DISSOLVING VIEWS. 85 



stage she disdains to make an exhibition of her in- 

 trinsic progress at any. The railroad workman leaves 

 a pyramid to mark the ancient outline of the surface ; 

 and it is wise in him, for he has a motive in the 

 retrospective measurement. But with nature it is 

 not so: ONWARD is the eternal word; and the me- 

 mory how this meadow looked when it was that 

 morass, or this fair field when it was that jungle of 

 high hedges, stunted ash-trees, tangled bushes, with 

 docks and thistles to correspond, to say nothing of 

 heaved-up ridges and crooked furrows, all is past ; 

 and he who looks on it as it is, might as well ask 

 leafy Summer to show him how Winter looks on the 

 same spot, as expect the improved field to show him 

 the history of its improvement. " Oh ! Sir, if you had 

 but seen this field as I remember it!" has been the 

 half-mortified exclamation or remonstrance of many a 

 worthy toiler upon earth's surface, whose handywork 

 has left no landmarks except upon his own brow. " If 

 you had but seen it as it was ;" and there the inter- 

 jectional sentence ends unfinished : would it be far 

 from the truth a truth that will be one day better 

 understood to continue it thus : 



You would give honour to the toiler and the 

 toil that are employed in carrying out the beneficent 



