Page:A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers.djvu/79

Rh well, that he might be up to the occasion. That is a superfluous wonder, which Dr. Johnson expresses at the assertion of Sir Thomas Browne, that "his life has been a miracle of thirty years, which to relate, were not history, but a piece of poetry, and would sound like a fable." The wonder is rather that all men do not assert as much.

Think what a mean and wretched place this world is; that half the time we have to light a lamp that we may see to live in it. This is half our life. Who would undertake the enterprise if it were all? And, pray, what more has day to offer? A lamp that burns more clear, a purer oil, say winter-strained, that so we may pursue our idleness with less obstruction. Bribed with a little sunlight and a few prismatic tints, we bless our Maker, and stave off his wrath with hymns.