life and death, the market-place, and close at hand the burial-ground.
Talk of contemplation in the wild solitudes of the country, how much
more is there room for contemplation in the crowded mart and the
bustling thoroughfare! Where is the river whose current is so rapid as
the current of life, or at time so dangerous and treacherous? Where
is the tide whose ebb and flow is so uncertain as the ebb and flow of
existence? Where are to be found winds and waves more boisterous than
those which agitate the human heart? Where is the shore so strewn with
wrecks as the heart with the broken memorials of passion which may
have long since swept over it? If Nature in its solitude affords
calm enjoyment, in its human development it affords matter for deeper
thought; if the view from the mountain-top, extending over hill
and dale, expand the mind, to stand above the wild tumult of a town
equally exalts the imagination and conveys knowledge, even while it
compels the gazer to pass out of himself.

As they approached a coffee-house on the same side of the street as
the Dom, Marguerite proposed to Dumiger to remain there, where they
could best see the dancing, and she drew a chair toward her.

"No, no, not here!" exclaimed Dumiger; and he took her across the
square to another house of greater reputation.

But it was not on this account that Dumiger preferred it, but because
it had a view of the Dom; he could there contemplate the space which
was left for the clock, of which he fondly believed he was making the
model. He pictured to himself that tower, the wonder and admiration
of the town; that on the spot where he was then sitting numbers would
crowd to view the wonderful machinery fashioned by his genius.