"Sir, I protest I not only take distinct notice of your dear rarities of exterior presence, but also I protest I am most vehemently enamored, and very passionately dote on your inward adornments and habilities of spirit. I protest I shall be proud to do you most obsequious vassalage."
We find upon a scrap in the "drawer" these two stanzas taken from a German hymn, entitled, "Kindliches Gemüthe," or Childlike Temper:
"His mother's arms his chief enjoyment;
To be there is his loved employment;
Early and late to see her face,
And tenderly her neck embrace.
"O Innocence! sweet child's existence!
This have I learnt, through God's assistance,
He who possesses thee is wise,
And valued in the Almighty's eyes."
"Valued" is doubtless a stronger word in the original German, but it may have been difficult to render into our vernacular.
It would be a curious question whether, supposing the sun could be inhabited, its citizens would be as large, in proportion to the size of that luminary as we mundanes are in proportion to the earth. This, it strikes us, is one of those questions which it would be difficult to answer to general satisfaction. We remember some old philosopher who once complained that a flea had a good deal more proportional force than, from his size, he was entitled to. Although weighing only a single grain, it is endowed with the ability to jump an inch and a half at a spring. Now a man weighing an hundred and fifty pounds, ought, "by the same rule," to be able to make a spring over a space of twelve thousand eight hundred miles, which would be equivalent to jumping from Gotham to Cochin China, or round the world in two jumps. A man capable of doing that, might be set down "pretty spry."