That merry lord was known to dance with them a whole long summer afternoon! When shall we see such frolics in our days ?" "Not soon, I am afraid," acquiesced the sculptor.

"You are right, excellent Tomaso; the world is sadder now!" And, in truth, while our friend smiled at these wild fables, he sighed in the same breath to think how the once genial earth produces, in every successive generation, fewer flowers than used to gladden the preceding ones.

Not that the modes and seeming possibilities of human enjoyment are rarer in our refined and softened era,--on the contrary, they never before were nearly so abundant,--but that mankind are getting so far beyond the childhood of their race that they scorn to be happy any longer.

A simple and joyous character can find no place for itself among the sage and sombre figures that would put his unsophisticated cheerfulness to shame.

The entire system of man's affairs, as at present established, is built up purposely to exclude the careless and happy soul.