第21章

[I AM so well pleased with my boarding-house that I intend to remain there, perhaps for years.Of course I shall have a great many conversations to report, and they will necessarily be of different tone and on different subjects.The talks are like the breakfasts, - sometimes dipped toast, and sometimes dry.You must take them as they come.How can I do what all these letters ask me to? No.1.want serious and earnest thought.No.2.(letter smells of bad cigars) must have more jokes; wants me to tell a "good storey" which he has copied out for me.(I suppose two letters before the word "good" refer to some Doctor of Divinity who told the story.) No.3.(in female hand) - more poetry.No.4.

wants something that would be of use to a practical man.

(PRAHCTICAL MAHN he probably pronounces it.) No.5.(gilt-edged, sweet-scented) - "more sentiment," - " heart's outpourings." -My dear friends, one and all, I can do nothing but report such remarks as I happen to have made at our breakfast-table.Their character will depend on many accidents, - a good deal on the particular persons in the company to whom they were addressed.It so happens that those which follow were mainly intended for the divinity-student and the school-mistress; though others, whom Ineed not mention, saw 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 Ihave 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 sucked up by two cupping vessels, ("cotyloid" - cup-like - cavities,) and held there as long as you live, and longer.At any rate, you think you move them backward and forward at such a rate as your will determines, don't you? - On the contrary, they swing just as any other pendulums swing, at a fixed rate, determined by their length.You can alter this by muscular power, as you can take hold of the pendulum of a clock and make it move faster or slower; but your ordinary gait is timed by the same mechanism as the movements of the solar system.

[My friend, the Professor, told me all this, referring me to certain German physiologists by the name of Weber for proof of the facts, which, however, he said he had often verified.Iappropriated it to my own use; what can one do better than this, when one has a friend that tells him anything worth remembering?

The Professor seems to think that man and the general powers of the universe are in partnership.Some one was saying that it had cost nearly half a million to move the Leviathan only so far as they had got it already.- Why, - said the Professor, - they might have hired an EARTHQUAKE for less money!]

Just as we find a mathematical rule at the bottom of many of the bodily movements, just so thought may be supposed to have its regular cycles.Such or such a thought comes round periodically, in its turn.Accidental suggestions, however, so far interfere with the regular cycles, that we may find them practically beyond our power of recognition.Take all this for what it is worth, but at any rate you will agree that there are certain particular thoughts that do not come up once a day, nor once a week, but that a year would hardly go round without your having them pass through your mind.Here is one which comes up at intervals in this way.

Some one speaks of it, and there is an instant and eager smile of assent in the listener or listeners.Yes, indeed; they have often been struck by it.

ALL AT ONCE A CONVICTION FLASHES THROUGH US THAT WE HAVE BEEN INTHE SAME PRECISE CIRCUMSTANCES AS AT THE PRESENT INSTANT, ONCE ORMANY TIMES BEFORE.

O, dear, yes! - said one of the company, - everybody has had that feeling.

The landlady didn't know anything about such notions; it was an idee in folks' heads, she expected.

The schoolmistress said, in a hesitating sort of way, that she knew the feeling well, and didn't like to experience it; it made her think she was a ghost, sometimes.

The young fellow whom they call John said he knew all about it; he had just lighted a cheroot the other day, when a tremendous conviction all at once came over him that he had done just that same thing ever so many times before.I looked severely at him, and his countenance immediately fell - ON THE SIDE TOWARD ME; Icannot answer for the other, for he can wink and laugh with either half of his face without the other half's knowing it.

- I have noticed - I went on to say - the following circumstances connected with these sudden impressions.First, that the condition which seems to be the duplicate of a former one is often very trivial, - one that might have presented itself a hundred times.