'OH! I am very happy, it is such a long time since I have been out of Paris! When I saw the country before, it was spring; but now, although we are almost into winter, it gives me just as much pleasure. What a fine sunny day! Only look at those little rosy clouds, there--there! And that hill! with its pretty white houses gleaming among the trees. How many leaves remain! It is astonishing, in the month of November, is it not, Monsieur? But in Paris the leaves fall so soon. * * * _And down there--that flight of pigeons! Look! look! they are settling down on the roof of the mill!_ In the country, one is never tired of looking; every thing is attractive.'
'It is a pleasure, FLEUR-DE-MARIE,' said RODOLPHE, 'to see you so delighted with these nothings which make the charm of the country.' The young girl, contemplated the peaceful and smiling landscape which was spread out before her, and once more her face assumed its soft, pensive expression.'
'There!' she exclaimed; 'that fire from the stubble in those fields; see how _the beautiful white smoke ascends to heaven_! And this cart, with its two fat grays! If I were a man, how I should love to be a farmer!--to be in the midst of a large field, _following the plough, and seeing at a great distance immense woods_. Just such a day as to-day, for instance! Enough to make one sing songs, melancholy songs, to bring tears into the eyes, like 'Genevieve de Brabant.'
There is in this artless description a fine love and perception of the beautiful in nature. * * * '_Absence of Mind_' is too _scrappy_. Its 'examples' seem collated from sundry files of old newspapers, of various dates. The man however who, in his hurry (at a late hour on a rainy day) to pay a note, took up in place of an umbrella an _old broom_, and rushed through Wall-street to the bank, with the besom over his head, reminds us of the 'absent' clergyman, who started one winter-Sunday for his church; and having nearly reached it, the wind blew his cloak open; upon which he turned about, that it might be blown close around him again: forgetting this fact, however, he continued to travel in the direction which he faced, until he arrived at his own door. Here he inquired for himself; and being told by a waggish servant that he was _not in_, he departed, with the remark that he should 'call again soon!' * * * '_The Exile's Song_,' in the present number, was enclosed in a letter from its author, A. M'CRAW, of Scotland, to the late lamented Dr. TIMOTHY UPHAM of Waterford, by whose wish it is now published. It was written in this country, several years since; and was occasioned by the statement that two persons had been found in a cave in a forest on the bank of the Kennebeck river, who had sought seclusion and safety in that wild retreat. Dr. UPHAM was a gentleman of a highly distinguished family in New-Hampshire, whose mind led him to appreciate talent whenever and wherever he encountered it. Scientific and literary honors were tendered him from high sources, previous to his demise; but it pleased GOD to summon him to that heaven which is constantly enriching itself with the spoils of earth: