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'What trick was it then that Mademoiselle Clémence discovered that her reputed mother was about to play me?'

That she had formally accused you of travelling in France under a false name-that of Jean Le Gros, to be sure.'

'Well, but my dear Sicard, Madame de Bonneville, bad as she may be, will never proceed to extremities against you-her relative.'

But, sacred thunder, that is precisely what she will do! You don't know that she has become a tigressan unchained fury, resolved, coûte qui coûte, to be revenged upon you and me: upon you for not marry ing Clémence; upon me for persisting, spite of madame's maledictions, that I will marry her. Naturally, I hoped that time would mollify her rage; but do you not see that she has passed the Rubicon, by publicly accusing me, her relative, as you say, of robbing her in conjunction with you? Yes, and Fanchette can prove that by my own confession. I shall be sent to the galleys, that is quite clear, and her threat, only a few hours old, that she would effectually dispose of my insolent pretensions-insolent pretensions was the phrase will be realised.'

I persisted in asserting that he was really scaring himself with shadows; that Mr and Madame Waller who, I doubted not, would arrive in France before many days had passed-would prove beyond question that the articles I had taken were theirs, and had been stolen from them with their child many years since by Louise Féron; that 'fille du diable' knowing this as well as I did, would consequently never venture, I urged, to appear before the tribunals in support of the accusation-and so on. This view of the case revived Sicard's spirits, and he was becoming himself again, when I, unawares, knocked him over again.

'Tell me,' said I, what is the punishment awarded by the Code Pénal to travelling in France with false papers, or under a false name?'

'Two years of prison, with or without hard labour (travaux forcés), according to whether there are or are not extenuating circumstances. In your case,' he added, with a tinge of malice, 'hard labour will no doubt be awarded.'

"That is pleasant hearing,' said I. 'Of course, then, you took especial care that Madame de Bonneville should not know it was you that furnished so-called Jean Le Gros with the passport of the sick lieutenant lodging at your house?"

6

Sicard sprang up bolt on end, as if impelled by a galvanic shock. Hundred thousand thunders!' he screamed; of course she knows it, and through that accursed Fanchette ! Ah, there is no longer any chance. It is all over with me. I am finished destroyed; that is certain-demonstrable!' and down he fell again in hopeless self-abandonment.

'Come-come,' I remonstrated; 'two years of prison is not, after all, the guillotine, nor one's lifetime. We shall survive it, never fear.'

I ceased endeavouring to console him by words, and awaited what effect the petit souper-a very excellent one, brought in and nicely set out under the superintendence of the sergent de ville-might have in restoring his equanimity, which it was essential should be restored, if only that I might learn what had occurred at Honfleur.

The odour of the roast poulet, &c.; the glug-glug of the wine as I poured it out, had, as I anticipated, a vivifying effect. Sicard turned his face from the wall towards the table, sniffed approvingly; and finally remarking, by way of apology, that if a man was sentenced to be hanged, it would be necessary to eat in the meantime, got up, seated himself at the table, and when he was fairly at it, ate voraciously, though occasionally catching himself back, as it were, from the gratification of his appetite, to gaze around despairingly upon the gloomy cell, and exclaim: 'But really this is desolating!-lamentable! Nevertheless, one must always eat; that is certain-demonstrable!'

The supper done, we were locked in for the night; and by the time he had consumed two or three glasses of strong brandy-punch, and as many cigars, Maître Sicard had, in a comparative sense, cast dull care behind him, and willingly consented to relate his experiences in connection with Madame de Bonneville, Clémence, and those sons of Satan, the Webbes, since I parted with him at the Messageries Impériales, St Malo.

As the night was chilly, I proposed that we should get into and sit up in bed; in which position, with the aid of cigars, and brandy-and-water ad libitum, he could narrate and I listen in tranquillity and comfort. This was agreed to; we were quickly placed, and Sicard led off con spirito.

