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The Vicar of Wakefield.
73

could not help thinking Mr. Thorn­hill one of the most happy men in the world.

"Why let him if he can," returned I: "but, my son, observe this bed of straw, and unsheltering roof; those mouldering walls, and humid floor; my wretched body thus disabled by fire, and my children weeping round me for bread; you have come home, my child, to all this, yet here, even here, you see a man that would not for a thousand worlds exchange situ­ations. O, my children, if you could but learn to commune with your own hearts, and know what noble company you can make them, you would little re­gard the elegance and splendours of the worthless. Almost all men have been taught to call life a passage, and them­selves the travellers. The similitudestill