CHAPTER XXXIII.

N the remainder of this homely narrative, I could fain imitate the improvements of the present age by trying my hand at some sort of mental railway movement, giving only a passing glance at objects already falling behind into the shadow of memory, while new scenes are coming ever in view, dancing around, and forming fairy rings with the rapidity of thought, as objects, such as a tree, a windmill, or a steeple, are seen to do in the varied distance from a railway carriage window.

The relation of commonplace affairs can only be interesting from the rarity of their occurrence in history, or even in biography, as writers generally incline to deal in the marvellous, leaving the homestead of their thoughts whenever they set about to write what they suppose other people may see, and, groping in the dark for the marvellous in order to give what they suppose effect, find only the ghosts of life in place of flesh and blood realities.

I had at this time begun to feel more and more the necessity of curtailing vague desires of out-door amusements, so as to make every hour tell to the value of its own necessary expenditure, and a harass

ing tug this certainly was, adding stitch to stitch in constant repetition, like the monitory tick of the jailclock over the prisoner's weariness.

The vigour of life is essential to the effective maintenance of this toil, while the same vigour of the mind of life would often require a broader field of action in which to

"Expatiate free o'er all this field of man,

A mighty maze, but not without a plan."

I have often thought deeply of the maze-which thought is bewildering enough; for the plan, so certainly as it is there, is too multiform and complex for all our powers of investigation.

The best philosophy on this subject appears but a speculation, since bishops, doctors of divinity, et cetera, who seem to discern something real somewhere, so disagree about the spirit and meaning of the vision, the history of the past, and the prophesyings of the future respecting the grand phenomenon of creation, or the present position or ultimate destination of man as a specific part of it, as to leave the simple mind of the humble inquirer mystified in a fog of inexplicable reflections. But the only way to get over this I found was to leave it as usual, after having spoken something unintelligible about it, and return to my explicable thoughts, such as those in which I used to indulge at that time, that, hard as the world was, I felt strong in the hope of being now a match for it.

I had seen through the general selfishness, and conceived the imperious necessity of guarding against imposition, not supposing myself in anything like the state that Satan perceived Job to be in, hedged

about with blessings of the divine favour, both for supply and for protection. I tried, therefore, to make up my mind to commence with some plan of selfdefence on the general principle, not to try to overreach, but to maintain a prudent caution in guarding against the consequences of that disposition in others; for bad as the world is, or as we may think it, necessity in some degree is urging us to an assimilation with it. I could never, however, maintain this resolution in practice, always finding that the balance between common prudence and an intuitive generosity of sentiment was extremely nice, and that the latter must submit to sad taxation in a world like this, where he who might literally comply with the Christian injunction of giving his back to the smiter may lay his account with a tanned hide in the course of a sixty years' pilgrimage, if under such circumstances he might possibly attain to that age.

Though at this stage of life I could not calculate upon any advantage gained, or in clear prospect, yet matters seemed, upon the whole, to bear a rather clearing-up appearance in our family circle.

My father was working diligently for his living, and realizing it barely-that is, he was not saving anything, which might have been done to a small extent had he been under a full first-love marriage. I estimated the matter thus-that, had my mother been spared to have been then his housekeeper, or, indeed, had that office been assigned to any of my three sisters, there would have been saved some ten or twelve pounds a-year for nearly thirty years of that time, as this much was baken and brewed over and above the way he had ever formerly been

accustomed to live, or even then desired to fare, for he was a gently-temperate being. But being also of a quiet, easy disposition, he inherited a spirit of peace; and so the means being produced, and no harassment being in prospect, he left the stewardship of his house entirely to its mistress, as in such circumstances is generally the most proper, as well as the most convenient; while she considered—and even unwittingly said so that it was needless for her to save penuriously, since she was assured that if she outlived him she would be looked to by the family by whom she had been brought to this part of the country, and had been so long in service with before her marriage, and that in this way her own living was all she had to take concern about. This was so far from the disposition of the family with whom she had come into connection that we certainly could not help disliking it, although prudence required that we should not seem to observe it. What we principally wished then was that our father might still have the peace he had always so much prized, and might be enabled to do for himself, and get a creditable throughbearing without requiring that assistance which we found it would have been hard for us to have afforded, set as we then were in the world. With a journeyman and himself he was gaining more than I was able to do under the same arrangement of work. One principal cause of this was that, though I wrought as diligently upon the whole, yet I lost profit in following my finer tastes in my work, he being past that time of life when such fanciful notions predominate in the mind over more judicious considerations. Perhaps, indeed, he

never was, even in his prime days, troubled with them, to the same extent as I was, but just did his work plainly, pleasing his customers well enough, and getting his payments as well as I did for a third less labour and cost. Besides, I was often following other fancies, and attending to other people's affairs to no profit, and generally receiving no thanks for myself.

I may here remark, in passing, that this has been a prevailing error in my life, and one which I do not think I could correct, though I had just now to begin to live it over again. Some of these things are so constitutional that our heart quite overcomes the philosophy of our head. My father had as good a heart as I ever had, with a leniency often extending to even greater simplicity, yet he was shrewd in perception, and could take up his ground and move timeously, which prevented various troubles that fell to my share. My sisters were all come to their full senses, besides being all hale and out-stout for the push and tug of life, the oldest keeping house on the remnants of her former means, with her spinning industry to eke it out, and keeping our nephew, our second sister's son, still at the neighbouring parish school of Bowden, where he was getting on with his Latin and mathematics, while his mother kept out in good service, gaining and saving the additional means necessary for their house-keeping. My third sister was married about the same time that I was; her first child and mine were both born on the same day. Her husband, John White, was a hale, stout man, a farmer's hind, while she made as useful a wife, and they have wrestled through hitherto, living