5 the verge of apoplexy. The hydraulic arrangements for supplying the brain with blood are only second in importance to its Own organization. The bulbousheaded fellows that steam well when they are at work are the men that draw big audiences and give us marrowy books and pictures. It is a good sign to have one's feet grow cold when he is writing.. A great writer and speaker once told me to that he often wrote with his feet in hot water; but for this, all his blood would have run into his head, as the mercury sometimes withdraws into the ball of a thermometer. What horrors, when it flashed over him that he had made this fine speech, word for word, twice over! Yet it was not true, as the lady might perhaps have fairly inferred, that he had einbellished his conversation with the Huma daily during that whole interval of years. On the contrary, he had never once thought of the odious fowl until the recurrence of precisely the same circumstances brought up precisely the same idea. He ought to have been proud of the accuracy of his mental adjustments. Given certain factors, and a sound brain should always evolve the same fixed product with the certainty of Babbage's calculating machine. What a satire, by the way, is that machine on the mere mathematician! A Frankenstein-monster, a thing without You don't suppose that my remarks made at this table are like so many postage-stamps, do you, each to be only once uttered? If you do, you are mistaken. He must be a poor creature that 20 brains and without heart, too stupid to does not often repeat himself. Imagine Sometimes, but rarely, one may be caught making the same speech twice over, 40 and yet be held blameless. Thus, a certain lecturer, after performing in an inland city, where dwells a Littératrice of note, was invited to meet her and others over the social teacup. She pleasantly 45 referred to his many wanderings in his new occupation. Yes,' he replied, 'I am like the Huma, the bird that never lights, being always in the cars, as he is always on the wing.'- Years elapsed. The lec- 50 turer visited the same place once more for the same purpose. Another social cup after the lecture, and a second meeting with the distinguished lady. 'You are constantly going from place to place,' she 55 said. Yes,' he answered, I am like the Huma,'- and finished the sentence as before. make a blunder; that turns out formulae like a corn-sheller, and never grows any wiser or better, though it grind a thousand bushels of them! I have an immense respect for a man of talents plus the mathematics.' But the calculating power alone should seem to be the least human of qualities, and to have the smallest amount of reason in it; since a machine can be made to do the work of three or four calculators, and better than any one of them. Sometimes I have been troubled that I had not a deeper intuitive apprehension of the relations of numbers. But the triumph of the ciphering hand-organ has consoled me. I always fancy I can hear the wheels clicking in a calculator's brain. The power of dealing with numbers is a kind of 'detached lever' arrangement, which may be put into a mighty poor watch. I suppose it is about as common as the power of moving the ears voluntarily, which is a moderately rare endowment. - Little localized powers, and little narrow streaks of specialized knowledge, are things men are very apt to be conceited about. Nature is very wise; but for this encouraging principle how many small talents and little accomplishments would be neglected! Talk about conceit as much as you like, it is to human character what salt is to the ocean; it keeps it sweet, and renders it endurable. Say rather it is like the natural unguent of the sea-fowl's plumage, which enables him to shed the rain that falls on him and the wave in which he dips. When one has had all code of finalities is a necessary condition of profitable talk between two persons. Talking is like playing on the harp; there is as much in laying the hand on 5 the strings to stop their vibrations as in twanging them to bring out their music. Do you mean to say the pun-question is not clearly settled in your minds? Let me lay down the law upon the subject. I am afraid you do not study logic at your school, my dear. It does not fol- 10 Life and language are alike sacred. low that I wish to be pickled in brine center. Audacious self-esteem, with good ground for it, is always imposing. What resplendent beauty that must have been which could have authorized Phryne to 30 'peel' in the way she did! What fine speeches are those two: 'Non omnis moriar,' and 'I have taken all knowledge to be my province!' Even in common people, conceit has the virtue of making 35 them cheerful; the man who thinks his wife, his baby, his house, his horse, his dog, and himself