But they be hanged. How can the best of
anything that is good be bad? The only thing is to be sure a thing is
best, and then go a-head with it.
"Well, when the men get to their offices, they are half roasted alive,
and have to take ices to cool them, and then for fear the cold will
heat them, they have to take brandy cock-tail to counteract it. So
they keep up a sort of artificial fever and ague all day. The ice
gives the one, and brandy the other, like shuttlecock and battledore.
If they had walked down as they had ought to have done, in the cool of
the morning, they would have avoided all this.
"How different it is now in the country, ain't it? What a glorious
thing the sun-rise is! How beautiful the dew-spangled bushes, and the
pearly drops they shed, are! How sweet and cool is the morning air,
and how refreshing and bracing the light breeze is to the nerves that
have been relaxed in warm repose! The new-ploughed earth, the
snowy-headed clover, the wild flowers, the blooming trees, and the
balsamic spruce, all exhale their fragrance to invite you forth. While
the birds offer up their morning hymn, as if to proclaim that all
things praise the Lord. The lowing herd remind you that they have kept
their appointed time; and the freshening breezes, as they swell in the
forest and awaken the sleeping leaves, seem to whisper, 'We too come
with healing on our wings;' and the babbling brook, that it also has
its mission to minister to your wants.
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