'A few days' residence with him showed me that his life was in reality, as is here represented, a medley of feeble exertions, indolent pleasures, secret benevolence, and broken resolutions. Nor did he pretend to conceal from me that his activity was not now so constant as it had been; but he insisted that he still could, when he thought proper, apply with his former vigour, and flattered himself that these frequent deviations from his plan of employment, which in reality were the fruit of indolence and weakness, arose from reason and conviction.
'"After all," said he to me one day, when I was endeavouring to undeceive him, "after all, granting what you allege, if I be happy, and really am so, what more could activity, fame, or preferment bestow upon me?"
'After a stay of some weeks I departed, convinced that his malady was past a cure, and lamenting that so much real excellence and ability should be thus in a great measure lost to the world, as well as to their possessor, by the attendance of a single fault.'
The 'Mirror.'—Vol. II. No. 56.
The following letter is from a dweller in the country, an ardent lover of retirement, who is enchanted with the simplicity of life and incident to be encountered in a pastoral retreat:—
'My dear Sir,—The moment I found myself disengaged from business, you know I left the smoke and din of your blessed city, and hurried away to pure skies and quiet at my cottage.
'You must have heard that our spring was singularly pleasant; but how pleasant it was you could not feel in your dusky atmosphere. My sister remarked that it had a faint resemblance to the spring of ——. Although I omit the year, you may believe that several seasons have passed away since that animating era recollected by my sister. "Alas! my friend," said I, "seasons return, but it is only to the young and the fortunate." A tear started in her eye, yet she smiled and resumed her tranquillity.
'We sauntered through the kitchen-garden, and admired the rapid progress of vegetation. "Everything is very forward," said my sister; "we must begin to bottle gooseberries to-morrow." "Very forward, indeed," answered I. "This reminds me of the young ladies whom I have seen lately—they seem forward enough, though a little out of season too."
'It was a poor witticism, but it lay in my way, and I took it up. Next morning the gardener came to our breakfasting-parlour. "Madam," said he, "all the gooseberries are gone." "Gone!" cried my sister; "and who could be so audacious? Brother, you are a justice of the peace; do make out a warrant directly to search for and apprehend. We have an agreeable neighbourhood, indeed! the insolence of the rabble of servants, of low-born, purse-proud folks, is not to be endured." "The gooseberries are not away," continued the gardener; "they are lying in heaps under the bushes; last night's frost, and a hail-shower this morning, have made the crop fail." "The crop fail!" exclaimed my sister; "and where am I to get gooseberries for bottling?" "Come, come, my dear," said I; "they tell me that in Virginia pork has a peculiar flavour from the peaches on which the hogs feed; you can let in the goslings to pick up the gooseberries, and I warrant you that this unlooked-for food will give them a relish far beyond that of any green geese of our neighbours at the castle." "Brother," replied she, "you are a philosopher." I quickly discovered that, while endeavouring to turn one misfortune into jest, I recalled another to her remembrance, for it seems that, by a series of domestic calamities, all her goslings had perished.