In concluding this brief notice of a work written with decided talent, and designed to fill an important niche in the early history of this country, we are bound to thank the author, and to express the hope that he will be able to finish the historical design which he has sketched, pertaining to that interesting race, of whom it may be truly said, that ‘the hour of their destiny has already struck.’ This volume shows us, that in our own country may be found topics for literary effort, worthy of employing the gifted pens of America, without going abroad in quest of subjects, in the discussion of which we shall long be surpassed by foreigners, on account of their superior facilities and larger sources of information. As a book entirely American, we commend it to the reading public, confident that it will be received with favor wherever it is read, and be considered a valuable addition to the historical department of every gentleman’s library.
A New Spirit of the Age. By R. H. Horne. In one volume. New-York: Harper and Brothers.
The Mr. Horne who stands sponsor for this ‘child of many fathers’ must not be confounded with Mr. Hartwell Horne, who in a literary point of view is quite another person. The author of the volume before us, however, with the aid of sundry fellow
littérateurs
‘of the secondary formation,’ as Carlyle phrases it, has collected together quite a variety of materials, the whole being intended to form a sort of sequel to Hazlitt’s ‘Spirit of the Age,’ a brilliant work, to which the present bears slight resemblance. We quite agree with a contemporary, that it manifests little or no independence of judgment or originality of thought. ‘It is the result of the labor of many hands, and those not the most skilful or experienced. It consequently wants that homogenousness of style which one would expect in a professed imitation of so excellent a model. The highest degree of merit that can be accorded to it is that of a collection of magazine articles of second rate merit. It is likely to prove popular with the generality of readers who do not trouble themselves to dip beneath the surface of things; but we must caution those who would form a just estimate of the characters and merits of the distinguished writers whose works are analyzed in it, that its premises are not always correct nor its deductions sound.’
EDITOR’S TABLE
A day with the great Seatsfield.—The Boston Daily Advertiser recently divulged, with a most curious air of bewilderment, the name of a new, and as it seems hitherto unheard-of, ornament to American literature—the illustrious Seatsfield. Illustrious, however, only upon the other side of the water; for it appears that we Yankee cotton-raisers have somewhat else to do than to busy our brains about any letters except letters of credit, or any fame that is not reverberated from abroad. No one, of course, at all conversant with modern German literature, not even the slightest skimmer of their late periodical publications, or the most occasional peruser of the
Allgemeine Zeitung
or
Dresden Bluthundstaglich
, can have failed to notice with patriotic pride the gradual but gigantic progress of this new Voltaire to the highest pinnacle of popular renown. But, sooth to say, our western world is so overrun with pretenders; there are so many young gentlemen annually spawned by Yale and Cambridge, who affect to read German without being able to construe the advertisement of a Leipsic bookseller; so numerous are the blue-spectacled nymphs who quote Jean Paul betwixt their blanc-mange and oysters, without comprehending even the outermost rind of its in-meaning; so utterly ignorant are our so-called literati of any subject beyond the scope of a newspaper, that the name of Seatsfield sounded as strangely in American ears as if he had lately arrived from Herschel or Georgium Sidus in a balloon. It is true that some two or three of our eminent scholars, a few travellers, men of taste, who had wandered by the Rhine, were acquainted with his reputation, and in some degree with his productions. Emerson doubtless must have been aware of his renown; Professor Felton of course had read him as often as he has Homer; Jones, Wilkins, and F. Smith had studied him with delight. The ‘Dial,’ a journal of much repute, had even spoken openly, we are told, of his success in Europe. Mr. W. E. Channing, the poet, had evidently but perhaps unconsciously imitated his peculiar viscidity of style, and (if we may use such an expression.) extreme flakiness of thought. But in spite of these few exceptions to the general indifference, let it stand recorded, that when the name of Seatsfield returned to his own shore, it was an alien and unmeaning word. His own country, so deeply indebted to his powerful pen, absolutely knew him not. The literati stared, and the Boston Advertiser was struck aghast with wonder. What a comment upon the state of letters in America! ‘Literary Emporium,’ forsooth! ‘Western Athens!’ Medici of Manhattan! how grossly we Yankees do misapply titles! It was the very ‘Literary Emporium’ itself that was most astounded at the newly-discovered mine. Seatsfield’s name had overspread civilized Europe; his productions had been dramatized at Munich and Bucharest; they had been translated into Russian and Turkish; the Maltese mariner had learned to solace himself with his ‘Twilight Helmsman’s Hymn,’ and the merchants of Syra and Beyrout adorned their mansions with his bust; yet Boston, New-York, and Philadelphia had never heard his name! In the lack of more minute information with regard to this remarkable man, perhaps the following page or two from a traveller’s journal may prove acceptable to the public. The absolutely total obscurity of the subject in America, may also, it is hoped, serve as an apology for the openness of detail and apparent breach of etiquette in regard to private intercourse.
