Watch the effect upon them of a picture, or a print of a breezy tree,--of a gushing stream,--of a group of children swinging on a gate in a lane. If they do not (because they cannot) express in words the thirst of their souls for these images, observe how their eyes wistfully follow the portfolio or volume of plates which ministers this scenery to them. Observe how, in looking at portraits, their notice fastens at once on any morsel of back-ground which presents any rural objects. Observe the sad fondness with which they cherish flowers,--how reluctantly it is admitted that they fade. Mark the value of presents of bulbs,--above the most splendid array of plants in flower, which kind people love to send to sick prisoners. Plants in bloom are beautiful and glorious; but the pleasure to a prisoner is to see the process of growth. It is less the bright and fragrant flower that the spirit longs for than the spectacle of vegetation. Blessings on the inventors and improvers of fern-houses! We feel towards them a mingling of the gratitude due to physicians, and appropriate to the Good People. We find under their glass-bells fairy gifts, and prescriptions devised with consummate skill. In towns, let the sick prisoner have a fern-house as a compensation for rural pleasures; and in the country as an addition to them. Blessings on the writers of voyages and travels; and not the less for their not having contemplated our case in describing what they have seen! A school-boy’s or a soldier’s eagerness after voyages and travels is nothing to that of an invalid. We are insatiable in regard to this kind of book. To us it is scenery, exercise, fresh air. The new knowledge is quite a secondary consideration. We are weary of the aspect of a chest of drawers,--tired of certain marks on the wall, and of many unchangeable features of our apartment; so that when a morning comes, and our eyes open on these objects, and we foresee the seasons of pain or bodily distress, or mental depression, which we know must come round as regularly as the hours, we loathe the prospect of our day. Things clear up a little when we rise, and we think we ought to be writing a letter to such-a-one, which has been on our conscience for some time. While the paper and ink are being brought, we put out our hand for that book,--arrived or laid in sight this morning. It is a Journal of Travels to the Polar Sea, or over the Passes of the Alps,--or in the Punjâb,--or in Central or South America. Here the leaves turn over rapidly;--there we linger, and read one paragraph again and again, dwelling fondly on some congregation of images, to be seen by our bodily eyes no more:--on we go till stopped by the fluttering and distress,--the familiar pain, or the leaden down-sinking of the spirits, and wonder that our trying time has come so soon, before the letter is written. It has not come soon;--it is only that some hours of our penance have been beguiled,--that we have been let out of our prison for