XVII. 



A 'MATUTINAL HOUR. 1 



IT requires no small experience of life, to fully 

 realize the often heard and often repeated truth, that 

 * everything goes by comparison.' When the philo- 

 sopher tells us that we only know the true value of 

 a thing by the want of it, he merely reasserts this 

 fact. We judge only by the light of contrast. A 

 man who has lived all his life in England has no 

 adequate conception of the English climate. Includ- 

 ing with it that of Scotland and Ireland, it stands 

 alone in the world in that part of it at least which 

 most travellers visit the Continental world. Its 

 sudden smiles and sudden tears are something truly 

 hysterical. Like some fair maiden Avho weeps she 

 knows not why then stops and smiles a bit a 

 fickle smile then falls to weeping again ; there is 

 no knowing when or where or how to be up to all 



