Mountains, kills elephants in India and salmon on the coast of Labrador, comes home, and very likely makes a book.  But the scope of his ideas does not seem to be enlarged by all this.  The body travels, not the mind.  And, however he may abuse his own land, he returns home as hearty a John Bull, with all his prejudices and national tastes as rooted, as before.  The English—­the men of fortune—­all travel.  Yet how little sympathy they show for other people or institutions, and how slight is the interest they take in them!  They are islanders, cut off from the great world.  But their island is, indeed, a world of its own.  With all their faults, never has the sun shone—­if one may use the expression in reference to England—­all a more noble race, or one that has done more for the great interests of humanity.

Notes.—­Nimrod is spoken of in Genesis (x. 9) as “a mighty hunter.”  Thus the name came to be applied to any one devoted to hunting.

Squire Western is a character in Fielding’s “Tom Jones.”  He is represented as an ignorant, prejudiced, irascible, but, withal, a jolly, good-humored English country gentleman.

LXXIX.  THE SONG OF THE POTTER. (290)

Turn, turn, my wheel!  Turn round and round,
Without a pause, without a sound: 
  So spins the flying world away! 
This clay, well mixed with marl and sand,
Follows the motion of my hand;
For some must follow, and some command,
  Though all are made of clay!

Turn, turn, my wheel!  All things must change
To something new, to something strange;
  Nothing that is can pause or stay;
The moon will wax, the moon will wane,
The mist and cloud will turn to rain,
The rain to mist and cloud again,
  To-morrow be to-day.

Turn, turn, my wheel!  All life is brief;
What now is bud will soon be leaf,
  What now is leaf will soon decay;
The wind blows east, the wind blows west;
The blue eggs in the robin’s nest
Will soon have wings and beak and breast,
  And flutter and fly away.

Turn, turn, my wheel!  This earthen jar
A touch can make, a touch can mar;
  And shall it to the Potter say,
What makest thou?  Thou hast no hand? 
As men who think to understand
A world by their Creator planned,
  Who wiser is than they.

Turn, turn, my wheel!  ’Tis nature’s plan
The child should grow into the man,
  The man grow wrinkled, old, and gray;
In youth the heart exults and sings,
The pulses leap, the feet have wings;
In age the cricket chirps, and brings
  The harvest home of day.

Turn, turn, my wheel!  The human race,
Of every tongue, of every place,
  Caucasian, Coptic, or Malay,
All that inhabit this great earth,
Whatever be their rank or worth,
Are kindred and allied by birth,
  And made of the same clay.

Turn, turn, my wheel!  What is begun
At daybreak must at dark be done,
  To-morrow will be another day;
To-morrow the hot furnace flame
Will search the heart and try the frame,
And stamp with honor or with shame
  These vessels made of clay.