hem I was only a pretty thing of
paper with line and color upon it. They gave me nothing else, and I
really began to live only when some one representing the Great Nation
stamped a seal upon me. Though a bloodless thing, yet I felt a throb
of being. I lived, and the joy of it went rioting through me.

I remember that at first I was confined in a prison, bound with others
by an elastic band which I longed to break that I might escape to the
welcoming hands of men who looked longingly at me through the bars.
But soon one secured me and I went out into a great, wide and very
beautiful world.

Of the first months of my life I can remember but very little, only
that I was feverishly happy in seeing, and particularly in doing. I
was petted and admired and sought after. I went everywhere and did
everything. So great was my popularity that some even bartered their
peace of mind to obtain me, and others, forced to see me go, shed
tears at the parting. Some, unable to have me go to them otherwise,
actually stole me. But all the time I cared nothing, for I was living
and doing--making men smile and laugh when I was with them and weep
when I went away. It was all the same to me whether they laughed or
cried. I only loved the power that was in me to make them do it and I
believed that the power was without limit.

I was not yet a year old when I began to lose my beauty. I noticed it
first when I fell into the hands of a man with long hair and pointed
beard, who frowned at me and said: "You poor, faded, dirty thing, to
think that I made you!" But I did not care. He had not made me. It was
the Great Nation. Anyhow I could still do things and make even him
long for me. So I was happy.

I was one year and a half old when I formed my first great partnership
with others of my kind, and it came about like this: I had been in the
possession of a poor woman who had guarded me for a week in a most
unpleasant smelling old purse, when I heard a sharp voice ask for
me--nay, demand me, and couple the demand with a threat that my
guardian should lose her home were the demand refused. I was given
over, I hoped, to better quarters, but in this I was sadly
disappointed, for my new owner confined me in a strong but
ill-favored box where thousands like myself were growing mouldy and
wrinkled, away from the light of day. Sometimes we were released at
night to be carefully counted by candle-light, but that was all. Thus
we who were imprisoned togeth