rters
backwarder still; and, stretching still beyond, in old formality,
thy firry wilderness, the haunt of the squirrel, and the day-long
murmuring woodpigeon, with that antique image in the centre, God or
Goddess I wist not; but child of Athens or old Rome paid never a
sincerer worship to Pan or to Sylvanus in their native groves, than I
to that fragmental mystery.

Was it for this, that I kissed my childish hands too fervently in your
idol worship, walks and windings of BLAKESMOOR! for this, or what sin
of mine, has the plough passed over your pleasant places? I sometimes
think that as men, when they die, do not die all, so of their
extinguished habitations there may be a hope--a germ to be revivified.

POOR RELATIONS

A poor relation--is the most irrelevant thing in nature,--a piece of
impertinent correspondency,--an odious approximation,--a haunting
conscience,--a preposterous shadow, lengthening in the noontide of
your prosperity,--an unwelcome remembrancer,--a perpetually recurring
mortification,--a drain on your purse,--a more intolerable dun upon
your pride,--a drawback upon success,--a rebuke to your rising,--a
stain in your blood,--a blot on your scutcheon,--a rent in your
garment,--a death's head at your banquet,--Agathocles' pot,--a
Mordecai in your gate,--a Lazarus at your door,--a lion in your
path,--a frog in your chamber,--a fly in your ointment,--a mote in
your eye,--a triumph to your enemy, an apology to your friends,--the
one thing not needful,--the hail in harvest,--the ounce of sour in a
pound of sweet.

He is known by his knock. Your heart telleth you "That is Mr.
----." A rap, between familiarity and respect; that demands, and,
at the same time, seems to despair of, entertainment. He entereth
smiling, and--embarrassed. He holdeth out his hand to you to shake,
and--draweth it back again. He casually looketh in about dinner
time--when the table is full. He offereth to go away, seeing you
have company--but is induced to stay. He filleth a chair, and your
visitor's two children are accommodated at a side table. He never
cometh upon open days, when your wife says with some complacency,
"My dear, perhaps Mr. ---- will drop in to-day." He remembereth
birth-days--and professeth he is fortunate to have stumbled upon one.
He declareth against fish, the turbot being small--yet suffereth
himself to be importuned into a slice against his first resolution.
He sticketh by the port--yet will be prev