'I felt a lively satisfaction, Monsieur Linwood,' he began, 'in knowing you were definitively gone; in which state of mind my steps naturally took the direction of the Rue Dupetit Thouars, to impart and share that satisfaction with Mademoiselle Clémence. Ah! with what kindness, with what graciousness did the dear girl receive me!-with what a charming solicitude did she listen to my account of the devices I had recourse to in effecting your escape! Fanchette was there-not precisely at first, she was gone out to post a letter-but before long, and took-sly serpent as I now comprehend-as lively an interest as did her young mistress in what had been done. Never have I passed two such delightful hours, never experienced such effusion of soul, such exquisite tendresseBref, I was happier than a king, and bade Clémence adieu in a state of exalted felicity, after having assisted Fanchette to mend the armoire with some carpenter's glue, which would, she remarked, prevent the pièces d'accusation from being missed till, at all events, your purpose in taking them had been accomplished. My last words that evening to Mademoiselle Clémence, who could not shake off the nervous dread with which the thought of encountering Madame de Bonneville inspired her, were these: "Fear nothing, ma belle. I promise thee once more, upon the faith of a Frenchman and thy devoted lover, that I will watch over and effectively protect thee from thy real or pretended mother and my relative." I have loyally endeavoured to redeem that pledge,' added Sicard, with a groan-and-here I am.'

'Early the next morning,' he resumed, that detestable traitress Fanchette came to my shop for the boots I had promised her. I fitted her splay-feet à merveille, and she walked off chaussée as she had never

been before. Mademoiselle Clémence, she told me, had a slight nervous headache, but would receive me in the evening. "Bon! all goes well," I say to myself; "and now I must turn my attention to business, which, after all, must be minded, whether one is in love or not." There were arrears, as you may suppose, to bring up; and it was eight o'clock in the evening before I had finished and was suitably dressed for a visit to my charming fiancée. At last I am ready, and take my way to the Rue Dupetit Thouars. I arrive there, find the magasin closed, and knock at the door; the blows seeming at the same time to strike upon my heart. There is no answer; I can see no light in the house, and I am getting wild, distracted, when one of the workwomen comes up, recognises and addresses me:

"Ah, Monsieur Sicard," she says, "the magasin has been closed since before five o'clock. Madame de Bonneville returned in the morning; there was a terrible scene-madame, with mademoiselle sobbing as if her heart would break, quitted the house together, and have since, I hear, left St Malo by diligence, accompanied by Fanchette."

'I am thunderstruck at hearing that,' continued Sicard; my head turns round, and I am near falling on the pavé; but innate force of character sustains me, and I perceive that the time is come for redeeming my promise to Clémence, of, at all costs and hazards, watching over her safety. I hasten, therefore, to the Messageries. The diligence is gone long since, and in it, I am told, were Madame and Mademoiselle de Bonneville and servant. I can only follow in a hired vehicle; and as there is no alternative, I accept that expensive mode of travelling, order a voiture with two horses to be prepared; hurry to the sous-prefecture, get my passport visé; my paquet is soon made, and I am off in pursuit of the fugitives, leaving, of necessity, my business in charge of Alexis Dubarle, a good workman and bon enfant enough, but bon vivantgourmand even, when he has the means. And now he will probably have command of the caisse of my establishment for two years to come. Oh! it is crushing-insupportable-infernal! Push the carafe a little further this way, if you please, Monsieur Linwood. 'Well,' resumed Sicard, after a reviving draught of punch, I follow the diligence in my two-horsed vehicle; but so many delays occur, that I lose instead of gaining upon the fuyards, and arrive at Honfleur full twelve hours later than they. Madame de Bonneville, Clémence, and Fanchette are, I discover, at the Toison d'Or. I-for economy, in presence of the eventualities before me, could not be disregarded-take lodgings at an auberge. The next morning, at about eleven o'clock, I present myself at the Toison d'Or, inquire for Madame de Bonneville, and am conducted to her apartment. Ah, my friend Linwood,' exclaimed Sicard, I find myself in presence of a tigress-of a tigress enragé, and a terrified lamb; for Clémence, whose eyes I notice are swollen with weeping, and who trembles with fear, is there also. Instantly I am assailed, overwhelmed with insults, maledictions, threats-imperious commands to immediately leave the hotel! Vainly I endeavour to bear up against that hurricane of rage, to obtain ever so brief a hearing. It is impossible; I am compelled to yield, and literally driven away by a merciless torrent of taunt, sarcasm, and abuse.'

