Have you ever, my gentle reader, buried yourself for some time quietly in
the lazy ease of a dull country-life? Have you ever become gradually
accustomed to its monotony, and inured to its solitude; and, just at the
time when you have half-forgotten the great world--that _mare magnum_
that frets and roars in the distance--have you ever received in your calm
retreat some visitor, full of the busy and excited life which you
imagined yourself contented to relinquish? If so, have you not
perceived, that, in proportion as his presence and communication either
revived old memories, or brought before you new pictures of "the bright
tumult" of that existence of which your guest made a part,--you began to
compare him curiously with yourself; you began to feel that what before
was to rest is now to rot; that your years are gliding from you unenjoyed
and wasted; that the contrast between the animal life of passionate
civilisation and the vegetable torpor of motionless seclusion is one
that, if you are still young, it tasks your philosophy to bear,--feeling
all the while that the torpor may be yours to your grave? And when your
guest has left you, when you are again alone, is the solitude the same as
it was before?

Our poor Caleb had for years rooted his thoughts to his village. His
guest had been like the Bird in the Fairy Tale, settling upon the quiet
branches, and singing so loudly and so gladly of the enchanted skies
afar, that, when it flew away, the tree pined, nipped and withering in
the sober sun in which before it had basked contented. The guest was,
indeed, one of those men whose animal spirits exercise upon such as come
within their circle the influence and power usually ascribed only to
intellectual qualities. During the month he had sojourned with Caleb, he
had brought back to the poor parson all the gaiety of the brisk and noisy
novitiate that preceded the solemn vow and the dull retreat;--the social
parties, the merry suppers, the open-handed, open-hearted fellowship of