Cobwebs from an Empty Skull

[Illustration]

An old gentleman sat down, one day, upon an acorn, and finding it a very comfortable seat, went soundly to sleep.  The warmth of his body caused the acorn to germinate, and it grew so rapidly, that when the sleeper awoke he found himself sitting in the fork of an oak, sixty feet from the ground.

“Ah!” said he, “I am fond of having an extended view of any landscape which happens to please my fancy; but this one does not seem to possess that merit.  I think I will go home.”

It is easier to say go home than to go.

“Well, well!” he resumed, “if I cannot compel circumstances to my will, I can at least adapt my will to circumstances.  I decide to remain.  ’Life’—­as a certain eminent philosopher in England wilt say, whenever there shall be an England to say it in—­’is the definite combination of heterogeneous changes, both simultaneous and successive, in correspondence with external co-existences and sequences.’  I have, fortunately, a few years of this before me yet; and I suppose I can permit my surroundings to alter me into anything I choose.”

And he did; but what a choice!

I should say that the lesson hereby imparted is one of contentment combined with science.