'You, of course, soon returned to the charge?' 'Not I, morbleu! I had not the courage; besides, it would have been useless. I determined, however, not to leave Honfleur while my virago relative remained there, and to watch sedulously for an opportunity of seeing Clémence alone. Nothing, however, came of it; and I was no further advanced till early in the morning of yesterday. I had, with many others, been observing the departure of the corsair-cutter, Espiègle, which had come into Honfleur during the night, and sailed again with a light breeze just before dawn.

When she had disappeared round a projecting point of land, I walked away to get my breakfast, but had not gone far, when a commissionaire popped a note into my hand, addressed to Monsieur Sicard, de St Malo. I will give it you, in a hundred times, to guess who the writer was!' added Sicard with vivacity.

'I will guess it the first time-Captain Webbe, alias Jacques Le Gros.'

'You are right. The note stated that the writer was in a position to place my affair with a certain young demoiselle en bon train, and would do so if I would call without delay at the Trois Rois de Cologne, and ask to see Monsieur Baptiste. Of course I was only too happy to accept the invitation, and, arrived at the Trois Rois, I was, to begin with, introduced to his tall, handsome son. You know what a tongue the old gredin has,' continued Sicard, and will not therefore be surprised to hear that he explained most admirably everything in his previous conduct that might, he said, have appeared strange or equivocal to me; and having so far cleared the ground, he presented his plan of present battle.

'Madame de Bonneville,' he said, 'was determined to discover through him where you, Linwood, were, in order to bring about, bon gré, mal gré, the marriage which she had at heart. "Linwood is at Havre at this moment," continued the Sieur Webbe, “and I do not doubt would be induced, notwithstanding all that has passed, to forthwith espouse Mademoiselle Clémence, if Madame de Bonneville could obtain speech of him, so potent are the influences which she could bring to bear for that purpose. Now, observe," he went on rapidly to say, "that I am here to marry my son to a young English lady-her father at least was an Englishman-of the name of Wilson, of which young lady Madame de Bonneville is guardian conjointly with myself, and she will effectually interfere to prevent the union of the attached young couple unless I first aid her to accomplish the marriage of Clémence with young Linwood. Fortunately, she does not yet know that I and my son have arrived here; for if she did, her jealous vigilance would be redoubled, and there would be no chance of a fortunate solution of our difficulties. Neither of us dare consequently shew out of this house; and what I require is an intelligent, trustworthy friend to be a medium of communication between us and Mademoiselle Wilson. If you will undertake the office, I pledge you my word of honour that an hour after my son's marriage, I will present myself with you before Madame de Bonneville, and defy her-you can easily understand under what menaceto

withhold her consent to your union with so-called Clémence de Bonneville, and really Lucy Hamblin." "There was an immense deal more to the same tune,' drowsily continued Sicard, which I am too sleepy to relate; but the end of it was, that I undertook the business-and a very awkward, delicate business it was

I-I'll tell you why some day, and why Monsieur le Capitaine particularly chose-chose me to-toWhat was I saying? Oh, ah, yes! that after being crammed to the throat with instructions-cautions

promises-morbleu! wasn't he lavish of them-I carried notes and messages to and fro the Rue du Marché all the day long- She was a charming jeune Anglaise-extremely charming, especially when dressed for the wedding, which-which was fixed to take place at seven in the evening-very charming, when she stood at the altar with le jeune Webbe— even Clémence-I thought-Clémence-Clém ''Wake up, and go on, will you?'

