a man who brushed a grasshopper from her shoulder with an air
of ownership, and, when she slapped his hand coquettishly,
even dared to pinch her pink cheek,--his wife's cheek,--
before that crowd of on-lookers! Merry-go-round, indeed!
The horrible thing was well named; and life was just like it,--
a whirl of happiness and misery, in which the music cannot play
loud enough to drown the creak of the machinery, in which one
soul cries out in pain, another in terror, and the rest laugh;
but the prancing steeds gallop on, gallop on, and once mounted,
there is no getting off, unless . . .

There were some things it was not possible for a mean to bear!
The river! The river! He could hear it rippling over the sunny sands,
swirling among the logs, dashing and roaring under the bridge,
rushing to the sea's embrace. Could it tell whither it
was hurrying? NO; but it was escaping from its present bonds;
it would never have to pass over these same jagged rocks again.
"On, on to the unknown!" called the river. "I come! I come!"
he roused himself to respond, when a faint, faint, helpless voice broke
in upon the mad clatter in his brain, cleaving his torn heart in twain;
not a real voice,--the half-forgotten memory of one; a tender wail
that had added fresh misery to his night's vigil,--the baby!

But the feeble pipe was borne down by the swirl of the water
as it dashed between the rocky banks, still calling to him.
If he could only close his ears to it! But it still called--
called still--the river! And still the child's voice
pierced the rush of sound with its pitiful flute note,
until the two resolved themselves into contesting strains,
answering each other antiphonally. The river --the baby--