mind, the
heart. But of all things, that which most appealed to my inborn esthetic
taste was the prevailing custom there, among the rich, of making
collections of elegant and costly rarities, dainty objets de vertu, and
in an evil hour I tried to uplift my uncle Ithuriel to a plane of
sympathy with this exquisite employment.

I wrote and told him of one gentleman's vast collection of shells;
another's noble collection of meerschaum pipes; another's elevating and
refining collection of undecipherable autographs; another's priceless
collection of old china; another's enchanting collection of
postage-stamps--and so forth and so on. Soon my letters yielded fruit.
My uncle began to look about for something to make a collection of. You
may know, perhaps, how fleetly a taste like this dilates. His soon
became a raging fever, though I knew it not. He began to neglect his
great pork business; presently he wholly retired and turned an elegant
leisure into a rabid search for curious things. His wealth was vast, and
he spared it not. First he tried cow-bells. He made a collection which
filled five large salons, and comprehended all the different sorts of
cow-bells that ever had been contrived, save one. That one--an antique,
and the only specimen extant--was possessed by another collector. My
uncle offered enormous sums for it, but the gentleman would not sell.
Doubtless you know what necessarily resulted. A true collector attaches
no value to a collection that is not complete. His great heart breaks,
he sells his hoard, he turns his mind to some field that seems
unoccupied.

Thus did my uncle. He next tried brickbats. After piling up a vast and
intensely interesting collection, the former difficulty supervened; his
great heart broke again; he sold out his soul's idol to the retired
brewer who possessed the missing brick. Then he tried flint hatchets and
other implements of Primeval Man, but by and by discovered that the
factory where they were made was supplying other collectors as well as
himself. He tried Aztec inscriptions and stuffed whales--another
failure, after incredible labor and expense. When his collection seemed
at last perfect, a stuffed whale arrived from Greenland and an Aztec
inscription from the Cundurango regions of Central America that made all
former specimens insignificant. My uncle hastened to secure these noble
gems. He got the stuffed whale, but another collector got the
inscription. A