ection. One little fluid particle in the crystalline
prism of the solid universe!

----Weaken moral obligations?--No, not weaken, but define them. When I
preach that sermon I spoke of the other day, I shall have to lay down
some principles not fully recognized in some of your text-books.

I should have to begin with one most formidable preliminary. You saw an
article the other day in one of the journals, perhaps, in which some old
Doctor or other said quietly that patients were very apt to be fools and
cowards. But a great many of the clergyman's patients are not only fools
and cowards, but also liars.

[Immense sensation at the table.--Sudden retirement of the angular
female in oxydated bombazine. Movement of adhesion--as they say in the
Chamber of Deputies--on the part of the young fellow they call John.
Falling of the old-gentleman-opposite's lower jaw--(gravitation is
beginning to get the better of him). Our landlady to Benjamin Franklin,
briskly,--Go to school right off, there's a good boy! Schoolmistress
curious,--takes a quick glance at divinity-student. Divinity-student
slightly flushed; draws his shoulders back a little, as if a big
falsehood--or truth--had hit him in the forehead. Myself calm.]

----I should not make such a speech as that, you know, without having
pretty substantial indorsers to fall back upon, in case my credit should
be disputed. Will you run up stairs, Benjamin Franklin, (for B.F. had
_not_ gone right off, of course,) and bring down a small volume from the
left upper corner of the right-hand shelves?

[Look at the precious little black, ribbed-backed, clean-typed,
vellum-papered 32mo. "DESIDERII ERASMI COLLOQUIA. Amstelodami. Typis
Ludovici Elzevirii. 1650." Various names written on title-page. Most
conspicuous this: Gul. Cookeson: E. Coll. Oum. Anim. 1725. Oxon.

----O William Cookeson, of All-Souls College, Oxford,--then writing as I
now write,--now in the dust, where I shall lie,--is this line all that
remains to thee of earthly remembrance? Thy name is at least once more
spoken by living men;--is it a pleasure to thee? Thou shalt share with
me my little draught of immortality,--its week, its month, its year,
whatever it may be,--and then we will go together into the solemn
archives of Oblivion's Uncatalogued Library!]

----If you think I have used rather strong language, I shall have
to read something to you out of the book of this keen and witty
scholar,--the great Erasmus,--who