continually passing and repassing, all strangers, overwhelm you with a sense of your own nothingness. The brick walls are so dreary, the streets so dirty—all the associations belonging to whatever is most common-place in our existence—that whenever I gaze from the window, I always feel lowered and dispirited. But, in the country, the green fields are so joyous, the pure air so fresh, the blue sky so clear; the fine old trees, redolent of earth's loveliest mythology, when the dryades peopled their green shadows; the fair flowers, at the unfolding of whose leaves some line of delicious poetry springs to mind; the singing of the wind, like a natural lute, plaining amid the leaves, all combine to carry me out of myself. I feel a thousand vague and sweet emotions, and am both better and happier. Yes, I do love the country."
"Well," exclaimed Madame de Soissons, "the fate of our sex and of the country seems to be much the same: we are doomed to have a thousand fine things said of us which nobody means or ever acts upon. Your philosopher talks of the virtue only to be found in rural life, and remains quietly in his arm-chair, and his town lodgings; your lover raves of your cruelty, which he vows he cannot survive, leaves your presence, and orders
