cus clown
gives when he vaults into the arena, and ties himself up into a knot by
way of introduction. I had not under-calculated the confusion, but I had
under-calculated the indignation. In an instant all eyes are upon
me--from the little piccolo-player in the corner of the orchestra, to
the diamonded duchess in the private box; cries of "Shame! turn him
out!" salute me on all sides; my neighbors seize me by the collar, and
call for the police; and in five minutes, ashamed, bruised, and
wretched, I am ejected into the Haymarket, and on my way to Bow-street.

"Please, sir, it's nine o'clock now; and Mr. Biggs has been, sir; and he
couldn't wait, sir; and he'll come again at two."

I sit up in bed, rub my eyes, and awake to consciousness of two
facts--namely, that I have not kept a very particular engagement, and
that I have had a strange dream. I soon forgot the former, but the
latter remains with me for a long time very vividly. It _was_ a dream, I
know; but still it _was_ so true to what might have occurred, that I
half fancy I shall recognize myself among the police intelligence in my
daily paper; and when I have read the "Times" throughout, and find it
was indeed a dream, the subject still haunts me, and I sit for a long
time musing upon those singular morbid desires and impulses which all
men more or less experience.

What are they? Do they belong strictly to the domain of physics or of
metaphysics? How nearly are they allied to insanity? May there not be a
species of spiritual intoxication created by immaterial alcohol,
producing, through the medium of the mind, the same bodily absurdities
as your fluid alcohol produces through the directer agency of the body
itself? How far can they be urged as extenuating or even defending
misdemeanors and crimes? To guide me in my speculations, I run over a
few cases that I can call to mind at once.

There is a general fact, that no sooner have you mounted to a great
eminence, than a mysterious impulse urges you to cast yourself over into
space, and perish. Nearly all people feel this; nearly all conquer it in
this particular; but some do not: and there may be a great doubt as to
whether all who have perished from the tops of the monuments have been
truly suicides. Then, again, with water: when you see the clear river
sleeping beneath--when you see the green waves dancing round the
prow--when you hear and see the roaring fury of a cataract--do you not
as surely feel a desi