ment, like the drawing of
his breath or the beating of his heart, is a very different thing. You
may teach a quadruped to walk on his hind legs, but he is always wanting
to be on all-fours. Nothing that can be taught a growing youth is like
the atmospheric knowledge he breathes from his infancy upwards. The
American baby sucks in freedom with the milk of the breast at which he
hangs.

----That's a good joke,--said the young fellow John,--considerin' it
commonly belongs to a female Paddy.

I thought--I will not be certain--that Little Boston winked, as if he
had been hit somewhere,--as I have no doubt Dr. Darwin did when the
_wooden-spoon_ suggestion upset his theory about why, etc. If he winked,
however, he did not dodge.

A lively comment!--he said.--But Rome, in her great founder, sucked the
blood of empire out of the dugs of a brute, Sir! The Milesian wet-nurse
is only a convenient vessel through which the American infant gets the
life-blood of this virgin soil, Sir, that is making man over again, on
the sunset pattern! You don't think what we are doing and going to
do here. Why, Sir, while commentators are bothering themselves with
interpretation of prophecies, _we have got_ the new heavens and the new
earth over us and under us! Was there ever anything in Italy, I should
like to know, like a Boston sunset?

----This time there was a laugh, and the little man himself almost
smiled.

Yes,--Boston sunsets;--perhaps they're as good in some other places,
but I know 'em best here. Anyhow, the American skies are different from
anything they see in the Old World. Yes, and the rocks are different,
and the soil is different, and everything that comes out of the soil,
from grass up to Indians, is different. And now that the provisional
races are dying out----

----What do you mean by the _provisional_ races, Sir?--said the
divinity-student, interrupting him.

Why, the aboriginal bipeds, to be sure,--he answered,--the red-crayon
sketch of humanity laid on the canvas before the colors for the real
manhood were ready.

I hope they will come to something yet,--said the divinity-student.

Irreclaimable, Sir,--irreclaimable!--said the little
gentleman.--Cheaper to breed white men than domesticate a nation of red
ones. When you can get the bitter out of the partridge's thigh, you
can make an enlightened commonwealth of Indians. A provisional race,
Sir,--nothing more. Exhaled carbonic acid for the use of vegetation,
kept