reiterated and legitimated
_buts_, and how near of kin I must esteem myself to the illustrious J.
of nursery rhymes, being, as he is or was, "Mister Joe Jenkins, who
played on the fiddle, and began twenty tunes, but left off in the
middle." Moreover, no one can be ignorant of the close consanguinity
recognised in every age and every dictionary between I and J. But now
for the episode:

If ever a toy were symbolical of life, that toy was a kaleidoscope: the
showy bits of tinsel, coloured glass, silk, beads, and feathers, with
here and there perchance a stray piece of iridescent ore or a pin, each,
in its turn of ideal multiplication, filling successively the field of
vision; the trifling touch that will disenchant the fairest patterns;
the slightest change, as in chemical arithmetic, that will make the
whole mixture a poison or a cordial. A man is vexed, the nerve of his
equanimity thrillingly touched at the tender elbow, and forthwith his
whole wholesome body writhes in pain; while, to speak morally, those
useful reminders of life's frailty, the habitual side-thorns--spurs of
diligence, incentives to better things--are exaggerated into sixfold
spears, and terribly stop the way, like long-lanced Achaeans: a careless
fit succeeds to one of spleen, and vanity well spangled, pretty baubles,
stars and trinkets and trifles, fill their cycle, to magnetize with
folly that rolling world the brain: another twist, and love is lord
paramount, a paltry bit of glass, casually rose-coloured, shedding its
warm blush over all the reflective powers: suddenly an overcast, for
that marplot, Disappointment, has obtruded a most vexatiously reiterated
morsel of lamp-black: again Hope's little bit of blue paint makes azure
rainbows all about the firmament of man's own inner world; and at last
an atom of gold-dust specks all the glasses with its lurid yellow, and
haply leaves the old miser to his master-passion. So, ever changing day
by day, every man's life is but a kaleidoscope. Stay; this simile is
somewhat of the longest, but the whim is upon me, and I must have my
way; the fit possesses me to try a sonnet, and I shall look far for a
fairer thesis; he that hates verse--and the Muses now-a-days are too
old-maidish to look many lovers--may skip it, and no harm done; but one
or two may like this stave on

LIFE.

I saw a child with a kaleidoscope,
Turning at will the tesselated field;
And straight my mental eye became unseal'd