“Did you ever have a bad cold, with a total irresolution to submit to a water gruel diet? My fingers drag heavily over the paper; I have not a single thing to say to you; I am flatter than a denial or a pancake; duller than a stage when the actors have gone. I am weary of the world and the world is weary of me. I can’t distinguish veal from mutton. I have not volition enough to dot my i’s; my brains are gone out, and did not say when they would come back; I acknowledge life only by an occasional cough. Yet do I try everything I can to cure this obstinate cold, but they only seem to make me worse, instead of better.”
The mahogany tree, which grows in the tropical parts of America, is said to be 200 years in attaining its growth. Its trunk sometimes measures four feet in diameter, and the timber of a single tree is sometimes worth 4 or 5000 dollars, when brought to market.
The following verse in the book of Ezra contains all the letters of the alphabet but one: “And I, even I, Artaxerxes, do make a decree to all the treasurers which are beyond the river, that whatsoever Ezra the priest, the scribe of the law of the God of Heaven shall require of you, it be done speedily.”
An Irish post-boy, having driven a gentleman a great many miles, during torrents of rain, the gentleman said to Patrick, “Are you not very wet, my lad?” “Arrah, I don’t care about being very wet, but, please your honor, I’m very dry!”
The almond tree resembles the peach both in leaves and blossoms; it grows spontaneously only in warm countries, as Spain and Barbary. It flowers early in the spring, and produces fruit in August. Almonds are of two sorts, sweet and bitter. The fruit of both is contained in a hard shell, that is enclosed in a tough sort of cotton skin.