the brink of birth. We
tabulate its moods. We register its learning inch by inch. We draw its
poor little premature soul out of its body breath by breath. Infants are
well informed now. The suckling has nerves. A few days more he will be
like all the rest of us. It will be:

Poem: "When I Was Weaned."

"My First Tooth: A Study."

The Presiding Genius of the State of Massachusetts, with his dazed, kind
look, looked up and said: "I fear, my dear fellow, there is no place for
you in the world."

Thanks. One of the delights of going fishing or hunting is, that one
learns how small "a place in the world" is--comes across so many
accidentally preserved characters--preserved by not having a place in
the world--persons that are interesting to be with--persons you can tell
things.

The real object--it seems to me--in meeting another human being is
complement--fitting into each other's ignorances. Sometimes it seems as
if it were only where there is something to be caught or shot, or where
there is plenty of room, that the highest and most sociable and useful
forms of ignorance were allowed to mature.

One can still find such fascinating prejudices, such frank enthusiasms
of ignorance, where there's good fishing; and then, in the stray
hamlets, there is the grave whimsicalness and the calm superior air of
austerity to cultured people.

Ah, let me live in the Maine woods or wander by the brooks of Virginia, and
rest my soul in the delights--in the pomposity--of ignorance--ignorance
in its pride and glory and courage and lovableness! I never come back
from a vacation without a dream of what I might have been, if I had only
dared to know a little less; and even now I sometimes feel I have
ignorance enough, if like Elia, for instance, I only knew how to use it,
but I cannot as much as get over being ashamed of it. I am nearly gone.
I have little left but the gift of being bored. That is something--but
hardly a day passes without my slurring over a guilty place in
conversation, without my hiding my ignorance under a bushel, where I can
go later and take a look at it by myself. Then I know all about it next
time and sink lower and lower. A man can do nothing alone. Of course,
ignorance must be natural and not acquired in order to have the true
ring and afford the most relief in the world; but every wide-awake
village that has thoughtful people enough--people who are educated up to
it--ought to organise an Ignoramus Club to de