of pleasure, they waste their few short days of sunshine in quarrels and disputes, and only perceive their error when it is too late to repair it.  This thought dwelt upon my mind; and in the evening, when we returned to the vicar’s, and were sitting round the table with our bread end milk, the conversation turned on the joys and sorrows of the world, I could not resist the temptation to inveigh bitterly against ill-humour.  “We are apt,” said I, “to complain, but — with very little cause, that our happy days are few, and our evil days many.  If our hearts were always disposed to receive the benefits Heaven sends us, we should acquire strength to support evil when it comes.”  “But,” observed the vicar’s wife, “we cannot always command our tempers, so much depends upon the constitution:  when the body suffers, the mind is ill at ease.”  “I acknowledge that,” I continued; “but we must consider such a disposition in the light of a disease, and inquire whether there is no remedy for it.”

“I should be glad to hear one,” said Charlotte:  “at least, I think very much depends upon ourselves; I know it is so with me.  When anything annoys me, and disturbs my temper, I hasten into the garden, hum a couple of country dances, and it is all right with me directly.”  “That is what I meant,” I replied; “ill-humour resembles indolence:  it is natural to us; but if once we have courage to exert ourselves, we find our work run fresh from our hands, and we experience in the activity from which we shrank a real enjoyment.”  Frederica listened very attentively:  and the young man objected, that we were not masters of ourselves, and still less so of our feelings.  “The question is about a disagreeable feeling,” I added, “from which every one would willingly escape, but none know their own power without trial.  Invalids are glad to consult physicians, and submit to the most scrupulous regimen, the most nauseous medicines, in order to recover their health.”  I observed that the good old man inclined his head, and exerted himself to hear our discourse; so I raised my voice, and addressed myself directly to him.  “We preach against a great many crimes,” I observed, “but I never remember a sermon delivered against ill-humour.”  “That may do very well for your town clergymen,” said he:  “country people are never ill-humoured; though, indeed, it might be useful, occasionally, to my wife for instance, and the judge.”  We all laughed, as did he likewise very cordially, till he fell into a fit of coughing, which interrupted our conversation for a time.  Herr Schmidt resumed the subject.  “You call ill humour a crime,” he remarked, “but I think you use too strong a term.”  “Not at all,” I replied, “if that deserves the name which is so pernicious to ourselves and our neighbours.  Is it not enough that we want the power to make one another happy, must we deprive each other of the pleasure which we can all make for ourselves?  Show me the man who has the courage