‘It has been my fortune to spend a day in company with the man who of all men has done the most to illustrate our manners and character; yet who, strange to say, is less known than ‘Professor’ Ingraham. As it was then my fortune to speak
with
him; I now consider it my duty to speak
of
him, and to do what little I am able, to extend his name among his compatriots.
‘In the spring of the year previous to this, or to be exact, in April, 1843, I found myself at Berlin. My friend, Mr. Carlyle, of London, had given me a letter to Theodore Mundt, and I had learned soon after my arrival that this distinguished man was in town. I had consequently looked over my letters, after dinner, and had selected the one addressed to Mundt, and laid it under a little plaster bust of Schiller that stood just over the stove, in the room where I dined. In the evening I walked into the
Ermschlagg Buchzimmer
.
2
2
A new public library and reading-room in Berlin.
Several students were making annotations from huge volumes, and many grave, pale gentlemen were turning over the reviews and periodicals of the day. Among these I recognized an Englishman whom I had fallen in with at Cologne but parted with at Heidelberg. He had been in Berlin three days before me, and I was truly glad to meet with an acquaintance even of so recent a date, to whom I could apply for information or advice as to the best way of seeing the lions. While I was whispering to him, a grim-visaged old Teuton looked up at us with a stern frown, and my friend observed, ‘We must retire into the
Sprechensaale
, or conversation-room.’ As soon as we had entered this adjoining apartment, to the evident satisfaction of the aforesaid grim Teuton, I observed a tall, thin man, of angular and wiry aspect, see-sawing his body in front of the stove, toward which he had turned his back, as he stood in apparently deep cogitation. ‘You don’t know who that is,’ quoth my friend; ‘there is
one
of the lions, to begin with. I found out his name this morning: that is Theodore Mundt.’ Struck as I was with the stranger’s aspect, which appeared to me altogether American, I stared at him till he suddenly raised his dark eyes, and fixed them on mine. To disembarrass myself from my seeming rudeness as politely as possible, I bowed to his gaze, and said inquiringly: ‘I have the honor to address Mr. Mundt?’
‘‘You have the
luck
,’ he said, ‘but the honor is
his
.’
‘‘Honors are even, then,’ said I, as brusquely as I dared; and of all animals a traveller is the most impudent. ‘I have in my pocket,’ I continued, ‘a letter for you from my friend Carlyle.’ At the name of Carlyle he raised his hands in surprise, then rubbed them with delight, and began to eulogise his friend.
‘All this while I was fumbling in my pocket for my letter, when suddenly it flashed over me that I had put it under the bust in the tavern. I grew confused for a moment, and then as Mynheer Mundt held out his hand for the letter, I burst into a laugh, and confessed that I had left my letter at home. Mundt looked very serious, and quoted from Othello, ‘That is a fault;’ and then from Macbeth, ‘To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow.’ I thought there was a little affectation in this; perhaps it was merely complimentary; but the immediate result of our imperfect acquaintance was, that I made bold to introduce my friend to Mundt, who invited us both to his rooms to supper. On our way thither, as we passed the
Brunswik Gasthaus
, where I lodged, I stepped in to procure my letter, and Mundt appeared rejoiced to hear directly from his ‘very
fine
friend’ Carlyle, as he queerly styled him.
‘I should feel that I was venturing on forbidden ground were I to reveal more of what passed between us that evening. There was some drawing of corks and some puffing of Hamburg-made Cheroots, which Mundt declared to be genuine Oriental; there was a ham of Westphalia, and a bit of La Gruyere. But with all this we have nothing to do. I fear that I have already made my preface too long. Enough be it then to say, that Mundt first revealed to me on this occasion (I am ashamed to own it) the name and talents of our countryman Seatsfield. How enthusiastic he was I will not describe; but his enthusiasm could only be equalled by his surprise that I was not familiar with his writings.
