110 GOOD HUMOUR.

verses are found in it! Advertisements for husbands and wives,
and requests for interviews—all quite simple and natural. Cer-
tainly, one may live merrily and be contentedly buried if one takes
in the “Intelligencer.” And, as a concluding advantage, by the
end of his life a man will have such a capital store of paper, that
he may use it as a soft bed, unless he prefers to rest upon wood-
shavings. :

The newspaper and my walk to the churchyard were always
my most exciting occupations—they were like bathing-places for
my good humour. :

The newspaper every one can read for himself. But please
come with me to the churchyard; let us wander there where the
sun shines and the trees grow green. Each of the narrow houses
is like a closed book, with the back placed uppermost, so that
one can only read the title and judge what the book contains, but
can tell nothing about it; but I knowsomething about them. I
heard it from my father, or found it out myself. I have it all
down in my record that I wrote out for my own use and pleasure:
all that lie here, and a few more too, are chronicled in it.

Now we are in the churchyard.

Here, behind the white railing, where once a rose tree grew—
it is gone now, but a little evergreen from the next grave stretches
out its green fingers to make a show—there rests a very unhappy
man; and yet, when he lived, he was in what they call a good
position, He had enough to live upon, and something over; but
worldly cares, or, to speak more correctly, his great artistic taste,
weighed heavily upon him. If in the evening he sat in the the- -
atre to enjoy himself thorougly, he would be quite put out if the
machinist had put too strong a light into one side of the moon,
or if the sky-pieces hung down over the scenes when they ought
to have hung behind them, or when a palm tree was introduced
into a scene representing the Berlin Zoological Gardens, or a
cactus in a view of the Tyrol, or a beech tree in the far north
of Norway. As if that was of any consequence, It is not quite
immaterial? Who would fidget about such a trifle? It’s only
make-believe, after all, and every one is expected to be amused.
Then sometimes the public applauded too much to suit his taste,
and sometimes too little, “They ’re like wet wood this evening,”
he would say ; “they won’t kindle at all!” And then he would
look round to seeawhat kind of people they were; and sometimes
he would find them laughing at the wrong time, when they ought
not to have laughed, and that vexed him: and he fretted, and
was an unhappy man, and at last fretted himself into his grave.

Here rests a very happy man. That is to say, a very grand
man. He was of high birth, and that was lucky for him, for
otherwise he would never have been anything worth speaking of;
and nature orders all that very wisely, so that it’s quite charm-