248 AMUSEMENTS. 



youth passes by with supercilious contempt or 

 silent inattention. Fields and trees have grown 

 more dear to it. A cathedial can afford the mid- 

 dle-aged mind far more real and lasting pleasure 

 than any amount of gayety used to do in earlier 

 j years of feverish excitement. A stroll through a 

 country lane acquires fresh powers of interesting 

 us with every added summer ; a holiday spent 

 peacefully by lonely sea or untrodden mountain 

 reveals unexpected faculties of enjoyment in our- 



! selves with every recurring season. We find the 

 world less exciting than of old, it is true, but 

 '\ more beautiful and more interesting each year as 



\ we pass the line of thirty ; we pitch our hopes 

 \ lower, and we discover that the}'' are more often 

 fairly realized. We do not go out of our wa}-^ so 

 much to seek amusement; and, behold, amuse- 

 ment comes out of her way to seek us ! The 

 flowers in the garden have almost as much plot- 

 interest for us as a good novel ; the colors on the 

 clouds please us quite as well as the Salon and the 

 Academy ; tlie drama of life worked out by our 

 friends and our children has tragedy and comedy 

 in it sufficient to keep us fully occupied without 

 such frequent visits to the mimic theatre. We 

 stay at home more, and find in books and conver- 

 sation and household duties a calm pleasure that 

 we could not have appreciated in our noisier and 

 more rackety younger existence. Life grows 



