we would enjoy the flower.

Four o'clock.--The clouds that have been gathering in the horizon for a
long time are become darker; it thunders loudly, and the rain pours down!
Those who are caught in it fly in every direction, some laughing and some
crying.

I always find particular amusement in these helter-skelters, caused by a
sudden storm. It seems as if each one, when thus taken by surprise, loses
the factitious character that the world or habit has given him, and
appears in his true colors.

See, for example, that big man with deliberate step, who suddenly forgets
his indifference, made to order, and runs like a schoolboy! He is a
thrifty city gentleman, who, with all his fashionable airs, is afraid to
spoil his hat.

That pretty woman yonder, on the contrary, whose looks are so modest, and
whose dress is so elaborate, slackens her pace with the increasing storm.
She seems to find pleasure in braving it, and does not think of her
velvet cloak spotted by the hail! She is evidently a lioness in sheep's
clothing.

Here, a young man, who was passing, stops to catch some of the hailstones
in his hand, and examines them. By his quick and business-like walk just
now, you would have taken him for a tax-gatherer on his rounds, when he
is a young philosopher, studying the effects of electricity. And those
schoolboys who leave their ranks to run after the sudden gusts of a March
whirlwind; those girls, just now so demure, but who now fly with bursts
of laughter; those national guards, who quit the martial attitude of
their days of duty to take refuge under a porch! The storm has caused all
these transformations.

See, it increases! The hardiest are obliged to seek shelter. I see every
one rushing toward the shop in front of my window, which a bill announces
is to let. It is for the fourth time within a few months. A year ago all
the skill of the joiner and the art of the painter were employed in
beautifying it, but their works are already destroyed by the leaving of
so many tenants; the cornices of the front are disfigured by mud; the
arabesques on the doorway are spoiled by bills posted upon them to
announce the sale of the effects. The splendid shop has lost some of its
embellishments with each change of the tenant. See it now empty, and left
open to the passersby. How much does its fate resemble that of so many
who, like it, only change their occupation to hasten the faster to ruin!

I am struck by this last reflect