severally unequalled, is almost sure to be a good-humored person, though liable to be tedious at times. Homicide and verbicide — that is, violent treatment of a word with fatal results to its legitimate meaning, which is its life are alike forbidden. Manslaughter, which is the meaning of the one, is the same as man's laughter, which is the end of the other. A pun is primâ facie an insult to the person you are talking with. It implies utter indifference to or sublime contempt for his remarks, no matter how serious. I speak of total depravity, and one says all that is written on the subject is deep raving. I have committed my self-respect by talking with. such a person. I should like to commit him, but cannot, because he is a nuisance. Or I speak of geological convulsions, and he asks me what was the cosine of Noah's ark; also, whether the Deluge was not a deal huger than any modern inundation. A pun does not commonly justify a blow in return. But if a blow were given for such cause, and death ensued, the jury would be judges both of the facts and of the pun, and might, if the latter were of an aggravated character, return a verdict of justifiable homicide. Thus, in a case lately decided before Miller, J., Doe pre40 sented Roe a subscription paper, and urged the claims of suffering humanity. Roe replied by asking, When charity was. like a top? It was in evidence that Doe preserved a dignified silence. Roe then said, 'When it begins to hum.' Doe then - What are the great faults of conversation? Want of ideas, want of words, want of manners, are the principal ones, I suppose you think. I don't doubt it, but I will tell you what I have found 45 spoil more good talks than anything else; and not till then struck Roe, and his head happening to hit a bound volume of the Monthly Rag-bag and Stolen Miscellany, intense mortification ensued, with a 50 fatal result. The chief laid down his notions of the law to his brother justices, who unanimously replied, 'Jest so.' The chief rejoined, that no man should jest so without being punished for it, and charged. for the prisoner, who was acquitted, and the pun ordered to be burned by the sheriff. The bound volume was forfeited as a deodand, but not claimed. - long arguments on special points between people who differ on the fundamental principles upon which these points depend. No men can have satisfactory relations with each other until they have agreed on certain ultimata of belief not to be disturbed in ordinary conversation, and unless they have sense enough to trace the secondary questions depending 55 upon these ultimate beliefs to their source. In short, just as a written constitution is essential to the best social order, so a People that make puns are like wanton boys that put coppers on the railroad tracks. They amuse themselves and other children, but their little trick may upset a freight train of conversation for the sake of a battered witticism. I will thank you, B. F., to bring down two books, of which I will mark the places on this slip of paper. (While he is gone, I may say that this boy, our 10 landlady's youngest, is called BENJAMIN FRANKLIN, after the celebrated philosopher of that name. A highly merited compliment.) pered something about the Macaulayflowers of literature?- There was a dead silence. I said calmly, I shall henceforth consider any interruption by a pun as a 5 hint to change my boarding-house. Do not plead my example. If I have used any such, it has been only as a Spartan father would show up a drunken helot. We have done with them. -- - If a logical mind ever found out anything with its logic?—I should say that its most frequent work was to build a pons asinorum over chasms which shrewd people can bestride without such a structure. You can hire logic, in the shape of a lawyer, to prove anything that you want to prove. You can buy treatises to show that Napoleon never lived, and that no battle of Bunker-hill was ever fought. The great minds are those with a wide span, which couple truths related to, but far removed from, each other. Logicians carry the surveyor's chain over the track of which these are the true explorers. I 25 value a man mainly for his primary relations with truth, as I understand truth, I wished to refer to two eminent au- 15 thorities. Now be so good as to listen. The great moralist says: To trifle with the vocabulary which is the vehicle of social intercourse is to tamper with the currency of human intelligence. He who 20 would violate the sanctities of his mother tongue would invade the recesses of the paternal till without remorse, and repeat the banquet of Saturn without an indigestion.' And, once more, listen to the historian. The Puritans hated puns. The Bishops were notoriously addicted to them. The Lords Temporal carried them to