‘On the next day Mundt gave me a letter to Seatsfield, directed to him at Bâsle, in Switzerland, near which he owns a beautiful villa. I did not find him at Bâsle, however, and I proceeded to Milan without delivering my letter. On my return from Italy, I happened to learn that Seatsfield was at Graffenburg in Silesia; and although it was forty leagues from my purposed route I encountered the delay, out of mere curiosity of seeing so distinguished a man. This time I was not disappointed. One day only I spent at Graffenburg, but that day was sufficient to fill me with a truly German (I wish I could say American) admiration of my countryman. Graffenburg, it should be remarked, is the famous scene of Doctor Priessnitz’s wonderful hydropathic cures. Being there only for a single day, I did not think it best to submit in all points to the cold water treatment; neither did Seatsfield, for I noticed that he mixed two table-spoonfuls of gin with every gill of cold water. Seatsfield is a man of about middle-age, with a penetrating eye, and rather a good form, though not unusually muscular. His face bears a remarkable resemblance to the pictures of Numa Pompilius; the benign smile of each is the same. His chin is round and full, although partially concealed by a slight beard; his nose, which is of a truly German outline, is marked by the ‘dilated nostril of genius;’ and his whole aspect is that of a thorough man of the world. I will continue my reminiscence by extracting verbatim a page or so from my imperfect, though as far as it goes, authentic diary. I am convinced however that his remarks will lose much from the want of his pointed manner of enunciation. His English was faultless, and he spoke as well as if he had never been out of America. Very few Americans indeed, and no British-Islanders, talk so correct and chaste a dialect.
EXTRACT FROM MY JOURNAL
Graffenburg, July 4, 1844.
‘I was very fortunate, they tell me, to find Seatsfield in so companionable a mood. He appeared in high spirits, and was exceedingly conversible. The glorious return of our national anniversary had a visible effect upon him. I presented my letter to him last evening, but he was weary, and retired early. When I first met him in the Upper Bath-room Walk, this morning, he congratulated me upon the brightness and brilliancy of the day. ‘You have much to be thankful for, Sir,’ he observed; ‘the day is perfectly American. Just such a sun as this is now dawning upon Broadway and the Battery. The sound of India-crackers and the pleasant smell of lobsters is already perceptible to the senses of the awakening Manhattanese.’
‘Boston, too, my native city,’ I observed, ‘is also alive to the holiday influences. Boston Common I dare say is already white with tents, and the fragrant commerce of the booths is just commencing on the Mall.’
Seatsfield: ‘Yes, Sir; but Boston and Philadelphia both fail in developing the true character-stamp-work (
character-stampfen-werk
) of the day. To see the Fourth of July in its glory, one should visit New-York. To my senses, which are uncommonly acute, there is a peculiar smell about the Fourth of July in New-York, which differs in toto from that of any other holiday.’
‘In Boston we also have the perfume of lobsters and egg-pop blended with that of orange-peel and pine-apple–’
Seatsfield: ‘That, Sir, is but a feeble rationale of the New-York savor. I have often, in a jocose mood, amused myself with analyzing this odor. I have resolved it into the following elements: lobsters, gunpowder, trampled-grass, wheel-grease, and cigars. It is mainly to these ingredients, grafted upon the other ordinary city smells, that I attribute the Fourth of July smell.’
‘There is one that you have failed to detect; namely, a faint whiff of barn-yards, owing I presume to the strong prevalence of farmers and other rustics from the surrounding country.’ Seatsfield smiled at this, and acknowledged, in a laughing way, an occasional intimation of manure. ‘Graffenburg,’ I observed, ‘is remarkably free from all strong odors; it is a very clean village.’
Seatsfield: ‘That, Sir, is owing to the water: depend upon it, wherever water prevails neatness will ensue. Temperance and cleanliness go hand in hand. The ancients were a filthy race, and they were great wine-bibbers. What a condition of personal and mental nastiness is divulged by Horace in his ‘Iter ad Brundusium;’ yet Horace was a choice specimen of a Roman gentleman.’
‘Have you had any poets among you here? or is the hydropathic system too repugnant to their art?’
Seatsfield: ‘Our countryman, Longfellow, was here not long since. I sat at table with him frequently; but never introduced myself to him.’
‘Do you think highly of his powers?’
Seatsfield: ‘As a prolific generator of novel life-images, no; but as a vivid delineator of the inner-thought principle, as an artistical displayer of the higher subjective mood, he is of the very first class. I honor Longfellow.’
