f till after dinner, that I might loiter longer
and with more luxurious indolence over it, and connect it with the
thoughts of my next day's labours.

The dustman's-bell, with its heavy, monotonous noise, and the brisk,
lively tinkle of the muffin-bell, have something in them, but not much.
They will bear dilating upon with the utmost license of inventive prose.
All things are not alike _conductors_ to the imagination. A learned
Scotch professor found fault with an ingenious friend and arch-critic
for cultivating a rookery on his grounds: the professor declared
"he would as soon think of encouraging a _froggery_." This was
barbarous as it was senseless. Strange that a country that has produced
the Scotch Novels and Gertrude of Wyoming should want sentiment!

The postman's double-knock at the door the next morning is "more
germain to the matter." How that knock often goes to the heart!
We distinguish to a nicety the arrival of the Two-penny or the General
Post. The summons of the latter is louder and heavier, as bringing
news from a greater distance, and as, the longer it has been delayed,
fraught with a deeper interest. We catch the sound of what is to be
paid--eightpence, ninepence, a shilling--and our hopes generally rise
with the postage. How we are provoked at the delay in getting change--at
the servant who does not hear the door! Then if the postman passes, and
we do not hear the expected knock, what a pang is there! It is like the
silence of death--of hope! We think he does it on purpose, and enjoys
all the misery of our suspense. I have sometimes walked out to see the
Mail-Coach pass, by which I had sent a letter, or to meet it when I
expected one. I never see a Mail-Coach, for this reason, but I look
at it as the bearer of glad tidings--the messenger of fate. I have
reason to say so.--The finest sight in the metropolis is that of the
Mail-Coaches setting off from Piccadilly. The horses paw the ground, and
are impatient to be gone, as if conscious of the precious burden they
convey. There is a peculiar secresy and despatch, significant and full
of meaning, in all the proceedings concerning them. Even the outside
passengers have an erect and supercilious air, as if proof against the
accidents of the journey. In fact, it seems indifferent whether they are
to encounter the summer's heat or winter's cold, since they are borne
through the air in a winged chariot. The Mail-Carts drive up; the
transfer of packages is m