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February, it would have reminded you of the pretty scene of the little cadet attitudinising before the great Formes, in "Figaro." The whole family incline in the same direction; even Laura, the elder sister,--who is attending a course of lectures on Hygiene, and just at present sits motionless for half an hour before every meal for her stomach's sake, and again a whole hour afterwards for her often (imaginary) infirmities,--even Laura is a perfect Hebe in health and bloom, and saved herself and her little sister when the boat upset, last summer, at Dove Harbor,--while the two young men who were with them had much ado to secure their own elegant persons, without rendering much aid to the girls. And when I think, Dolorosus, of this splendid animal vigor of the race of Jones, and then call to mind the melancholy countenances of your forlorn little offspring, I really think that it would, on the whole, be unsafe to trust you with that revolver; you might be tempted to damage yourself or somebody else with it, before departing for the Rocky Mountains.
Do not think me heartless for what I say, or assume, that, because I happen to be healthy myself, I have no mercy for ill-health in others. There are invalids who are objects of sympathy indeed, guiltless heirs of ancestral disease, or victims of parental folly or sin,--those whose lives are early blighted by maladies that seem as causeless as they are cureless,--or those with whom the world has dealt so cruelly that all their delicate nature is like sweet bells jangled,--or those whose powers of life are all exhausted by unnoticed labors and unseen cares,--or those prematurely old with duties and dangers, heroes of thought and action, whose very names evoke the passion and the pride of a hundred thousand hearts. There is a tottering feebleness of old age, also, nobler than any prime of strength; we all know aged men who are floating on, in stately serenity, towards their last harbor, like Turner's Old Téméraire, with quiet tides around them, and th