men, that is, men who would
be rich; this is the ridicule of the class, that they arrive with pains
and sweat and fury nowhere; when all is done, it is for nothing. They
are like one who has interrupted the conversation of a company to make
his speech, and now has forgotten what he went to say. The appearance
strikes the eye everywhere of an aimless society, of aimless nations.
Were the ends of nature so great and cogent as to exact this immense
sacrifice of men?

Quite analogous to the deceits in life, there is, as might be expected,
a similar effect on the eye from the face of external nature. There is
in woods and waters a certain enticement and flattery, together with a
failure to yield a present satisfaction. This disappointment is felt
in every landscape. I have seen the softness and beauty of the summer
clouds floating feathery overhead, enjoying, as it seemed, their height
and privilege of motion, whilst yet they appeared not so much the
drapery of this place and hour, as forelooking to some pavilions and
gardens of festivity beyond. It is an odd jealousy, but the poet finds
himself not near enough to his object. The pine-tree, the river, the
bank of flowers before him, does not seem to be nature. Nature is still
elsewhere. This or this is but outskirt and far-off reflection and echo
of the triumph that has passed by and is now at its glancing splendor
and heyday, perchance in the neighboring fields, or, if you stand in
the field, then in the adjacent woods. The present object shall give you
this sense of stillness that follows a pageant which has just gone by.
What splendid distance, what recesses of ineffable pomp and loveliness
in the sunset! But who can go where they are, or lay his hand or plant
his foot thereon? Off they fall from the round world forever and ever.
It is the same among the men and women as among the silent trees; always
a referred existence, an absence, never a presence and satisfaction.
Is it that beauty can never be grasped? in persons and in landscape
is equally inaccessible? The accepted and betrothed lover has lost the
wildest charm of his maiden in her acceptance of him. She was heaven
whilst he pursued her as a star: she cannot be heaven if she stoops to
such a one as he.

What shall we say of this omnipresent appearance of that first
projectile impulse, of this flattery and balking of so many well-meaning
creatures? Must we not suppose somewhere in the universe a slight
treachery