ing into the
ditch,--

"He bears no tokens of the sabler streams,
But soars far off among the swans of Thames."

Pleasant people of this kind of constitution you see going about of a
morning rather in dishabille--hair uncombed haply--face and hands even
unwashed--and shirt with a somewhat day-before-yesterdayish hue. Yet are
they, so far from being dirty, at once felt, seen, and smelt, to be
among the very cleanest of her Majesty's subjects. The moment you shake
hands with them, you feel in the firm flesh of palm and finger that
their heart's-blood circulates purely and freely from the point of the
highest hair on the apex of the pericranium, to the edge of the nail on
the large toe of the right foot. Their eyes are as clear as unclouded
skies--the apples on their cheeks are like those on the tree--what need,
in either case, of rubbing off dust or dew with a towel? What though,
from sleeping without a nightcap, their hair may be a little toozy? It
is not dim--dull--oily--like half-withered sea-weeds! It will soon comb
itself with the fingers of the west wind--that tent-like tree its
toilette--its mirror that pool of the clear-flowing Tweed.

Some streams, just like some men, are always dirty--you cannot possibly
tell why--unproducible to good pic-nic society either in dry or wet
weather. In dry, the oozy wretches are weeping among the slippery weeds,
infested with eels and powheads. In wet, they are like so many
common-sewers, strewn with dead cats and broken crockery, and
threatening with their fierce fulzie to pollute the sea. The sweet,
soft, pure rains, soon as they touch the flood are changed into filth.
The sun sees his face in one of the pools, and is terrified out of his
senses. He shines no more that day. The clouds have no notion of being
caricatured, and the trees keep cautiously away from the brink of such
streams--save, perchance, now and then, here and there, a weak
well-meaning willow--a thing of shreds and patches--its leafless wands
covered with bits of old worsted stockings, crowns of hats, a bauchle
(see Dr Jamieson), and the remains of a pair of corduroy breeches, long
hereditary in the family of the Blood-Royal of the Yetholm Gypsies.

Some streams, just like some men, are always clean--you cannot well tell
why--producible to good pic-nic society either in dry or wet weather. In
dry, the pearly waters are singing among the freshened flowers--so that
the trout, if he chooses, may breakfas