WHAT I LIVED FOR. 
101 
life? We are determined to be starved before we are 
hungry. Men say that a stitch in time saves nine, and 
so they take a thousand stitches to-day to save nine to¬ 
morrow. As for work , we haven’t any of any conse¬ 
quence. We have the Saint Vitus’ dance, and cannot 
possibly keep our heads still. If I should only give a 
few pulls at the parish bell-rope, as for a fire, that is, with¬ 
out setting the bell, there is hardly a man on his farm 
in the outskirts of Concord, notwithstanding that press 
of engagements which was his excuse so many times 
this morning, nor a boy, nor a woman, I might almost 
say, but would forsake all and follow that sound, not 
mainly to save property from the flames, but, if we will 
confess the truth, much more to see it burn, since 
burn it must, and we, be it known, did not set it on fire, 
— or to see it put out, and have a hand in it, if that is 
done as handsomely; yes, even if it were the parish 
church itself. Hardly a man takes a half hour’s nap 
after dinner, but when he wakes he holds up his head 
and asks, “ What’s the news ? ” as if the rest of mankind 
had stood his sentinels. Some give directions to be 
waked every half hour, doubtless for no other purpose; 
and then, to pay for it, they tell what they have dreamed. 
After a night’s sleep the news is as indispensable as the 
breakfast. 66 Pray tell me any thing new that has hap¬ 
pened to a man anywhere on this globe,”—and he 
reads it over his coffee and rolls, that a man has had his 
eyes gouged out this morning on the Wachito River; 
never dreaming the while that he lives in the dark un¬ 
fathomed mammoth cave of this world, and has but the 
rudiment of an eye himself. 
For my part, I could easily do without the post-office. 
I think that there are very few important communica- 
