e often recognizes
these as manifestly concentric with his own, but of less radius.
On the other hand, when we find a portion of an are on the outside
of our own, we say it INTERSECTS ours, but are very slow to confess
or to see that it CIRCUMSCRIBES it. Every now and then a man's
mind is stretched by a new idea or sensation, and never shrinks
back to its former dimensions. After looking at the Alps, I felt
that my mind had been stretched beyond the limits of its
elasticity, and fitted so loosely on my old ideas of space that I
had to spread these to fit it.

--If I thought I should ever see the Alps!--said the
schoolmistress.

Perhaps you will, some time or other,--I said.

It is not very likely,--she answered.--I have had one or two
opportunities, but I had rather be anything than governess in a
rich family.

[Proud, too, you little soft-voiced woman! Well, I can't say I
like you any the worse for it. How long will school-keeping take
to kill you? Is it possible the poor thing works with her needle,
too? I don't like those marks on the side of her forefinger.

Tableau. Chamouni. Mont Blanc in full view. Figures in the
foreground; two of them standing apart; one of them a gentleman
of--oh,--ah,--yes! the other a lady in a white cashmere, leaning on
his shoulder.--The ingenuous reader will understand that this was
an internal, private, personal, subjective diorama, seen for one
instant on the background of my own consciousness, and abolished
into black nonentity by the first question which recalled me to
actual life, as suddenly as if one of those iron shop-blinds (which
I always pass at dusk with a shiver, expecting to stumble over some
poor but honest shop-boy's head, just taken off by its sudden and
unexpected descent, and left outside upon the sidewalk) had come
down in front of it "by the run."]

--Should you like to hear what moderate wishes life brings one to
at last? I used to be very ambitious,--wasteful, extravagant, and
luxurious in all my fancies. Read too much in the "Arabian
Nights." Must have the lamp,--couldn't do without the ring.
Exercise every morning on the brazen horse. Plump down into
castles as full of little milk-white princesses as a nest is of
young sparrows. All love me dearly at once.--Charming idea of
life, but too high-colored for the reality. I have outgrown all
this; my tastes have become exceedingly primitive,--almost,
perhaps, ascetic. We carry happiness into o