of
elevating his mind, and refining his taste to a due appreciation of the
salutary and pure delights of nature, and peace, and holy love. But
now--at evening, when I see the round red sun sink quietly down behind
those woody hills, leaving them sleeping in a warm, red, golden haze, I
only think another lovely day is lost to him and me; and at morning, when
roused by the flutter and chirp of the sparrows, and the gleeful twitter
of the swallows--all intent upon feeding their young, and full of life
and joy in their own little frames--I open the window to inhale the
balmy, soul-reviving air, and look out upon the lovely landscape,
laughing in dew and sunshine--I too often shame that glorious scene with
tears of thankless misery, because he cannot feel its freshening
influence; and when I wander in the ancient woods, and meet the little
wild flowers smiling in my path, or sit in the shadow of our noble
ash-trees by the water-side, with their branches gently swaying in the
light summer breeze that murmurs through their feathery foliage--my ears
full of that low music mingled with the dreamy hum of insects, my eyes
abstractedly gazing on the glassy surface of the little lake before me,
with the trees that crowd about its bank, some gracefully bending to kiss
its waters, some rearing their stately heads high above, but stretching
their wide arms over its margin, all faithfully mirrored far, far down in
its glassy depth--though sometimes the images are partially broken by the
sport of aquatic insects, and sometimes, for a moment, the whole is
shivered into trembling fragments by a transient breeze that sweeps the
surface too roughly--still I have no pleasure; for the greater the
happiness that nature sets before me, the more I lament that he is not
here to taste it: the greater the bliss we might enjoy together, the more
I feel our present wretchedness apart (yes, ours; he must be wretched,
though he may not know it); and the more my senses are pleased, the more
my heart is oppressed; for he keeps it with him confined amid the dust
and smoke of London--perhaps shut up within the walls of his own
abominable club.

But most of all, at night, when I enter my lonely chamber, and look out
upon the summer moon, 'sweet regent of the sky,' floating above me in the
'black blue vault of heaven,' shedding a flood of silver radiance over
park, and wood, and water, so pure, so peaceful, so divine--and think,
Where is he now?--what is he