l, and
the tombstone here tells me to reflect with dread--a much finer
expression by-the-bye than reflect with anxious mind, as I have got
it--that in a very little time I must die, and lie in the ground till I
am called to judgment. Now, which is most right, the tombstone or the
publican? Why, I should say the tombstone decidedly. The publican is
too sweeping when he tells you to think of your pint and pipe and nothing
else. A pint and pipe are good things. I don't smoke myself, but I
daresay a pipe is a good thing for them who like it, but there are
certainly things worth being thought of in this world besides a pint and
pipe--hills and dales, woods and rivers, for example--death and judgment
too are worthy now and then of very serious thought. So it won't do to
go with the publican the whole hog. But with respect to the tombstone,
it is quite safe and right to go with it its whole length. It tells you
to think of death and judgment--and assuredly we ought to of them. It
does not, however, tell you to think of nothing but death and judgment
and to eschew every innocent pleasure within your reach. If it did it
would be a tombstone quite as sweeping in what it says as the publican,
who tells you to think of your pint and pipe and let everything else go
to the devil. The wisest course evidently is to blend the whole of the
philosophy of the tombstone with a portion of the philosophy of the
publican and something more, to enjoy one's pint and pipe and other
innocent pleasures, and to think every now and then of death and
judgment--that is what I intend to do, and indeed is what I have done for
the last thirty years."

I went on--desolate hills rose in the east, the way I was going, but on
the south were beautiful hillocks adorned with trees and hedge-rows. I
was soon amongst the desolate hills, which then looked more desolate than
they did at a distance. They were of a wretched russet colour, and
exhibited no other signs of life and cultivation than here and there a
miserable field and vile-looking hovel; and if there was here nothing to
cheer the eye there was also nothing to cheer the ear. There were no
songs of birds, no voices of rills; the only sound I heard was the lowing
of a wretched bullock from a far-off slope.

I went on slowly and heavily; at length I got to the top of this wretched
range--then what a sudden change! Beautiful hills in the far east, a
fair valley below me, and groves and woods o