'Hein! what is it-what do you shake-shake''Go on, I say, or I'll murder you!' 'To-morrow-to-morrow,' he murmured, as his heavy head dropped helplessly upon the pillow.

"Were they married?-answer that,' I shouted, 'or, by Heaven, I'll throttle you.'

DIOGENES.

AN AMERICAN WHEN Philip of Macedon announced his intention to invade Corinth, the inhabitants of that city, overlooking, or feigning not to perceive, their utter incapability of resistance, affected to make great preparations for defence; while Diogenes, who, like many of us, even at the present time, delighted to ridicule the follies he did not himself commit, rolled about his tub in an excited, bustling manner, by way of deriding the fussy, fruitless show of opposition made by the feeble Corinthians. The transatlantic Diogenes, however, when he observed the foolish, aimless bustle made by the modern Corinthians of the world, in pursuit of the sacred dollar and its glittering accessories, instead of rolling about his tub, quietly sat down in it, and wrote an interesting book, replete with pithy, original observations, but strongly tinctured with the inevitable dogmatism that ever attends the one soi-disant wise man who assumes to be the teacher of all the rest of his race. Henry D. Thoreau, the American Diogenes, if we may presume to term him so-assuredly we mean no offence-is a graduate of Harvard university, a ripe scholar, and a transcendentalist of the Emersonian school, though he goes much further than his master; his object, apparently, being the exaltation of mankind by the utter extinction of civilisation. When Nat Lee was confined in Bedlam, the unfortunate dramatist roundly asserted his perfect sanity, exclaiming: All the world say that I am mad, but I say that all the world are mad; so being in the minority, I am placed here.' Now, the truth, as it generally does, may have lain between the two extremes; and in like manner, Mr Thoreau, when he lazily lived in a hut, in a lonely wood, subsisting on beans, was not half so mad as his neighbours, the 'cute New Englanders, supposed him to be; nor, on the other hand, were they so mad as he considered them, though they lived in comfortable houses, in towns, and ate beef and mutton, which they consequently worked hard to pay for.

Mr Thoreau had tried school-keeping,' but without success, because he 'did not teach for the good of his fellow-men, but simply for a livelihood.' He had tried commerce, but found that trade curses everything it handles; and though you trade in messages from heaven, the whole curse of trade attaches to the business.' He had tried 'doing good,' but felt satisfied that it did not agree with his constitution. Indeed he says: "The greater part of what my neighbours call good, I believe in my soul to be bad; and if I repent of anything, it is very likely to be my good-behaviour.' At last, as he could fare hard, and did not wish to spend his time in earning rich carpets or other fine furniture, or a house in the Grecian or Gothic style, he concluded that the occupation of a day-labourer was the most independent of any, especially as it required only thirty or forty days' work to support a man for the whole year. Besides, the labourer's day ends with the going down of the sun, and he is then free to devote himself to his chosen pursuit; but his employer, who speculates from month to month, has no respite from one end of the year to the other.' So, borrowing an axe, he boldly marched into the woods of Concord, where, on the pleasant bank of Walden Pond, he built himself a hut, in which he lived alone for more than two years, subsisting chiefly on beans planted and gathered by his own hands. In the book,* already adverted to, his thoughts and actions during

Walden, or Life in the Woods. Boston: Ticknor and Fields.

this period are pleasantly and interestingly related ; though, like all solitary men, the author exaggerates the importance of his own thoughts, his I standing up like an obelisk in the midst of a level, though by no means barren expanse.

