one hand, and of utter
indifference on the other, which vivify the intercourse of a farmer and
his calves."

Now to Mr. Henry James, as a general rule, it would be difficult to
award too much praise. The river of his speech, rippling through summer
shadows, or rushing over rocky ways, still flows, like Siloa's brook,
fast by the oracles of God. And though it winds sometimes through
inaccessible places, and you tell its course only by its music, and not
by its sparkle, and though it channels a path sometimes through murky
valleys whose every vapor is laden with pestilence, yet you know that
pure and purifying, singing through its leafy solitudes and shining
heavenly clear in Tophet as in Tempe, the burden of its song is peace on
earth, good-will to man, while it hastens on to mingle crystal stream
with the waters of the river of life.

But, Mr. Henry James, good and wise as you are, I am certain you never
owned a calf. At least, you never stood in confidential relations to
one. "Irksome superintendence?" You did not witness the welcome we gave
our poor little favorite, torn all trembling from its mother's side by
the stern demand of some greedy purse. How we stroked him, and patted
him, and--begging your pardon--scratched his head, and so soothed away
his sorrow ere he was aware! how we stayed his staggering limbs! and
because he was too young and knew not how to drink, but only stared at
the basin and at us and vacancy, in an uncertain, moonstruck way, did I
not put my own fingers into the milk and draw his mouth down to them,
and, deceived by the pious fraud, did not the poor little hungry
innocent, like Dido of old, drink large draughts of love, in happy
ignorance that it was not Nature's own arrangement for such case made
and provided? No, Mr. James,--where it is a question of absolute
philosophy, ordinary cosmology, noumenal force, instinctual relegation,
and the fundamental antithesis of Me and Not-Me, you shall have
everything your own way; but when it comes to live-stock, you must ask
me first!

Such a mistake, however, is not unaccountable. Farming, it must be
conceded, is in some respects a hard-hearted business, little calculated
to cherish the finer feelings. Separation of families is so common a
thing among farmers that the sight of sorrow ceases to sadden. Calves
are taken from their mothers at a tender age, to the great trial of both
mother and child; and a sufficient excuse for this trampling upon Nat