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Holmes, Oliver Wendell, 1809-1894

"The Poet at the Breakfast-Table"

You know they find their way almost everywhere. They
do not worry me in the least. When I was a little girl, they used to say
that if you put a horsehair into a tub of water it would turn into a
snake in the course of a few days. That did not seem to me so very much
stranger than it was that an egg should turn into a chicken. What can I
say to that? Only that it is the Lord's doings, and marvellous in my
eyes; and if our philosophical friend should find some little live
creatures, or what seem to be live creatures, in any of his messes, I
should say as much, and no more. You do not think I would shut up my
Bible and Prayer-Book because there is one more thing I do not understand
in a world where I understand so very little of all the wonders that
surround me?
It may be very wrong to pay any attention to those speculations about the
origin of mankind which seem to conflict with the Sacred Record. But
perhaps there is some way of reconciling them, as there is of making the
seven days of creation harmonize with modern geology. At least, these
speculations are curious enough in themselves; and I have seen so many
good and handsome children come of parents who were anything but virtuous
and comely, that I can believe in almost any amount of improvement taking
place in a tribe of living beings, if time and opportunity favor it.


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