How strange! For a whole generation he had lived in no nearer relation to his fellow-creatures than that of a half-fossilized teacher; and all at once he found himself face to face with the very most intense form of life, the counsellor of threatened innocence, the champion of imperilled loveliness.

What business was it of his?
growled the lower nature, of which he had said in "Thoughts on the Universe,"-- "Every man leads or is led by something that goes on four legs." Then he remembered the grand line of the African freedman, that makes all human interests everybody's business, and had a sudden sense of dilatation and evolution, as it were, in all his dimensions, as if he were a head taller, and a foot bigger round the chest, and took in an extra gallon of air at every breath, Then--you who have written a book that holds your heart-leaves between its pages will understand the movement--he took down "Thoughts on the Universe" for a refreshing draught from his own wellspring.

He opened as chance ordered it, and his eyes fell on the following passage: "The true American formula was well phrased by the late Samuel Patch, the Western Empedocles, 'Some things can be done as well as others.' A homely utterance, but it has virtue to overthrow all dynasties and hierarchies.

These were all built up on the Old-World dogma that some things can NOT be done as well as others." "There, now!" he said, talking to himself in his usual way, "is n't that good?
It always seems to me that I find something to the point when I open that book.

'Some things can be done as well as others,' can they?
Suppose I should try what I can do by visiting Miss Myrtle Hazard?
I think I may say I am old and incombustible enough to be trusted.