"Luckily for mankind," said Evelyn, "we are not all of us poets."

"But we might be," returned Tremaine, interrupting him," and should, if it were not for those vile trammels in which most of us are unhappily condemned to live."

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Doubting your unhappily," replied Evelyn, "I particularly doubt it as derived from what you call trammels, for I was going on to observe, that it is from those very trammels that all which is called order arises; and the happiness of order in society, I suppose I need not point out to a legislator like you."

"It will do very well for tinkers and tailors," said Tremaine, with vivacity, "for tradesmen, and secretaries, and lawyers: they must do their work, answer their letters, and attend their causes. we are talking of men of leisure, and, pray observe, men of imagination."

But

"It is to these I direct my remark," said Evelyn, "and as a professor of idleness, I would presume to lay it down, ex cathedra if you please, that an order of time, established for the various occupations of even men of leisure, would make them probably wiser, and certainly happier, than they generally are."

"What says Miss Evelyn?" asked Tremaine.

"Oh! you know papa thinks for me," answered

Georgina, "so you need not ask. But even in paradise, in the passages you alluded to just now, our first parents were forced to divide their time properly, (for I am afraid it would shock you to say systematically), in order to perform the business which, even to them, was committed by Heaven."

"Such a moralist as you would go far to convert me," said Tremaine, while her father nodded his approbation; "but can you seriously and sincerely say (barring the beauty of the description) that the address of Adam to his helpmate, (for so, indeed, we may here call her) does not exhibit a very constrained and homely life? To be always digging a garden, cleaning walks, or watering plants! Confess this is but a vulgar sort of paradise, after all; utterly subversive of the sprightly graces, the sparkling companionship of modern life, and more worthy a market-gardener and his dame than the prince and princess of the world."

He said this with an energy so animated, an air so graceful, and a voice so impressive, that Georgina could not help being struck. She laughed, however, and was about to reply, when her father interrupted her by saying,

"We have wandered from the point, good folks, which is, not what is the best occupation, but whether some occupation is not essential."

"Thought is occupation," observed Tremaine.

"I grant you, and a very delightful one; but were we all mere thinkers, what would become of the world ?"

"And yet this leisure, which you so much dread,” continued Tremaine, "this sweet otium, is the best gift for which we pray the gods. At least so sings Horace, in his famous Ode; and he knew men as well as you or I.”*

"Yes! but his suppliant was an active merchant, and Prensus Ægao,' before he prayed. For while his ship gave her sails to the breeze, and was likely to fill his coffers, he never thought of otium.

"You would destroy the great sweetener of life," said Tremaine.

"Believe me, not," pursued Evelyn; "I would only make it still more sweet." "By what?"

"By being earned."

"Earned ?"

“Yes! this I take to be the great secret of human conduct. The lounger, who was envied by his friend the barrister, toiling down to the courts, goes to the bottom of this subject in three words.

happy,' said his friend; you have no term.'

• You are

Alas! yes!'` answered the lounger, but I have no vacation.' I remember when my theory first arose upon this subject;-but perhaps I fatigue you."

* Otin Divos prensus Ægæo.

"Quite the contrary," said Tremaine, with good breeding; "I may not agree, but I love to hear you." Georgina looked pleased.

" "Twas in an old chateau in Languedoc," said Evelyn, "where I passed a month with a middleaged man, who thought he was tired of the world."

"And was he not so?" asked Tremaine.

"You shall hear. We moralized every day at dinner over a motto in large golden letters, above the great fire-place, placed there in the time of Lewis XIII. Thou shalt eat the bread of the sweat of thy brow.'"

"Quaint enough," said Tremaine.

"Sound and true," continued Evelyn; "and had my friend, the owner of the chateau, observed it, he would perhaps now be alive."

How did he die ?" asked Tremaine.

Why he was over-run with indolence, from having a large fortune," answered Evelyn.

Tremaine did not like the answer, and Evelyn continued.

"He did not make business, and from sheer want of something to do (being too good for vicious pursuits), he took to eating, without earning it by fatigue; he languished all day for his dinner, with no pretence for it but having eaten his breakfast; a thousand amiable qualities, and even talents, were

lost in this crapulence; and he died at forty of no disease but indigestion."

"At forty!" exclaimed Tremaine; "but pray why did he retire ?"

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Somebody got before him in the army,” replied Evelyn.

Tremaine reddened more and more.

"He grew disgusted," continued his friend, " and thought that, by disgust, he had earned a right to retire. He said he was fond of books, and would educate his daughters. But they grew too troublesome, as daughters generally do (looking at Georgina); so they were sent au couvent, and he died."

"And yet I suppose he read and thought,” observed Tremaine.

"Not much of either; his reading was too light."

"What would you have had him do?" said Tremaine, with a little spleen.

"Dig in his garden," retorted Evelyn," and then think, or read as lightly as he pleased.”

"Mere useless, and therefore thankless labour," persisted Tremaine," when a gardener would do it so much better."

"You forget Diocletian's cabbages," answered Evelyn.

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Every one has his favourite pursuit," observed Tremaine.