e staggers along under a heavy
burden.

* * * * *

To have a lifelong desire for a certain object, which shall appear to be
the one thing essential to happiness. At last that object is attained,
but proves to be merely incidental to a more important affair, and that
affair is the greatest evil fortune that can occur. For instance, all
through the winter I had wished to sit in the dusk of evening, by the
flickering firelight, with my wife, instead of beside a dismal stove. At
last this has come to pass; but it was owing to her illness.

* * * * *

Madame Calderon de la Barca (in "Life in Mexico") speaks of persons who
have been inoculated with the venom of rattlesnakes, by pricking them in
various places with the tooth. These persons are thus secured forever
after against the bite of any venomous reptile. They have the power of
calling snakes, and feel great pleasure in playing with and handling
them. Their own bite becomes poisonous to people not inoculated in the
same manner. Thus a part of the serpent's nature appears to be
transfused into them.

* * * * *

An auction (perhaps in Vanity Fair) of offices, honors, and all sorts of
things considered desirable by mankind, together with things eternally
valuable, which shall be considered by most people as worthless lumber.

* * * * *

An examination of wits and poets at a police court, and they to be
sentenced by the judge to various penalties or fines,--the house of
correction, whipping, etc.,--according to the moral offences of which
they are guilty.

* * * * *

A volume bound in cowhide. It should treat of breeding cattle, or some
other coarse subject.

* * * * *

A young girl inhabits a family graveyard, that being all that remains of
rich hereditary possessions.

* * * * *

An interview between General Charles Lee, of the Revolution, and his
sister, the foundress and mother of the sect of Shakers.

* * * * *

For a sketch for a child:--the life of a city dove, or perhaps of a
flock of doves, flying about the streets, and sometimes alighting on
church steeples, on the eaves of lofty houses, etc.

* * * * *

The greater picturesqueness and reality of back courts, and every