A MIGHTY THICK FOG.—152.
A rather loquacious individual was endeavouring to draw an old man into conversation, but hitherto without much success, the old fellow having sufficient discernment to see that his object was to make a little sport for the passengers at his expense. At length says loquacious individual: "I suppose you consider Down East a right smart place; but I guess it would puzzle them to get up quite so thick a fog as we are having here this morning, wouldn't it?" "Well," said the old man, "I don't know about that. I hired one of your Massachusetts chaps to work for me last summer, and one rather foggy mornin' I sent him down to the meadow to lay a few courses of shingle on a new barn I was finishin' off. At dinner-time the fellow came up, and, sez he, 'That's an almighty long barn of yourn.' Sez I, 'Not very long.' 'Well,' sez he, 'I've been to work all this forenoon, and haven't got one course laid yet.' 'Well,' sez I, 'you're a lazy fellow, that's all I've got to say.' And so after dinner I went down to see what he'd been about, and I'll be thundered ef he hadn't shingled more than a hundred foot right out on to the fog."
WHISKERS AND KISSES.—153.
The editress of the Lancaster Literary Gazette says she would as soon nestle her nose in a rat's nest of swingle tow as allow a man with whiskers on to kiss her. We (Petersburg Express) don't believe a word of it. The objections which some ladies pretend to have to whiskers all arise from envy. They don't have any. They would if they could; but the fact is, the continual motion of the lower jaw is fatal to their growth. The ladies—God bless them!—adopt our fashion as far as they can. Look at the depredations they have committed on our wardrobes the last few years. They have appropriated our shirt-bosoms, gold studs and all. They have encircled their soft bewitching necks in our standing collars and cravats—driving them to flatties and turn-downs. Their innocent little hearts have been palpitating in the inside of our waistcoats, instead of thumping against the outside, as naturally intended. They have thrust their pretty feet and ankles through our unmentionables, unwhisperables, unthinkaboutables; and they are skipping along the streets in our high-heeled boots. Do you hear, gentlemen?—we say boots!
LITTLES.—154.
Everything is beautiful when it is little (except souls!)—little pigs, little lambs, little birds, little kittens, little children. Little Martin boxes of houses are generally the most happy and cozy; little villages are nearer to being atoms of a shattered paradise than anything we know of. Little fortunes bring the most content, and little hopes the least disappointment. Little words are the sweetest to hear, and little charities fly furthest and stay the longest on the wing. Little lakes are the stillest, little hearts the fullest, and little farms the best tilled. Little books the most read, and little songs the best loved. And when Nature would make anything especially rare and beautiful, she makes it little—little pearls, little diamonds, little dews. Agar's is a model prayer, but then it is a little prayer, and the burden of the petition is for little. The Sermon on the Mount is little, but the last dedication discourse was two hours. The Roman said, "Veni, vidi, vici"—I came, saw, conquered; but despatches now-a-days are longer than the battles they tell of. Everybody calls that little which they love best upon earth. We once heard a good sort of a man speak of his little wife, and we fancied she must be a perfect bijou of a woman. We saw her; she weighed two hundred and ten; we were surprised. But then it was no joke—the man meant it. He could put his wife in his heart, and have room for other things besides; and what was she but precious, and what could she be but little? We rather doubt the stories of great argosies of gold we sometimes hear of, for Nature deals in littles altogether. Life is made up of littles, death is what remains of them all. Day is made up of little beams, and night is glorious with little stars. Multum in parvo—much in little—is the great beauty of all that we love best, hope for most, and remember longest.
SPEAKING HIS DEEP EMOTIONS.—155.
"My dear Ellen," said Mr. Softfellow to a young lady whose smiles he was seeking, "I have long wished for this sweet opportunity, but I hardly dare trust myself now to speak the deep emotions of my palpitating heart; but I declare to you, my dearest Ellen, that I love you most tenderly; your smiles would shed—would shed——" "Never mind the wood-shed," said Ellen, "go on with that pretty talk."
SPIRITUALISM EXTRAORDINARY.—156.
An enthusiastic spiritualist, when relating to a sceptic certain spiritual performances to which he could testify, said that on one occasion the spirit of his wife, who had been dead several years, returned to him, and, seating herself on his knee, put her arms around him and kissed him, much to his gratification, as she used to do when living. "You do not mean to say," remarked the sceptic, "that the spirit of your wife really embraced you and kissed you?" "No, not exactly that," replied the believer; "but her spirit took possession of the female medium—the future Mrs. B—— that is to be, you know—and through her embraced and kissed me."