ne; but for all that, the fir tree
looked very well: it was like a little poetry in the dust-heap; and
truly there is dust enough in the streets on moving-day. The way is
difficult and troublesome then, and I feel obliged to run away out
of the confusion; or, if I am on the tower, I stay there and look
down, and it is amusing enough.

"There are the good people below, playing at 'changing houses.'
They toil and tug away with their goods and chattels, and the
household goblin sits in an old tub and moves with them. All the
little griefs of the lodging and the family, and the real cares and
sorrows, move with them out of the old dwelling into the new; and what
gain is there for them or for us in the whole affair? Yes, there was
written long ago the good old maxim: 'Think on the great moving-day of
death!' That is a serious thought. I hope it is not disagreeable to
you that I should have touched upon it? Death is the most certain
messenger, after all, in spite of his various occupations. Yes,
Death is the omnibus conductor, and he is the passport writer, and
he countersigns our service-book, and he is director of the savings
bank of life. Do you understand me? All the deeds of our life, the
great and the little alike, we put into this savings bank; and when
Death calls with his omnibus, and we have to step in, and drive with
him into the land of eternity, then on the frontier he gives us our
service-book as a pass. As a provision for the journey, he takes
this or that good deed we have done, and lets it accompany us; and
this may be very pleasant or very terrific. Nobody has ever escaped
the omnibus journey. There is certainly a talk about one who was not
allowed to go--they call him the Wandering Jew: he has to ride
behind the omnibus. If he had been allowed to get in, he would have
escaped the clutches of the poets.

"Just cast your mind's eye into that great omnibus. The society is
mixed, for king and beggar, genius and idiot, sit side by side. They
must go without their property and money; they have only the
service-book and the gift out of the savings bank with them. But which
of our deeds is selected and given to us? Perhaps quite a little
one, one that we have forgotten, but which has been recorded--small as
a pea, but the pea can send out a blooming shoot. The poor bumpkin who
sat on a low stool in the corner, and was jeered at and flouted,
will perhaps have his worn-out stool given him as a provision; and the
s