The man who has no taste for horsemanship consoles himself for the unenjoyed pleasure by reading of the fractured ribs and smashed collar-bones of the hunting-field. Was it in something of this spirit that Lady Augusta took an especial delight in dwelling in her mind and in her letters on all the disagreeables of her sisters' wedded life? The extravagance of men, their selfishness, their uncomplying habits, the odious tyranny of their tempers, were favorite themes with her, dashed with allusions to every connubial contingency, from alimony to the measles in the nursery! At last, possibly because, by such frequent recurrence to the same subjects, she had no longer anything new to say on them, or perhaps--it is just possible--that the themes themselves had less interest for others than for herself, her sisters seemed to reply less regularly than of old. Their answers were shorter and drier; and they appeared neither to care so much for sympathy and condolence as formerly; and, in fact, as Lady Augusta said to herself, “They were growing inured to ill-treatment!” And if half of us in this world only knew of the miseries we are daily suffering, and which sympathetic friends are crying over, what a deal of delightful affliction might we enjoy that we now are dead to! What oppressive governments do we live under, what cruel taskmasters, what ungrateful publics, not to speak of the more touching sorrows of domestic life,--the undervaluing parents and unsympathizing wives! Well, one thing is a comfort: there are dear kind hearts in mourning over all these for us, anxiously looking for the day we may awaken to a sense of our own misery!