The building of his hut gave rise to many reflections. He wondered that in all his walks he never came across a man engaged in so simple and natural an occupation as building his own house. There is,' he says, some of the same fitness in a man's building his own house, as there is in a bird's building its own nest. Who knows but if men constructed their dwellings with their own hands, and provided food for themselves and families, simply and honestly enough, the poetic faculty would be universally developed, as birds universally sing when they are thus engaged.' So, as he hewed his studs and rafters, he sang-if not as musically, at least quite as unintelligibly as any bird'Men say they know many things; But lo! they have taken wingsThe arts and sciences, And a thousand appliances;

The wind that blows

Is all that anybody knows.'

As Mr Thoreau squatted, he paid no rent; but the glass, ironwork, and other materials of his hut, which he could not make himself, cost twenty-eight dollars. The first year he lived in the woods, he earned, by day-labour, thirteen dollars, and the surplus produce of his beans he sold for twenty-three dollars; and as his food and clothing during that period cost him thirteen dollars only, he thus secured leisure, health, and independence, besides a comfortable house, as long as he chose to occupy it. Rice, Indian meal, beans, and molasses, were his principal articles of food. He sometimes caught a mess of fish; and the wood gratuitously supplied him with fuel for warmth and cooking. Work agreed with his constitution as little as doing good.' He tells us: 'I love a broad margin to my life. Sometimes in a summer morning, having taken my accustomed bath, I sat in my sunny doorway from sunrise till noon, rapt in a reverie, amidst the pines, and hickories, and sumachs, in undisturbed solitude and stillness, while the birds sang around or flitted noiseless through the house, until by the sun falling in at my west window, or the noise of some traveller's wagon on the distant highway, I was reminded of the lapse of time. I grew in those seasons like corn in the night, and they were far better than any work of the hands would have been. They were not times subtracted from my life; but so much over and above my usual allowance. This was sheer idleness to my fellow-townsmen, no doubt; but if the birds and flowers had tried me by their standard, I should not have been found wanting.'

As he walked in the woods to see the birds and squirrels, so he sometimes walked in the village to see the men and boys. The village appeared to him as a great newsroom: its vitals were the grocery, the bar-room, the post-office, and the bank; and as a necessary part of the machinery, it had a bell, a big gun, and a fire-engine. The houses were arranged to make the most of mankind, in lanes and fronting one another, so that every traveller had to run the gantlet, and every man, woman, and child might get a lick at him. But to one of his village visits there hangs a tale, which he shall tell himself: 'One afternoon, when I went to the village to get a shoe from the cobbler's, I was seized and put into jail, because I did not pay a tax to, or recognise the authority of, the state, which buys and sells men, women, and children, like cattle, at the door of its senate-house. I had gone down to the woods for other purposes. But wherever a man goes, men will pursue and paw him with their dirty institutions, and, if they can, constrain him to

belong to their desperate odd-fellow society. It is true, I might have resisted forcibly, with more or less effect, might have run a muck against society; but I preferred that society should run a muck against me, it being the desperate party. However, I was released the next day, obtained my mended shoe, and returned to the woods in season to get my dinner of huckleberries on Fair Haven Hill.'

Mr Thoreau failed in making any converts to his system; one person only, an idiotic pauper, from the village poor-house, expressed a wish to live as he did. An honest, hard-working, shiftless Irishman, however, seemed a more promising subject for conversion. This man worked for a farmer, turning up meadow, with a spade, for ten dollars an acre, with the use of the land and manure for one year, while a little broad-faced son worked cheerfully at his side. So as Mr Thoreau relates: 'I tried to help him with my experience, telling him that he was one of my nearest neighbours, and that I, who looked like a loafer, was getting my living like himself; that I lived in a tight, light, and clean house, which hardly cost more than the annual rent of such a ruin as his commonly amounts to; and how, if he chose, he might in a month or two build himself a palace of his own; that I did not use tea, nor coffee, nor butter, nor milk, nor fresh meat, and so did not have to work to get them; again, as I did not work hard, I did not have to eat hard, and it cost me but a trifle for my food; but as he began with tea, and coffee, and butter, and milk, and beef, he had to work hard to pay for them, and when he had worked hard, he had to eat hard again to repair the waste of his system. And so it was as broad as it was long-indeed, it was broader than it was long, for he was discontented, and wasted his life into the bargain. I told him that as he worked so hard, he required thick boots and stout clothing, which yet were soon soiled and worn out; but I wore light shoes and thin clothing, which cost not half so much; and in an hour or two, without labour, but as a recreation, I could catch as many fish as I should want for two days, or earn enough money to support me a week. If he and his family would live simply, they might all go a huckleberrying in the summer for their amusement.'

