swallow in the air, the cool play of the minnow
in the water, the dance of twin butterflies round a thistle-blossom,
the thundering gallop of the buffalo across the prairie, nay, the
clumsy walk of the grizzly bear; it were doubtless enough to reward
existence, could we have joy like such as these, and ask no more. This
is the hearty physical basis of animated life, and as step by step the
savage creeps up to the possession of intellectual manhood, each
advance brings with it new sorrow and new joy, with the joy always in
excess.

There are many who will utterly disavow this creed that life is
desirable in itself. A fair woman in a ball-room, exquisitely dressed,
and possessed of all that wealth could give, once declared to me her
belief--and I think honestly--that no person over thirty was
consciously happy, or would wish to live, but for the fear of death.
There could not even be pleasure in contemplating one's children, she
asserted, since they were living in such a world of sorrow. Asking the
opinion, within half an hour, of another woman as fair and as favored
by fortune, I found directly the opposite verdict. "For my part I can
truly say," she answered, "that I enjoy every moment I live." The
varieties of temperament and of physical condition will always afford
us these extremes; but the truth lies between them, and most persons
will endure many sorrows and still find life sweet.

And the mother's kiss welcomes the child into a world where good
predominates as well as joy. What recreants must we be, in an age that
has abolished slavery in America and popularized the governments of all
Europe, if we doubt that the tendency of man is upward! How much that
the world calls selfishness is only generosity with narrow walls,--a
too exclusive solicitude to maintain a wife in luxury or make one's
children rich! In an audience of rough people a generous sentiment
always brings down the house. In the tumult of war both sides applaud
an heroic deed. A courageous woman, who had traversed alone, on
benevolent errands, the worst parts of New York told me that she never
felt afraid except in the solitudes of the country; wherever there was
a crowd, she found a protector.

A policeman of great experience once spoke to me with admiration of the
fidelity of professional thieves to each other, and the risks they
would run for the women whom they loved; when "Bristol Bill" was
arrested, he said, there was found upon the burglar a