We sit up, yawning, and blinking,
and stupid, the whole scene swimming before us, and the stories and music
humming off into the sound of distant winds and waters. It is not time yet;
we are not fatigued; we are good for another hour still, and so protesting
against bed, we falter and drop into the dreamless sleep which nature
assigns to fatigue and satiety.
He then spoke a little eulogy of his brother, very polished, and,
indeed, in a kind of way, eloquent. He possessed in a high degree that
accomplishment, too little cultivated, I think, by the present generation,
of expressing himself with perfect precision and fluency. There was, too,
a good deal of slight illustrative quotation, and a sprinkling of French
flowers, over his conversation, which gave to it a character at once
elegant and artificial. It was all easy, light, and pointed, and being
quite new to me, had a wonderful fascination.
He then told me that Bartram was the temple of liberty, that the health of
a whole life was founded in a few years of youth, air, and exercise, and
that accomplishments, at least, if not education, should wait upon health.
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