Poor fellow, he has made
the same discovery Sergeant Jackson did, that there is no use of good
things in the woods where there is no one to see them. He is about to
order you off his premises, but it occurs to him that would be absurd,
for he has nothing now worth seeing. He scrutinises you however to
ascertain if he has ever seen you before. He fears recognition, for he
dreads both your pity and your ridicule; so he strolls leisurely back
to the house with a certain bull-dog air of defiance.
"Let us follow him thither; but before we enter, observe there is some
glass out of the window, and its place supplied by shingles. The
stanhope is in the coach-house, but the by-road was so full of stumps
and cradle-hills, it was impossible to drive in it, and the moths have
eaten the lining out. The carriage has been broken so often it is not
worth repairing, and the double harness has been cut up to patch the
tacklin' of the horse-team. The shrubbery has been browsed away by the
cattle, and the rank grass has choked all the rose bushes and pretty
little flowers. What is the use of these things in the woods? That
remark was on a level with the old dragoon's intellect; but I am
surprised that this intelligent officer; this man of the world, this
martinet, didn't also discover, that he who neglects himself soon
becomes so careless as to neglect his other duties, and that to lose
sight of them is to create and invite certain ruin.
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