260 



THE GUIDE TO NATURE 



What to such liberty are stores of gold, 

 Or pomp, or kingdoms, judgment-seats, or 



thrones? 

 Alas; men's treasuries are only prisons 

 To lock the owners' souls in, while their 



bodies 

 Seem free to go or come, to sleep or wake; 

 Then what is power? and what are diadems? 

 Worse than the serf's forced labour — since 



the load 

 Of thousand provinces, not welcome night 

 Lifts off the weary shoulders of a king. 



A Granite Boulder. 



Fostoria, Ohio. 

 To the Editor : 



In sending' to you and other nature 

 lovers a picture of nature's art (take 



which my good farmer friend replied, 

 "Well, you may call it whatcher please, 

 hut we just call it a big nigger-head 

 roun' here, and bein's it's in the way of 

 the plow, we are goin to put it out 

 o' sight." "Well," I said, "as a speci- 

 men of a granite boulder, I should call 

 it 'out o' sight' now. What will you 

 take for it, and deliver it just as it is 

 at the front door of my house?" What- 

 cher want it there fur?" my friend 

 asked. "( >, just to put my name on k, 

 as a doorplate," I answered. Agree- 

 ment was made on price of delivery, 

 and the stone now rests on my front 



THE GRANITE BOULDER. 



note, I call it nature's art), which she 

 "has formed in her workshop in the min- 

 eral kingdom, I also explain how it 

 reached its present resting place on 

 the lawn in front of my house. 



Several years ago I saw, about ten 

 miles north of this city, two men dig- 

 ging a hole beside the large stone which 

 this cut represents. Taking a little 

 glance at the stone, as I noted a pecu- 

 liarity in its composition, and also in 

 its general contour, I remarked to one 

 of the men, "It looks like a genuine 

 boulder of the granite variety." To 



lawn, a rich specimen of nature's synthet- 

 ical work from her laboratory in the 

 mineral kingdom, and it is pleasing to 

 no'te an occasional passer-by, one 

 whose eye can be atracted by the in- 

 teresting and the beautiful, who will 

 stop, its composition to inspect, and its 

 conformation to admire. 



On one occasion while I was finish- 

 ing the regrading of my lawn, I over- 

 heard the remark, "Well ! there is an 

 old friend of mine," and turned to 

 see who it was to whom I had once 

 been a friend. A stranger stood beside 



