strewn with dust; their
whiskers and hair look hoary; their throats are choked with the dusty
atmosphere which they have left behind them. No air is stirring on the
road. Nature dares draw no breath lest she should inhale a stifling
cloud of dust. "A hot and dusty day!" cry the poor pilgrims as they
wipe their begrimed foreheads and woo the doubtful breeze which the
river bears along with it.--"Awful hot! Dreadful dusty!" answers the
sympathetic toll-gatherer. They start again to pass through the fiery
furnace, while he re-enters his cool hermitage and besprinkles it with
a pail of briny water from the stream beneath. He thinks within
himself that the sun is not so fierce here as elsewhere, and that the
gentle air doth not forget him in these sultry days. Yes, old friend,
and a quiet heart will make a dog-day temperate. He hears a weary
footstep, and perceives a traveller with pack and staff, who sits down
upon the hospitable bench and removes the hat from his wet brow. The
toll-gatherer administers a cup of cold water, and, discovering his
guest to be a man of homely sense, he engages him in profitable talk,
uttering the maxims of a philosophy which he has found in his own
soul, but knows not how it came there. And as the wayfarer makes ready
to resume his journey he tells him a sovereign remedy for blistered
feet.

Now comes the noontide hour--of all the hours, nearest akin to
midnight, for each has its own calmness and repose. Soon, however, the
world begins to turn again upon its axis, and it seems the busiest
epoch of the day, when an accident impedes the march of sublunary
things. The draw being lifted to permit the passage of a schooner
laden with wood from the Eastern forests, she sticks immovably right
athwart the bridge. Meanwhile, on both sides of the chasm a throng of
impatient travellers fret and fume. Here are two sailors in a gig with
the top thrown back, both puffing cigars and swearing all sorts of
forecastle oaths; there, in a smart chaise, a dashingly-dressed
gentleman and lady, he from a tailor's shop-board and she from a
milliner's back room--the aristocrats of a summer afternoon. And what
are the haughtiest of us but the ephemeral aristocrats of a summer's
day? Here is a tin-pedler whose glittering ware bedazzles all
beholders like a travelling meteor or opposition sun, and on the other
side a seller of spruce beer, which brisk liquor is confined in
several dozen of stone bottles. Here conic a par