arm or a shop than in the tactics of party or of war. The good husband
finds method as efficient in the packing of fire-wood in a shed or in
the harvesting of fruits in the cellar, as in Peninsular campaigns[668]
or the files of the Department of State. In the rainy day he builds a
work-bench, or gets his tool-box set in the corner of the barn-chamber,
and stored with nails, gimlet, pincers, screwdriver and chisel. Herein
he tastes an old joy of youth and childhood, the cat-like love of
garrets, presses and corn-chambers, and of the conveniences of long
housekeeping. His garden or his poultry-yard--very paltry places it may
be--tells him many pleasant anecdotes. One might find argument for
optimism in the abundant flow of this saccharine element of pleasure in
every suburb and extremity of the good world. Let a man keep the
law--any law,--and his way will be strown with satisfactions. There is
more difference in the quality of our pleasures than in the amount.

On the other hand, nature punishes any neglect of prudence. If you
think the senses final, obey their law. If you believe in the soul, do
not clutch at sensual sweetness before it is ripe on the slow tree of
cause and effect. It is vinegar to the eyes to deal with men of loose
and imperfect perception. Dr. Johnson is reported to have
said,[669]--"If the child says he looked out of this window, when he
looked out of that,--whip him." Our American character is marked by a
more than average delight in accurate perception, which is shown by
the currency of the by-word, "No mistake."

But the discomfort of unpunctuality, of confusion of thought about
facts, inattention to the wants of to-morrow, is of no nation. The
beautiful laws of time and space, once dislocated by our inaptitude,
are holes and dens. If the hive be disturbed by rash and stupid hands,
instead of honey it will yield us bees. Our words and actions to be
fair must be timely. A gay and pleasant sound is the whetting of the
scythe in the mornings of June; yet what is more lonesome and sad than
the sound of a whetstone or mower's rifle[670] when it is too late in
the season to make hay? Scatter brained and "afternoon men" spoil much
more than their own affairs in spoiling the temper of those who deal
with them. I have seen a criticism on some paintings, of which I am
reminded when I see the shiftless and unhappy men who are not true to
their senses. The last Grand Duke of Weimar,[671] a man of superior
u