232 OUTDOOR STUDIES 
dress they took off, and at last lying down, all 
freshness and love, in complete happiness, and 
an amiable contest for mamma’s last kiss.” 
That kiss welcomed the child into a world 
where joy predominates. The vast multitude 
of human beings enjoy existence and wish to 
live. They all have their earthly life under 
their own control. Some religions sanction 
suicide ; the Christian Scriptures nowhere ex- 
plicitly forbid it; and yet it is a rare thing. 
Many persons sigh for death when it seems far 
off, but the desire vanishes when the boat up- 
sets, or the locomotive runs off the track, or 
the measles set in. A wise physician once 
said to me: “I observe that every one wishes 
to go to heaven, but I observe that most peo- 
ple are willing to take a great deal of very dis- 
agreeable medicine first.” The lives that one 
least envies —as of the Digger Indian or the 
outcast boy in the city — are yet sweet to the 
living. “They have only a pleasure like that 
of the brutes,” we say with scorn. But what 
a racy and substantial pleasure is that! The 
flashing speed of the swallow in the air, the 
cool play of the minnow in the water, the dance 
of twin butterflies round a thistle-blossom, the 
thundering gallop of the buffalo across the 
prairie, nay, the clumsy walk of the grizzly 
bear ; it were doubtless enough to reward exist- 
