What a querulous noodle! He is one of those who can "travel from Dan to Beersheba, and cry, All is barren!" It is March, and "March in America," while I write. The air is bracing and full of reviving springlike influences. I disagree with the would-be mole from whom I quote. I love to watch every month's sweep of the sun,--while he is performing his low wintry arc, as if almost ashamed to revolve around the cheerless earth, and while he daily performs a wider and wider circle, until at length he comes to stand nearly over my head at noon. I enjoy the result the more intensely for watching its progress. I love to watch him gradually calling out the green on the black hills around me, whose only beauty now are the narrow stripes of fading snow, forming white borders that intersect each other, thus dividing the mould into something not altogether void of the picturesque. So, on yonder field, where the sun now shines quite cheeringly, there is a remnant of beauty. The dead grass, with its yellow and reddish tinge, is divided by small crystal ponds and canals, glistening in the bright ray, and seeming like the gratitude of the poor,--able to return but little, yet determined to return that little gladly. 23. "There is no motion so graceful as that of a beautiful girl in the mazy meanderings of the dance. Nature cannot furnish a more perfect illustration of the poetry of motion than this."--_Ibid._ Yes she can. I will give the traveller two far more perfect illustrations. The _on deggiando_ movement of a light breeze, as it passes, wave upon wave, over high grass: and the gradual and rapid passing away of a shadow, when the sun leaves a cloud, from a hill side of rich foliage. 24. "I have been thinking, more and more, of the probability of departed friends' watching over those whom they have left behind."--_Henry Kirk White_. I have often done so; and whether the idea be a delusive one or not, there is no delusion in believing that the Deity sees them and us at the same instant. They turn, and we turn, at the same moment, to him, and thus through him we enjoy a communion. If two hearts were once preserved in reciprocal love by contemplating, when parted from each other, the same star, how close will be the bond with those who have gone before us, when, at such a distance, we are worshipping the same God! 25. "_When one is angry, and edits a paper_, I should think the temptation too strong for literary, _which is not always human nature_."--_Lord Byron_. There is a couple of young Irishmen who "edit a paper" not far from the place of this present writing, who might furnish a striking corroboration of this opinion of the noble poet. Think of a couple of boobies, pretending to be oracles in literature, wreaking their petty vengeance upon the productions of one against whom they have a personal pique! Such and so contemptible are some of the "critics!" God save the mark! of this generation! J. F. O. LINES TO ----.