Nature and human life are as various to our several experiences as our constitutions are various. Who shall say what prospect life offers to another? Could a greater miracle take place than if we should look through each other's eyes for an instant? We should live in all the ages of the world in an hour,—aye, in all the worlds of the ages. What I have read of rhapsodists, of the primitive poets, Argonautic expeditions, the life of demigods and heroes, Eleusinian mysteries, etc., suggests nothing so ineffably grand and informing as this would be. * * * * * The phœbe came into my house to find a place for its nest, flying through the windows. * * * * * It was a bright thought, that of man's to have bells; no doubt the birds hear them with pleasure. * * * * * To compete with the squirrels in the chestnut harvest, picking ofttimes the nuts that bear the mark of their teeth. * * * * * I require of any lecturer that he will read me a more or less simple and sincere account of his own life, of what he has done and thought,—not so much what he has read or heard of other men's lives and actions, but some such account as he would send to his kindred from a distant land,—and if he has lived sincerely, it must have been in a distant land to me,—describing even his outward circumstances and what adventures he has had, as well as his thoughts and feelings about them. He who gives us only the results of other men's lives, though with brilliant temporary success, we may in some measure justly accuse of having defrauded us of our time. We want him to give us that which was most precious to him,—not his life's blood but even that for which his life's blood circulated, what he has got by living. If anything ever yielded him pure pleasure or instruction, let him communicate it. Let the money-getter tell us how much he loves wealth, and what means he takes to accumulate it. He must describe those facts which he knows and loves better than anybody else. He must not write on foreign missions. The mechanic will naturally lecture about his trade, the farmer about his farm, and every man about that which he, compared with other men, knows best. Yet incredible mistakes are made. I have heard an owl lecture with perverse show of learning upon the solar microscope, and chanticleer upon nebulous stars, when both ought to have been sound asleep, the one in a hollow tree, the other on his roost. After I lectured here before, this winter, I heard that some of my townsmen had expected of me some account of my life at the pond. This I will endeavor to give to-night. * * * * *