morally and physically, were detached from its old standfasts and
set in rapid motion. And, in the midst of this terrible activity,
there sits the old man of gingerbread, so subdued, so hopeless, so
without a stake in life, and yet not positively miserable,--there
he sits, the forlorn old creature, one chill and sombre day after
another, gathering scanty coppers for his cakes, apples, and.
candy,--there sits the old apple-dealer, in his threadbare suit of
snuff-color and gray and his grizzly stubble heard. See! he folds
his lean arms around his lean figure with that quiet sigh and that
scarcely perceptible shiver which are the tokens of his inward
state. I have him now. He and the steam fiend are each other's
antipodes; the latter is the type of all that go ahead, and the old
man the representative of that melancholy class who by some sad
witchcraft are doomed never to share in the world's exulting
progress. Thus the contrast between mankind and this desolate
brother becomes picturesque, and even sublime.

And now farewell, old friend! Little do you suspect that a student
of human life has made your character the theme of more than one
solitary and thoughtful hour. Many would say that you have hardly
individuality enough to be the object of your own self-love. How,
then, can a stranger's eye detect anything in your mind and heart to
study and to wonder at? Yet, could I read but a tithe of what is
written there, it would be a volume of deeper and more comprehensive
import than all that the wisest mortals have given to the world; for
the soundless depths of the human soul and of eternity have an
opening through your breast. God be praised, were it only for your
sake, that the present shapes of human existence are not cast in
iron nor hewn in everlasting adamant, but moulded of the vapors that
vanish away while the essence flits upward to the infinite. There