"No, Thompson," I replied, "I cannot accept it. Do not think me proud or ungrateful; but I have no right to take it." "It's only twenty guineas, man, and I can afford it. Now look, Stukely, you are going to leave me. If you don't take it, you'll make me as wretched as the day is long. You are my friend, and my friend mustn't go amongst strangers without an independent spirit. If you have twenty guineas in your pocket, you needn't be worrying yourself about little things. You'll find plenty of ways to make the money useful. You shall pay me, if you like, when you grow rich, and we meets again; but take it now, and make John Thompson happy." In the lap of nature the troubled mind gets rest; and the wounds of the heart heal rapidly, once delivered there, safe from contact with the infectious world; and the bosom of the nursing mother is not more powerful or quick to lull the pain and still the sobs of her distressed ones. It is the sanctuary of the bruised spirit, and to arrive at it is to secure shelter and to find repose. Peace, eternal and blessed, birthright and joy of angels, whither do those glimpses hover that we catch of thee in this tumultuous life, weak, faint, and transient though they be, melting the human soul with heavenly tranquillity? Whither, if not upon the everlasting hills, where the brown line divides the sky, or on the gentle sea, where sea and sky are one--a liquid cupola--or in the leafy woods and secret vales, where beauty lends her thrilling voice to silence? How often will the remembrance only of one bright spot--a vision of Paradise rising over the dull waste of my existence--send a glow of comfort to my aged heart, and a fresh feeling of repose which the harsh business of life cannot extinguish or disturb! And what a fair history comes with that shadowy recollection! How much of passionate condensed existence is involved in it, and how mysteriously, yet naturally connected with it, seem all the noblest feelings of my imperfect nature! The scene of beauty has become "a joy for ever."