invisible round man and woman,
witnessing their deeds, searching into their hearts, borrowing
brightness from their felicity and shade from their sorrow, and
retaining no emotion peculiar to himself. But none of these things are
possible; and if I would know the interior of brick walls or the
mystery of human bosoms, I can but guess.

Yonder is a fair street extending north and south. The stately
mansions are placed each on its carpet of verdant grass, and a long
flight of steps descends from every door to the pavement. Ornamental
trees--the broadleafed horse-chestnut, the elm so lofty and bending,
the graceful but infrequent willow, and others whereof I know not the
names--grow thrivingly among brick and stone. The oblique rays of the
sun are intercepted by these green citizens and by the houses, so that
one side of the street is a shaded and pleasant walk. On its whole
extent there is now but a single passenger, advancing from the upper
end, and he, unless distance and the medium of a pocket spyglass do
him more than justice, is a fine young man of twenty. He saunters
slowly forward, slapping his left hand with his folded gloves, bending
his eyes upon the pavement, and sometimes raising them to throw a
glance before him. Certainly he has a pensive air. Is he in doubt or
in debt? Is he--if the question be allowable--in love? Does he strive
to be melancholy and gentlemanlike, or is he merely overcome by the
heat? But I bid him farewell for the present. The door of one of the
houses--an aristocratic edifice with curtains of purple and gold
waving from the windows--is now opened, and down the steps come two
ladies swinging their parasols and lightly arrayed for a summer
ramble. Both are young, both are pretty; but methinks the left-hand
lass is the fairer of the twain, and, though she be so serious at this
moment, I could swear that there is a treasure of gentle fun within
her. They stand talking a little while upon the steps, and finally
proceed up the street. Meantime, as their faces are now turned from
me, I may look elsewhere.

Upon that wharf and down the corresponding street is a busy contrast
to the quiet scene which I have just noticed. Business evidently has
its centre there, and many a man is wasting the summer afternoon in
labor and anxiety, in losing riches or in gaining them, when he would
be wiser to flee away to some pleasant country village or shaded lake
in the forest or wild and cool sea-beach. I see v