Page:The Atlantic Monthly Volume 2.djvu/510

 with you; you must match her piece, or she will never give it up to you.

The schoolmistress said, in rather a mischievous way, that she was afraid some minds or souls would be a little crowded, if they took in the Rocky Mountains or the Atlantic.

Have you ever read the little book called "The Stars and the Earth?"--said I.--Have you seen the Declaration of Independence photographed in a surface that a fly's foot would cover? The forms or conditions of Time and Space, as Kant will tell you, are nothing in themselves,--only our way of looking at things. You are right, I think, however, in recognizing the category of Space as being quite as applicable to minds as to the outer world. Every man of reflection is vaguely conscious of an imperfectly-defined circle which is drawn about his intellect. He has a perfectly clear sense that the fragments of his intellectual circle include the curves of many other minds of which he is cognizant. He often recognizes those as manifestly concentric with his own, but of less radius. On the other hand, when we find a portion of an arc outside of our own, we say it _intersects_ ours, but are very slow to confess or to see that it _circumscribes_ it. Every now and then a man's mind is stretched by a new idea or sensation, and never shrinks back to its former dimensions. After looking at the Alps, I felt that my mind had been stretched beyond the limits of its elasticity, and fitted so loosely on my old ideas of space that I had to spread these to fit it.

If I thought I should ever see the Alps!--said the schoolmistress.

Perhaps you will, some time or other,--I said.

It is not very likely,--she answered.--I have had one or two opportunities, but I had rather be anything than governess in a rich family.

Proud, too, you little soft-voiced woman! Well, I can't say I like you any the worse for it. How long will schoolkeeping take to kill you? Is it possible the poor thing works with her needle, too? I don't like those marks on the side of her forefinger.

_Tableau_. Chamouni. Mont Blanc in full view. Figures in the foreground; two of them standing apart; one of them a gentleman ofoh,--ah,--yes! the other a lady in a white cashmere, leaning on his shoulder.--The ingenuous reader will understand that this was an internal, private, personal, subjective diorama, seen for one instant on the background of my own consciousness, and abolished into black non-entity by the first question which recalled me to actual life, as suddenly as if one of those iron shop-blinds (which I always pass at dusk with a shiver, expecting to stumble over some poor but honest shop-boy's head, just taken off by its sudden and unexpected descent, and left outside upon the sidewalk) had come down "by the run."

Should you like to hear what moderate wishes life brings one to at last? I used to be very ambitious,--wasteful, extravagant, and luxurious in all my fancies. Head too much in the "Arabian Nights." Must have the lamp,--couldn't do without the ring. Exercise every morning on the brazen horse. Plump down into castles as full of little milk-white princesses as a nest is of young sparrows. All love me dearly at once.--Charming idea of life, but too high-colored for the reality. I have outgrown all this; my tastes have become exceedingly primitive,--almost, perhaps, ascetic. We carry happiness into our condition, but must not hope to find it there. I think you will be willing to hear some lines which embody the subdued and limited desires of my maturity.

CONTENTMENT. "Man wants but little here below."

Little I ask; my wants are few; I only wish a hut of stone, (A _very plain_ brown stone will do,) That I may call my own:-- And close at hand is such a one, In yonder street that fro