carelessness and content with a certain degree of envy. It is not
necessary to go among brutes for instances of this animal content.
It can be found among men. Who does not know good-natured,
ignorant, healthy fellows, who will work all day in the field,
whistle all the way homeward, eat hugely of course food, sleep
like logs, and take no more interest in the great questions which
agitate the most of us, than the pigs they feed, and that, in
return, feed them? Who has not sighed, as he has seen how easily
the simple wants of certain simple natures are supplied? I
remember an old man who quite unexpectedly was drafted into the
grand jury, which sat in the county town less than ten miles
distant from his home; and this was the great event of his life.
He never tired of talking about it--(never tired himself, I mean,)
and a stranger could not carry on a conversation with him for five
minutes, without hearing of something which occurred when
"I was in Blanktown, on the Grand Jury." It is doubtful whether
Napoleon ever contemplated a victory with the complacent
satisfaction that filled my old friend when he alluded to his
connection with "the _grand_ jury," and emphasized the adjective
which magnified the jury and glorified him.

I confess that, when I pass through a rural town, and see the
laborers among the corn, and the boys driving their cattle, and
the girls busy in the dairies, and life passing away quietly, I
cannot avoid a twinge of regret that it would be impossible for me
to be content with the kind of life that I see around me,
especially as I know that there is one kind of pleasure--negative,
perhaps, rather than positive--which that kind of life enjoys, and
in which I can never share. Relief from great responsibilities,
and contentment with humble clothing, humble fare, humble society,