HOW THEY GET ON ELSEWHERE.
itunsurar' the economist tells us, is a blessing, for it is virtually repeal of taxes—it cheapens corn and saves 45,000,000/. to the people of this country. Well, if the economist gets a more distinct idea of the great orb and its influence on our planet by that mone- tary equivalent, there is no reason why the men should not trans- late the blessing into his own dialect. It is the sun still, although viewed from the Stock Exchange. The great orb feeds the hungry for the year—in itself a greater blessing than the saving of taxes. But we may find other equivalents. The Parliament man, for instance, may have the resort to prolific sun and bracing breezes justified to him by very " practical " considerations. Honourable Member is tired ; he has flagged at his duties through sheer fatigue ; he knows he let doubtful clauses pass—such as some in that very questionable Beer Bill ; and he knows be hailed the post- ponement of good bills till next session because he had not heart for his work. He has his holiday now. He rushes away from -hated Westminster— he feels the sun glow upon his skin, the wind rush straight into his expanding chest ; and he is miraculously revivified, already ! The grouse are rather wild, his "bag" is die, gracefully meagre ; but it is wonderful how he stalks along, gathering vigour, not weariness, at every step. The grouse fall, a sacrifice to Ilygeia, but not a vain sacrifice. The legislator grows robust ; his views become healthy and hopeful; he is con- scious that his motion, not on "Tuesdays," but on the moors, is successful; his adjournment to that non-session is a vast amend- meat; and the bill-producing power he is breeding in that healthy exercise will be a blessing to constituencies. -
Really the rest of the universe is not only "a change" from the London season. Get away from "life" in its conventional aggre- gation, with its "drainage," and taste it at its sources. The very sounds that people the air of solitary places—the hundred vague . strains of the singing breezes, the moving herbs, the creaking trees, - the insects, the voices of the beasts, varied by distance, and mingling • in an audible stillness where some vein of distinct melody eludes the sense—answer to the life of the heart-pulse that you hear talking -within. The bird rises from the rustling corn ; the unseen beast rushes, like a sun shadow, across your path ; the snake unwinds from the dried branch ; the herdsman's voice spans the field with life; the voiee of the child proclaims the unseen home with its sleargladness.. Suddenly the-winding path comes upon a secluded stile—a half-seen couple glide away in bashful coyness, and—can it be P..—yes it is, a local Paul and Virginia! Truly life is going
on in those P..—yes, without much help from eminent persons. Yougo to sea, like your nephew ; you dance for a time upon the watert; at each third or fourth billow, the vessel dips smartly down, and the head-wind dashes the spray into your face. It is wonderful how pleasant it is to have cold water thrown upon ones enterprise, in proper season. And what a relish the salt has ! Look over the taffrail the very motion of the waters, never ceasing, provokes the loving admiration of man, who hates cold obstruction and lifeless decay. But see beneath those sudden flashes, those interwoven lines of light—are they.not the path of our scaly fellow creatures ? Now dip your hand into the cool salt wave, and a spark or two clings to it: is it animal life, stirred up by every motion to visible pulsation, blushing a pale-green electric light; or is it lightning's self, sawn in the sea, and vege- -Wing in a phosphorescent mouldiness of the ocean ? Who can 4.1 that life exists in endless variety of form, and beyond Iffn race active motion? Where is life ?—rather askwhere is It not?
You mount the steep ascent, say from fair old Florence, young compared to the legends that people the Val d'Arno ; you rest your limbs, enjoying their repose rather than weary with action ; you -stop and listen to the air thick with the buzz of countless life. You • look down upon the bank, and there, within a space that your arms could span, you see the tribes as countless—the ant busy in his untiring path—the mantis simulating prayer in his rapacious watch—the grasshopper, a troop of the tribe—beetles without enet an every shade of metallic lustre ; nations of life within the senile Lot one fixed survey. And that is but one square yard or so where the whole atmosphere redounds with miniature clamours ; while -the voice of man comes ringing over the native land of song, and Abe sands of Arno give the last novelty to the world of opera. -It is awful to see, bureaus and administration notwithstanding, -what an amount of local self-government there is in the universe —awful, but instructive, invigorating, restoring the heart as Well as head and limbs of him that studies ; for to travel is to study, in a library which restores to manhood the wisdom of childhood. "
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