For you, I presume, from your want of steady light and brilliancy of sparks which are occasionally struck from you, that you are either a flint or a rough diamond. If the former, I hope you will find a home in some friendly tinder-box, instead of lying in the highway to answer the hasty hoof of the trampling steed. If a diamond, I hope to meet you in some imperishable crown, where we may long remain together; you lighting up my pallid orb, I tempering your blaze. _Dried Ferns about my Lamp-shade._--"What pleasure do you, who have exiled those paper tissue covers, take in that bouquet of dried ferns? Their colors are less bright, and their shapes less graceful, than those of your shades." I answer, "They grew beneath the solemn pines. They opened their hearts to the smile of summer, and answered to the sigh of autumn. _They_ remind me of the wealth of nature; the tissues, of the poverty of man. They were gathered by a cherished friend who worships in the woods, and behind them lurks a deep, enthusiastic eye. So my pleasure in seeing them is 'denkende' and 'menschliche.'" "They are of no use." "Good! I like useless things: they are to me the vouchers of a different state of existence." * * * * * _Light._--My lamp says to me, "Why do you disdain me, and use that candle, which you have the trouble of snuffing every five minutes, and which ever again grows dim, ungrateful for your care? I would burn steadily from sunset to midnight, and be your faithful, vigilant friend, yet never interrupt you an instant." I reply, "But your steady light is also dull,--while his, at its best, is both brilliant and mellow. Besides, I love him for the trouble he gives; he calls on my sympathy, and admonishes me constantly to use my life, which likewise flickers as if near the socket." * * * * * _Wit and Satire._--I cannot endure people who do not distinguish between wit and satire; who think you, of course, laugh at people when you laugh _about_ them; and who have no perception of the peculiar pleasure derived from toying with lovely or tragic figures. FAREWELL.[43] Farewell to New York city, where twenty months have presented me with a richer and more varied exercise for thought and life, than twenty years could in any other part of these United States. It is the common remark about New York, that it has at least nothing petty or provincial in its methods and habits. The place is large enough: there is room enough, and occupation enough, for men to have no need or excuse for small cavils or scrutinies. A person who is independent, and knows what he wants, may lead his proper life here, unimpeded by others. Vice and crime, if flagrant and frequent, are less thickly coated by hypocrisy than elsewhere. The air comes sometimes to the most infected subjects.