But though the nations of the west have acquired a taste for this species of thought, it is the distinction of the Asiatic to meditate; as to reason and to act, is the glory of the European. To withdraw the soul from the senses, to divorce the exterior from the inner man, to detain the spirit within its own circle, and to accustom it there to find its bliss; to penetrate the depths and concealments of the heart, to repose during lengthened periods upon a single idea, without a wish for progression or change; or to break away from the imperfections of the visible world, to climb the infinite, to hold converse with supernal beauty and excellence; these are the prerogatives and pleasures of the intellectualist of Asia: and this is a happiness which he enjoys in a perfection altogether unknown to the busy, nervous, and frigid people of the north. If by favor of a peculiar temperament the oriental frees himself from the solicitations of voluptuous indulgence; if the mental tastes are vivid enough to counteract the appetites; then he finds a life of inert abstraction, of abstemiousness, and of solitude, not merely easy, but delicious. The lassitude which belongs to his constitution and climate more than suffices to reconcile the contemplatist to the want of those enjoyments which are to be obtained only by toil. A genial temperature, and a languid stomach, reduce the necessary charges of maintenance to an amount that must seem incredibly small to the well-housed, well-clothed, and high-fed people of northern Europe. The slenderest revenues are, therefore, enough to free him from all cares of the present life. He has only to renounce married life, its claims and its burdens, and then the skeleton machinery of his individual existence may be impelled in its daily round of sluggish movement, by air, and water, and a lettuce. The Asiatic character is in no inconsiderable degree affected by the habits which result from the insufferable fervor of the sun at noon, and which compels a suspension of active employments during the broad light of day. The period of venial indolance easily extends itself through all the hours of sultry heat, if necessity does not exact labor. And then the quiescence in which the day has been passed lends an elasticity of mind to the hours of night, when the effulgent magnificence of the heavens kindles the imagination, and enhances meditation to ecstasy. How little beneath the lowering, and chilly, and misty skies of Britain, can we appreciate the power of these natural excitements of mental abstraction!