behind
them with their pectoral or caudal fins the waters that seam the
continent or separate the hemispheres; heir of all old civilizations,
founder of that new one which, if all the prophecies of the human heart
are not lies, is to be the noblest, as it is the last; isolated in space
from the races that are governed by dynasties whose divine right grows
out of human wrong, yet knit into the most absolute solidarity with
mankind of all times and places by the one great thought he inherits as
his national birthright; free to form and express his opinions on almost
every subject, and assured that he will soon acquire the last franchise
which men withhold from man,--that of stating the laws of his spiritual
being and the beliefs he accepts without hindrance except from clearer
views of truth,--he seems to want nothing for a large, wholesome, noble,
beneficent life. In fact, the chief danger is that he will think the
whole planet is made for him, and forget that there are some
possibilities left in the debris of the old-world civilization which
deserve a certain respectful consideration at his hands.

The combing and clipping of this shaggy wild continent are in some
measure done for him by those who have gone before. Society has
subdivided itself enough to have a place for every form of talent. Thus,
if a man show the least sign of ability as a sculptor or a painter, for
instance, he finds the means of education and a demand for his services.
Even a man who knows nothing but science will be provided for, if he does
not think it necessary to hang about his birthplace all his days,--which
is a most unAmerican weakness. The apron-strings of an American mother
are made of India-rubber. Her boy belongs where he is wanted; and that
young Marylander of ours spoke for all our young men, when he said that
his home was wherever the stars and stripes blew over his head.

And that leads me to say a few words of this young gentleman, who made
that audacious movement lately which I chronicled in my last
record,--jumping over the seats of I don't know how many boarders to put
himself in the place which the Little Gentleman's absence had left vacant
at the side of Iris. When a young man is found habitually at the side of
any one given young lady,--when he lingers where she stays, and hastens
when she leaves,--when his eyes follow her as she moves and rest upon her
when she is still,--when he begins to grow a little timid, he who wa