PITFALLS OF MONTICELLO. 223 



whatever direction the stream of life was turned, there, with 

 magic rapidity and in a mode quite inexplicable, yawning 

 gulfs of a similar description were opened for its interruption. 

 As these mysterious pitfalls became more numerous, the 

 number of those winch fell into them was not augmented 

 certainly to quite a proportionate degree. This was only on 

 account of the greater care taken, in general, to escape them ; 

 but under these precautions, and the fear which suggested them, 

 the citizens of Monticello became quite an altered people, their 

 activities being well-nigh paralyzed by substantial hindrances 

 and vague apprehensions. Whenever, according to daily usage 

 and necessity, parties proceeded from the capital to bring in 

 from the surrounding country both materials for building and 

 supplies of provision, they were generally obliged to take such 

 circuitous and untrodden routes, that they were half dead when 

 they returned, from fatigue as well as fear fear not only of 

 the traps, which were discernible, but of the trap-makers, who 

 had been as yet invisible. None of these, at least, had ever 

 been seen at their mining operations, though some declared 

 they had beheld what they believed to be the agents of all the 

 mischief, in certain strange and hideous shapes met lurking 

 under shade of evening, or of the green coverts adjacent to 

 the city. 



It was customary, in the republican nation of which Monti- 

 cello was the metropolis, to confide the care of all the infant 

 population to public nurses, who were usually the best nurses 



