A JOURNEY TO NATURE 



and the privilege of taking breath. The path to 

 heaven is choked with late dinners, and we are 

 forgetting the route.&quot; (The old pirate, I ll wager 

 he was writing this in his dress-coat, while the 

 coupe was waiting to take him to a banquet.) &quot; I 

 have tried my best to introduce a few of my gifted 

 patients to their own economies, but they hadn t 

 time to know themselves. They live in a mag 

 netic bath, and would die of ennui if they did not 

 feel the shock of things going by. They are con 

 verting themselves into mere conduits. You are 

 the first fellow I have met who, coming suddenly 

 on his own grave yawning before him, had the 

 pluck to say, * No, I thank you, and walk off in 

 another direction. Bully for you.&quot; 



It was by such artful ticklings of my pride that 

 the old ruffian got me to wear my chains with a 

 sense of heroism. I begged for some news very 

 much as a morphine patient begs for his drug. 

 &quot;News,&quot; he replied, &quot;there is nothing new in the 

 news. Everything seethes and roils and jostles 

 and bursts just as it did when you were here. 

 Men are running over each other ruthlessly, and 

 dropping out of sight as usual. I don t know 

 whether you remember Calhoun he snapped 

 his E string at concert pitch last week. He is 

 pretty well forgotten by this time. He was so 

 loaded with the events of the universe that his 

 mind snapped. He was one of the modern idiots 

 who try to play the role of Atlas with nothing 

 but their sensibilities. Becky Moultrie you knew. 

 I saw you at one of her receptions before she got 



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