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Taglagallo Remarcafkus Directory 05
Page 03
It is impossible to read the biographies of some of our most celebrated men, and not to see that with means scanty enough they were enabled to keep their terms with honour, and in the end confer additional celebrity upon the noble foundations where they had studied. If such be the case, we have only the result of personal good or ill conduct to explain the whole of the affair. But enough on this subject.
If one looks closely at life, one sees the same quality in humanity, in men and women, in books and pictures, and yet one cannot tell what goes to the making of it. It seems to be a thing which no energy or design can capture, but which alights here and there, blowing like the wind at will. It is not force or originality or inventiveness; very often it is strangely lacking in any masterful quality at all; but it has always just the same wistful appeal, which makes one desire to understand it, to take possession of it, to serve it, to win its favour. It is as when the child in Francis Thompson's poem seems to say, "I hire you for nothing." That is exactly it: there is nothing offered or bestowed, but one is at once magically bound to serve it for love and delight. There is nothing that one can expect to get from it, and yet it goes very far down into the soul; it is behind the maddening desire which certain faces, hands, voices, smiles excite--the desire to possess, to claim, to know even that no one else can possess or claim them, which lies at the root of half the jealous tragedies of life.
This industrious animal is generally found in Canada and the northern portions of the United States, where it makes its home on the banks of the rivers and lakes. Here they assemble in hundreds to assist each other in the construction of their dams, and in the building of their houses, which are put together with a considerable amount of engineering skill. The materials used in building the dams are wood, stones, and mud, which they collect themselves for that purpose, and after finishing the dam, or winter storehouse, they collect their stores for the winter's use, and then make a connection with their houses in the banks. Their skins are valuable in making fine hats, and their flesh is much relished by the hunters. The beaver is an interesting animal in many respects, and the expression "busy as a beaver" is borne out by its habits.
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