Page:The Daughters of England.djvu/120

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TASTE, TACT, AND OBSERVATION.
109

the character of some vast panorama, upon which we look, only with regard to the whole, and forgetful of each individual part.

"It is true, I have taken my accustomed walk in the city," observes a fifth young woman, "but I have found nothing to think about." What! was there nothing to think about in the squalid forms of want and misery which met you at every turn?—nothing in the disappointed look of the patient mendicant as you passed him by?—nothing in the pale and half-clad mother, seated on the step at the rich man's door, folding her infant to her bosom, and shrouding it with the "wings of care?"—was there nothing in all that was doing amongst those busy thousands, for supplying the common wants of man; the droves of weary animals goaded, stupified, or maddened, none of which would ever tread again the greensward on the mountain's side, or slake its thirst beside the woodland brook?—was there nothing in the bold and beautiful charger, the bounding steed, or the sleek and well-fed carriage-horse, contrasted with the galled and lacerated victims of oppression, waiting for their round of agony to come again?—was there nothing in the vastness of man's resources, the variety of his inventions, the power of combined effort, as displayed in that perpetual succession of luxuries both for the body and the mind?—was there nothing in that aspect of order and industry, so important to individual, as well as national prosperity?—was there nothing, in short, in that mighty mass of humanity, or in the millions of pulses beating there, with health or sickness, weal or wo?—was there nothing in all this to think about? Why, one of our late poets was wont to weep as he walked along Fleet-street and the Strand; so intense were his sympathies with that moving host of fellow-beings. And can young and sensitive women be found to pass over the same ground, and say