DAT DEEAMS. 347 



when the little bosoms were heaving, and the tears could 

 not be restrained by summoning the pride that considered 

 such a display weakness, and derogatory to the character 

 of manliness, which all Scotch boys are taught to believe 

 the first great aim, and were culminating in a flood of 

 "greeting" she would change the tears to hearty laughter 

 by a grotesque recitation of some humorous song, that 

 would have moved the mirth of the crying philosopher 

 himself. Humor was not as much to her liking as the 

 tender or supernatural, and unless she thought it necessary 

 to remove painful feelings, induced by fear of seeing some 

 spectre wraith flitting by the ivy-curtained windows, or 

 to banish those of acute commiseration, she never re- 

 sorted to it. I have introduced the old nurse partly as 

 an instance to prove that the existence of deep imaginative 

 feeling among the Scotch is common as I never heard 

 my nurse was peculiar in this respect and as possibly ac- 

 counting for my habits of seeing visions and dreaming 

 dreams at times when the mantle of sleep does not envelop 

 me. I have found the benefit of looking for a "silver lining 

 in every cloud ; " though one sink a heavy mass, un- 

 relieved by the slightest penciling of a warmer color, the 

 next one may be bright enough to make amends. The colt 

 gamboling in the sunshine, and which we believed destined 

 to do great deeds, to make the heart bound at the pleasure 

 of having reared it, turns out at the allotted' time to be 

 worthless. The visions are dispelled only to be renewed 

 with those of another year, invested with still brighter 

 hopes. The cigars Jiave burned out. Forgive the egotism 

 that has intruded on you the days of childhood, which, 

 however bright in the remembrance, are not exactly the 

 thing to interest others. 



PKECEPTOB. You need not apologise. I feel something 

 of the same kind steal over me when smoking. I assuredly 

 never thought the want of imagination a Scotch characteris- 



