Business evidently has its centre there , and many a man is wasting the summer afternoon in labor and anxiety , in losing riches or in gaining them , when he would be wiser to flee away to some pleasant country village or shaded lake in the forest or wild and cool sea-beach . I see vessels unlading at the wharf and precious merchandise strown upon the ground abundantly as at the bottom of the sea -- that market whence no goods return , and where there is no captain nor supercargo to render an account of sales . Here the clerks are diligent with their paper and pencils and sailors ply the block and tackle that hang over the hold , accompanying their toil with cries long-drawn and roughly melodious till the bales and puncheons ascend to upper air . At a little distance a group of gentlemen are assembled round the door of a warehouse . Grave seniors be they , and I would wager -- if it were safe , in these times , to be responsible for any one -- that the least eminent among them might vie with old Vincentio , that incomparable trafficker of Pisa . I can even select the wealthiest of the company . It is the elderly personage in somewhat rusty black , with powdered hair the superfluous whiteness of which is visible upon the cape of his coat . His twenty ships are wafted on some of their many courses by every breeze that blows , and his name , I will venture to say , though I know it not , is a familiar sound among the far-separated merchants of Europe and the Indies . But I bestow too much of my attention in this quarter . On looking again to the long and shady walk I perceive that the two fair girls have encountered the young man . After a sort of shyness in the recognition , he turns back with them . Moreover , he has sanctioned my taste in regard to his companions by placing himself on the inner side of the pavement , nearest the Venus to whom I , enacting on a steeple-top the part of Paris on the top of Ida , adjudged the golden apple . In two streets converging at right angles toward my watch-tower I distinguish three different processions . One is a proud array of voluntary soldiers in bright uniform , resembling , from the height whence I look down , the painted veterans that garrison the windows of a toy-shop . And yet it stirs my heart . Their regular advance , their nodding plumes , the sun-flash on their bayonets and musket-barrels , the roll of their drums ascending past me , and the fife ever and anon piercing through , -- these things have wakened a warlike fire , peaceful though I be . Close to their rear marches a battalion of schoolboys ranged in crooked and irregular platoons , shouldering sticks , thumping a harsh and unripe clatter from an instrument of tin and ridiculously aping the intricate manoeuvres of the foremost band . Nevertheless , as slight differences are scarcely perceptible from a church-spire , one might be tempted to ask , `` Which are the boys ? '' or , rather , `` Which the men ? '' But , leaving these , let us turn to the third procession , which , though sadder in outward show , may excite identical reflections in the thoughtful mind .
It is a funeral -- a hearse drawn by a black and bony steed and covered by a dusty pall , two or three coaches rumbling over the stones , their drivers half asleep , a dozen couple of careless mourners XXXXX their every-day attire .
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