of how
the bells filled the mornin' and evenin' air, havin' throbbed and beat
with every joy and every pain of our life, till they seem a part of us
(as it were) and the old world would truly seem lonesome without 'em.

"As I told you, and told you truly, I don't believe there is a single
emotion in the hull line of emotions, fur or near, but what them bells
have rung into my very soul.

"But such emotions, beautiful and inspirin' though they are, can be
dispensed with better than justice and mercy can. Sweet and tender
sentiment is dear to me, truly, near and dear, but mercy and pity and
common sense, have also a powerful grip onto my right arm, and have to
lead me round a good deal of the time.

"Beautiful emotion, when it stands opposed to eternal justice, ort to
step gently aside and let justice have a free road. Sentiment is truly
sweet, but any one can get along without it, take it right along through
the year, better than they can without sleep.

"You see if you can't sleep you must die, while a person can worry along
a good many years without sentiment. Or, that is, I have been told they
could. I don't know by experience, for I have always had a real lot of
it. You see my experience has been such that I could keep sentiment and
comfort too. But my mind is such, that I have to think of them that
hain't so fortunate as I am.

"I have looked at the subject from my own standpoint, and have tried
also to look at it through others' eyes, which is the only way we can
get a clear, straight light on any subject. As for me, as I have said,
I would love to hear the sweet, far off sound of the bells a-tremblin'
gently over the hills to me from Jonesville; it sounds sweeter to me
than the voices of the robins and swallers, a-comin' home from the South
in the spring of the year. And I would deerly love to have it go on and
on as fur as my own feelins are concerned. But I have got to look at the
subject through the tired eyes, and feel it through the worn-out nerves
of others, who are sot down right under the wild clamor of the bells.

"What comes to me as a heavenly melody freighted full of beautiful
sentiment and holy rapture comes to them as an intolerable agony,
a-maddenin' discord, that threatens their sanity, that rouses 'em up
from their fitful sleep, that murders sleep--the bells to them seem
murderus, strikin' noisily with brazen hands, at their hearts.

[Illustration: "TOSSIN' ON BEDS OF NERVOUS SUFFERIN'."]