ity which is priceless. No man can measure what a
single hour with Nature may have contributed to the moulding of his
mind. The influence is self-renewing, and if for a long time it baffles
expression by reason of its fineness, so much the better in the end.

The soul is like a musical instrument: it is not enough that it be
framed for the very most delicate vibration, but it must vibrate long
and often before the fibres grow mellow to the finest waves of sympathy.
I perceive that in the veery's carolling, the clover's scent, the
glistening of the water, the waving wings of butterflies, the sunset
tints, the floating clouds, there are attainable infinitely more
subtile modulations of delight than I can yet reach the sensibility to
discriminate, much less describe. If, in the simple process of writing,
one could physically impart to this page the fragrance of this spray of
azalea beside me, what a wonder would it seem!--and yet one ought to be
able, by the mere use of language, to supply to every reader the total
of that white, honeyed, trailing sweetness, which summer insects haunt
and the Spirit of the Universe loves. The defect is not in language,
but in men. There is no conceivable beauty of blossom so beautiful as
words,--none so graceful, none so perfumed. It is possible to dream of
combinations of syllables so delicious that all the dawning and decay of
summer cannot rival their perfections, nor winter's stainless white
and azure match their purity and their charm. To write them, were it
possible, would be to take rank with Nature; nor is there any other
method, even by music, for human art to reach so high.

* * * * *

ONE OF MY CLIENTS.

After a practice in the legal profession of more than twenty years, I am
persuaded that a more interesting volume could not be written than the
revelations of a lawyer's office. The plots there discovered before they
were matured,--the conspiracies there detected

"Ere they hail reached their last fatal periods,"--

the various devices of the Prince of Darkness,--the weapons with which
he fought, and those by which he was overcome,--the curious phenomena of
intense activity and love of gain,--the arts of the detective, and those
by which he was eluded,--and the never-ending and ever-varying surprises
and startling incidents,--would present such a panorama of human affairs
as would outfly our fancy, and modify our unbelief in that much-ab