Or suppose all together, and let
them compare notes afterward. Will it appear that they have enjoyed the
same prospect? What they will see will be as different as Rome was from
Heaven or Hell, or the last from the Fegee Islands. For aught we know,
as strange a man as any of these is always at our elbow.
Why, it takes a sharp-shooter to bring down even such trivial game as
snipes and woodcocks; he must take very particular aim, and know what he
is aiming at. He would stand a very small chance, if he fired at random
into the sky, being told that snipes were flying there. And so is it
with him that shoots at beauty; though he wait till the sky falls, he
will not bag any, if he does not already know its seasons and haunts,
and the color of its wing,--if he has not dreamed of it, so that he can
_anticipate_ it; then, indeed, he flushes it at every step, shoots
double and on the wing, with both barrels, even in cornfields. The
sportsman trains himself, dresses and watches unweariedly, and loads and
primes for his particular game. He prays for it, and offers sacrifices,
and so he gets it. After due and long preparation, schooling his eye and
hand, dreaming awake and asleep, with gun and paddle and boat he goes
out after meadow-hens, which most of his townsmen never saw nor dreamed
of, and paddles for miles against a headwind, and wades in water up to
his knees, being out all day without his dinner, and _therefore_ he gets
them.
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