And what life is to us,--sour or sweet,--so is it to them.

Like us, they die, fighting death to the last; like us, they spawn and depart.

We inhabit but a crust, rough surfaces, odds and ends of the isles; the abounding lagoon being its two-thirds, its grand feature from afar; and forever unfathomable.
"'What shaft has yet been sunk to the antipodes?
What underlieth the gold mines?
"'But even here, above-ground, we grope with the sun at meridian.
Vainly, we seek our Northwest Passages,--old alleys, and thoroughfares of the whales.
"'Oh men! fellow men! we are only what we are; not what we would be; nor every thing we hope for.

We are but a step in a scale, that reaches further above us than below.

We breathe but oxygen.