leaves upon the busy countenances of men, as you may
in some of our eastern cities, and in most of our villages all over
the country, where the trees and the houses, and the boys and the
girls have grown up together, playfellows from the
beginning--playfellows with every thing that lives and breathes in the
neighborhood; or if you will but stand where you are, and look up into
the blue sky, and watch the clouds that are _now_ drifting, as before
a strong wind, over the driest and busiest thoroughfares of your
crowded city; changing from shadow to sunshine, and from sunshine to
shadow, every uplifted countenance over which they pass, you will
find yourself at the very next breath a wiser, a better, and a happier
man. You will undergo a transfiguration upon the spot? You will see a
mighty angel sitting in the sun. You will hear the rush of wings
overshadowing the whole firmament. And, take my word for it, you will
be _so_ much better satisfied with yourself! But mind though--never do
this in company.

Beware lest you are caught in the fact. They will set you down for a
lunatic, a contributor to the magazines, or a star-gazer--if you
permit them to believe that you can see a single hairsbreadth beyond
your nose, or a single inch further by lifting your eyes to Heaven
than by fixing them steadfastly upon the earth. One might as well be
overheard talking to himself; or be caught peeping into a letter just
handed him by a sweet girl he has been dying to flirt with; but, for
reasons best known to himself--and his wife--durst not, although
perfectly satisfied in his own mind, from her way of looking at him,
when she handed him the letter, that she would give the world to have
him see it without her knowledge; and that either she did not know he
was a married man--or was willing to overlook that objection.

Tut, tut! my boy--you will never coax me into the trap, though I admit
your cleverness, by contriving to let me understand, as it were by
chance, what are regarded everywhere as the privileges of the married.

Permit me to finish, will you?

With all my heart!

But pleasant as all these things are--the green fields and the blue
sky, the ripple of bright water, and the changeable glories of a
landscape in mid-summer; or the upturned countenances of men, looking
for signs in the heavens, when they have ships at sea--or wives and
children getting ready for a drive--or new hats and no umbrellas--or
houses afire, which may n