nding on my bookcase, waiting to give me their
greatest efforts at a moment's notice. Do I feel indisposed, and need a
little recreation? This afternoon I will take a trip across the
Atlantic, flying against the wind and over breakers without fear of
seasickness on the ocean greyhounds. I will inspect the world renowned
Liverpool docks; take a run up to Hawarden, call on Mr. Gladstone; fly
over to London, take a run through the British Museum and see the
wonderful collection from all nations; go through the National Art
Gallery, through the Houses of Parliament, visit Windsor Castle and
Buckingham Palace, call upon Queen Victoria, the Prince of Wales; take a
run through the lake region and call upon the great writers, visit
Oxford and Cambridge; cross the English Channel, stop at Rouen, where
Joan of Arc was burned to death by the English, take a flying trip to
Paris, visit the tomb of Napoleon, the Louvre Gallery; take a peep at
one of the greatest pieces of sculpture in existence, the Venus de Milo
(which a rich and ignorant person offered to buy if they would give him
a fresh one), take a glance at some of the greatest paintings in
existence along the miles of galleries; take a peep into the Grand Opera
House, the grandest in the world (to make room for which 427 buildings
were demolished), promenade through the Champs de Elysee, pass under the
triumphal arch of Napoleon, take a run out to Versailles and inspect the
famous palace of Louis XIV., upon which he spent perhaps $100,000,000.

Do I desire to hear eloquent speeches? Through my books I can enter the
Parliament and listen to the thrilling oratory of Disraeli, of
Gladstone, of Bright, of O'Connor; they will admit me to the floor of
the Senate, where I can hear the matchless oratory of a Webster, of a
Clay, of a Calhoun, of a Sumner, of Everett, of Wilson. They will pass
me into the Roman Forum, where I can hear Cicero, or to the rostrums of
Greece, where I may listen spell-bound to the magic oratory of a
Demosthenes.

"No matter how poor I am," says Channing; "no matter though the
prosperous of my own time will not enter my obscure dwelling; if the
sacred writers will enter and take up their abode under my roof; if
Milton will cross my threshold to sing to me of paradise, and
Shakespeare to open to me the worlds of imagination and the workings of
the human heart, and Franklin to enrich me with his practical
wisdom,--I shall not pine for the want of intellectua