a foot there, always following the sacred oval, we shall get a countless
array of pitchers and vases, of perfect finished form, handsome enough to
be the oval for a king's name. Should they attempt to copy our rare vases
in finest Parian, alabaster, or jasper, their art would fail to hit the
delicate tints and smoothness of this fine shell; and then those dots and
dashes, careless as put on by a master's hand!

Are not these rare lines? They look to me as wise as hieroglyphics. Who
knows what rhyme and reason are written there,--what subtile wisdom rounded
into this small curve,--repeated on the breasts and backs of the
birds,--their own notes, it may be, photographed on their swelling breasts
like the musical notes on the harp-shell,--written in bright, almost
audible colors on the petals of flowers,--harmonies, melodies, for ear and
eye? Has this language, older than Erse, older than Sanscrit, ever got
translated? I am afraid, dear, the key has been turned in the lock, and
thrown into the well.

The ornithologists tell us that some birds build nicer nests, sing sweeter
songs, than their companions of the same species. Can experience add wisdom
to instinct? or is it the right of the elder-born,--the birthright of the
young robin who first breaks the shell? Who has rightly looked into these
things?

I half remember the story of a beautiful princess who had all imaginable
wealth in her stately palace, itself builded up of rare and costly
jewels. She had everything that heart could desire,--everything but a roc's
egg. Her mind was contracted with sorrow, till she could procure this one
ornament more to her splendors. I think it turned out that the palace
itself was built within the roc's egg. These birds are immense, and take up
three elephants at a time in their powerful talons, (almost as many as