Milton says that the love of fame is the last infirmity of noble minds. I think he had not rightly considered the subject. I believe that last infirmity is the love of getting things cheap! Understand me, now. I don’t mean the love of getting cheap things, by which one understands showy, trashy, ill-made, spurious articles, bearing certain apparent resemblances to better things. All really sensible people are quite superior to that sort of cheapness. But those fortunate accidents which put within the power of a man things really good and valuable for half or a third of their value, what mortal virtue and resolution can withstand? * * * * * [Sidenote: Warning for mothers.] Mothers who throw away the key of their children’s hearts in childhood sometimes have a sad retribution. As the children never were considered when they were little and helpless, so they do not consider when they are strong and powerful. * * * * * [Sidenote: Careful observation.] I think the best things on all subjects in this world of ours are said, not by the practical workers, but by the careful observers. THE CHIMNEY CORNER. [Sidenote: Looking through blue glasses.] Friend Theophilus was born on the shady side of Nature, and endowed by his patron saint with every grace and gift which can make a human creature worthy and available, except the gift of seeing the bright side of things. His bead-roll of Christian virtues includes all the graces of the spirit except hope; and so, if one wants to know exactly the flaw, the defect, the doubtful side, and to take into account all the untoward possibilities of any person, place, or thing, he had best apply to friend Theophilus. He can tell you just where and how the best-laid scheme is likely to fail, just the screw that will fall loose in the smoothest working machinery, just the flaw in the most perfect character, just the defect in the best written book, just the variety of thorn that must accompany each particular species of rose. * * * * * [Sidenote: Châteaux en Espagne.] Rudolph is another of the _habitués_ of our chimney corner, representing the order of young knighthood in America, and his dreams and fancies, if impracticable, are always of a kind to make every one think him a good fellow. He who has no romantic dreams at twenty-one will be a horribly dry peascod at fifty; therefore it is that I gaze reverently at all Rudolph’s châteaux in Spain, which want nothing to complete them except solid earth to stand on. * * * * * [Sidenote: Care inevitable to human nature.]