efore my guests, and to have been brought up
in the family.

But I am wandering, and neglecting the true vein of sentiment which
so abounds in my heart. All my pleasure is still in mournful
contemplation, but I have learned that the feelings are most refined
when freed from low cares and personal discomforts. I was going to
cite a letter I wrote to my oldest friend, the baron of Hohenfels. It
was sketched out first in verse, but in that form was a failure:

* * * * *

"15th MARCH.

"The snow-white clouds beyond my window are piled up like Alps. The
shades of B. Franklin and W. Tell seem to walk together on those
Elysian Fields; for it was here (or sufficiently nigh for the purpose)
that in days gone by our pure patriot dwelt and flirted with Madame
Helvetius; and yonder clouds so much resemble the snowy Alps that they
remind me irresistibly of the Swiss. Noble examples of a high purpose
and a fixed will! Do B. and W. not move, Hyperion-like, on high? Were
_they_ not, likewise, sons of Heaven and Earth?

[Illustration]

"I wish I knew the man who called flowers 'the fugitive poetry of
Nature.' That was a sweet carol, which I think I have quoted to you,
sung by the Rhodian children of old in spring, bearing in their hands
a swallow, and chanting 'The swallow is come,' with some other
lines, which I have forgotten. A pretty carol is that, too, which the
Hungarian boys, on the islands of the Danube, sing to the returning
stork in spring, what time it builds its nests in the chimneys and
gracefully diverts the draft of smoke into the interior. What a
thrill of delight in spring-time! What a joy in being and moving!
Some housekeepers might object to that, and say that there was but
imperfect joy in moving; but I am about to propose to you, as soon as
I have taken a little more string, a plan of removal that will suit
both us and the season. My friend, the time of storms is flying
before the pretty child called April, who pursues it with his blooming
thyrsus. Breathing scent upon the air, he has already awakened some
of the trees on the boulevards, and the white locust-blossoms in the
garden of Rossini are beginning to hang out their bunches to attract
the nightingales. He calls to the swallows, and they arrive in clouds.

"He knocks at the hard envelope of the chrysalis, which accordingly
prepares to take its chance for a precarious met