‘He is perhaps our smoothest versifier, next to Halleck.’
Seatsfield: ‘Nay, he is the only one among us who can combine extreme polish and the utmost facility of flow with deep-seated reflection.’ Seatsfield then quoted, with a sublime energy, from the celebrated ‘Psalm of Life:’
‘‘Not enjoyment and not sorrow
Is our destined end or way,
But to act, that each to-morrow
Find us farther than to-day.
‘In the world’s broad field of battle,
In the bivouac of life,
Be not like dumb driven cattle,
Be a hero in the strife.
‘Trust no Future, howe’er pleasant,
Let the dead Past, bury its dead;
Act, act in the glorious Present,
Heart within and God o’er head.’’
‘You give the poet a great advantage,’ I said, ‘in quoting his very finest production, and picking out the choicest stanzas. Beside, his theme here is one of so general a nature, and so familiar to philosophy, that it would be hard for any one to moralize upon it in verse without accidentally hitting upon some sublimity. The commonest intellect has lofty and awful thoughts whenever it gives way to serious meditation upon our mortality.’
Seatsfield: ‘That is partly true; but Longfellow is not only great upon that ground. His realm is very extensive. No man has the power (had he only the will) of depicting the simplicity of every-day life and objects with more grace or comprehensiveness. There are some touches in his ‘Village Blacksmith’ inexpressibly beautiful, and worthy of Burns’ ‘Cotter’s Saturday Night:’
‘His hair is crisp and black and long,
His face is like the tan;
His brow is wet with honest sweat,
He earns whate’er he can,’ etc.
And then again:
‘He goes on Sunday to the Church,
And sits among the boys;
He hears the parson pray and preach,
He hears his daughter’s voice
Singing in the gallery,
And it makes his heart rejoice.’
Seatsfield repeated these verses with much emotion; and I observed that a tear stood upon his lids. I therefore turned the conversation upon hydropathy, and introduced a quotation from Pindar: αρὶστον μὲν ὕδωρ,
etc.
Seatsfield: ‘Pindar, Sir, has expressed a great truth; but I think that Pierpont has expressed it better. In his exquisite ‘Ode on the Opening of the Marlborough Temperance-House’ how beautifully he says, after speaking in regard to the virtues of cold water:
‘Oh! had Eve’s hair
Been dressed in gin,
Would she have been
Reflected fair?’
‘And then, after describing the beauty of Eden, with its rills and pellucid brooks bubbling through the fresh meads, he goes on:
‘Are not pure springs
And chrystal wells
The very things
For our Hotels?’
‘That, Sir, is excellent, and the somewhat homely imagery only enhances in my mind the truth of the sentiment. Pierpont, Sir, is a very great man.’
‘As great as Longfellow?’
Seatsfield: ‘No, Sir, perhaps not; there is a considerable difference of calibre between them. I should say now that Longfellow was a first-rate artist with a second-rate imagination, and that Pierpont was only a second-rate artist with a first-rate fancy. There is no mistake in Pierpont.’
I smiled at Seatsfield’s affectation of Americanisms, as if out of compliment to myself, or in honor of the day; and I rejoined: ‘There may be no mistake in Pierpont, but there is one or two in Longfellow.’
Seatsfield: ‘Grammatical or prosodiacal?’
‘Neither; but in the beginning of his ‘Psalm of Life,’ he says:
‘Tell me not in mournful numbers
Life is but an empty dream;
For the soul is dead that slumbers,
And things are not what they seem.’
‘Here he evidently meant things
are
what they seem; for in the next stanza he goes on to say:
‘Life is real, life is earnest,
And the grave is not its goal;
‘Dust thou art, to dust returnest,’
Was not written of the soul.’
Consequently, if life
is
real and earnest, and the soul is incapable of mortality, things
must be
what they seem, and the soul
cannot
be dead that slumbers. And if the soul
is
dead that slumbers, and things are
not
really what they seem to be, life
is
indeed an empty dream.’ Seatsfield looked puzzled at this.
Seatsfield: ‘You are somewhat hypercritical. Great thoughts must not be trimmed to the exact dialect of business-men. Longfellow reveals important truths; he utters what is pent within him from the impulse of utterance: he tells us that ‘Art is long and Time is fleeting;’ now some arts are not long, and time often drags heavily. It will not do to be too precise in poetry.’
