I hardly
ever pause to look at a shop-window, without being immediately incommoded
by boys and men, who stop likewise, and would forthwith throng the
pavement if I did not move on.
June 30th.--If it is not known how and when a man dies, it makes a ghost
of him for many years thereafter, perhaps for centuries. King Arthur is
an example; also the Emperor Frederic, and other famous men, who were
thought to be alive ages after their disappearance. So with private
individuals. I had an uncle John, who went a voyage to sea about the
beginning of the War of 1812, and has never returned to this hour. But
as long as his mother lived, as many as twenty years, she never gave up
the hope of his return, and was constantly hearing stories of persons
whose description answered to his. Some people actually affirmed that
they had seen him in various parts of the world. Thus, so far as her
belief was concerned, he still walked the earth. And even to this day I
never see his name, which is no very uncommon one, without thinking that
this may be the lost uncle.
Thus, too, the French Dauphin still exists, or a kind of ghost of him;
the three Tells, too, in the cavern of Uri.
July 6th.--Mr. Cecil, the other day, was saying that England could
produce as fine peaches as any other country. I asked what was the
particular excellence of a peach, and he answered, "Its cooling and
refreshing quality, like that of a melon!" Just think of this idea of
the richest, most luscious, of all fruits! But the untravelled
Englishman has no more idea of what fruit is than of what sunshine is; he
thinks he has tasted the first and felt the last, but they are both alike
watery.
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