, "Yes, there is
holy pleasure in thine eye," and I felt at once the truth of his
admonition. What if the cottage really were mine,--mine to spend a
lifetime in? How quickly the poetry would turn to prose!

An hour afterwards, on my way back to the Sinclair House, I passed a
group of men at work on the highway. One of them was a little apart from
the rest, and out of a social impulse I accosted him with the remark, "I
suppose, in heaven, the streets never will need mending." Quick as
thought came the reply: "Well, I hope not. If I ever _get_ there, I
don't want to work on the _road_." Here spoke universal human nature,
which finds its strong argument for immortality in its discontent with
matters as they now are. The one thing we are all sure of is that we
were born for something better than our present employment; and even
those who school themselves most religiously in the virtue of
contentment know very well how to define that grace so as not to
exclude from it a comfortable mixture of "divine dissatisfaction." Well
for us if we are still able to stand in our place and do faithfully our
allotted task, like the mountain spruces and the Bethlehemite
road-mender.

FOOTNOTES:

[8] He is said to have another song, beautiful and wren-like; but that I
have never heard.

[9] This is making no account of the gray-cheeked thrushes, who are
found only near the _tops_ of the mountains.

[10] I have since found both species at Willoughby Lake, Vermont and the
veery with them.

[11] True when written, but now needing to be qualified by one
exception. See p. 226.

[12] Beside this road (in June, 1883) I found a nest of the
yellow-bellied flycatcher (_Empidonax flaviventris_). It was built at
the base of a decayed stump, in a little depression between two roots,
and was partially overarched with growing moss. It contained four
eggs,--white, spotted with brown. I called upon the bird half a dozen
times or more, and found her a model "keeper at home." On one occasion
she allowed my hand to come within two or three inches of her bill. In
every case she flew off without any outcry or ruse, and once at least
she fell immediately to fly-catching with admirable philosophy. So far
as I know, this is the only nest of the species ever found in New
England outside of Maine. But it is proper to add that I did not capture
the bird.

[13] But by this time the clerk's appearance was, to say the least, not
reprehensibly "spruce." For on