And yet even this is not a good
unmixed; and like all other possessions, although in a less
degree, the possession of a brain that has been thus
improved and cultivated, and made into the prime organ of a
man's enjoyment, brings with it certain inevitable cares
and disappointments. The happiness of such an one comes to
depend greatly upon those fine shades of sensation that
heighten and harmonise the coarser elements of beauty. And
thus a degree of nervous prostration, that to other men
would be hardly disagreeable, is enough to overthrow for
him the whole fabric of his life, to take, except at rare
moments, the edge off his pleasures, and to meet him
wherever he goes with failure, and the sense of want, and
disenchantment of the world and life.
*
THE VAGABOND
(TO AN AIR OF SCHUBERT)
Give to me the life I love,
Let the lave go by me,
Give the jolly heaven above
And the byway nigh me.
Bed in the bush with stars to see,
Bread I dip in the river--
There's the life for a man like me,
There's the life for ever.
Let the blow fall soon or late,
Let what will be o'er me;
Give the face of earth around,
And the road before me.
Wealth I ask not, hope nor love,
Nor a friend to know me;
All I ask, the heaven above
And the road below me.
*
Every one who has been upon a walking or a boating tour,
living in the open air, with the body in constant exercise
and the mind in fallow, knows true ease and quiet.
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