"'There,' said my brother, 'is a fine good-for-nothing stream for you, forsooth, winding and dawdling about, dancing in the sunshine, and revelling in the grass instead of working and paying for the place it takes up, as an honest stream should. Could it not be made to grind coffee or pepper?' "'Or tools?' added Savage. "'Or to saw boards?' said my brother. "I trembled for the stream, and broke off the conversation, complaining loudly that its detractors (its would-be tyrants) were treading down my forget-me-nots. Alas! it was but against them alone I could protect it. Before long there came into our neighborhood a man whom I noticed more than once hanging about the spot where the stream empties itself into the sea. The fellow I plainly saw was neither seeking for rhymes, nor indulging in dreams and memories upon its banks,--he was not lulling thought to rest with the gentle murmur of its waters. 'My good friend,' he was saying to the stream, 'there you are, idling and meandering about, singing to your heart's content, while I am working and wearing myself out. I don't see why you should not help me a bit; you know nothing of the work to be done, but I'll soon show you. You'll soon know how to set about it. You must find it dull to stay in this way, doing nothing,--it would be a change for you to make files or grind knives.' Very soon wheels of all kinds were brought to the poor stream. From that day forward it has worked and turned a great wheel, which turns a little wheel, which turns a grindstone; it still sings, but no longer the same gently-monotonous song in its peaceful melancholy. Its song is loud and angry now,--it leaps and froths and works now,--it grinds knives! It still crosses the meadow, and my garden, and the next meadow; but there, the man is on the watch for it, to make it work. I have done the only thing I could do for it. I have dug a new bed for it in my garden, so that it may idle longer there, and leave me a little later; but for all that, it must go at last and grind knives. Poor stream! thou didst not sufficiently conceal thy happiness in obscurity,--thou hast murmured too audibly thy gentle music." SIR EMERSON TENNANT ON AMERICAN MISSIONS IN CEYLON.