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Show 1836- 1837] Fbgg's F* r West 257 steamer's ' scape- pipe informed me that I was not far from the " great waters." A few yards through the belt of forest, and the city of San Louis, with towers and roofs, stood before me. St. Louis. xxn " I have no wife nor children, good or bad, to provide for; a mere spectator of other men's fortunes and adventures, and how they play their parts."- Anat. of Melancholy. " Oh ye dread scenes, where Nature dwells alone, Serenely glorious on her craggy throne; Ye citadels of rock, gigantic forms, Veiled by the mists, and girdled by the storms; Ravines, and glens, and deep- resounding caves, That hold communion with the torrent waves." HSICANS. AH, the single blessedness of the unmarried state! Such is the sentiment of an ancient worthy, quietly expressed in the lines which I have selected for a motto. After dozing away half his days and all his energies within the dusky walls of a university, tumbling over musty tomes and shrivelled parchments until his very brain had become cobwebbed as the alcoves he haunted, and the blood in his veins was all " adust and thin;" then, forsooth, the shameless old fellow issues forth with his vainglorious sentiment upon his lips! And yet, now that we consider, there is marvellous " method" in the old man's " madness!" In very truth and soberness, there is a blessedness which the bachelor can boast, single though it be, in which the " man of family," though doubly blessed, cannot share! To the former, life may be made one long holy-day, and its path a varied and flowery one! while to the poor [ 244] victim of matrimonial toils, wife and children are the Alpha and Omega of a weary existence! |
