am reminded that the mechanics and shopkeepers stay in their
shops not only all the forenoon, but all the afternoon too,
sitting with crossed legs, so many of them--as if the legs were
made to sit upon, and not to stand or walk upon--I think that
they deserve some credit for not having all committed suicide
long ago.

I, who cannot stay in my chamber for a single day without
acquiring some rust, and when sometimes I have stolen forth for a
walk at the eleventh hour, or four o'clock in the afternoon, too
late to redeem the day, when the shades of night were already
beginning to be mingled with the daylight, have felt as if I had
committed some sin to be atoned for,--I confess that I am
astonished at the power of endurance, to say nothing of the moral
insensibility, of my neighbors who confine themselves to shops
and offices the whole day for weeks and months, aye, and years
almost together. I know not what manner of stuff they are
of--sitting there now at three o'clock in the afternoon, as if it
were three o'clock in the morning. Bonaparte may talk of the
three-o'clock-in-the-morning courage, but it is nothing to the
courage which can sit down cheerfully at this hour in the
afternoon over against one's self whom you have known all the
morning, to starve out a garrison to whom you are bound by such
strong ties of sympathy. I wonder that about this time, or say
between four and five o'clock in the afternoon, too late for the
morning papers and too early for the evening ones, there is not a
general explosion heard up and down the street, scattering a
legion of antiquated and house-bred notions and whims to the four
winds for an airing-and so the evil cure itself.