the verge of license. Majesty itself must have its 30 Royal quibble. "Ye be burly, my Lord of Burleigh," said Queen Elizabeth, “but ye shall make less stir in our realm than my Lord of Leicester." The gravest wisdom and the highest breeding lent their 35 sanction to the practice. Lord Bacon playfully declared himself a descendant of 'Og, the King of Bashan. Sir Philip Sidney, with his last breath, reproached the soldier who brought him water, for wasting a casque full upon a dying man. A courtier, who saw Othello performed at the Globe Theater, remarked, that the blackamoor was a brute, and not a man. "Thou hast reason," replied a great Lord, 45 according to Plato his saying; for this be a two-legged animal with feathers." The fatal habit became universal. The language was corrupted. The infection spread to the national conscience. Politi- 50 cal double-dealings naturally grew out of verbal double meanings. The teeth of the new dragon were sown by the Cadmus who introduced the alphabet of equivocation. What was levity in the time of the 55 Tudors grew to regicide and revolution in the age of the Stuarts.' 4 Who was that boarder that just whis- - not for any secondary artifice in handling his ideas. Some of the sharpest men in argument are notoriously unsound in judgment. I should not trust the counsel of a clever debater, any more than that of a good chess-player. Either may of course advise wisely, but not necessarily because he wrangles or plays well. The old gentleman who sits opposite got his hand up, as a pointer lifts his forefoot, at the expression, 'his relations with truth as I understand truth,' and when I had done, sniffed audibly, and said I talked like a transcendentalist. For his part, common sense was good enough for him. Precisely so, my dear sir, I replied; common sense, as you understand it. We all have to assume a standard of judgment in our own minds, either of things or persons. A man who is willing to take another's opinion has to exercise his judgment in the choice of whom to follow, which is often as nice a matter as to judge of things for one's self. On the whole, I had rather judge men's minds by comparing their thoughts with my own, than judge of thoughts by knowing who utter them. I must do one or the other. It does not follow, of course, that I may not recognize another man's thoughts as broader and deeper than my own; but that does not necessarily change my opinion, otherwise this would be at the mercy of What do you think of these verses my friends? Is that piece an impromptu? said my landlady's daughter. (t. 19 +. Tender-eyed blonde. Long ringlets. 5 Cameo pin. Gold pencil-case on a chain. Locket. Bracelet. Album. Autograph book. Accordeon. Reads Byron, Tupper, and Sylvanus Cobb, junior, while her mother makes the puddings. Says, 'Yes?' when you tell her anything.)— Oui et non, ma petite,- Yes and no, my child. Five of the seven verses were written offhand; the other two took a week,- that is, were hanging around the desk in a common factor, if we can, but at any rate 15 ragged, forlorn, unrimed condition as long avoid disputing about remainders and fractions, which is to real talk what tuning an instrument is to playing on it. -What if, instead of talking this morning, I should read you a copy of verses, 20 with critical remarks by the author? Any of the company can retire that like. ALBUM VERSES When Eve had led her lord away, To cheat the cunning tempter's art, A million sleepless lids, they say, And so the flowers would watch by day, On hill and prairie, field and lawn, The flowers still watch from reddening dawn Alas! each hour of daylight tells A tale of shame so crushing, That some turn white as sea-bleached shells, But when the patient stars look down The traitor's smile, the murderer's frown, They try to shut their saddening eyes, as that. All poets will tell you just such stories. C'est le DERNIER pas qui coûte. Don't you know how hard it is for some people to get out of a room after their visit is really over? They want to be off, and you want to have them off, but they don't know how to manage it. One would think they had been built in your parlor or study, and were waiting to be 25 launched. I have contrived a sort of ceremonial inclined plane for such visitors, which being lubricated with certain smooth phrases, I back them down metaphorically speaking, stern-foremost, 30 into their native element,' the great ocean of out-doors. Well, now, there are poems as hard to get rid of as these rural visitors. They come in glibly, use up all the reserviceable rimes, day, ray, beauty, duty, 35 skies, eyes, other, brother, mountain, fountain, and the like; and so they go on until you think it is time for the wind-up, and the wind-up won't come on any terms. So they lie about until you get sick of 40 the sight of them, and end by thrusting some cold scrap of a final couplet upon them, and turning them out of doors. I suspect a good many impromptus' could tell just such a story as the above.45 Here turning to our landlady, I used ar illustration which pleased the company much at the time, and has since been highly commended. 