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- Standard, now suddenly shifting the subject.
"Not a word of that, for heaven's sake!" cried I. "If Cicero, traveling
in the East, found sympathetic solace for his grief in beholding the
arid overthrow of a once gorgeous city, shall not my petty affair be as
nothing, when I behold in Hautboy the vine and the rose climbing the
shattered shafts of his tumbled temple of Fame?"
Next day I tore all my manuscripts, bought me a fiddle, and went to
take regular lessons of Hautboy.
POOR MAN'S PUDDING AND RICH MAN'S CRUMBS
PICTURE FIRST
POOR MAN'S PUDDING
"You see," said poet Blandmour, enthusiastically--as some forty years
ago we walked along the road in a soft, moist snowfall, toward the
end of March--"you see, my friend, that the blessed almoner, Nature,
is in all things beneficent; and not only so, but considerate in
her charities, as any discreet human philanthropist might be. This
snow, now, which seems so unseasonable, is in fact just what a poor
husbandman needs. Rightly is this soft March snow, falling just before
seed-time, rightly it is called 'Poor Man's Manure.' Distilling from
kind heaven upon the soil, by a gentle penetration it nourishes every
clod, ridge, and furrow. To the poor farmer it is as good as the rich
farmer's farmyard enrichments. And the poor man has no trouble to
spread it, while the rich man has to spread his."
"Perhaps so," said I, without equal enthusiasm, brushing some of the
damp flakes from my chest. "It may be as you say, dear Blandmour. But
tell me, how is it that the wind drives yonder drifts of 'Poor Man's
Manure' off poor Coulter's two-acre patch here, and piles it up yonder
on rich Squire Teamster's twenty-acre field?"
"Ah! to be sure--yes--well; Coulter's field, I suppose is sufficiently
moist without further moistenings. Enough is as good as a feast, you
know."
"Yes," replied I, "of this sort of damp fare," shaking another shower
of the damp flakes from my person. "But tell me, this warm spring snow
may answer very well, as you say; but how is it with the cold snows of
the long, long winters here?"
"Why, do you not remember the words of the Psalmist?--'The Lord giveth
snow like wool'; meaning not only that snow is white as wool, but
warm, too, as wool. For the only reason, as I take it, that wool is
comfortable, is because air is entangled, and therefore warmed among
its fibres. Just so, then, take the temperature of a December field
when covered with this snow-fleece, and you will no doubt find it
several degrees above that of the air. So, you see, the winter's snow
_itself_ is beneficent; under the pretense of frost--a sort of gruff
philanthropist--actually warming the earth, which afterward is to be
fertilizingly moistened by these gentle flakes of March."
"I like to hear you talk, dear Blandmour; and, guided by your
benevolent heart, can only wish to poor Coulter plenty of this 'Poor
Man's Manure.'"
"But that is not all," said Blandmour, eagerly. "Did you never hear of
the 'Poor Man's Eye-water'?"
"Never."
"Take this soft March snow, melt it, and bottle it. It keeps pure as
alcohol. The very best thing in the world for weak eyes. I have a whole
demijohn of it myself. But the poorest man, afflicted in his eyes, can
freely help himself to this same all-bountiful remedy. Now, what a kind
provision is that!"
"Then 'Poor Man's Manure' is 'Poor Man's Eye-water' too?"
"Exactly. And what could be more economically contrived? One thing
answering two ends--ends so very distinct."
"Very distinct, indeed."
"Ah! that is your way. Making sport of earnest. But never mind. We have
been talking of snow; but common rain-water--such as falls all the year
round--is still more kindly. Not to speak of its known fertilizing
quality as to fields, consider it in one of its minor lights. Pray, did
you ever hear of a 'Poor Man's Egg'?"
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