‘But is that sentiment original? Does not one of the ancients say, ‘
Ars longa, vita brevis
?’ and does not that come pretty near to Longfellow’s idea?’
Seatsfield: ‘Yes, Sir, but that is a little criticism which picks out words. Longfellow, or yourself, or any other man, would have arrived at the same conclusion, even had the ancient author never written it.’
‘We were here interrupted by a call to luncheon; and I take advantage of the break in my journal, to bring this article to a close. More of the Seatsfieldiana I reserve for another number, provided the public are not already glutted.’
Magazine Writing.—We know not how we can better evince our appreciation of the kind and flattering comments of a Southern correspondent, who will at once recognize our allusion, than by citing the somewhat kindred remarks of an old and favorite contributor, now passed away from earth. It was a pleasing matter, he said, to sit down with the proper afflatus stirring within him, to write an article for a Magazine. ‘If the work has a general prevalence; if its fame is rife on good men’s tongues, the inspiration is the stronger. One says to himself, how many friends of mine will overlook these very lucubrations, perceive my initials, and recognize my name? How many pleasing associations will thus be awakened, and peradventure commendatory remarks expressed, concerning my powers? What a
quid pro quo
for wakeful nights, emendations of phrases, the choosing of words, and toilsome revision! The other day,’ he continues, ‘while reading the proof-sheet of my article in the last Knickerbocker, I fell into a train of reflection upon the large amount of care and labor which must be entailed upon the publisher and editor of an original Magazine. Some one has observed, that when we listen to an exquisite opera, or any elaborate and intricate piece of music, we think not how vast were the pains and attention bestowed upon every note and cadence; what efforts for perfection in a solo, what panting for a warble, what travail for a trill! Taken separately, and at rehearsals, in disjointed fragments of sound, how different are they from that volume of sweet concords which is produced when they are all breathed forth in order, to the accompaniment of flutes and recorders, in one full gush of melody! This is just like a Magazine. How many minds does it engage! Cherished thoughts and cherished feelings, polished or sublimated, there find utterance, and demand that honor and deference to which they are entitled. In his beautiful Introduction to the Harleian Miscellany, Johnson sets forth the necessity and benefit of similar writings, with reasons as conclusive as the language in which they are expressed is chaste and strong. In a country like ours, where the vast population move by common impulse; think promptly, are enlightened with ease, and turn to the best account that knowledge which is received with the greatest facility; are inspired with sacred and patriotic feelings from the bar, the senate, the pulpit, and the press; it is important and just that the readiest methods and means of instructive moral amusement should be the most esteemed and the best supported. I confess I never look into a Magazine, that I do not liken it to a large and pure reservoir of refreshing waters; derived from many streams, and prankt around its borders with the flowers and garniture of poesy; possessing qualities agreeable to every taste—the grave, the solid, the scientific, the light, the gay. It is a map of the higher moods of life. It conveys a sustenance with the relish of pleasure. All who favor it with their productions have different tastes and faculties of mind. Each one endeavors to do the best with his theme. He ornaments it in diction, or tasks his fancy, or explores the secrets of science, or illustrates the events and scenes of his country: he excites broad-mouthed laughter, by salutary jest and pun; he expatiates in pathetic sentences, or murmurs in the mellow cadence of song; or arouses interest by the embellishments wherewith history is refined, and which shed a light over the dim annals of the past, making them to smile,
——‘even as the radiant glow,
Kindling rich woods, whereon the etherial bow
Sleeps lovingly awhile.’
‘Now what I thought beside, while looking over my proof, was this: that a ‘circulating medium,’ through which so many minds communicated their thoughts, produced and clothed with befitting language in solitary labor; smoothed, strengthened, or harmonized by revision, and rendered impressive by those helps and researches of which every
readable
writer must avail himself; such a medium, I say, merits the esteem and respect of all. It deserves not to be taken up for judgment, at a momentary glance, by the undiscerning eye of careless inquiry. It should be read impartially, and spoken of, in all worthy points, with praise; in faulty ones, with tenderness. Our literature, I take it, is not yet a sufficiently flowery pursuit, to enable any of its votaries to sow its walks with brambles. By its influence,
the country
is to be mentally illustrated; the clanking shackles of transatlantic humbug are to be thrown off; and the establishment of wholesome feelings, and reliance upon our own intellectual resources, firmly effected. I love to see the general press engaged now and then in cheering onward the laborers in the more unfrequented and toilsome avenues of our literary vineyard. It sends a God-speed to the bosoms of those whose travails are more for their country than themselves; and who are content, in anonymous pride, to believe, that it heralds that bright day of mental refinement which will ere long, among the freest and noblest confederacy of nations on earth, irradiate the utmost borders of that holy circumference,
‘Our Native Land!’
