, fashioned,
however rudely, from an absolute truth. If thou deem the ointment
precious, when I break the unjewelled box, I pour it on thy feet. Let
others crown, I would only refresh thee.

Children play on this white, shining, sandy beach, under the leafless
sycamore; they look for no shade, they would find no shade; there is
neither rock, nor shrub, nor evergreen-tree,--nothing but the white
sand, and the dead sycamore, and in the topmost branches the halcyon's
great nest.

Is it not a place for children? A little flourish of imagination, and we
see them,--Silas, who beats the drum, and Columbia, who carries the
flag, manifest leaders of the wild little company, mermen and mermaids
all; and the music is fit for the Siren, and the beauty would shame not
Venus.

Suppose we stroll home to their fathers, like respectable earth-keeping
creatures: the depths of human hearts have sometimes proved full of
mystery as the sea; and human faces sometimes glisten with a majesty of
feeling or of thought that reduces ocean-splendor to the subordinate
part of a similitude.

There is Andrew, father of Silas,--Andrew Swift, says the sign. He
dwells in Salt Lane, you perceive, and he deals in ship-stores,--a
husband and father by no means living on sea-weed. A yellow-haired
little man, shrewd, and a ready reckoner. Of a serious turn of mind.
Deficient in self-esteem; his anticipations of the most humble
character. A sinner, because fearful and unbelieving: for what right has
a man to be such a man as to inspire himself with misgiving? But his
offences offset each other: for, if he doubted, Andrew was also
obstinate. And obstinacy alone led him into ventures whose failure he
expected: as when he laid out the savings of years in the purchase of
goods, wherewith he opened those ship-stores in Salt Lane. Ship-stores!
that sounds well. One might suppose I referred to blocks of marble-faced
buildings, instead of three shelves, three barrels, and their contents!
The obstinacy of Andrew Swift was the foundation of his fortune. Men
have built on worse.

His opposite neighbor was one Silas Dexter, a flag- and banner-maker,
who went into business in Salt Lane sometime during that memorable year
of Andrew's venture. Apparently this young man was no better off than
Swift, between whom and himself a friendly intercourse was at once
established; but he had the advantage of a quick imagination and a
sanguine temperament; also the manly courage