Mem.—to collect facts for a comparison between a wood and a coal fire, as to sights and sounds and bodily feeling.
I have read somewhere of a sailor who dreamt that an encounter with the enemy was about to take place, and that he should discover cowardice during action. Accordingly he awakes his brother the Captain, and bids him prepare for an engagement. At daybreak a ship is discovered on the horizon and the sailor, mindful of his dream, procures himself to be tied to a post. At the close of the day he is released unwounded but dead from fright. Apply this incident to Miss Edgeworth's Tales, and all similar attempts to cure faults by detailed forewarnings, which leave on the similarly faulty an impression of fatality that extinguishes hope.
What precedes to the voice follows to the eye, as 000.1 and 100. A, B, C—were they men, you would say that "C" went first, but being letters, things of voice and ear in their original, we say that "A" goes first.
There are many men who, following, made 1 = 1000, being placed at head, become useless cyphers, mere finery for form's sake.
Feb. 1, 1805, Friday, Malta
Of the millions that use the pen, how many (query) understand the story of this machine, the action of the slit, eh? I confess, ridiculous as it must appear to those who do understand it, that I have not been able to answer the question off-hand to myself, having only this moment thought of it.