ver had round her--and why not?--for I have always been half in love
with him.

Well, this you will say is trifling--shall I talk about alum or soap?
There is nothing picturesque in your present pursuits; my imagination
then rather chuses to ramble back to the barrier with you, or to see you
coming to meet me, and my basket of grapes.--With what pleasure do I
recollect your looks and words, when I have been sitting on the window,
regarding the waving corn!

Believe me, sage sir, you have not sufficient respect for the
imagination--I could prove to you in a trice that it is the mother of
sentiment, the great distinction of our nature, the only purifier of the
passions--animals have a portion of reason, and equal, if not more
exquisite, senses; but no trace of imagination, or her offspring taste,
appears in any of their actions. The impulse of the senses, passions, if
you will, and the conclusions of reason, draw men together; but the
imagination is the true fire, stolen from heaven, to animate this cold
creature of clay, producing all those fine sympathies that lead to
rapture, rendering men social by expanding their hearts, instead of
leaving them leisure to calculate how many comforts society affords.

If you call these observations romantic, a phrase in this place which
would be tantamount to nonsensical, I shall be apt to retort, that you
are embruted by trade, and the vulgar enjoyments of life--Bring me then
back your barrier-face, or you shall have nothing to say to my
barrier-girl; and I shall fly from you, to cherish the remembrances that
will ever be dear to me; for I am yours truly

* * * *

* * * * *

LETTER XXIV.

Evening, Sept. 23.

I HAVE been playing and laughing with the little girl so long, that I
cannot take up my pen to address you without emotion. Pressing her to my
bosom, she looked so like you (_entre nous_, your best looks, for I do
not admire your commercial face) every nerve seemed to vibrate to the
touch, and I began to think that there was something in the assertion of
man and wife being one--for you seemed to pervade my whole frame,
quickening the beat of my heart, and lending me the sympathetic tears you
excited.

Have I any thing more to say to you? No; not for the present--the rest is
all flown away; and, indulging tenderness for you, I cannot now complain
of some people here, who have ruffled my temper for two or three days
past.

*