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232 mean without a reason, and yet my loitering is not without a defense. I would fain communicate the wealth of my life to men, would really give them what is most precious in my gift. I would secrete pearls with the shellfish and lay up honey with the bees for them. I will sift the sunbeams for the public good. I know no riches I would keep back. I have no private good unless it be my peculiar ability to serve the public. This is the only individual property. Each one may thus be innocently rich. I enclose and foster the pearl till it is grown. I wish to communicate those parts of my life which I would gladly live again.

It is hard to be a good citizen of the world in any great sense, but if we do render no interest or increase to mankind out of that talent God gave us, we can at least preserve the principal unimpaired.

In such a letter as I like there will be the most naked and direct speech, the least circumlocution.

March 26, 1853. Up the Assabet, scared from his perch a stout hawk, the red-tailed, undoubtedly, for I saw very plainly the cow-red when he spread his wings from off his tail (and rump?) I rowed the boat three times within gunshot before he flew, twice within four rods, while he sat on an oak over the water; I think