should prompt good thoughts and remind him of Nature's
unconcern: that he can watch from day to day, as he trots
officeward, how the Spring green brightens in the wood or
the field grows black under a moving ploughshare. I have
been tempted, in this connexion, to deplore the slender
faculties of the human race, with its penny-whistle of a
voice, its dull cars, and its narrow range of sight. If
you could see as people are to see in heaven, if you had
eyes such as you can fancy for a superior race, if you
could take clear note of the objects of vision, not only
a few yards, but a few miles from where you stand:- think
how agreeably your sight would be entertained, how
pleasantly your thoughts would be diversified, as you
walked the Edinburgh streets! For you might pause, in
some business perplexity, in the midst of the city
traffic, and perhaps catch the eye of a shepherd as he
sat down to breathe upon a heathery shoulder of the
Pentlands; or perhaps some urchin, clambering in a
country elm, would put aside the leaves and show you his
flushed and rustic visage; or a fisher racing seawards,
with the tiller under his elbow, and the sail sounding in
the wind, would fling you a salutation from between
Anst'er and the May.

To be old is not the same thing as to be
picturesque; nor because the Old Town bears a strange
physiognomy, does it at all follow that the New Town
shall look commonplace. Indeed, apart from antique
houses, it is curious how much description would apply
commonly to either. The same sudden accidents of ground,