stoops each night,
Gilding the mountain with her brother's light,
To kiss her sweetest."----

Faithful Shepherdess.

Had I words and images at command like these, I would attempt to wake
the thoughts that lie slumbering on golden ridges in the evening
clouds: but at the sight of nature my fancy, poor as it is, droops and
closes up its leaves, like flowers at sunset. I can make nothing out
on the spot:--I must have time to collect myself.--

In general, a good thing spoils out-of-door prospects: it should be
reserved for Table-talk. L---- is for this reason, I take it, the
worst company in the world out of doors; because he is the best
within. I grant, there is one subject on which it is pleasant to talk
on a journey; and that is, what one shall have for supper when we get
to our inn at night. The open air improves this sort of conversation
or friendly altercation, by setting a keener edge on appetite. Every
mile of the road heightens the flavour of the viands we expect at the
end of it. How fine it is to enter some old town, walled and turreted
just at the approach of night-fall, or to come to some straggling
village, with the lights streaming through the surrounding gloom; and
then after inquiring for the best entertainment that the place
affords, to "take one's ease at one's inn!" These eventful moments in
our lives' history are too precious, too full of solid, heart-felt
happiness to be frittered and dribbled away in imperfect sympathy. I
would have them all to myself, and drain them to the last drop: they
will do to talk of or to write about afterwards. What a delicate
speculation it is, after drinking whole goblets of tea,

"The cups that cheer, but not inebriate,"

and letting the fumes ascend into the brain, to sit considering what
we shall have for supper--eggs and a rasher, a rabbit smothered in
onions, or an excellent veal-cutlet! Sancho in such a situation once
fixed upon cow-heel; and his choice, though he could not help it, is
not to be disparaged. Then in the intervals of pictured scenery and
Shandean contemplation, to catch the preparation and the stir in the
kitchen--_Procul, O procul este profani!_ These hours are sacred to
silence and to musing, to be treasured up in the memory, and to feed
the source of smiling thoughts hereafter. I would not waste them in
idle talk; or if I must have the integrity of fancy broken in upon, I
would rather it were by a stranger than a friend. A st