to the gates of the grave, but leaps the barriers of death, and flourishes in the far-off heaven; and will till the universe grows old, and Time himself topples with hoary age.
We are gravely told that animals obey the impulse once a year, or season, as the case may be; that man ought to go and do likewise; but we won't; nor will these self-same philosophers,—I'm sure of that!—especially in their own especial and particular cases; because man is a myriad grades or degrees higher and finer in organization than the animals; and his nature calls for more than theirs possibly can, or does.
They obey the instinct; it is the spur to propagation; but the beast, just like man up to a given point, risks all for the spur, and cares nothing for subsequent consequences, but leaves them for nature to attend to; and she does it like the kind, dear old mother that she is! In the average human, the spur is all that's cared for at the time; albeit consequences are foreseen, and due provisions made; for we marry and mate,—beasts only mate, and marriage is unknown to them. Not one human couple in fifty millions propagate on purpose, for as a rule it is impossible; not so with beasts; for one hour seals the origin of the progenal result; and men mark the periods, and know to a day when to look for the new animal; but we can only guess the time when our eyes shall gladden at the sight of the new soul God sends to cheer and bless us.
We are all accidents!—and not a few of us unhappy ones,—I, for instance. To apply rules to man applicable to animals alone, is an insult to the human race. Stirpiculture, or the rearing of better children, will never succeed upon agricultural, stock-farm, or barnyard principles.
True, nature requires a rich soil to produce high grades of fruit, whether human or other sorts; but in the former she requires the richest of fertilizers, and its name is love. Give her that, and she'll make your eyes glisten at the beauty of the work she does; deprive her of it, and crab apples are the result; and a human crab is the gnarliest and most bitter fruit in all God's garden. In the lower kingdoms nature does her best to produce a superior grade of body. In the human world she works wholly to produce a loftier order of
