Why should we live with such hurry and waste of life?We are determined to be starved before we are
hungry.Men say that a stitch in time saves nine,and so they take a thousand stitches today today to
save nine tomorrow.As for work,we haven't any of any consequence.We have the Saint Vitus' dance,and
cannot possibly keep our heads still.If I should only give a few pulls at the parish bell rope,as
for a fire,that is,without setting the bell,there is hardly a man on his farm in the outskirts of
Concord,notwithstanding that press of engagements which was his excuse so many times this morning,
nor a boy,nor a woman,I might almost say,but would forsake all and follow that sound,not mainly to
save properly from the flames,but,if we will confess the truth,much more to see it burn,since burn
it must,and we,be it known,did not set it on fire-or to see it put out,and have a hand in it,if that
is done as handsomely;yes,even if it were the parish church itself.Hardly a man takes a half hour's
nap after dinner,but when he wakes he holds up his head and asks,"What's the news?"as if the rest of
mankind had stood his sentinels.Some give directions to be waked every half hour,doubtless for no
other purpose;and then,to pay for it,they tell what they have dreamed.After a night's sleep the news
is as indispensable as the breakfast."Pray tell me anything new that has happened to a man anywhere
on this globe",and he reads it over his coffee and rolls,that a man has had his eyes gouged out this
morning on the Wachito River;never dreaming the while that he lives in the dark unfathomed mammoth
cave of this world,and has but the rudiment of an eye himself.