n. In their perpetual washing, they have worn
away the stone and carried off its particles,--an insignificant amount,
it is true, but, little as it is, it has not remained unused. For
that very carbonate of lime, which once shared the proud state of the
"glorious city in the sea," now helps to form the coarse shells of
oysters, or is embodied in the vast coral reefs that shoot out from the
islands of the West Indies, or is deposited year after year by dying
shell-fish, which are slowly carpeting the ocean-bed with their remains.
Much of this same Venice marble has doubtless been appropriated by
fishes from the sea-water which dissolved it, been transformed into
their bones, cast upon the soil of Italy, disintegrated, and imbibed by
the thirsty roots of forests in sight of the very walls from which it
parted. And who can say that parts of it do not now adorn the necks of
some Venetian dames, in coral, or more costly pearls? What says Ariel to
the orphaned Ferdinand?

Full fathom five thy father lies;
Of his bones are coral made;
Those are pearls that were his eyes:
Nothing of him that doth fade
But doth suffer a sea-change
Into something rich and strange.

This is but a hint of the mutability of created things. Marble,
sea-shells, the chalk-cliffs of Dover, the limestone fossils which
preserve for us animal forms of species long since extinct, the coral
formations that are stretching out in dangerous reefs in so many seas
of the tropics, are all identical in their chief ingredient, and, as
we see, are by natural processes and various accidents constantly
interchanging their positions.

It ought to be consoling to those who think a great deal of their
bodies, to reflect, that, if we may tend "to base uses," we may also
tend to very noble ones. In the course of their transmigrations, the
elements of a worthless individual may get into far better company than
they have before enjoyed,--may enter into brains that immortalize their
owner and redeem the errors of the old possessor. Whoever bases his
merit on a long line of ancestors who have nothing but a perpetuated
name to boast of, may be likened to the last of many successive tenants
of a house who have hired it for their temporary uses. The inheritance
of a brave spirit and a noble mind is a sufficient justification for a
reasonable pride; but not so with the heritage of materials which are
continually interchanging with the clod.

There need be nothing