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CHAPTER VI. 



THE BROOK. 



THE greatest charm about the works of nature is, 

 that, however they may vary in extent, or in the kind 

 of emotion that they excite, they never fail to be inter- 

 esting ; but when we have wearied ourselves in the 

 study of one, the change to another one destroys the 

 incipient lassitude, and we turn to the new with the 

 same freshness as if we had come at once from rest to 

 labour. If we have become giddy with the contem- 

 plation of lofty summits and wave-lashed shores, if 

 the broad-rolling tide of the river has ceased to please, 

 if the brown moor has moulded the mind to its own 

 dusky monotony, nature has still something to charm 

 us ; and when we have contemplated one part of her 

 works till we are weary, and our eyes ache, and our 

 temples throb, if the voice of another call but, " come 

 and see," the mind is up, and the momentary weariness 

 of the body is forgotten. 



Even the human body is so constituted and con- 

 structed, that indolence, or even rest, is not the only 

 means by which it may be recruited. Change will do 

 the work. If the burden has been on the one shoulder 

 till pain is felt, shift it to the other, and not ease 



