in the rich library of Harvard University.

No student ever yet enjoyed such solitude and silence as now broods
within its deep alcoves. Little do the present visitors understand
what opportunities are thrown away upon them. Yet Adam looks
anxiously at the long rows of volumes, those storied heights of
human lore, ascending one above another from floor to ceiling. He
takes up a bulky folio. It opens in his hands as if spontaneously
to impart the spirit of its author to the yet unworn and untainted
intellect of the fresh-created mortal. He stands poring over the
regular columns of mystic characters, seemingly in studious mood;
for the unintelligible thought upon the page has a mysterious
relation to his mind, and makes itself felt as if it were a burden
flung upon him. He is even painfully perplexed, and grasps vainly
at he knows not what. O Adam, it is too soon, too soon by at least
five thousand years, to put on spectacles and bury yourself in the
alcoves of a library!

"What can this be?" he murmurs at last. "Eve, methinks nothing is
so desirable as to find out the mystery of this big and heavy object
with its thousand thin divisions. See! it stares me in the face as
if it were about to speak!"

Eve, by a feminine instinct, is dipping into a volume of fashionable
poetry, the production certainly the most fortunate of earthly
bards, since his lay continues in vogue when all the great masters
of the lyre have passed into oblivion. But let not, his ghost be
too exultant! The world's one lady tosses the book upon the floor
and laughs merrily at her husband's abstracted mien.