4.  The third approached the animal,
     And, happening to take
   The squirming trunk within his hands,
     Thus boldly up he spake: 
   “I see,” quoth he, “the elephant
     Is very like a snake!”

5.  The fourth reached out his eager hand,
     And fell about the knee: 
   “What most this wondrous beast is like,
     Is very plain,” quoth he;
   " ’T is clear enough the elephant
     Is very like a tree!”

6.  The fifth, who chanced to touch the ear,
     Said:  “E’en the blindest man
   Can tell what this resembles most: 
     Deny the fact who can,
   This marvel of an elephant
     Is very like a fan!”

7.  The sixth no sooner had begun
     About the beast to grope,
   Than, seizing on the swinging tail
     That fell within his scope,
   “I see,” quoth he, “the elephant
     Is very like a rope!”

8.  And so these men of Indostan
     Disputed loud and long,
   Each in his own opinion
     Exceeding stiff and strong,
   Though each was partly in the right,
     And all were in the wrong!

XCVII.  A HOME SCENE.

Donald Grant Mitchell (b. 1822,—­).  This popular American writer was born in Norwich, Conn.  He graduated at Yale in 1841.  In 1844 he went to England, and, after traveling through that country on foot, spent some time on the continent.  His first volume, “Fresh Gleanings, or a New Sheaf from the Old Fields of Continental Europe, by Ik Marvel,” was published in 1847, soon after his return home.  He revisited Europe in 1848.  On his return, he published “The Battle Summer.”  Mr. Mitchell has contributed to the “Knickerbocker Magazine,” the “Atlantic Monthly,” and several agricultural journals.  His most popular works are “The Reveries of a Bachelor,” 1850, and “Dream Life,” 1851.  Besides these, he has written “My Farm of Edgewood,” “Wet Days at Edgewood,” “Doctor Johns,” a novel “Rural Studies,” and other works.  He is a charming writer.  In 1853 he was appointed United States consul at Venice.  In 1855 he settled on a farm near New Haven, Conn., where he now resides.  The following selection is from “Dream Life.”

1.  Little does the boy know, as the tide of years drifts by, floating him out insensibly from the harbor of his home, upon the great sea of life,—­what joys, what opportunities, what affections, are slipping from him into the shades of that inexorable Past, where no man can go, save on the wings of his dreams.

2.  Little does he think, as he leans upon the lap of his mother, with his eye turned to her, in some earnest pleading for a fancied pleasure of the hour, or in some important story of his griefs, that such sharing of his sorrows, and such sympathy with his wishes, he will find nowhere again.

3.  Little does he imagine that the fond sister Nelly, ever thoughtful of his pleasures, ever smiling away his griefs, will soon be beyond the reach of either; and that the waves of the years which come rocking so gently under him will soon toss her far away, upon the great swell of life.