uncharged. For these people's, politeness really set us up again in our
own esteem. We had a thirst for consideration; the sense of insult was
still hot in our spirits; and civil usage seemed to restore us to our
position in the world.

How little we pay our way in life! Although we have our purses
continually in our hand, the better part of service goes still
unrewarded. But I like to fancy that a grateful spirit gives as good as
it gets. Perhaps the Bazins knew how much I liked them? perhaps they,
also, were healed of some slights by the thanks that I gave them in my
manner?

*****

No art, it may be said, was ever perfect, and not many noble, that has
not been mirthfully conceived. And no man, it may be added, was ever
anything but a wet blanket and a cross to his companions who boasted not
a copious spirit of enjoyment.

*****

There is yet another class who do not depend on corporal advantages, but
support the winter in virtue of a brave and merry heart. One shivering
evening, cold enough for frost, but with too high a wind, and a little
past sundown, when the Lamps were beginning to enlarge their circles
in the growing dusk, a brace of barefooted lassies were seen coming
eastward in the teeth of the wind. If the one was as much as nine, the
other was certainly not more than seven. They were miserably clad; and
the pavement was so cold, you would have thought no one could lay a
naked foot on it unflinching. Yet they came along waltzing, if you
please, while the elder sang a tune to give them music. The person who
saw this, and whose heart was full of bitterness at the moment, pocketed
a reproof which has been of use to him ever since, and which he now
hands on, with his good wishes, to the reader.

*****

Happiness, at least, is not solitary; it joys to communicate; it loves
others, for it depends on them for its existence; it sanctions and
encourages to all delights that are not unkind in themselves; if it
lived to a thousand, it would not make excision of a single humorous
passage; and while the self-improver dwindles toward the prig, and, if
he be not of an excellent constitution, may even grow deformed into
an Obermann, the very name and appearance of a happy man breathe of
good-nature, and help the rest of us to live.

*****

It is never a thankful office to offer advice; and advice is the more
unpalatable, not only from the difficulty of the service recommended,
but often from its very obviousnes