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us off when that other time comes.

You know my

creed in that respect. In truth, we did some good business yesterday, and we wished to tempt you to a little more to-day, especially as Georgina tells me she is sure riding is good for you."

"She is very kind,” replied Tremaine, "to think of me as an invalid whom she can cure. I wish either of you would teach me the art of a good constitution. Though we don't agree in many of our maxims, there, at least, you have the advantage of me."

"What time do you rise?" said Evelyn, looking inquiringly at the breakfast table.

"I suppose not so early as you; but I am no system-monger, and it is not because I am ill, that I am late; I rise when it suits me."

He said this with the air of a man not quite sure of his point, but resolved to think himself right. "And it suits you to rise at eleven," said Evelyn drily.

"Perhaps," added Georgina, interposing, "Mr. Tremaine is more ill than usual to-day."

"I will not avail myself of that plea, good-natured as it may seem," answered he. "As I am a whig in philosophy as well as politics, I am an enemy to all force upon one's actions. I am therefore perhaps what those, whose duty it is to be up with the sun, would call a sluggard: but it is not

my duty. Were there a necessity for it, I could leave my bed as soon as any one. When I have sometimes hunted, I was on horseback with the first; and when with the armies, as early as the men I commanded!"

"And why not now?" asked Evelyn.

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Precisely because there is no necessity for it; and my rule, if I have one, is to have no rule at all. If I had any method except not to be methodical, I should die of ennui."

"Should die !" exclaimed Evelyn, smiling.

"I know what that smile and that emphasis would infer," continued Tremaine;" and by the corresponding smile of my fair friend there, who has been taught so well to think as her father thinks for her-"

"Indeed I always think for myself, Mr. Tremaine," said Georgina.

"I see, by that corresponding smile," pursued he, "that I am by both of you convicted of being as good as dead already. To resuscitate, you will tell me to rise with the lark,

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Who, singing, startles the dull night.'"

"It would be good for you if you did," observed Evelyn.

"Oh! no doubt! and you will give me too a sort of Claude picture of the rising sun; or talk with Milton of the morn,

'Her rosy steps i' the eastern clime advancing,

Strewing the earth with orient pearl.' "

"We should do well in doing so," observed Evelyn; but forgive me if I am seriously alarmed for your way of life. To say nothing of mind, there are no hours so precious to health as those of the morning; and if you were less of a whig in your philosophy, and would submit to a little force to make you rise early, you would not be thus pale and ill at ease."

CHAP. XX.

MORE ARGUMENT-METHOD AND NECESSARY

OCCUPATIONS.

"So many hours must I tend my flock;
"So many hours must I take my rest;
"So many hours must I contemplate;

"So many hours must I sport myself."

SHAKSPEARE.

"AND whence, and what could be the force?" asked Tremaine, in reply to the observation of Evelyn which concluded the last chapter.

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you have, in addition to your system, the misfortune to be so independent in situation."

"Pray observe that I have no system," interrupted Tremaine.

"And pray observe that I wish you had," repeated his friend; "or if not, at least such a pursuit as you could systematically follow."

"Odious!" cried Tremaine.

"Useful!" retorted the doctor; " useful to interest, to health, to the spirits, the happiness, the very life-blood of man!"

"You speak ex cathedrâ,” said Tremaine, “ and almost persuade me to become a machine. It is certainly true that you seem in robust health, and I may one day be glad to learn how you contrive to dispose of your time, with so many irksome demands upon it as you choose to encourage, and yet preserve that air of contentment which seems to animate you. It is the destruction of my hours by impertinent fools formerly, and tasteless business now, which takes from me my leisure, and to which the indisposition that wears me is certainly owing."

“If I have what you would give me," answered Evelyn, "it is owing to that very division of time which I recommend, and which you reprobate. The leisure I possess enables me to make what allotments of it I please; and by giving every hour

its appropriate duty, I am enabled not only to perform it, but perform it with pleasure."

"You astonish me," replied Tremaine; “ is it possible that, with so much genius, feeling, and imagination as you certainly used to possess, you can call it pleasure to reduce yourself to a mere machine?"

"Even so," returned Evelyn, "and in doing this I know not that I am acting otherwise than in the very scope and design of my nature."

"Impossible, impossible," retorted Tremaine; and with an energy that seemed to confer a momentary pleasure upon him, he broke out with

"The poet's eye, in a fine phrenzy rolling,

"Doth glance from heaven to earth, from earth to heaven,
"And while imagination bodies forth

"The forms of things unknown, the poet's pen

"Turns them to shapes, and gives to airy nothing
"A local habitation and a name."

Very beautiful!" said Georgina, pleased with his whole look, manner, and feeling. "But the application," added her father.

"It is easy," replied Tremaine; " for do you conceive that a mind thus rolling in phrenzy, thus brilliant in fancy, thus enthusiastic in feeling, can possibly be tied down to rules and hours, like a piece of brute earth, or to speak more appropriately, like monotonous clockwork?"

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