pursued me by day and tinctured my dreams by
night. "What you seek for all your life you will come upon suddenly when
the whole family is at dinner," says Thoreau. I met the cassowary at
dinner. He was dining alone, having left his family in Africa, and I
must say that I never met with a greater disappointment. Were it not for
the touching intimation of the hymn, I should believe it impossible for
him to eat a missionary. A quieter, more amiable bird never stood on two
legs. A polite attendant stirred him up for me, yet his temper and his
feathers remained unruffled. Perhaps if our geographical position had
changed to Timbuctoo, and I had been a missionary with hymn-book in
hand, the cassowary might have realized my expectations. As it was, one
more illusion vanished.

In order to regain my spirits, I shook hands with the handsome giant in
brass buttons; and speaking of giants leads me to the subject of all
_lusus naturae_, particularly the Circassian young lady, the dwarf, the
living skeleton, the Albinos, and What-is-it. I have dropped more than
one tear at the fate of these unfortunate beings; for what is more
horribly solitary than to live in a strange crowd, with

"No one to love,
None to caress?"

Noah was human. When he retired to the ark, he selected two of a kind
from all the animal kingdom for the sake of sociability as well as for
more practical purposes. Showmen should be equally considerate. To think
of those Albino sisters with never an Albino beau, of the Circassian
beauty with never a Circassian sweetheart, of the living skeleton with
never another skeleton in his closet (how he can look so good-natured
would be most mysterious, were not his digestion pronounced perfect), to
think of the wretched What-is-it with never a Mrs. What-is-it, produces
unspeakable anguish. May they meet their affinities in another and a
more sympathetic world, where monstrosities are impossible for the
reason that we leave our bones on earth. Since gazing at the What-is-it,
I have become a convert to Darwin. It is too true. Our ancestors stood
on their hind legs, and the less we talk about pedigree the better. The
noble democrat in search of a coat-of-arms and a grandfather should
visit a grand moral circus. Let us assume a virtue, though we have it
not; let our pride _ape_ humility.

Were I asked which I thought the greater necessity of civilization,
lectures or circuses, I should lay my right hand upon my left hea