There are few persons who have not met with similar individuals, whose conduct in their human out-door walks has been at total variance with their human in-door feelings. The only thing that I esteem strange in all that I have related, is the singular train of coincidental events, beginning with the small ring upon the hearth-stone of my relation's bed-room, that had expanded into larger circumferences, embracing years and distant countries; and then, after having encircled, by so many extraordinary events, the destinies of people differing so totally in pursuits and purposes, finding its concluding movement near the same spot where it had commenced. It is ill-becoming in us, with our limited knowledge, to set ourselves up as judges of human character; for here, in an especial manner, was a man entirely misjudged, since it was not long before I was informed by my friend the lawyer, that he had been the agent of the most bounteous charities imposed upon him by this Iron Man.
The ignorant traveller, entirely uninstructed in the truths of natural history, upon first beholding the peaks of the Alps, shrouded in their everlasting mantles of snow, would little dream that in the vales beneath ran musical streams of summer water, and emerald meadows spread their velvet cloaks, dappled with the clustering rose-bush, and the sun-loving flowers of the gardens of the tropics.
