, perhaps, the largest piece of waste that ever takes
place upon this earth. _Ape's earnest_,--it is a pit that swallows
whole nations, whole ages; and the extent to which it may be carried is
wellnigh incredible, even with the fact before our eyes. A Chinese
gentleman spends an hour in imploring a relative to dine with
him,--utterly refusing, so urgent is his desire of company, to accept
No for an answer,--and then flies into a rage because the cousin
commits the _faux pas_ of yielding to his importunity, and agreeing to
dine. Louis Napoleon perpetrates the king-joke of the century by
solemnly presenting the Russian Czar with a copy of Thomas a Kempis's
"Imitation of Christ,"--a book whose great inculcation is to renounce
the world!

Now no sooner do men lose hold upon fact than they inevitably begin to
wither. They resemble a tree drawn with all its roots from the earth;
the juices already imbibed may sustain it awhile, but with every
passing day will sustain it less. If Louis Napoleon is so removed from
conversation with reality as not to perceive the colossal satire
implied in his gift, it will soon require more vigor than he possesses
to keep astride the Gallic steed. That Chinese etiquette explains the
condition of the Chinese nation. Indeed, it is easy to give a recipe
for mummying men alive. Take one into keeping, prescribe everything,
thoughts, actions, manners, so that he never shall find either
permission or opportunity to ask his own intellect, What is true? nor
his own heart, What is right? nor to consider within himself what is
intrinsically good and worthy of a man; and if he does not rebel, you
will make him as good a mummy as Egyptian catacombs can boast.

The capital art of life is to renew and augment your power by its
expenditure. It was intimated some eighteen centuries since that the
highest are obtained only by loss of the same; and the transmutation of
loss into gain is the essence and perfection of all spiritual
economies. Now of this art of arts he is already master who steadily
draws upon his own spiritual resources. The soul is an extraordinary
well; the way to replenish is to draw from it. It is more miraculous
than the widow's cruse;--that simply continued unexhausted,--never
less, indeed, but also never more; while from this the more you take,
the more remains in it. Were it, therefore, desired to arrange with
forethought a scheme of life that should afford the highest
invigoration, in s