mall
means! The climate healthy and cool; no mosquitoes; a choice among seven
beauties, perhaps the reversion of the remaining six, if Isaiah can be
relied upon. In our regions, a thing of beauty is an expense for life;
but with a house for three hundred dollars, and bluefish at a cent and a
half a pound, there is no need any more to think of high prices and the
expense of bringing up a family. If the origin of evil was, that
Providence did not create money enough, here it is in some sort
Paradise."

"That's Heine," said I; "but Heine forgot to add, that one of the
Devil's most dangerous tricks is to pretend to supply this sinful want
by his cunning device of inconvertible paper money, which lures men to
destruction and something worse."

Our holiday was nearly over. We packed up our new sensations, and
steamed away to piles of goods and columns of figures. Town and steeples
vanished in the haze, like the domes and minarets of the enchanted isle
of Borondon. Was not this as near to an enchanted island as one could
hope to find within twenty-five miles of New England? Nantucket is the
gem of the ocean without the Irish, which I think is an improvement.

THE SNOW-WALKERS.

He who marvels at the beauty of the world in summer will find equal
cause for wonder and admiration in winter. It is true the pomp and the
pageantry are swept away, but the essential elements remain,--the day
and the night, the mountain and the valley, the elemental play and
succession and the perpetual presence of the infinite sky. In winter the
stars seem to have rekindled their fires, the moon achieves a fuller
triumph, and the heavens wear a look of a more exalted simplicity.
Summer is more wooing and seductive, more versatile and human, appeals
to the affections and the sentiments, and fosters inquiry and the art
impulse. Winter is of a more heroic cast, and addresses the intellect.
The severe studies and disciplines come easier in winter. One imposes
larger tasks upon himself, and is less tolerant of his own weaknesses.

The tendinous part of the mind, so to speak, is more developed in
winter; the fleshy, in summer. I should say winter had given the bone
and sinew to Literature, summer the tissues and blood.

The simplicity of winter has a deep moral. The return of Nature, after
such a career of splendor and prodigality, to habits so simple and
austere, is not lost either upon the head or the heart. It is the
philosopher coming back