For me, I long'd
To hide my face and groan; yet look'd at him;
Opposing pain to grief, presence to thought.

Later, when wine came in, and we two sat
The dreary hours together, how he talk'd!
His schemes of life, his schemes of work and wealth,
Intentions and inventions, plots and plans,
Travels and triumphs, failures, golden hopes.
He was a young man still — had just begun
To see his way. I knew what he could do
If once he tried in earnest. He'd return
To Law, next term but one; meanwhile complete
His great work, " The Philosophy of Life,
Or, Man's Relation to the Universe,"
The matter lying ready to his hand.
Forty subscribers more, two guineas each,
Would make it safe to publish. All this time
He fill'd his glass and emptied, and his tongue
Went thick and stammering. When the wine came in
I saw the glistering eye; an eager hand
Made the decanter chatter on the glass
Like ague. He grew maudlin drunk at last;
Shed tears, and moan'd he was a ruin'd man,
Body and soul; then cursed his enemies
By name and promised punishment; made vaunt
Of genius, learning; caught my hand again,—
Did I forget my friend— my dear old friend?
Had I a coat to spare? He had no coat
But this one on his back; not one shirt— see!
'Twas all a nightmare; all plain wretched truth.
And how to play physician? Where's the strength
Repairs a slow self-ruin from without?
The fall'n must climb innumerable steps,
With humbleness, and diligence, and pain.
How help him to the first of all that steep?

Midnight was past. I had proposed to find
A lodging near us; for, to say the truth,
I could not bid my wife, for such a guest,
In such a plight, prepare the little room
Call'd " Emma's" since my sister first was here.
Then with a sudden mustering up of wits,
And e'en a touch of his old self, that quick
Melted my heart anew, he signified
His bed was waiting, he would say good-night,
And begg'd me not to stir, he knew his road.
But arm in arm I brought him up the street,
Among the rainpools, and the pattering drops
Drumming upon our canopy; where few
Or none were out of doors; and once or twice
Some casement from an upper story shed
Penurious lamplight.

Tediously we kept
The morning meal in vain expectancy.
Our box of clothes came back; the people said
He paid without a word, and went his way,—
They knew not whither. He return'd no more.
He now is dead.

Months changed about, or ere
The sudden frost of that unhappy guest
Rose from our life, — which, like our village, keeps
The tranquil centre of a cultured vale,
Guarded with hills, but open to the sun,
And every star successive, east or west,
That glorifies the circle of the year.
A grave, secluded life, but kindly fill'd
With natural influences; neither void
Of strength and gladness from profounder springs.
And since, at many a meditative hour
By day or night, or with memorial flash,
I see the ghost of Georgy Levison;
A shifting phantom,— now with boyhood's face
And merry curIs; now haggard and forlorn,
As when the candles came into the room.

One sells his soul; another squanders it;
The first buys up the world, the second starves.
Poor George was loser palpably enough,—
Supernal Wisdom only knows how much.

A PIECE OF WORK.

SOME months ago we were, in this journal,
laughing at a gentleman who is very much
in earnest over the establishment in Great
Britain of what is known abroad by some
nations, and even accredited by one or two
governments, as the Movement Cure.* So
many twists of such a finger, such and such
turns of the right or left leg, to a certain
extent, take the place of so many drachms of
such a tincture, powder, bolus, or electuary.
We were amused— not at the notion of a
movement cure, but at the ludicrous minuteness
with which all the movements of the
body were defined for use, in prescriptions to
be carefully compounded by the gymnast on
the patient's person. The general notion of
a movement cure is to our taste. Stir, is the
best word in many a recipe. Housekeeper,
be careful not to leave off stirring till the pot
is taken from the fire. Guest, keep the bottle
moving while it lasts. Politician, keep the
movement up, while your cause has a spark
of life in it. Man, if you have any good
matter on hand, move in that matter. To turn
seriously from a light thought to an earnest
one, we know in whom it is that we are said
"to live and move, and have our being,"— to
live and move.
* See volume xii. page 191.

Is there a better human remedy against
obstructions and dead-locks—spiritual,
intellectual, or bodily— than to keep moving? A
little well-sustained activity of movement
will enable us to distance trouble on the road
of life, and overtake content. We used to be
told at school, by Quintus Horatius Flaccus,
that Care sits behind the man who rides on
horseback; the staff of the pedestrian she
fears as the rod by which she has been ten
thousand times corrected. What is the want
of the age, but progress— forward movement?
What is a man's worldly gain, if not advancement—
stepping on? What do we say of a
legislator, who starts an idea with which he
hopes to benefit the nation? He rises to
move something. When a bank smashes, we
say it stops. When a friend is in difficulty,
we say he is at a stand-still. Our very street-
boys tell us that a hopeless matter is No Go.

For all the ill of life we recommend, then,
some form of a movement cure. Monsieur
Ling, the Swedish Movement doctor, whose
disciple in our land is Dr. Roth, prescribes
accordingly, a great variety of movements,
which are to be made by us and for us. He