nd makes a good many angry, as I
told you on a former occasion.

----Oh, indeed, no! I am not ashamed to make you laugh, occasionally. I
think I could read you something I have in my desk that would probably make
you smile. Perhaps I will read it one of these days, if you are patient
with me when I am sentimental and reflective; not just now. The
ludicrous has its place in the universe; it is not a human invention,
but one of the Divine idea; illustrated in the practical jokes of
kittens and monkeys long before Aristophanes or Shakspeare. How curious
it is that we always consider solemnity and the absence of all gay
surprises and encounter of wits as essential to the idea of the future
life of those whom we thus deprive of half their faculties and then
call _blessed!_ There are not a few who, even in this life, seem to be
preparing themselves for that smileless eternity to which they look
forward, by banishing all gayety from their hearts and all joyousness
from their countenances. I meet one such in the street not unfrequently,
a person of intelligence and education, but who gives me (and all that
he passes) such a rayless and chilling look of recognition,--something
as if he were one of Heaven's assessors, come down to "doom" every
acquaintance he met,--that I have sometimes begun to sneeze on the spot,
and gone home with a violent cold, dating from that instant. I don't
doubt he would cut his kitten's tail off, if he caught her playing with
it. Please tell me, who taught her to play with it?

No, no!--give me a chance to talk to you, my fellow-boarders, and you
need not be afraid that I shall have any scruples about entertaining
you, if I can do it, as well as giving you some of my serious thoughts,
and perhaps my sadder fancies. I know nothing in English or any other
literature more admirable than that sentiment of Sir Thomas Browne:
"EVERY MAN TRULY LIVES, SO LONG AS HE ACTS HIS NATURE, OR SOME WAY MAKES
GOOD THE FACULTIES OF HIMSELF."

----I find the great thing in this world is not so much where we stand,
as in what direction we are moving. To reach the port of heaven, we must
sail sometimes with the wind and sometimes against it,--but we must
sail, and not drift, nor lie at anchor. There is one very sad thing in
old friendships, to every mind that is really moving onward. It is this:
that one cannot help using his early friends as the seaman uses the log,
to mark his progress. Every now and then we throw an ol