ot happen to be over-insured--a pleasanter
thing by far it is to sit by the same window, when the summer is over,
and the clouds have lost their transparency, and go wandering heavily
athwart the sky, and the green leaves are no more, and the songs of
the water are changed, and the very birds have departed, and watch by
the hour together whatever may happen to be overlooked by all the rest
of the world; the bushels of dry leaves that eddy and whirl about your
large empty squares, or huddle together in heaps at every sheltered
corner, as if to get away from the wind; the changed livery of the
shops--the golden tissues of summer, the delicately-tinted shawls, and
gossamer ribbons, and flaunting muslins, woven of nobody knows
what--whether of "mist and moonlight mingling fitfully," or of sunset
shadows overshot with gold, giving way to gorgeous velvet, and fur,
and sumptuous drapery glowing and burning with the tints of autumn,
and, like distant fires seen through a fall of snow in mid-winter,
full of comfort and warmth; and all the other preparations of
double-windows and heavy curtains, and newly invented stoves, that
find their own fuel for the season and leave something for next year;
and porticoes that come and go with the cold weather, blocking up
your path and besetting your eyes at every turn, with signs and hints
of "dreadful preparation."

Go to the window, if you are troubled in spirit; if the wind is the
wrong way; if you have been jilted or hen-pecked--no matter which--or
if you find yourself growing poorer every hour, and all your wisest
plans, and best-considered projects for getting rich in a hurry turned
topsy-turvy by a change in the market-value of bubbles warranted never
to burst; or if you have a note to pay for a man you never saw but
once in your life, and hope never to see again--to the window with
you! and lean back in your chair with a disposition to be pleased, and
watch the different systems of progression--or, in plain English, the
_walk_ of the people going by. A single quarter of an hour so spent
will put you in spirits for the day, and furnish you with materials
for thought, which, well-husbanded, may last you for a twelvemonth;
yea, abide with you for life, like that wisdom which is better than
fine gold, and more precious than rubies.

Well, you have taken my advice; you are at the window. Now catch up
your pen and describe what you see, _as you see it;_ or take your
pencil if you are go