ocean or another plain upon the farther side. In the
infinite universe there is room for our swiftest diligence
and to spare. It is not like the works of Carlyle, which
can be read to an end. Even in a corner of it, in a
private park, or in the neighbourhood of a single hamlet,
the weather and the seasons keep so deftly changing that
although we walk there for a lifetime there will be always
something to startle and delight us.

*

It is in virtue of his own desires and curiosities that any
man continues to exist with even patience, that he is
charmed by the look of things and people, and that he
wakens every morning with a renewed appetite for work and
pleasure. Desire and curiosity are the two eyes through
which he sees the world in the most enchanted colours: it
is they that make women beautiful or fossils interesting:
and the man may squander his estate and come to beggary,
but if he keeps these two amulets he is still rich in the
possibilities of pleasure.

*

To look on the happy side of nature is common, in their
hours, to all created things. Some are vocal under a good
influence, are pleasing whenever they are pleased, and hand
on their happiness to others, as a child who, looking upon
lovely things, looks lovely. Some leap to the strains with
unapt foot, and make a halting figure in the universal