Puzzled, but not convinced, the Irishman and his greasy-faced wife' stared and scratched their heads. Such teaching must have sounded strangely to them, who had crossed the Atlantic to do their share of work in the world, and enjoy its reward in the form of tea, coffee, butter, and beef. Patrick, however, was silly enough to leave his work for that afternoon, and go a-fishing with the philosopher; but his 'derivative oldcountry mode of fishing disturbed only two fins.' So he wisely went back to his work the next morning, probably studying the proverb of his country which teaches, that hunger and ease is a dog's life;' and our author thus rather uncourteously dismisses him: 'With his horizon all his own, yet he a poor man, born to be poor, with his inherited Irish poverty, or poor life, his Adam's grandmother and boggy ways, not to rise in this world, he nor his posterity, till their wading, webbed, bog-trotting feet get talaria to their heels.'

Another Irishman, of a very different stamp, a squatter in the woods of Walden, might have proved a more facile subject for conversion; but he died just after making Mr Thoreau's acquaintance. This man's name was Quoil; and when he did work, which was very seldom-for he liked work as little as Mr Thoreau himself did-followed the occupation of a ditcher. Having, however, been a soldier in the British army, his American neighbours gave him the brevet rank of colonel. Colonel Quoil, Mr Thoreau tells us, was a man of manners, like one who had seen the world, and capable of more civil speech than one could well attend to. He wore a greatcoat in midsummer, being

affected with the trembling delirium, and his face was the colour of carmine. He died in the high-road. Before his house was pulled down, when his comrades avoided it as "an unlucky castle," I visited it. There lay his old clothes curled up by use, as if they were himself, on his raised plank-bed. His pipe lay broken on the hearth, instead of a bowl broken at the fountain. The last could never have been the symbol of his death, for he confessed that though he had heard of Brister's spring, he had never seen it; and soiled cards-diamonds, spades, and hearts-were scattered over the floor. One black chicken-black as night, and as silent-still went to roost in the apartment. In the rear, there was the dim outline of a garden, which had been planted, but had never received its first hoeing, though it was now harvest-time.' The natural sights and sounds of the woods, as described by Mr Thoreau, form much pleasanter reading than his vague and scarcely comprehensible social theories. He says: 'I had this advantage, at least, in my mode of life over those who were obliged to look abroad for amusement to society and the theatre, that my life itself was become my amusement, and never ceased to be novel. It was a drama of many scenes, and without an end. As I sit at my window this summer afternoon, hawks are circling about my clearing; the tantivy of wild pigeons, flying by twos and threes athwart my view, or perching restless on the white pine boughs behind my house, gives a voice to the air; a fish-hawk dimples the glassy surface of the pond, and brings up a fish; a mink steals out of the marsh before my door, and seizes a frog by the shore; the sedge is bending under the weight of the reed-birds flitting hither and thither; and for the last half-hour I have heard the rattle of railroad-cars -now dying away, and then reviving like the beat of a partridge-conveying travellers from Boston to the country. At night,' he continues, when other birds are still, the screech-owl takes up the strain, like mourning women in their ancient u-lu-lu. Their dismal scream is truly Ben Jonsonian. "Wise midnight hags!" It is no honest and blunt tu-whit tu-who of the poets, but, without jesting, a most solemn grave-yard ditty, the mutual consolations of suicide lovers remembering the pangs and the delights of supernal love in the infernal groves. Yet I love to hear their wailing, their doleful responses, trilled along the wood-side; reminding me sometimes of music and singing-birds, as if it were the dark and tearful side of music, the regrets and sighs that would fain be sung. They are the spirits, the low spirits and melancholy forebodings of fallen souls that once in human shape night-walked the earth and did the deeds of darkness, now expiating their sins with their wailing hymns or threnodies in the scenery of their transgressions. They give me a new sense of the variety and capacity of that nature which is our common dwelling. Oh-0-0-0-0 that I never had been bor-r-r-r-r-n! sighs one on this side of the pond, and circles with the restlessness of despair to some new perch on the gray oaks.

