able middle-aged blacksmith, who was a man of substance and
prudence, to be the husband and keeper of her precious treasure. In a
home thus established she hoped to enthrone herself, and provide for the
rearing of a generation of stout-limbed girls and boys who should grow
up to make a flourishing household in the land. This subject she had
not yet broached to her grand-daughter, though daily preparing to do
so,--deferring it, it must be told, from a sort of jealous, yearning
craving to have wholly to herself the child for whom she had lived so
many years.

Antonio, the blacksmith to whom this honor was destined, was one of
those broad-backed, full-chested, long-limbed fellows one shall often
see around Sorrento, with great, kind, black eyes like those of an ox,
and all the attributes of a healthy, kindly, animal nature. Contentedly
he hammered away at his business; and certainly, had not Dame Elsie
of her own providence elected him to be the husband of her fair
grand-daughter, he would never have thought of the matter himself; but,
opening the black eyes aforenamed upon the girl, he perceived that she
was fair, and also received an inner light through Dame Elsie as to the
amount of her dowry; and, putting these matters together, conceived a
kindness for the maiden, and awaited with tranquillity the time when he
should be allowed to commence his wooing.

REST AND MOTION.

Motion and Rest are the two feet upon which existence goes. All action
and all definite power result from the intimacy and consent of these
opposite principles. If, therefore, one would construct any serviceable
mechanism, he must incorporate into it, and commonly in a manifold way,
a somewhat passive, a somewhat contrary, and, as it were, inimical to
action, though action be the sole aim and use of his contrivance. Thus,
the human body is penetrated by the passive and powerless skeleton,
which is a mere weight upon the muscles, a part of the burden that,
nevertheless, it enables them to bear. The lever of Archimedes would
push the planet aside, provided only it were supplied with its
indispensable complement, a fulcrum, or fixity: without this it will not
push a pin. The block of the pulley must have its permanent attachment;
the wheel of the locomotive engine requires beneath it the fixed rail;
the foot of the pedestrian, solid earth; the wing of the bird rests upon
the relatively stable air to support his body, and upon his body to gain
p