May notwithstanding and nevertheless, I say, find something worth looking at, on a warm summer afternoon, though he be lying half asleep on his back, with the clover-blossoms and buttercups nodding over him; to say nothing of thistle-tops, dandelions or white-weed—
I do—I do!—I'll admit any thing, as I told you before.
Well, then—in that case—I do not see what difficulty there would be in supposing that any man might find something to be good-natured with anywhere.
Not so fast, if you please. Would you have it inferred, because an old bachelor, whose comforts are few—and far between!—and whose habits—and opinions—are fixed forever, could put up with Nature for a short summer afternoon, under the circumstances you mention—with a great-coat under him, and a reasonable share of other comforts within reach, that, therefore, anybody on earth, a married man, for example, should find it a very easy thing to be happy any where, under any circumstances?—even at home now, for instance, with his wife and children about him?
Precisely. And now, sir, to convince you. If you will but place yourself at an open window in the "leafy month of June," and watch the play of her green leaves upon the busy countenances of men, as you may in some of our eastern cities, and in most of our villages all over the country, where the trees and the houses, and the boys and the girls have grown up together, playfellows from the beginning—playfellows with every thing that lives and breathes in the neighborhood; or if you will but stand where you are, and look up into the blue sky, and watch the clouds that are now drifting, as before a strong wind, over the driest and busiest thoroughfares of your crowded city; changing from shadow to sunshine, and from sunshine to shadow, every uplifted countenance over which they pass, you will find yourself at the very next breath a wiser, a better, and a happier man. You will undergo a transfiguration upon the spot? You will see a mighty angel sitting in the sun. You will hear the rush of wings overshadowing the whole firmament. And, take my word for it, you will be so much better satisfied with yourself! But mind though—never do this in company.
Beware lest you are caught in the fact. They will set you down for a lunatic, a contributor to the magazines, or a star-gazer—if you permit them to believe that you can see a single hairsbreadth beyond your nose, or a single inch further by lifting your eyes to Heaven than by fixing them steadfastly upon the earth. One might as well be overheard talking to himself; or be caught peeping into a letter just handed him by a sweet girl he has been dying to flirt with; but, for reasons best known to himself—and his wife—durst not, although perfectly satisfied in his own mind, from her way of looking at him, when she handed him the letter, that she would give the world to have him see it without her knowledge; and that either she did not know he was a married man—or was willing to overlook that objection.
Tut, tut! my boy—you will never coax me into the trap, though I admit your cleverness, by contriving to let me understand, as it were by chance, what are regarded everywhere as the privileges of the married.
Permit me to finish, will you?
With all my heart!
But pleasant as all these things are—the green fields and the blue sky, the ripple of bright water, and the changeable glories of a landscape in mid-summer; or the upturned countenances of men, looking for signs in the heavens, when they have ships at sea—or wives and children getting ready for a drive—or new hats and no umbrellas—or houses afire, which may not happen to be over-insured—a pleasanter thing by far it is to sit by the same window, when the summer is over, and the clouds have lost their transparency, and go wandering heavily athwart the sky, and the green leaves are no more, and the songs of the water are changed, and the very birds have departed, and watch by the hour together whatever may happen to be overlooked by all the rest of the world; the bushels of dry leaves that eddy and whirl about your large empty squares, or huddle together in heaps at every sheltered corner, as if to get away from the wind; the changed livery of the shops—the golden tissues of summer, the delicately-tinted shawls, and gossamer ribbons, and flaunting muslins, woven of nobody knows what—whether of "mist and moonlight mingling fitfully," or of sunset shadows overshot with gold, giving way to gorgeous velvet, and fur, and sumptuous drapery glowing and burning with the tints of autumn, and, like distant fires seen through a fall of snow in mid-winter, full of comfort and warmth; and all the other preparations of double-windows and heavy curtains, and newly invented stoves, that find their own fuel for the season and leave something for next year; and porticoes that come and go with the cold weather, blocking up your path and besetting your eyes at every turn, with signs and hints of "dreadful preparation."