330 Musings by Cainp-Fire and Wayside 



What has the black-plumed porter to do with us 

 but to open the door? 



The days are so bright, cool, and happy that I 

 part regretfully with each one as it fades away into 

 the zodiacal light which is pinned against the west- 

 ern sky with a peculiarly white star. This light 

 continues till near midnight, when ocasionally it is 

 replaced by the rosy borealis. The moon will 

 deprive us of these pale lights, but she is wel- 

 come — looking down at us through her green veil 

 of pines, and springing bridges of dimpling gold 

 across the water. I part with the day that has now 

 closed, regretfully, because it can never come 

 again. It is an expended part of my inheritance of 

 the joy of life — and I am by that much poorer. 

 We cannot live upon the income of time. Faith 

 never can attain to the certainty of sight. Shall I 

 have an eternity of such days, beginning with the 

 morning when I shall awake from the long, deep 

 sleep of life? If so, shall we not fling them care- 

 lessly behind us, like prodigals, because we shall 

 have an inexhaustible and ever-infinite store of them 

 before us? If so, may we not doubt whether we 

 shall prize them and enjoy them as we do the few 

 blessed hours that are allotted to us here? If the 

 lake below me beat upon and laved sands of gold, 

 if the shores glittered with precious stones, and all 

 the rivers washed and drifted them, and the glacial 

 moraines were heaps of them, would they not be- 

 come a weariness? Would we not ask rather the 



