cupboard in their hearts for hoarding up the
grievances they spend their lives in searching
for; they hate the world, and could make
scandal out of millstones, but if one hints that
they are erring, they are up in arms and
don't approve of sarcasm.' 'Sir,' says I,
'you are personal.' 'By no means, Mr.
Spruce; you, and a number like you, are good
people in the main, and deeply to be pitied
for your foolish blunder. You're a
philosopher, Phil,' he says, 'and did you never
hear that your "I" is the only thing certainly
existent, and that the world without may be
a shadow or mere part of you, or if external,
of no certain form or tint, having the colour
of the medium through which you view it—
your own nature.' Here I saw occasion for a
joke. 'Sir,' I says, 'if my own "I" is the only
thing certainly existing, then the external
world is all my eye, which proves what I
propounded.' His flames went dead all of a
sudden, and he looked black from top to toe.
'I am sure I beg your pardon, Sir,' says I,
'excuse my liberty.'

"'He took no verbal notice of what I had
said, but gave a tremendous shiver, and his
flames began to play again. 'I'm of a warm
and cheerful, turn of mind,' says he, 'and I
must say, that whenever I look out upon the
men and women in the world, I see them
warm and cheerful.' 'That's nothing
wonderful,' said I; 'it's just because you see
them sitting round your blaze.' 'Well,'
says he, 'Mr. Spruce, I'm very glad you own
so much; for my opinion is, that if you had
shone out cheerfully when you were in the
world, and warmed the folks that came within
your influence—if you had put a little kindly
glow into your countenance, you would have
been surrounded always as I generally am.'
'You're young,' says I, 'and you have had
no experience; least ways, your experience
have not been human. You get stirred when
you're low, and people tend you for their
own sakes—you ain't preyed upon by
disappointments.'

"'Young!' said he; 'disappointments!'
And to my horror, he stood bolt upright, to
be impressive. 'Look you, Mr. Spruce, the
youngest is the wisest; the child remembers
throughout years a happy day, and can forget
his tears as fast as they evaporate. He grows
up, and his budding youth imagines love.
Two or three fancies commonly precede his
love. As each of these decays, he, in his
inexperience, is eloquent about his blighted
hopes, his dead first love, and so on. In the
first blossom of his manhood, winds are keen
to him—at his first plunge into the stream of
active life, he finds the water cold. Who
shall condemn his shiver? But if he is to be
a healthy man, he will strike out right soon,
and glow with cheerful exercise in buffeting
the stream. Youth, Mr. Spruce, may be
allowed to call the water of the world too
cold, but so long only as its plunge is recent.
It is a libel on maturity and age to say that
we live longer to love less. Preyed upon by
disappointments—'

' Yes,' says I, 'preyed upon.'

"'Say, rather, blessed with trial. Who'd
care to swim in a cork jacket! Trouble, is a
privilege, believe me, friend, to those who
know from whose hand, for what purpose, it
is sent. I do not mean the trouble people
cut out for themselves by curdling all the
milk of kindness in their neighbours. But
when a man will be a man, will labour with
Truth, Charity, and Self-Reliance—always
frank and open in his dealings—always
giving credit to his neighbours for their good
deeds, and humbly abstaining from a
judgment, of what looks like evil in their conduct
—when he knows, under God, no helper but
his own brave heart and his own untiring
hand—there is no disappointment in repulse.
He learns the lesson Heaven teaches him,
his Faith and Hope and Charity by constant
active effort become strong—gloriously strong
—just as the blacksmith's right arm becomes
mighty by the constant wielding of his
hammer. Disappointment—let the coward
pluck up courage—disappointment is a sheet-
and-pumpkin phantom to the bold. Let him
who has battled side by side with Trouble
say whether it was not an angel sent to be
his help. Find a true-hearted man whose
energies have brought him safe through
years of difficulty; ask him whether he found
the crowd to be base-natured through which
he was called upon to force his way?
Believe me, he will tell you 'No.' Having said
this, his majesty broke out into a blaze, and
lay down in his bed again. 'Well,' he said,
'Philip, will you come to bed with me?'

"'Why, Sir,' said I, 'to say the best of it,
you're under a misconception; but if it's in
the nature of a coal to take such cheerful
views of things as you appear to do, I'd
rather be a coal than what I am. It's cold
work living in the flesh, such as I find it—
you seem jolly as a hot cinder, and for the
matter of that, what am I now but dust and
ashes? Coke is preferable.'

"'Coffn and Purse, you're wanted,' cried
the king. And indeed, Mrs. Pittis, and
indeed, gentlemen, I must turn aside one
minute to remark the singularity of this
king's body-guard, Coflin and Purse. 'Cash
and Mortality,' said the king to me, 'make
up, according to your theory, the aim and
end of man. So with a couple of cinders
you can twit him with his degradation.
Sometimes Coffin, sometimes Purse, leaps out into
his lap when he is cogitating.' 'Yes,' said I,
'that will be extremely humorous. But, so
please your majesty, I still have one objection
to joining your honourable body.' 'What is
that, Phil?' 'I suppose, if I sits down in
them there flames they'll burn me.' 'To be
sure,' said the king, kicking up his heels, and
scraping a furnace load of live coal over his
body, just as you might pull up the blanket
when you're in bed to-night, Mrs. Pittis.