s said, of the old stock; and then I thought what strange people the
gypsies must have been in the old time. They were sufficiently strange at
present, but they must have been far stranger of old; they must have been
a more peculiar people--their language must have been more perfect--and
they must have had a greater stock of strange secrets. I almost wished
that I had lived some two or three hundred years ago, that I might have
observed these people when they were yet stranger than at present. I
wondered whether I could have introduced myself to their company at that
period, whether I should have been so fortunate as to meet such a
strange, half-malicious, half good-humoured being as Jasper, who would
have instructed me in the language, then more deserving of note than at
present. What might I not have done with that language, had I known it
in its purity? Why, I might have written books in it; yet those who
spoke it would hardly have admitted me to their society at that period,
when they kept more to themselves. Yet I thought that I might possibly
have gained their confidence, and have wandered about with them, and
learned their language, and all their strange ways, and then--and
then--and a sigh rose from the depth of my breast; for I began to think,
"Supposing I had accomplished all this, what would have been the profit
of it? and in what would all this wild gypsy dream have terminated?"

Then rose another sigh, yet more profound, for I began to think, "What
was likely to be the profit of my present way of life; the living in
dingles, making pony and donkey shoes, conversing with gypsy-women under
hedges, and extracting from them their odd secrets?" What was likely to
be the profit of such a kind of life, even should it continue for a
length of time?--a supposition not very probable, for I was earning
nothing to support me, and the funds with which I had entered upon this
life were gradually disappearing. I was living, it is true, not
unpleasantly, enjoying the healthy air of heaven; but, upon the whole,
was I not sadly misspending my time? Surely I was; and, as I looked
back, it appeared to me that I had always been doing so. What had been
the profit of the tongues which I had learned? had they ever assisted me
in the day of hunger? No, no! it appeared to me that I had always
misspent my time, save in one instance, when by a desperate effort I had
collected all the powers of my imagination, and written the "