The Rambles of an Idler 



I well remember one hot August day when 

 all the world seemed bathed in molten brass, a 

 day suggestive of cosmical catastrophe, of sail- 

 ing in the wake of a consuming planet, when a 

 universal shooting up of flames would not sur- 

 prise us; and here, at such a time, I found a 

 cool, sweet spot where the shaded brook laughed 

 as it hurried towards the outside world. It was 

 a trifle of the temperate clime enclosed by the 

 tropics. I found it, tarried, and was happy. 

 Moral: Look for an Eden wherever you are, 

 and the chances are you will find it. It is only 

 a hopeless quest when you are persistently un- 

 reasonable, and reject ice when it is not as hard 

 as flint, or scorn a quartz crystal because it is 

 not a diamond. Paste can be very pretty, al- 

 though but paste. Put it to no severer test than 

 the eye brings to bear upon it, and the sense of 

 vision will be pleased. Everywhere the world 

 is graded from diamonds to paste, and why re- 

 ject the latter and be miserable? Paste has its 

 part to play, and had better be allowed to play 

 it well than for us to rebel because it is not a 

 diamond. As if the hillock should hide itself 

 because there is a mountain in the distance. 



Eden is bounded only by the limits of the 

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