once wrote, "Man reasons
because he doubts; he deliberates, he decides; God is omniscient; He
knows all things; He never doubts; He therefore never reasons."

Lucien Buonaparte once asked Massieu, "What is laziness or idleness?"
"It is a disgust from useful occupation; a disinclination to do
anything; from which result indigence, want of cleanliness and misery,
disease of body and the contempt of others." In writing this answer the
gestures and looks of Massieu were in perfect accordance with the ideas
that might be supposed to exist with him and the words he was writing.
When he had finished the last word he turned round, and then his whole
person, with his countenance and his eyes, exhibited one of the justest
pantomimic representations of laziness which it is possible to conceive.
After he had a moment dwelt upon this personification, which his fancy
suggested to him, he made an expressive transition to the looks and
manners of a person filled with that dread and abhorrence which the idea
of laziness should ever inspire.

[Illustration]

GRACE ANNABLE.

Grace Annable was deaf, dumb, and blind, and although her form and
features were well proportioned, she was a great sufferer from
constitutional weakness; yet her temper was mild and affectionate.
Strange to say, Grace was a capital nurse, and was much attached to
several very young children, some being mere babies; in order to
ascertain whether they were crying, she would pass her hand most
carefully over the mouth and eyes, and soothe their little distresses
with all the care and success of a talkative nurse. Grace was fond of
fruit, and would beat the pears and apples from the trees, and could
select the best with as much judgment as if she had been possessed with
the sense of sight.

[Illustration]

She frequently went in a field to gather wild flowers, to which she was
directed by the pleasantness of their odour. Her sense of smelling was
remarkably exquisite, and appeared to be an additional guide to her
fingers. Grace would feel and admire ornaments, etc., and would never
break or injure the most brittle things even in a strange room.

A gentleman once made several experiments with her in order to test for
himself her reported abilities, and expressed great surprise that one
thus afflicted should be able to accomplish so much. Grace has, after a
patient life, passed away into that land where deafness and dumbness is
for ever unknown.

A D