A GOOD WORD FOR WINTER. 25 



tuitous hearers are anaesthetized to suffering by a sense 

 of virtue. They are performing perhaps the noblest, as 

 it is one of the most difficult, of human functions in get- 

 ting Something (no matter how small) for Nothing. 

 They are not pestered by the awful duty of securing 

 their money's worth. They are wasting time, to do 

 which elegantly and without lassitude is the highest 

 achievement of civilization. If they are cheated, it is, at 

 worst, only of a superfluous hour which was rotting on 

 their hands. Not only is mere amusement made more 

 piquant, but instruction more palatable, by this univer- 

 sally relished sauce of gratuity. And if the philosophic 

 observer finds an object of agreeable contemplation in 

 the audience, as they listen to a discourse on the proba- 

 bility of making missionaries go down better with the 

 Feejee- Islanders by balancing the hymn-book in one 

 pocket with a bottle of Worcestershire in the other, or 

 to a plea for arming the female gorilla with the ballot, 

 he also takes a friendly interest in the lecturer, and ad- 

 mires the wise economy of Nature who thus contrives 

 an ample field of honest labor for her bores. Even 

 when the insidious hat is passed round after one of these 

 eleemosynary feasts, the relish is but heightened by a 

 conscientious refusal to disturb the satisfaction's com- 

 pleteness with the rattle of a single contributory penny. 

 So firmly persuaded am I of this gratis-instinct in our 

 common humanity, that I believe I could fill a house by 

 advertising a free lecture on Tupper considered as a 

 philosophic poet, or on my personal recollections of the 

 late James K. Polk. This being so, I have sometimes 

 wondered that the peep-shows which Nature provides 

 with such endless variety for her children, and to which 

 we are admitted on the bare condition of having eyes, 

 should be so generally neglected. To be sure, eyes 

 are not so common as people think, or poets would be 



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