This “Charity-house,” as the wrecker called it, this “Humane-house,” as some call it, that is, the one to which we first came, had neither window nor sliding shutter, nor clapboards, nor paint. As we have said, there was a rusty nail put through the staple. However, as we wished to get an idea of a Humane house, and we hoped that we should never have a better opportunity, we put our eyes, by turns, to a knot-hole in the door, and after long looking, without seeing, into the dark,—not knowing how many shipwrecked men’s bones we might see at last, looking with the eye of faith, knowing that, though to him that knocketh it may not always be opened, yet to him that looketh long enough through a knot-hole the inside shall be visible,—for we had had some practice at looking inward,—by steadily keeping our other ball covered from the light meanwhile, putting the outward world behind us, ocean and land, and the beach,—till the pupil became enlarged and collected the rays of light that were wandering in that dark (for the pupil shall be enlarged by looking; there never was so dark a night but a faithful and patient eye, however small, might at last prevail over it),—after all this, I say, things began to take shape to our vision,—if we may use this expression where there was nothing but emptiness,—and we obtained the long-wished-for insight. Though we thought at first that it was a hopeless case, after several minutes’ steady exercise of the divine faculty, our prospects began decidedly to brighten, and we were ready to exclaim with the blind bard of “Paradise Lost and Regained,”— “Hail, holy Light! offspring of Heaven first born, Or of the Eternal co-eternal beam. May I express thee unblamed?” A little longer, and a chimney rushed red on our sight. In short, when our vision had grown familiar with the darkness, we discovered that there were some stones and some loose wads of wool on the floor, and an empty fireplace at the further end; but it _was not_ supplied with matches, or straw, or hay, that we could see, nor “accommodated with a bench.” Indeed, it was the wreck of all cosmical beauty there within.