Music, drawing, works of usefulness and fancy, all amuse and refine the mind, sharpen the ingenuity, and form insensibly the dawning judgment. As the judgment gains strength, so do the passions also; we have actions to weigh, and need that taste in conduct, that delicate sense of propriety, which gives grace to virtue. The highest branch of solitary amusement is reading; but even in the choice of books the fancy is first employed; for in reading, the heart is touched, till its feelings are examined by the understanding, and the ripenings of reason regulate the imagination. This is the work of years, and the most important of all employments. When life advances, if the heart has been capable of receiving early impressions, and the head of reasoning and retaining the conclusions which were drawn from them; we have acquired a stock of knowledge, a gold mine which we can occasionally recur to, independent of outward circumstances. The Supreme Being has every thing in himself; we proceed from Him, and our knowledge and affections must return to Him for employment suited to them. And those who most resemble Him ought, next to Him, to be the objects of our love; and the beings whom we should try to associate with, that we may receive an inferior degree of satisfaction from their society. But be assured, our chief comfort must ever arise from the mind’s reviewing its own operations—and the whispers of an approving conscience, to convince us that life has not slipped away unemployed. CHAP. XIV. _Innocent Amusements.—Description of a Welsh Castle.—History of a Welsh Harper.—A tyrannical Landlord.—Family Pride._ As it was now harvest time, the new scene, and the fine weather delighted the children, who ran continually out to view the reapers. Indeed every thing seemed to wear a face of festivity, and the ripe corn bent under its own weight, or, more erect, shewed the laughing appearance of plenty. Mrs. Mason always allowing the gleaners to have a sufficient quantity, a great number of poor came to gather a little harvest; and she was pleased to see the feeble hands of childhood and age collecting the scattered ears. Honest Jack came with his family; and when the labours of the day were over, would play on a fiddle, that frequently had but three strings. But it served to set the feet in motion, and the lads and lasses dancing on the green sod, suffered every care to sleep. An old Welsh harper generally came to the house about this time of the year, and staid a month or more; for Mrs. Mason was particularly fond of this instrument, and interested in the fate of the player; as is almost always the case, when we have rescued a person out of any distress.