Do you believe in dreams? No! Why not? Have you, indeed, yet to learn, that through them the good spirits whisper to us advice, and peace, and warning, and consolation! Are you so cold and dull as to believe there are no ministering spirits, no guiding guardian angels? Do you, can you scornfully repel the idea that the forests and mountains, the oceans and the plains, have their myriad viewless intellectual inhabitants? Ah, foolishly unwise, may these powerful agents have mercy on you, and charitably bear with your shameful, willful blindness!
What then—must I set you down as more ignorant and unlearned than even simple Joseph Rancy? Fling all your book-learning aside and be a very child in all knowledge, I beseech you, if that will give you faith in these surrounding millions, to believe in them, and a keen mental eyesight to behold them. And do not, above all things, dare to brave the possible malignance of Rob Horn, that is, if you regard the preservation of your worldly wealth. Gather not in your harvests, and your winter stores, while he is gazing full upon you, rather follow honest Joseph’s example, shear all shearable sheep, reap in the wealth of your apple-trees, and massacre your swine while Rob is sleeping in the shade of the mountains, just before he awakens from his slumber to gaze openly upon your doings. And if you manifest your faith in my story in no other way than in doing this, I shall be satisfied, and feel, whether you admit it or not, that I have for once “well done.”
THE MIRROR OF LIFE.
Engraved expressly for Graham’s Magazine
BY W. A. WILMER FROM A PICTURE BY W. A. CONORROE
THE MIRROR OF LIFE.
[SEE ENGRAVING.]