'Madam,' I said, you can pour three gills and three quar50 ters of honey from that pint jug, if it is full, in less than one minute; but, Madam, you could not empty that last quarter of a gill, though you were turned into a marble Hebe, and held the vessel upside 55 down for a thousand years.' One gets tired to death of the old, old rimes, such as you see in that copy of verses, which I don't mean to abuse, or to praise either. I always feel as if I were a cobbler, putting new top-leathers to an old pair of boot-soles and bodies, when I am fitting sentiments to these venerable jingles. youth truth warning. Nine tenths of the Juvenile Poems written spring out of the above musical and suggestive coincidences. 'Yes?' said our landlady's daughter. I did not address the following remark to her, and I trust, from her limited range of reading, she will never see it; I said it softly to my next neighbor. 5 ΤΟ 15 When a young female wears a flat 20 circular side-curl, gummed on each temple, when she walks with a male, not arm in arm, but his arm against the back of hers, and when she says ' Yes?' with the note of interrogation, you are generally 25 safe in asking her what wages she gets, and who the feller' was you saw her with. 'What were you whispering?' said the daughter of the house, moistening her lips, 30 as she spoke, in a very engaging manner. 'I was only laying down a principle of social diagnosis.' 'Yes?' -It is curious to see how the same 35 wants and tastes find the same implements and modes of expression in all times and places. The young ladies of Otaheite, as you may see in Cook's Voyages, had a sort of crinoline arrangement fully equal 40 in radius to the largest spread of our own lady-baskets. When I fling a BayState shawl over my shoulders, I am only taking a lesson from the climate that the Indian had learned before me. A blanket- 45 shawl we call it, and not a plaid; and we wear it like the aborigines, and not like the Highlanders. -- - We are the Romans of the modern world, the great assimilating people. 50 Conflicts and conquests are of course necessary accidents with us, as with our prototypes. And so we come to their style of weapon. Our army sword is the short, stiff, pointed gladius of the Romans; and the American bowie-knife is the same tool, modified to meet the daily wants of civil society. I announce at this table an 55 axiom not to be found in Montesquieu or the journals of Congress: The race that shortens its weapons lengthens its boundaries. Corollary. It was the Polish lance that left Poland at last with nothing of her own to bound. 'Dropped from her nerveless grasp the shattered spear!' What business had Sarmatia to be fighting for liberty with a fifteen-foot pole between her and the breasts of her enemies? If she had but clutched the old Roman and young American weapon, and come to close quarters, there might have been a chance for her; but it would have spoiled the best passage in the 'Pleasures of Hope.' Self-made men? — Well, yes. Of course everybody likes and respects selfmade men. It is a great deal better to be made in that way than not to be made at all. Are any of you younger people old enough to remember that Irishman's house on the marsh at Cambridgeport, which house he built from drain to chimney-top with his own hands? It took him a good many years to build it, and one could see that it was a little out of plumb, and a little wavy in outline, and a little queer and uncertain in general aspect. A regular hand could certainly have built a better house; but it was a very good house for a 'self-made' carpenter's house, and people praised it, and said how remarkably well the Irishman had ceeded. They never thought of praising the fine blocks of houses a little farther on. suc Your self-made man, whittled into shape with his own jack-knife, deserves. more credit, if that is all, than the regular engine-turned article, shaped by the most approved pattern, and French-polished by society and travel. But as to saying that one is every way the equal of the other, that is another matter. right of strict social discrimination of all things and persons, according to their merits, native or acquired, is one of the most precious republican privileges. I take the liberty to exercise it, when I say, that, other things being equal, in most relations of life I prefer a man of family. The What do I mean by a man of family? O, I'll give you a general idea of what I |