and unanswerable arguments in proof of the Immortality of the
Soul.

The whole world is improving; nor can there be a pleasanter proof of
that than this very wayside inn--ycleped the SALUTATION. What a
miserable pot-house it was long ago, with a rusty-hinged door, that
would neither open nor shut--neither let you out nor in--immovable and
intractable to foot or hand--or all at once, when you least expected it
to yield, slamming to with a bang; a constant puddle in front during
rainy weather, and heaped up dust in dry--roof partly thatched, partly
slated, partly tiled, and partly open to the elements, with its naked
rafters. Broken windows repaired with an old petticoat, or a still older
pair of breeches, and walls that had always been plastered and better
plastered and worse plastered, in frosty weather--all labour in vain, as
crumbling patches told, and variegated streaks, and stains of dismal
ochre, meanest of all colours, and still symptomatic of want,
mismanagement, bankruptcy, and perpetual flittings from a tenement that
was never known to have paid any rent. Then what a pair of drunkards
were old Saunders and his spouse! Yet never once were they seen drunk on
a Sabbath or a fast-day--regular kirk-goers, and attentive observers of
ordinances. They had not very many children, yet, pass the door when you
might, you were sure to hear a squall or a shriek, or the ban of the
mother, or the smacking of the palm of the hand on the part of the enemy
easiest of access; or you saw one of the ragged fiends pursued by a
parent round the corner, and brought back by the hair of the head till
its eyes were like those of a Chinese. Now, what decency--what
neatness--what order--in this household--this private public! into which
customers step like neighbours on a visit, and are served with a
heartiness and goodwill that deserve the name of hospitality, for they
are gratuitous, and can only be repaid in kind. A limited prospect does
that latticed window command--and the small panes cut objects into too
many parts--little more than the breadth of the turnpike road, and a
hundred yards of the same, to the north and to the south, with a few
budding hedgerows, half-a-dozen trees, and some green braes. Yet could
we sit and moralise, and intellectualise, for hours at this window, nor
hear the striking clock.

There trips by a blooming maiden of middle degree, all alone--the more's
the pity--yet perfectly happy in her own society, and one