There is great wisdom in reducing our admiration to a word; giving, as it were, a cognate number to our estimate of anything. Wherever we amplify, we usually blunder: we employ epithets that disagree, or, in even less questionable taste, soar into extravagances that are absurd. Besides, our moods of highest enjoyment are not such as dispose to talkativeness; the ecstasy that is most enthralling is self-contained. Who, on looking at a glorious landscape, does not feel the insufferable bathos of the descriptive enthusiast beside him? How grateful would he own himself if he would be satisfied with one word for his admiration! And if one needs this calm repose, this unbroken peace, for the enjoyment of scenery, equally is it applicable to our appreciation of a curious wine. I have no recollection that any further conversation passed between us, but I have never ceased, and most probably never shall cease, to have a perfect memory of the pleasant ramble of my thoughts as I sat there sipping, sipping. I pondered long over a plan of settling down in this place for life, by what means I could realize. sufficient to live in that elevated sphere the host spoke of. If Potts père--I mean my father--were to learn that I were received in the highest circles, admitted to all that was most socially exclusive, would he be induced to make an adequate provision for me? He was an ambitious and a worldly man; would he see in these beginnings of mine the seeds of future greatness? Fathers, I well knew, are splendidly generous to their successful children, and “the poor they send empty away.” It is so pleasant to aid him who does not need assistance, and such a hopeless task to be always saving him who _will_ be drowned.