In fact, our three little calves always wrought their mischief with such winsome grace as disarmed anger and amply repaid us in amusement what they cost us of trouble. They were a source of unfailing interest and wonder,-- "A phantom of delight, When first they gleamed upon our sight, A lovely apparition, sent To be a moment's ornament." And every day heightened their charms. Mr. Henry James, illustrating some false conception of the relation between God and man, somewhere says, "You simply need to recall the relation of irksome superintendence on the one hand, and of utter indifference on the other, which vivify the intercourse of a farmer and his calves." Now to Mr. Henry James, as a general rule, it would be difficult to award too much praise. The river of his speech, rippling through summer shadows, or rushing over rocky ways, still flows, like Siloa's brook, fast by the oracles of God. And though it winds sometimes through inaccessible places, and you tell its course only by its music, and not by its sparkle, and though it channels a path sometimes through murky valleys whose every vapor is laden with pestilence, yet you know that pure and purifying, singing through its leafy solitudes and shining heavenly clear in Tophet as in Tempe, the burden of its song is peace on earth, good-will to man, while it hastens on to mingle crystal stream with the waters of the river of life. But, Mr. Henry James, good and wise as you are, I am certain you never owned a calf. At least, you never stood in confidential relations to one. "Irksome superintendence?" You did not witness the welcome we gave our poor little favorite, torn all trembling from its mother's side by the stern demand of some greedy purse. How we stroked him, and patted him, and--begging your pardon--scratched his head, and so soothed away his sorrow ere he was aware! how we stayed his staggering limbs! and because he was too young and knew not how to drink, but only stared at the basin and at us and vacancy, in an uncertain, moonstruck way, did I not put my own fingers into the milk and draw his mouth down to them, and, deceived by the pious fraud, did not the poor little hungry innocent, like Dido of old, drink large draughts of love, in happy ignorance that it was not Nature's own arrangement for such case made and provided? No, Mr. James,--where it is a question of absolute philosophy, ordinary cosmology, noumenal force, instinctual relegation, and the fundamental antithesis of Me and Not-Me, you shall have everything your own way; but when it comes to live-stock, you must ask me first!