just to exchange a shot now and then,—­sometimes it was a red-hot shot too on both sides,—­as we passed and repassed, in the current of conversation, than come to a regular set-to, yard-arm to yard-arm.  From whatever cause, he gave me abundant opportunity of recurring to the subject, for he was perpetually, and I believe unconsciously, leading the conversation towards it; not, I think, from confidence in his logical prowess, but from the restlessness in which (he did not pretend to disguise it) his state of scepticism had plunged him.  It was curious, indeed, to see how every thing, sooner or later, fell into one channel.  For example, I happened to remark, that a cottage in the valley which we saw from his library window would make a pretty object in a picture,—­it was the only sign of life in the little valley.  “I should like the view itself all the better without it,” said he.  I observed that a painter would feel very differently; and if there were no such object, he would be sure to put one in.  “O, certainly,” he replied, “a painter would, and justly; there is no doubt that the shadow of animated existence is very admirable; a picture, I admit, is wonderfully more picturesque with such a picture of life; especially as the painter can and does remove every thing offensive to his fastidious art.  He is very apt to regard the objects in his landscapes much as a poet does a cottage, according to Cowper’s confession.  ‘By a cottage,’ says he to Lady Hesketh, ’you must always understand, my dear, that a poet means a house with six sashes in front, comfortable parlors, a smart staircase, and three rooms of convenient dimensions.’  As I have looked sometimes down a mountain glen, and seen the most picturesque huts upon its sides, I have thought how little the painter could dispense with them.  But, then, how easily the philosopher can:  for, alas!  I have taken wing from my station, and looked in through the miserable easement, and seen, not only what is disgusting to the senses,—­which is a small matter,—­but ignorance and disease, and fear, and guilt, and racking pain, and doubt, and death; and I have not been able to help saying, in pity, ’O for absolute solitude!—­how much nature would be improved if the human race were annihilated!’”

“The human race,” said I, laughing, “is very much obliged to the pity which would thus exterminate them; but as one of them, I should decidedly object to so sweeping a mode of improving the picturesque.  Besides, I suppose you make an exception in favor, yourself, otherwise the picturesque would vanish just when it was brought to perfection.  I am often inclined to say with Paley, though I remember well having sometimes felt as you do, ‘It is a happy world after all.’  I admit, however, that a buoyant, cheerful, habitual conviction of this will depend on the constitution of the mind, and even vary with the same in its different moods.  But I am sure it may be a really happy world, whatever its sorrows, to any one who will view it as he ought.”