were obliged to attend the more, and did attend to what was going on, on the stage-because a word lost would have been a chasm which it was impossible for them to fill up. (32) With such reflections we consoled our pride then, and I appeal to you whether, as a woman, I met generally with less attention and accommodation than I have done since in more expensive situations in the house? (33) The getting in indeed, and the crowding up those inconvenient staircases, was bad enough-but there was still a law of civility to women recognized to quite as great an extent as we ever found in the other passages― and how a little difficulty overcome heightened the snug seat and the play afterward! (34) Now we can only pay our money, and walk in. (35) You cannot see, you say, in the galleries now. (36) I am sure we saw, and heard, too, well enough then-but sight, and all, I think, is gone with our poverty. (37) "There was pleasure in eating strawberries before they became quite common-in the first dish of peas, while they were yet dear to have them for a nice supper, a treat. (38) What treat can we have now? (39) If we were to treat ourselves now—that is, to have dainties a little above our means, it would be selfish and wicked. (40) It is the very little more that we allow our-. selves beyond what the actual poor can get at, that makes what I call a treat when two people living together, as we have done, now and then indulge themselves in a cheap luxury, which both like; while each apologizes, and is willing to take both halves of the blame to his single share.(41) I see no harm in people making much of themselves in that sense of the word. (42) It may give them a hint how to make much of others. (43) But now-what I mean by the word-we never do make much of ourselves. (44) None but the poor can do it. (45) I do not mean the veriest poor of all, but persons as we were, just above poverty. what that which 1 (46) "I know what you were going to say, that it is mighty pleasant at the end of a year to make all meet and much ado we used to have every thirty-first night of ELEMENT'S OF ENGLISH. 117 December to account for our exceedings-many a long face did you make over your puzzled accounts, and in contriving to make it out how we had spent so much-or that we had not spent so much-or that it was impossible that we should spend so much next year and still we found our slender capital decreasing but then, between ways, and projects, and compromises of one sort or another, and talking of curtailing this charge and doing without that for the future, and the hope that 'youth brings, and laughing spirits, (in which you were never poor till now,) we pocketed up our loss, and in conclusion, with lusty brimmers,' (as you used to quote it out of hearty, cheerful Mr. Cotton, as you called him,) we used to welcome in the coming guest." (47) Now we have no reckoning at all at the end of the old year-no flattering promises about the new year doing better for us. (48) Bridget is so sparing of her speech on most occa sions, that when she gets into a rhetorical vein, I am careful how I interrupt it. (49) I could not help, however, smiling at the phantom of wealth which her dear imagination had conjured up out of a clear income of poor-hundred pounds a year. (50) "It is true we were happier when we were poorer, but we were also younger, my cousin. (51) I am afraid we must put up with the excess, for if we were to shake the superflux into the sea, we should not much mend ourselves. ((52) That we had much to struggle with as we grew up together, we have reason to be most thankful.) (53) It strengthened and kuit our compact closer. (54) We could never have been what we have been to each other if we had always had the sufficiency which you now complain of. (55) The resisting power-those natural dilations of the youthful spirit, which circumstances cannot straiten-with us are long since passed away. (56) Competence to age is supplementary youth, a sorry supplement indeed, but I fear the best that is to be had. (57) We must ride, where we formerly walked; live better and lie softer-and shall be wise to do so-than we had means to do in those good old days you speak of. (58) Yet could those days return -could you and I once more walk our thirty miles a day -could Bannister and Mrs. Bland again be young, and you and I be young to see them-could the good old oneshilling gallery days return-they are dreams, my cousin, now-but could you and I at this moment, instead of this quiet argument by our well-carpeted fireside, sitting on this luxurious sofa, be once more struggling up those inconvenient staircases, pushed about and squeezed, and elbowed by the poorest rabble of poor gallery scramblers -could I once more hear those anxious shrieks of yours -and the delicious (Thank God, we are safe, which always followed when the topmost stair, conquered, let in the first light of the whole cheerful theater down beneath us, I know not the fathom line that ever touched a descent so deep as I would be willing to bury more wealth in than Croesus had, or the great Jew R— is supposed to have, to purchase it. (59) And now do just look at that merry little Chinese waiter holding an umbrella, big enough for a bed-tester, over the head of that pretty, insipid, half-Madonaish chit of a lady in that very blue summer house." End THE SKY. (1) It is a strange thing how little in general people know about the sky. (2) It is the part of creation in which nature has done more for the sake of pleasing man, more for the sole and evident purpose of talking to him and teaching him, than in any other of her works, and it is just the part in which we least attend to her. (3) There are not many of her other works in which some more material or essential purpose than the mere pleasing of man, is not answered by every part of her organization; but every essential purpose of the sky might, so far as we know, be answered, if once in three days or thereabouts, a great ugly black rain cloud were brought up over were adf. the blue, and everything well watered, and so all left blue ad however interest or of far from other sources merever placed, " (7) Sometimes gentle, sometimes capricious, sometimes (9) If in our moments of utter idleness and insipidity and another it has been windy, and another it has been a Есть |