshine. She also
grasps at the shadows of things in candle-light.