re jokes; wants me to tell a
"good storey" which he has copied out for me. (I suppose two
letters before the word "good" refer to some Doctor of Divinity who
told the story.) No. 3. (in female hand)--more poetry. No. 4.
wants something that would be of use to a practical man.
(Prahctical mahn he probably pronounces it.) No. 5. (gilt-edged,
sweet-scented)--"more sentiment,"--"heart's outpourings."--

My dear friends, one and all, I can do nothing but report such
remarks as I happen to have made at our breakfast-table. Their
character will depend on many accidents,--a good deal on the
particular persons in the company to whom they were addressed. It
so happens that those which follow were mainly intended for the
divinity-student and the school-mistress; though others, whom I
need not mention, saw to interfere, with more or less propriety, in
the conversation. This is one of my privileges as a talker; and of
course, if I was not talking for our whole company, I don't expect
all the readers of this periodical to be interested in my notes of
what was said. Still, I think there may be a few that will rather
like this vein,--possibly prefer it to a livelier one,--serious
young men, and young women generally, in life's roseate parenthesis
from--years of age to--inclusive.

Another privilege of talking is to misquote.--Of course it wasn't
Proserpina that actually cut the yellow hair,--but Iris. (As I
have since told you) it was the former lady's regular business, but
Dido had used herself ungenteelly, and Madame d'Enfer stood firm on
the point of etiquette. So the bathycolpian Here--Juno, in Latin
--sent down Iris instead. But I was mightily pleased to see that one
of the gentlemen that do the heavy articles for the celebrated
"Oceanic Miscellany" misquoted Campbell's line without any excuse.
"Waft us HOME the MESSAGE" of course it ought to be. Will he be
duly grateful for the correction?]

--The more we study the body and the mind, the more we find both to
be governed, not by, but ACCORDING TO laws, such as we observe in
the larger universe.--You think you know all about WALKING,--don't
you, now? Well, how do you suppose your lower limbs are held to
your body? They are sucked up by two cupping vessels, ("cotyloid"
--cup-like--cavities,) and held there as long as you live, and
longer. At any rate, you think you move them backward and forward
at such a rate as your will determines, don't you?--On the
contrary,