o longer in the heyday of youth,
yet the vague aspirations of boyhood still clung to me--the insatiable
craving to see more and more of the world--the undefined hope that I
would yet live to be cast away upon a desolate island, and become a
worthy disciple of the immortal Robinson Crusoe! Ah me! What a
lonesome feeling it is to be a visionary, enthusiastic boy all one's
life, in this practical world of dollars and cents, where other boys
are men, and men forget that they ever were young! But this, you say,
is all sentimental nonsense. Of course it is. I admit the full folly
of such thoughts. It would be a pitiable spectacle indeed to see every
body inspired by the vagabond spirit of Robinson Crusoe. No doubt, if
you were sitting upon a rock on the Gulf of Finland, my respected
Californian friend, you would be hammering off the croppings and
trying to discover the indications. You consider that the true
philosophy of life--to dig, and delve, and burrow in the ground, and
get gold and silver out of it, and suffer rheumatism in your bones and
cramps in your stomach, and wear out your life in a practical way,
while we visionaries are dreaming sentimental nonsense! But, after
all, does the one pay any better than the other in the long run? Will
gold or silver make you see farther into a millstone, or give you a
better appetite, or put youth and health into your veins, or cause you
to sleep more soundly of nights, or prolong your life to an indefinite
period beyond the span allotted to the average of mankind? Will you
never be convinced of the truth of these inspired words, which can not
be repeated too often: As you brought nothing into the world, so you
can take nothing out of it?

Come, then, let us be young again, and dash into the blue waters of
Finland, and buffet the sparkling brine as it seethes and boils over
the rocks! Away with your gold and your silver, and your toils and
cares, and let us play Robinson Crusoe and Friday here in this
solitary little glen, where "our right there is none to
dispute"--unless it may be the Czar of Russia. Off with your shirt,
your boots, your drawers, your all, and be for once a genuine
savage--be my man Friday, and I'll teach you how to enjoy life. Ye
gods! doesn't it feel fine--that plunge in the foaming brine! Why, you
look like a boiled lobster already; the glow of health is all over
you; your eyes sparkle, your skin glistens; you shoot out the salt
sea-spray from your nostrils i