bad blood. Presently you begin to hurry again.
You had originally so much time on your hands
that it seemed inexhaustible, and so, having at
last managed to occupy yourself, the minutes
have slipped away, and you are suddenly aroused
to a conviction that it is needful you should
bestir yourself, lest you should again be too
late. Then the whistling begins again, and all
the rest of it.

Hurry and dawdling. Hurry and dawdling.
All this is repeated again at that station where
there is a junction— a junction where the trains
don't fit, and where again you have to go through
that performance of killing a couple of hours or
so. You thought that (by hurrying) you might
have caught the 4.20 train, but you find that this
was a mistaken idea, and that it only now
remains for you to secure (by dawdling) a place
in the 6.15, which brings you to your journey's
end at an inconvenient hour, and with vague
prospects in the article of dinner. As to the
effect upon the nerves of the various panics to
which the railway traveller is exposed—when he
is in a train which is making up for lost time,
when the carriages rock violently, when he
finds himself shut up with a gentleman
obviously deranged, who talks to himself, or takes
medicine out of a bottle, which may contain
poison, there is no need to mention these things.

The miseries connected with the termination
of your journey are probably not much greater
than those which attended a similar arrival in
former times. To be cold and sleepy, or hot
and swollen, has ever been the lot of the traveller
when arriving at his journey's end. True, we
have now more anxieties about our luggage,
being entirely separated from it en route, and
true that we require some means of conveyance
from the station at which we arrive, to the hotel
or other place of destination. Still, we have
not much dawdling nor much hurrying at our
journey's end: only a sense of deadly fatigue
and an inclination to doubt whether the journey
was worth making.

The nerves are a good deal shaken by a day
such as this. The nerves are shaken by everything
that is in any way connected with a train.
Think of Bradshaw. Think of the railway
whistle. What a sound it has when you are
drawing near a station hoping to catch the
train; it goes off with a sudden yell, and your
marrow freezes as you think that it is the parting
screech, and that the train has left without
you. How do we like it again, when in the
middle of the country, say at the entrance to
a tunnel, and far away from any station, the
train begins to slacken its pace, and the whistle
is heard sounding inexplicably. Stoppages of
this sort are by no means uncommon—inscrutable
stoppages which none of the officials can
or will explain. After half an hour of whistling,
something goes by on the other line, and then
you proceed. But meantime you have suffered.
The responsive style of whistling again is a bad
thing. This commonly takes place at a short
distance from a station, and is very trying. You
remain outside the station precincts, mysteriously,
and there is an abundance of whistling
and counter-whistling—loud and near at first, and
then faint and afar off; the two whistles answering
each other, as nightingales do: the effect,
however, being less harmonious.

In my next letter I propose to allude to a
matter, in connexion with which my observations
have led me to believe that you specially
need guidance. Meantime, I am, as always,
your affectionate son,
                              P. CHESTERFIELD, JUNIOR.

THE ORIGIN OF THE SNOWDROP.

I.

    ADOWN the leaden sky
        The drifting snow-flakes fall;
     And o'er the ground they lie
        A soft and velvet pall.
     A symbol of the grief
        That shivering Nature feels,
     When ice on stem and leaf,
         Her every tear congeals:
     Yes, on the earth so light
        They form a velvet shroud;
     And strange that flakes so white
        Should come from blackest cloud!
Floating, drifting, soft descending
   From their sources up on high;
Falling, floating, never ending,
   In the dull and sullen sky.

II.

    The languid sun with slanting beam
        Illumed a snowdrift fair,
     And with his pale and wintry gleam
        Formed silver crystals there.
     But when the stealthy evening came,
        And bathed the western sky
     With indigo and lurid flame,
        It bade the sunlight die.
     Then, like a lovely robe of fur,
        The snow lay far and wide;
     A robe of whitest miniver
        Cast o'er the earth, its bride.
     A mantle for the slumbering night,
        And though itself so cold,
     It warms with its protecting might,
        All things within its fold.
     It shelters embryo life in seeds
        That in the spring shall rise,
     In painted flow'rets o'er the meads,
        With bright and loving eyes.
     Those roots that hide and hibernate
        Within their frozen home,
     It covers up, and bids them wait
        Till summer days shall come.
Floating, drifting, never ending,
  In the dark and sullen sky,
Falling, floating, soft descending
  On the earth so tranquilly.

III.

    Then spoke small voices sweet
        From crypt beneath the ground,
     Where busy pigmies meet
        To babble lore profound.
     "Oh, Nature, hear our prayer,
        The prayer of sprites who love
     The spotless drift so fair,
        Born in the heavens above.