His days were joyous and serene, his life was pure, his record clean; folks named their children after him, and he was in the social swim; ambitious lads would say: "I plan to be just such a worthy man!" But in the fullness of his years, the tempter whispered in his ears, and begged that he would make the race for county judge, or some such place. And so he yielded to his fate, and came forth as a candidate. The night before election day they found him lying, cold and gray, the deadest man in all the land, this message in his icy hand: "The papers that opposed my race have brought me into deep disgrace; I find that I'm a fiend unloosed; I robbed a widow's chicken roost, and stole an orphan's Easter egg, and swiped a soldier's wooden leg. I bilked a heathen of his joss, and later kidnapped Charlie Ross; I learn, with something like alarm, that I designed the Gunness farm, and also, with excessive grief, that Black Hand cohorts call me chief. I thought myself a decent man, whose record all the world might scan; but now, alas, too late! I see that all the depths of infamy have soiled me with their reeking shame, and so it's time to quit the game." _The Human Head_ The greatest gift the gods bestowed on mortal was his dome of thought; it sometimes seems a useless load, when one is tired, and worn and hot; it sometimes seems a trifling thing, less useful than one's lungs or slats; a mere excuse, it seems, to bring us duns from men who deal in hats. Some men appreciate their heads, and use them wisely every day, and every passing minute sheds new splendor on their upward way; while some regard their heads as junk, mere idle knobs upon their necks; such men are nearly always sunk in failure, and are gloomy wrecks. I know a clerk who's served his time in one old store for twenty-years; he's marked his fellows climb, and climb--and marked with jealousy and tears; he's labored there since he was young; he'll labor there till he is dead; he never rose a single rung, because he never used his head. I know a poorhouse in the vale, where fifty-seven paupers stay; they paw the air and weep and wail, and cuss each other all the day; and there they'll loll while life endures, and there they'll die in pauper beds; their chances were as good as yours--but then they never used their heads. O human head! Majestic box! O wondrous can, from labels free! If man is craving fame or rocks, he'll get them if he uses thee! _The Universal Help_