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
obviousness.
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