Page:Life memoirs & pedigree of Thomas Hamilton Dickson.pdf/19

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ment. He has a number of sprightly daughters,

Who have a blith laughing eye,
More fair than the summer sky,
When not a cloud intervenes,
But all with enchantment gleams.

I sometimes call at the house to relax the nerves of my mental and physical body, and pass the time with laughing, winking, and such like frivolity which youth, madness, and love so abundantly possess, and lavishly dispose of, and ask no returns beyond your own pleasure. They have a great many gallants, and are therefore more of the coquet on that account, for it is always the case that the girls who have a great many lovers are more waggish and deceptive than girls that have few or none. Their little heart is generally fortified by loquacity, light and trifling, and often without meaning. It often becomes disgusting. The world is a picture, having two representations on both sides. The one is a landscape variegated with flowers and fruit trees, in luxurious abundance—with rivers and rivulets of the purest water, winding and meandering along a fruitful and delightful landscape. The other side is a representation dark and gloomy as when night's sable mantle is spread from horizon to horizon. Storms howl along its dreary waste, where not a vestige of vegetation exists, to beguile the load of care which depresses humanity,

While oceans heave on high,
And mingle with the mournful sky.