of air that sometimes flutter past my window, nor imagines, for a moment, that they come to mock him with their freedom.  He is contented with his present enjoyments, because they are utterly undisturbed by idle comparisons with those experienced in the past or anticipated in the future.  He has no thankless repinings and no vain desires.  Is intellect or reason then so fatal, though sublime a gift that we cannot possess it without the poisonous alloy of care?  Must grief and ingratitude inevitably find entrance into the heart, in proportion to the loftiness and number of our mental endowments?  Are we to seek for happiness in ignorance?  To these questions the reply is obvious.  Every good quality may be abused, and the greatest, most; and he who perversely employs his powers of thought and imagination to a wrong purpose deserves the misery that he gains.  Were we honestly to deduct from the ills of life all those of our own creation, how trifling, in the majority of cases, the amount that would remain!  We seem to invite and encourage sorrow, while happiness is, as it were, forced upon us against our will.  It is wonderful how some men pertinaciously cling to care, and argue themselves into a dissatisfaction with their lot.  Thus it is really a matter of little moment whether fortune smile or frown, for it is in vain to look for superior felicity amongst those who have more “appliances and means to boot,” than their fellow-men.  Wealth, rank, and reputation, do not secure their possessors from the misery of discontent.

As happiness then depends upon the right direction and employment of our faculties, and not on worldly goods or mere localities, our countrymen might be cheerful enough, even in this foreign land, if they would only accustom themselves to a proper train of thinking, and be ready on every occasion to look on the brighter side of all things.[051] In reverting to home-scenes we should regard them for their intrinsic charms, and not turn them into a source of disquiet by mournfully comparing them with those around us.  India, let Englishmen murmur as they will, has some attractions, enjoyments and advantages.  No Englishman is here in danger of dying of starvation as some of our poets have done in the inhospitable streets of London.  The comparatively princely and generous style in which we live in this country, the frank and familiar tone of our little society, and the general mildness of the climate, (excepting a few months of a too sultry summer) can hardly be denied by the most determined malcontent.  The weather is indeed too often a great deal warmer than we like it; but if “the excessive heat” did not form a convenient subject for complaint and conversation, it is perhaps doubtful if it would so often be thought of or alluded to.  But admit the objection.  What climate is without its peculiar evils?  In the cold season a walk in India either in the morning or the evening is often extremely pleasant in pleasant company, and