Well, mebby if is so, I d'no. But I wuzn't knowin' to it myself, nor Josiah wuzn't. Well, onheedin' our facts or fancies, the river bore us onwards on its breast. Past high green boulders risin' up from the water with nothin' on 'em, not even a tree; jest gray rock lookin' some like a geni's castle frownin' down onto the intruders into their realm. Then anon a pile of high gray rocks crowned as the Sammist sez "with livin' green." Then in a minute more a little landlocked bay with placid water sweepin' back into a pretty harbor, tree shaded, and mebby a boat anchored there like a soul at rest, or mebby a sail-boat with two young hearts in it driftin' down the sea of their content, as the tiny waves rippled round their oars. Then a grand big mansion lookin' down onto us kinder superciliously. Then a small, pretty farm house with snug outbuildings, a man lookin' at us from the open barn door, and some children playin' round the doorstep. Then a big island with grassy shores or wooded depths; then a tiny island, not too big for a child's playhouse, and some that wuz only a bit of rock peekin' out of the water. And fur off all the time when we could see it wuz the blue hazy distance full of beauty; ever-changin' glimpses of loveliness, givin' place to new beauties. Fur off, fur off sometimes we could see distant pinnacles and towers, all bathed in the blue shinin' mist. And as the rapt eyes of our Fancy gazed on 'em, they might have been the towers of the New Jerusalem, the Golden city, so dreamlike, so inexpressibly lovely did they seem faintly photographed aginst the soft blue distant heavens. But cold Reality said in her chillin' practical whisper, "It's nothin' but Gananoque or Clayton," and she went on, "They hain't anything like the New Jerusalem, either of them." Alas for us poor mortals! who drive or are driv by the two contendin' coharts of Imagination, Idealized Fancy and practical Reality. And she always will have the last word, Reality will, and her voice is loud and shrill, and it penetrates into the warm, sweet Indian summer air, where Fancy dwells and where we sometimes visit her for brief intervals. Too brief! too brief! for cold Reality is always hangin' round; she is always up and dressed ready to put in her note. I mentioned the metafor to Josiah and he sez, "Yes, it minds me of the man who was brought up before the judge by his wife. She complained he hadn't spoke to her for five years. The judge ast him if that were so, and he said, 'Yes, that's so.' 'But why,' sez the judge, 'why hain't you spoke to your wife for five years?' And the man sez, 'Because I didn't want to interrupt her.'" Josiah declares it is true, but I believe it is jest a slur on wimmen.