Echo: a Dialogue. The following dialogue between Echo and a glutton was written in 1609:-- _Glut._ Who curbs his appetite’s a fool. _Echo._ Ah, fool! _Glut._ I do not like this abstinence. _Echo._ Hence! _Glut._ My joy’s a feast, my wish is wine. _Echo._ Swine! _Glut._ Will it hurt me if I eat too much? _Echo._ Much! _Glut._ Thou mockest me, nymph, I’ll not believe it. _Echo._ Believe it! _Glut._ Dost thou condemn, then, what I do? _Echo._ I do. _Glut._ Is it that which brings infirmities? _Echo._ It is! _Glut._ Then, sweetest temperance, I’ll love thee! _Echo._ I love thee! _Glut._ If all be true which thou dost tell, to gluttony I bid farewell. _Echo._ Farewell. The Lion and the Ass. An ass was one day travelling with a lion, who wanted the assistance of his bray in frightening the animals he was hunting. The ass felt very proud of his company, and did not like to speak to his old acquaintances. As they were travelling along in this manner, the ass met an old friend, of his own race, who very civilly bade him a good morning. The ass started back with a stare, and said, “really, you are very impudent--I don’t know you!” “Why not?” replied his friend: “because you are in company with a lion, are you any better than I am--anything more than an ass?” Those narrow-minded people, who, in prosperity, forget the friends of their humbler days, are about as wise as the ass in the fable. National Characteristics. England is said, by a French paper, to be a vast manufactory, a great laboratory, a universal country-house. France is a rich farm, tending to turn itself into a manufactory. Germany is an uncultivated field, because they are philosophers and not peasants who till it. Southern Italy is a villa in ruins. Northern Italy is an artificial prairie. Belgium is a forge. Holland is a canal. Sweden and Denmark are carpenter’s yards. Poland is a sandy heath. Russia is an ice-house. Switzerland is an _avalanche_. Greece is a field in a state of nature. Turkey is a field, fallow. India is a gold mine. Egypt is a workshop for apprentices. Africa is a furnace. Algiers is a nursery-ground. Asia is a grove. The Antilles are sugar-refineries. South America is a store. North America is a till, full. Spain is a till, empty. Merry’s Adventures. CHAPTER XVI. _We set out to return.--The woods.--A fierce animal.--A wild adventure.--Repose in the forest._ The horses and waggons with which we had travelled to Utica, belonging to Mr. Stebbins, he concluded to sell them, as he was offered a much greater price for them than he could have obtained at Salem. This arrangement left Mat Omsted and myself to find our way back on foot, for there were no stages, canal-boats, or rail-roads then.