sistence. It is hard, we know, to break the ties which bind
us to our homes and friends, and harder still to efface the thousand
recollections of happy days and old times, which have been slumbering in
our bosoms for years, and only rush upon the mind, to bring before it
associations connected with the friends we have left, the scenes we have
beheld too probably for the last time, and the hopes we once cherished,
but may entertain no more. These men, however, happily for themselves,
have long forgotten such thoughts. Old country friends have died or
emigrated; former correspondents have become lost, like themselves, in
the crowd and turmoil of some busy city; and they have gradually settled
down into mere passive creatures of habit and endurance.

We were seated in the enclosure of St. James's Park the other day, when
our attention was attracted by a man whom we immediately put down in our
own mind as one of this class. He was a tall, thin, pale person, in a
black coat, scanty gray trousers, little pinched-up gaiters, and brown
beaver gloves. He had an umbrella in his hand--not for use, for the day
was fine--but, evidently, because he always carried one to the office in
the morning. He walked up and down before the little patch of grass on
which the chairs are placed for hire, not as if he were doing it for
pleasure or recreation, but as if it were a matter of compulsion, just as
he would walk to the office every morning from the back settlements of
Islington. It was Monday; he had escaped for four-and-twenty hours from
the thraldom of the desk; and was walking here for exercise and
amusement--perhaps for the first time in his life. We were inclined to
think he had never had a holiday before, and that he did not know what to
do with himself. Children were playing on the grass; groups of people
were loitering about, chatting and laughing; but the man walked steadily
up and down, unheeding and unheeded his spare, pale face looking as if it
were incapable of bearing the expression of curiosity or interest.

There was something in the man's manner and appearance which told us, we
fancied, his whole life, or rather his whole day, for a man of this sort
has no variety of days. We thought we almost saw the dingy little back
office into which he walks every morning, hanging his hat on the same
peg, and placing his legs beneath the same desk: first, taking off that
black coat which lasts the year through, and putting on