Let us pause here for a sad brief moment in order to see just where Moses was when Life sought him out and proffered him a magical chance in the shape of a trip to Egypt. Where was Moses? and what was he doing? To begin with, he was keeping goats, a fairly common occupation in those days, though rather a rare job now. But that was not all: Moses was keeping these goats for Jethro, his father-in-law. Now you begin to get some inkling as to where Moses was. But this is not the worst of it: for Moses was keeping the goats for his father-in-law on “the _back_ side of the desert.” One would certainly say that the _front_ side of any desert would be far enough away, and sterile enough of romance, if one had to keep one’s father-in-law’s goats there; but to keep the goats of your father-in-law on the _back_ side of a desert is to be farther off than Hingham, or any place I know. And here was Moses when Life came upon him offering him an escape into Egypt. He was born fatally late, Moses was, just like Thoreau and my niece. He might have been one of my own college men, so like a college man’s was his answer! “No, no!” he complained, “I don’t want to go down to Egypt. There is nothing doing down in Egypt. I’m slow of speech; without imagination; and it’s a hard job, anyway. Let me stay here and be goatherd to Jethro, my father-in-law, and dream of the good old days of the giants, when men began to multiply upon the face of the earth, when the sons of God saw the daughters of men that they were fair. Ah!--there was something doing in those days!” From Moses to Masefield the times have been fatally late. And so mine are, with the clipper ships, the frontiers, the giants, and the daughters of men that are fair, all gone! But I seem to see them fair. I suppose I ought not, having been born so fatally late. And I wonder if I might not find a giant, too, if I should hunt? and a clipper ship? and a frontier? and even an escape from Hingham! Lumber is still brought in boats to one of Hingham’s old wharves, but the rest of her wharves are deserted. Her citizens, who used to do business in great waters, stop now in Hingham Harbor to catch smelts. Change and some decay one can see all about Hingham, but little chance of escape.