and more costly, down to those which are round
about us and before us, and which we have only
to open our eyes to see. Leigh Hunt was the
most studious epicurean, in a harmless way,
that ever lived; for he took every turn and
incident of his life, wet days and fine days,
cold days and hot ones, and stewed each down to
extract the essence out of it.

School–days are, beyond question, the true
red–letter days of life. There you have true
unalloyed enjoyment, not to be even approached
in later days by the most exquisite of matured
pleasures. In fact, the true secret of real
enjoyment, which consists ill severe regimen
with alteratives, is there carried to the highest
pitch. There is the stern discipline, prison–like
fears and constraint, to be succeeded by
unbounded liberty and luxury almost in matters
of diet. This is the secret. If we could be
all interdicted from our habitual comforts
periodically, kept on hard fare both as to mind
and body, given only a crust and water for our
thoughts and appetites to digest, we should
come back with an inexpressibly sweet pleasure to
the common things of life, which we now accept
out of sheer and mere habit and monotony.

As we look back over the rich champaign
country of memory, we all of us find it dotted and
studded with red–letter days. There is the visit
to the country–house, long ago, which was
snatched from a prosy round of business and
fatiguing duty. This glistens in the distance,
like a strip of water in the desert. Such are
regular holidays, when we leave the dull round
of monotonies and troubles in a heap at
the railway station. How welcome the festival
time at a great house! the variety of gay
company—the state, the feasting and dancing, the
fresh out–door sports, the sudden intimacies, the
general tone of fun, the "charming girls," the
shooting, the riding, and the driving. What if
the whole be a little theatrical, and the friendship
and good humour but that of the hour? It
is still excellent, and something to look back to,
even during the dreary journey in the railway,
where we find our cares and troubles waiting
for us, neatly tied up, at the terminus.

There are smaller things—trifling festivals—
to which we may look back to as red–letter
days. Our first introduction to a famous story,
or to a famous history, when we have sat up
half the night—before the faithless eyes gave
way—feasting on marvellous drawings, meeting
all sorts of grotesque character, hearing them
talk, laughing uproariously, crying, bewildered
with their variety, until it has long gone two,
and it is time to think of bed. So with music.
We have opera nights to look back to, feasts of
delightful harmony, first nights of new operas—
nights of exquisite enjoyments. Old exploded
Der Freischütz, ever fair and young in its
delightful harmonies and melodies, was
introduced to me for the first time at a provincial
theatre with English voices and words, and
though ALFRED CARTER was first tenor—a
gentleman who sang about his 'art, and who
declaimed fiercely at the end of the piece about
being 'appy, 'appy evermore! and though it
was MADAME POLIDORI SMITH who played the
lovely Agnes, still the charming music was
delightful to listen to. There was another night
also in a provincial theatre, when the "little
lady" made her first curtsey, and sang
Consumption and Coughs in a way they had never
been sung before.

I have a red–letter day or two, not many
years back, which, beside their official redness,
have a specially gay and parti–coloured air.
Some one has suddenly said, "We are for Rome
next week; suppose you come too?" the
pleasure of which supposition held a sort of wit,
from its suddenness and contrast. For this
was not at the regular sight-seeing season,
when expeditions fall in, as of course, when all
the world gets out its scrip and shoon; but in
the busy labour time, with the workshops in
full swing, and the clanking and hammering of
the forges busy all round,—in short, at the
beginning of March, when there were greys in the
clouds and cold in the air. In the surprise of
this proposal lay its charm. Nothing can be
pleasanter than a journey at such a season, when
the weather is temperate and cool. That little
wandering, at this date, falls now into a perfect
series of pictures, and perhaps the pleasantest
feature of all was to find the skies brightening
and growing into a most delightful and genial
warmth, with every mile of progress. There
was Paris, never the same, and, no matter how
often seen, has the effect of putting the eye to a
stereoscope and of showing a gay and gaudy
slide. That drive from the railway, and sudden
emerging upon the Italians' Boulevard, where
there are the trees, and the open cafés, and the
grand palaces, with gilt balconies, and streams
of soldiers, ladies, Turks, Russians, Indians,
and the whole of that wonderful procession
which saunters past so picturesquely all day
long. The colours are the happiest chosen
in the world; and even the Indian red of
the soldiers' baggy trousers, subdued and
rich, blend admirably and with far more
harmony than would the staring vermilion
of our military. Picture of pictures indeed!
Then wandering through that day, here, there,
and everywhere, past the great hotel, then
newly opened, on to the Palais Royal, and
from that back again to other enchantments,
rubbing one's eyes occasionally, for the din and
clank of the forge is still in the ear, until evening
draws on, and the night, and the scene
changes to the vast halls of that, grand
cosmopolitan railway, the most wonderful terminus in
the world, where continually set off, for all the
ends of the earth, men and women of every
known tribe. Then draw down the blinds, and
let darkness settle down on uneasy slumber
and a long night, awaking to periodic and
piercing draughts when the door is opened
suddenly and a lantern flashed in.

With a bright morning came Lyons, all seen
from aloft from high hills, with the great town
lying below, and the two noble rivers melting
together, and winding like silver ribbons. In