Then

that I never had been bor-r-r-r-n! echoes another on the further side with tremulous sincerity; and bor-r-r-r-n! comes faintly from far in the Lincoln woods. In the meanwhile, all the shore rang with the trump of bull-frogs, the sturdy spirits of ancient winebibbers and wassailers, still unrepentant, trying to sing a catch in their Stygian lake, though their voices have waxed hoarse and solemnly grave, mocking at mirth; and the wine has lost its flavour, and become only water to distend their paunches, and sweet intoxication never comes to drown the memory of the past, but mere saturation, and water-loggedness, and distension. The most aldermanic, with his chin upon a leaf, which serves for a napkin to his drooling chaps, under this northern shore quaffs a deep draught of the once scorned water, and passing round the cup with

the ejaculation tr-r-r-oonk, tr-r-r-oonk, tr-r-r-oonk! and straightway comes over the water, from some distant cove, the same password repeated, where the next in seniority and girth has gulped down to his mark; and when this observance has made the circuit of the shores, then ejaculates the master of ceremonies, with satisfaction, tr-r-r-oonk! and each in its turn repeats the same, down to the least distended, leakiest, and flabbiest paunched, that there be no mistake; and then the bowl goes round again and again, until the sun disperses the morning mist, and only the patriarch is not under the pond, but vainly bellowing troonk from time to time, and pausing for a reply.'

Those were the summer sounds; in winter nights he heard the forlorn but melodious note of the hootingowl, such a tone as the frozen earth would yield if struck with a suitable plectrum. 'I seldom,' he writes, opened my door in a winter evening without hearing it: hoo hoo hoo, hoorer hoo, sounded sonorously, and the first three syllables accented something like how der do, or sometimes hoo hoo hoo only. One night in the beginning of winter, before the pond froze over, about nine o'clock, I was startled by the loud honking of a goose, and stepping to the door, heard the sound of their wings, like a tempest in the woods, as a flock flew low over my house. They passed over the pond, seemingly deterred from settling by my light, their commodore honking all the while with a regular beat. Suddenly an unmistakable cat-owl, from very near me, with the most harsh and tremendous voice I ever heard from any inhabitant of the woods, responded at regular intervals to the goose, as if determined to expose and disgrace this intruder from Hudson Bay by exhibiting a greater compass and volume of voice in a native, and boo hoo him out of Concord horizon! What do you mean by alarming the citadel at this time of night consecrated to me? Do you think I am ever caught napping at such an hour, and that I have not got lungs and larynx as well as yourself? Boo-hoo, boo-hoo, boo-hoo. It was one of the most thrilling discords I ever heard. And yet, to a discriminating ear, there were in it the elements of a concord such as these plains never saw nor heard.'

'Sometimes,' Mr Thoreau continues, 'I heard the foxes, as they ranged over the snow-crust, in moonlight nights, in search of a partridge or other game, barking raggedly and demoniacally like forest-dogs, as if labouring with some anxiety, or seeking expression, struggling for light, and to be dogs outright, and run freely in the streets; for if we take the ages into our account, may there not be a civilisation going on among brutes as well as men? They seemed to me to be rudimental burrowing men, still standing on their defence, awaiting their transformation. Sometimes one came near to my window, attracted by my light, barked a vulpine curse at me, and then retreated.'

