Page:The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table (1858) Holmes.djvu/105

Rh saw fit to interfere, with more or less propriety, in the conversation. This is one of my privileges as a talker; and of course, if I was not talking for our whole company, I don't expect all the readers of this periodical to be interested in my notes of what was said. Still, I think there may be a few that will rather like this vein,—possibly prefer it to a livelier one,—serious young men, and young women generally, in life's roseate parenthesis from years of age to  inclusive.

Another privilege of talking is to misquote.—Of course it wasn't Proserpina that actually cut the yellow hair,—but Iris. (As I have since told you) it was the former lady's regular business, but Dido had used herself ungenteelly, and Madame d'Enfer stood firm on the point of etiquette. So the bathycolpian Here—Juno, in Latin—sent down Iris instead. But I was mightily pleased to see that one of the gentlemen that do the heavy articles for the celebrated "Oceanic Miscellany" misquoted Campbell's line without any excuse. "Waft us home the message" of course it ought to be. Will he be duly grateful for the correction?]

The more we study the body and the mind, the more we find both to be governed, not by, but according to laws, such as we observe in the larger universe.—You think you know all about walking,—don't you, now? Well, how do you suppose your lower limbs are held to your body? They are