since gathered in.  At other times I drive myself upon their sharp and piercing conflicts as a bird is blown uselessly again and again by some too strong a wind upon the spikes of the thorn.  I hear the angry talk of our farmers and merchants, I listen to the fiery orations of our statesmen and the warning sermons of our divines. (Think of a human creature calling himself a divine.) The troubled ebb and flow of events in Kentucky, the larger movements of unrest throughout the great republic—­these have replaced for me the old communings with nature that were full of music and of peace.

Evening after evening now I turn my conversations with Georgiana as gayly as I can upon some topic of the time.  She is not always pleased with what I style my researches into civilized society.  One evening in particular our talk was long and serious, beginning in shallows and then steering for deep waters.

“Well, Georgiana,” I had said, “Miss Delia Webster has suddenly returned to her home in Vermont.”

“And who is Miss Delia Webster?” she had inquired, with unmistakable acidity.

“Miss Delia Webster is the lady who was sentenced to the State penitentiary for abducting our silly old servants into Ohio.  But the jury of Kentucky noblemen who returned the verdict—­being married men, and long used to forgiving a woman anything—­petitioned the governor to pardon Miss Delia on the ground that she belongs to the sex that can do no wrong—­and be punished for it.  Whereupon the governor, seasoned to the like large experience, pardoned the lady.  Whereupon Miss Webster, having passed a few weeks in the penitentiary, left, as I stated, for her home in Vermont, followed by her father, who does not, however, seem to have been able to overtake her.”

“If she’d been a man, now,” suggested Georgiana.

“If she’d been a man she would have shared the fortunes of her principal, the Reverend Mr. Fairbanks, who has not returned to his home in Ohio, and will not—­for fifteen years.”

“Do you think it an agreeable subject of conversation?” inquired Georgiana.

“Then I will change it,” I said.  “The other day the editor of the Smithland Bee was walking along the street with his little daughter and was shot down by a doctor.”

“Horrible!” exclaimed Georgiana.  “Why?”

“Self-defence,” I answered.  “And last week in the court-room in Mount Sterling a man was shot by his brother-in-law during the sitting of court.”

“And why did he kill him?”

“Self-defence!” I answered.  “And in Versailles a man down in the street was assassinated with a rifle fired from the garret of a tavern.  Self-defence.  And in Lexington a young man shot and killed another for drawing his handkerchief from his pocket.  Self-defence!—­the sense of the court being that whatever such an action might mean in other civilized, countries, in Kentucky and under the circumstances—­the young fellows were quarrelling—­it naturally betokened the reaching for a revolver.  Thus in Kentucky, Georgiana, and during a heated discussion, a man cannot blow his nose but at the risk of his life.”