But alas, even these few rays of commendatory comfort vanish in the dark, after reflection, that it is precisely this ingenuity and enterprise in business and practical matters which unfits us for all the kinder and more social duties, and renders us insensible to every soothing and refining influence. No allowance for past events, unavoidable circumstances, or our possible future destiny, appears to cross the doctor's mind. All is dark and desolate. True, every man of high and low degree--the laborer and shop-man--the lawyer and clergyman, pause in the street to study any mechanical novelty which meets their eye--but ere they do this the doctor is mindful to suggest _that they pass picture shop-windows without deigning to glance therein_. The professions are studied like trades, and in matters of criminal law our condition is truly deplorable. It happened not many months since, he informs us, that the publisher of a slanderous New-York paper, was castigated by a lady, with a hunting whip, in Broadway, at noon. The said lady had been (according to custom) unjustly and cruelly abused in the journal referred to. So great was her irritation that she actually followed the editor along the streets, lashing him continually. But the _finale_ of this startling incident consists of the fact that the lady, on pleading guilty, was fined six cents. There is an obscurity attached to his manner of narrating this anecdote, which leaves the opinion of the author a little uncertain. Six cents would in some parts of Germany be a serious fine, worthy of appeal, mercy, and abatement. In different parts of Suabia and even Baden, notices may be seen posted up, in which the commission of certain local offences is prohibited by fines ranging from four to twelve cents. On the whole, as a zealous defender of the purity and dignity of woman, when unjustly assailed, we are inclined to think that the author sides with _the_ LADY. But we need not follow the doctor further in his career of discontent and prejudice. Before concluding, we would however caution the reader against supposing that he expresses views in any degree accordant with the feelings and opinions of his countrymen. The best, the most numerous, the most impartial, and we may add, by far the most favorable works on America, are from German pens. In confirmation of our assertion that his work is unfavorably regarded at home we may adduce the fact that it has been severely handled by excellent reviewers among them; take for example the following, from the Leipzig _Central Blatt_. After favorably noticing the late excellent work of QUENTIN on the United States, he proceeds to say of the doctor's _Sketches_, that