ther; but the grand equalizer and fraternizer, which works
up the radiators to their maximum radiation, and the absorbents to their
maximum receptivity, is now just where it was when

The conscious water saw its Lord and blushed,

--when six great vessels containing water, the whole amounting to more
than a hogshead-full, were changed into the best of wine. I once wrote
a song about wine, in which I spoke so warmly of it, that I was afraid
some would think it was written inter pocula; whereas it was composed
in the bosom of my family, under the most tranquillizing domestic
influences.

--The divinity-student turned towards me, looking mischievous.--Can you
tell me,--he said,--who wrote a song for a temperance celebration once,
of which the following is a verse?

Alas for the loved one, too gentle and fair
The joys of the banquet to chasten and share!
Her eye lost its light that his goblet might shine,
And the rose of her cheek was dissolved in his wine!

I did,--I answered.--What are you going to do about it?--I will tell you
another line I wrote long ago:--

Don't be "consistent,"--but be simply true.

The longer I live, the more I am satisfied of two things: first, that
the truest lives are those that are cut rose-diamond-fashion, with many
facets answering to the many-planed aspects of the world about them;
secondly, that society is always trying in some way or other to grind
us down to a single flat surface. It is hard work to resist this
grinding-down action.--Now give me a chance. Better eternal and
universal abstinence than the brutalities of those days that made wives
and mothers and daughters and sisters blush for those whom they should
have honored, as they came reeling home from their debauches! Yet
better even excess than lying and hypocrisy; and if wine is upon all
our tables, let us praise it for its color and fragrance and social
tendency, so far as it deserves, and not hug a bottle in the closet and
pretend not to know the use of a wine-glass at a public dinner! I think
you will find that people who honestly mean to be true really contradict
themselves much more rarely than those who try to be "consistent." But
a great many things we say can be made to appear contradictory, simply
because they are partial views of a truth, and may often look unlike at
first, as a front view of a face and its profile often do.

Here is a distinguished divine, for whom I have gre