Mr Thoreau went to the woods, because he wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see whether he could learn what it had to teach; so that when he came to die, he might not discover that he had not lived. After supporting animal and intellectual life for two years, at the cost of thirteen dollars per annum, he left the woods for as good a reason as he went there.' It seemed to him that he had several more lives to live, so he could not spare any more time for that particular one. He learned, however, by his experiment, that it is not necessary a man should earn his living by the sweat of his brow; and to maintain one's self on this earth is not a hardship but a pastime, if we will live simply and wisely. Moreover, if a man advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavours to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours. In proportion as he simplifies his life, the laws of the universe will appear less complex, and solitude

will not be solitude, nor poverty poverty, nor weakness weakness.'

Who is it, we have more than once mentally inquired, when penning the preceding sketch, that Mr Thoreau reminds us of? Surely it cannot be-yes, it is-no other than his renowned compatriot Barnum. As homespun, beans, and water differ from fine linen, turtle, and champagne, so do the two men differ in tastes, habits, disposition, and culture; yet we cannot think of the one without an ideal association of the other. In one respect only do they seem to agreeboth have an antipathy to hard work; but while one prefers diminishing his wants, the other, increasing them, invents extraordinary schemes for their gratification. If Barnum's autobiography be a bane, Thoreau's woodland experiences may be received as its antidote; but, unfortunately, the former musters its readers by tens of thousands, the latter probably in hundreds only. It is to be hoped, however-though all of us have a reasonable predilection for beef, pudding, and the society of our fellow-creatures-that there are few readers of this Journal who would not prefer eating beans in the woods with Thoreau to living on the fat of the earth, in the best show in all Vanity Fair, with Barnum.

A WOMAN'S THOUGHTS ABOUT WOMEN.

HAPPY AND UNHAPPY WOMEN.

I GIVE fair warning that this is likely to be 3 sentimental' chapter. Those who object to the same, and complain that these papers are not practical,' had better pass it over at once; since it treats of things essentially unpractical, impossible to be weighed and measured, handled and analysed, yet as real in themselves as the air we breathe and the sunshine we delight in-things wholly intangible, yet the very essence and necessity of our lives.

Happiness! Can any human being undertake to define it for another? Various last-century poets have indulged in 'Odes' to it, and good Mrs Barbauld wrote a 'Search' after it-a most correct, elegantly phrased, and genteel little drama, which, the dramatis persone being all females, and not a bit of love in the whole, is, I believe, still acted in old-fashioned boarding-schools, with great éclat. The plot, if I remember right, consists of an elderly lady's leading four or five younger ones on the immemorial search, through a good many very long speeches; but whether they ever found happiness, or what it was like when found, I really have not the least recollection.

Let us hope that excellent Mrs Barbauld is one of the very few who dare venture even the primary question- What is Happiness? Perhaps, honest woman! she is better able to answer it now.

I fear, the inevitable conclusion we must all come to is, that in this world, happiness is quite indefinable. We can no more grasp it than we can grasp the sun in the sky or the moon in the water. We can feel it interpenetrating our whole being with warmth and strength; we can see it in a pale reflection shining elsewhere; or in its total absence, we, walking in darkness, learn to appreciate what it is by what it is not. But I doubt whether any woman ever craved for it, philosophised over it, or-pardon, shade of Barbauld!-commenced the systematic search after it, and ever attained her end. For happiness is not an end-it is only a means, an adjunct, a consequence. The Omnipotent Himself could never be supposed by any, save those who out of their own human selfishness construct the attributes of Divinity, to be absorbed throughout eternity in the contemplation of His own ineffable bliss, were it not identical with His ineffable goodness and love.

Therefore, whosoever starts with 'to be happy' as