Certainly I may call this "an odd adventure" for a young minister,
less than six months in his profession. But it left in my mind a very
pleasant impression of this great tragedian. It may be asked why he came
to me, the youngest and newest clergyman in the place. The reason he
gave me himself. I was a Unitarian. He said he had more sympathy with me
on that account, as he was of Jewish descent, and a Monotheist.




MY OUT-DOOR STUDY.


The noontide of the summer-day is past, when all Nature slumbers, and
when the ancients feared to sing, lest the great god Pan should be
awakened. Soft changes, the gradual shifting of every shadow on every
leaf, begin to show the waning hours. Ineffectual thunder-storms have
gathered and gone by, hopelessly defeated. The floating-bridge is
trembling and resounding beneath the pressure of one heavy wagon, and
the quiet fishermen change their places to avoid the tiny ripple that
glides stealthily to their feet above the half-submerged planks. Down
the glimmering lake there are miles of silence and still waters and
green shores, overhung with a multitudinous and scattered fleet of
purple and golden clouds, now furling their idle sails and drifting away
into the vast harbor of the South. Voices of birds, hushed first by
noon and then by possibilities of tempest, cautiously begin once more,
leading on the infinite melodies of the June afternoon. As the freshened
air invites them forth, so the smooth and stainless water summons us.
"Put your hand upon the oar," says Charon in the old play to Bacchus,