"Lost?--what is lost?" said another voice behind us; and turning, we welcomed another and a very different neighbour, in our old friend Mr. Ricardo. "What is lost?" "Happiness," said I. "For the want of what?" "For the want of a cultivated taste." "Pshaw!" said Mr. Ricardo, letting go my hand. "_That_ has nothing to do with happiness." "Do you think so, sir?" "Certainly. What can a cultivated taste do for you, but create imaginary wants, that you would do just as well without?" "If you have not them, you have not the exquisite pleasure of gratifying them." "Well, and what if you haven't? How are you the worse off? The want that is not known is not felt." "But the range of pleasure is a very different thing without them," said I. "And character is a very different thing," said my father. "Character?" said Mr. Ricardo. "Yes," said my father. "I should like to hear you make that out." "And so should I," said I. "I was arguing only for enjoyment--I did not venture so far as that." "Well, enjoyment," said Mr. Ricardo. "Do you think you have more enjoyment here now, than one of the plain sons of the soil, who would see nothing in roses but roses, and who would call 'Viola tricolor' a 'Johnny-jump-up?'" "In the first place, learning is not taste; and, in the second place, you do not mean what you say, Mr. Ricardo. You know what Dr. Johnson says of the quart pot and the pint pot--both may be equally full, but the one holds twice as much as the other." "Ah, Dr. Johnson!" said Mr. Ricardo, with an odd little flourishing wave of his hand; "you delude yourself! The quart pot is twice as likely to be spilled. If you have some pleasures that other people haven't, you have pains of your own, too, that they are exempt from. Now I suppose a little mal-adjustment of proportions--a little deviating from the exquisite line of correctness in men or things--would overturn your whole cup of enjoyment, while his or mine would stand as firm as ever." "But perhaps a sip of mine would be worth his entire cupful." "Now," said Mr. Ricardo, not minding me, "I fell in with a family once--it was at the West, when I was travelling there. They were good, plain, sensible, excellent people, happy in each other, and contented with the rest of the world. They had everything within themselves, and lived in the greatest comfort, and harmony, and plenty. I was with them several days, and it occurred to me that people could not be happier than they were." "But for your bringing them up as instances, I suppose their having 'everything within themselves' did not include the pleasures of a cultivated intelligence?" "Well, I don't suppose they would have quoted Dr. Johnson to me. But now of what use to them would be all that extra cultivation?" "Of what use to you," said my father, "is that window you had cut in your library this spring, that looks to the west?" "Of very little use," said Mr. Ricardo, "for my wife sits in it all the time."