know very well is not the sort of thing we
can in the least admire.

If we demand of a man that he shall
look as much as possible out of his inner case
of flesh and blood, why must he not have
credit for looking also through his outer case
of brick and mortar? I declare boldly
that the world, seen under free air, ought to
be less interesting to him than the world seen
through a window of his house; and here I
feel that by metaphysics, if I were but versed
in them, I could make good the position in an
instant. For the metaphysicians say, I believe
that with everything a man sees, his own
identity must join itself as part of the perception.
What is behind the eye, plus what is
before it, go to make all that heart can feel, or
brain consider. A natural man, for example,
is unable wholly to project himself into a
cloud that he perceives, and it is well that
he cannot. If he could, he would be sadly
mystified. In the same way, a social man is
unable wholly to project himself into the
phenomena (I feel I am going to be getting scientific)
of social life. He looks out of his own social
life into the social world by which he is
surrounded. Now, let me ask, when is he in a
better position for so doing than when he sits
by his own fireside ? From a foreground of
wife, children, personal surroundings, his
embodied social state, he looks between his
window curtains to the moving spectacle of
life beyond. He goes to his window, stands
there with his household gods on his right
hand and on his left, and sees, through the
glass, other men's lives and ways, not darkly.

Thus the social glass—is it extravagant to
say ?—is not the wine-glass, but the window-
pane. Through the latter a true water of
life glows all day long for us, older than any
cognac, and the best of cordials to those who
take it wisely.

Walls richly papered; gorgeous vases;
rustling drapery of richest silks; lustres in
which lie broods of little rainbows that
the mother sunbeams are perpetually darting
in and out to feed; radiant piles of
mirror, showing self to self, and throwing
images at one another; pictures of the best
Italian exteriors of saints, or Dutch interiors
of beer-shops; Madonnas;—cows, all that
can make a lady's chamber a fit casket for
the jewel of herself.—What is there, I ask, in
one or all of them, worthier of contemplation
than the picture which is not a picture only,
although curtained, framed, and glazed with
but a few square feet of glass,—a few square
feet of glass within a frame of gilt or
painted deal, and behind that, the world in
its own colours, breathing, throbbing, full
of latent mysteries and beauties in its light
and shade?

What can it matter where the window is ?
Have you in your chamber framed and glazed
a picture of the sea, over which wonderful
cloud-shadows flit, and magical effects of
light play ? Out of the heart of your own
home you look at it, and see the fishermens'
boats glancing to and fro, to-day, with their
sails glittering like snow-flakes in the sun.
To-morrow, your picture has changed. You
have a storm-scene; and the wind whistles
on one side of the glass; while, on the other
side, the fire upon the hearth of home is
crackling; the bright glow on the curtains is
relieved against the darkness of the leaden
mass of cloud beyond, and the cry of a fisherman's
wife is to be heard in a lull between
the gusts of tempest. The picture in the
window-frame speaks to the heart by turns,
of pleasure and of labour, of idleness, of love,
of despair, and of the heart's deep pain.
There is not an hour of a day in which some
change in it does not appeal to the snug
household within, for sympathy with the joys
and sorrows of their race; for reverence and
love to Him who holds the waters in the
hollow of His hand.

Is there no sea near, and is the picture in
the window-frame a country scene of trees
and fields; or of a lane, a farm-yard, a hedge
bank, and a bit of road? The pictures so
framed are the wondrous changes of the
seasons, the twittering and flitting to and fro of
birds, the changes of effect from sunrise until
starlight and moonlight, and the human
interest that never flags. If men pass rarely, they
are the more to be felt as neighbours and
companions in life, when they do pass the lonely
house. Upon the poor tramper with a weary
son, big as himself sometimes, upon his back;
and upon the tramper's wife with her back-
load, and her arm-load; both laden more
heavily with children than with worldly
goods; bowed down under the weight of
urgent wants that have no weight at all of
means to balance them; upon them, and such
as them, the heart may dwell long after they
have passed, and think home thoughts out of
which wholesome deeds may spring. Neighbours
go by; and, were we wiser than we
usually are, we should not cease to speculate
upon the business they are about. Their
movements—all movements of people on the
other side the glass—are human problems to
be solved on human principles, as pleasant
recreation. By working at them in a wise
and loving spirit, sympathy may deepen,
knowledge widen, and perception become
more acute.

In a great town, where it is said no man
knows his neighbour, less is to be observed of
nature; more of man. It is well not to know
one's neighbours; but it is ill not to observe
them. Friends and associates are chosen in
a great town upon higher grounds than the
mere accident of the position of a house;
and, if there be no perfectly distinct reason
for a personal acquaintance, it is best not to
know so much as the names of those persons
who live within sight of one's windows. But
they should all be studied carefully as
problems through the window-pane. But why
they, rather than other people? Because they