meables.

And now an honest word at parting, about such trivialities of
authorship. Why should a poor shepherd of the Landes for ever wear his
stilts? Or a tragic actor, like some mortified La Trapist, never be
allowed to laugh? Or Mr. Green be denied any other carriage than the
wicker car of his balloon? Even so, dear reader, pr'ythee suffer a
serious sort of author sometimes to take off his wig and spectacles, and
condescend to think of such minor matters as the toilet and its
still-recurring duties. And, if you _should_ find out the veritable name
of your weak confessing scribe, think not the less kindly of his graver
volumes; this one is his pastime, his holiday laugh, his purposely
truant, lawless, desultory recreance: impute not folly to the face of
cheerfulness; be charitable to such mixtures of alternate gayety and
soberness as in thine own mind, if thou searchest, thou shall find; let
me laugh with those that laugh, as well as sympathize with weepers; and
cavil not at those inconsistencies, which of a verity are man's right
attributes.

* * * * *

Ideas lie round about us, thick as daisies in a summer meadow. For my
own part, I know not what a walk, or a talk, or a peep into a book may
lead me to. Brunel hit upon the notion of a tunnel-shield, from the
casual sight of a certain water-beetle, to whom the God of Nature had
given a protecting buckler for its head. Newton found out gravitation,
by reasoning on the fall of an apple from the tree. Almost every
invention has been the suggestion of an accident. Even so, to descend
from great things to small, did a solitary stroll in most-English
Devonshire hint to me the next fair topic. It was while wandering about
the Pyrenean neighbourhood of Linton and Ly'mouth not many months ago,
that my reveries became concentrated for divers hallucinating hours on a
very pretty book, with a very pretty title. And here let me remark
episodically, that I pride myself on titles; what compositors call
"monkeyfying the title-page" is known to be a talent of itself, and one
moreover to which in these days of advertisements and superficialities
many a meagre book has owed its popular acceptance. The titles of
generations back seemed not to have been regarded honest, if they did
not exhibit on their face a true and particular table of contents;
whereas in these sad times, (with many, not with me,) mystery is a good
rule, but falsehood is a better. Agai