A thrust with a two-edged Weapon.—We rather incline to the opinion that the ‘complainant below’ is infringing the law which forbids the use of concealed weapons; that are not the less to be guarded against, certainly, when as in the present case they cut both ways. But our readers shall judge: Dear Editor: The country, strange as it may appear, has peculiar and permanent inhabitants; neither dressing in skins, nor wearing their own feathers, but habited after the glimpses of fashion which reach them through their trees. As we have never yet met with a man who was so fortunate as to have no relations, we take it for granted that all city-zens, yourself among the rest, have country-cousins. Think of the countless multitudes that turn their longing eyes in the direction of a metropolis like this, yearning for a visit, and sending off by frequent
Opportunities
, never by mail, those remarkable epistolary compounds of hopes and wants which no other race of beings can compose in perfection: ‘Hope John is well, and Betsey will come and see us next summer; and want’—Lawson and Stewart! what do they
not
want? Every thing; from twenty yards of silk down to a penny’s-worth of tape. The letters run somewhat in this guise, though less poetically:
‘Cousin John, please to send down to-morrow,
At eight, by the Scarborough mail,
‘Claudine, or the Victim of Sorrow,’
Don Juan, two mops and a pail;
Six ounces of Bohea from Twining’s,
A peg-top, a Parmesan cheese,
Some rose-colored sarcenet, for linings,
A stew-pan, and Stevenson’s Glees;
A song ending ‘Hey-noni-noni,’
A chair with a cover of chintz,
A mummy dug up by Belzoni,
A skein of white worsted from Flint’s.’
Half the things that are sent for, they might buy at their own doors. Again and again we have known them put in commission and procure from an oppressed relative the identical productions of a manufactory within a mile of them. A singular virtue seems to abide in all that comes from the sunny side of Broadway.
‘You perhaps may not know what an Opportunity is. In love affairs you have undoubtedly experienced that it is every thing; but in rural affairs it is more. It is the common-carrier of a village. So soon as an inhabitant has expressed his intention of going to town, he becomes an Opportunity, and like a Chinese, liable to pains and penalties for leaving his native place. From every quarter pour in letters, bundles, and packages, which are to be carried with care and delivered with despatch. No thanks for his trouble, if they should reach their destination, and a general liability for the uncertain value of their contents if they should chance to be lost. So that an Opportunity’s advent in town ought to be announced in this way: ‘Arrived, Hiram Doolittle, from Connecticut, with m’dze to Legion and Company.’ The Opportunity not only transports, but acts as General Agent. Commissions are given him for a return freight. Hats, coats, dresses, are much wanted, which he is expected to select with taste, and to purchase cheap. Even the labyrinth of houses does not protect him from the Argus eyes of his consignees. They seek him out and insist upon his turning himself into a United States’ mail and a Harnden’s express. It is not a week since we heard a consignee’s friend’s friend request an Opportunity to carry home a loaf of sugar to his country correspondent.
‘Perhaps, Friend Knick., we are wounding your feelings all this time, tender by reason of many cousins and commissions; but we can assure you that we have an infinite respect for all relationship, and are rather blessed than bored by the requisitions of our own rural branches. We trust, however, that your rustic kith and kin do not come upon your house in the spring, in shoals like the shad. Unhappy editor, if it be so; for until the day predicted by Alphonse Karr, when connexions shall be cooked and
côtelettes d’oncle à la Béchamel
and
têtes de cousin en tortue
shall smoke lovingly upon the table, there is nothing for you but to submit to your Fates, or to give up your house-keeping. But with country cozens, those provincials who are not bone of your bone, and who nevertheless at every visit to town call upon you with an eager look and covetous smile, as if to say, ‘Ask us to dinner, we once invited you to tea,’ there is but one method to pursue; the cut—the firm, unwavering, direct cut. Do not pretend not to see them, or to look fixedly in another direction, but give them the vacant, absent stare, as if you saw around them, and through them, and the image before you excited neither attention nor recollection. There are no terms to be kept with