[Footnote A: Histoire des Revolutions d'Italie, ou Guelf's et
Gibelins. Par J. Ferrari. Paris, 1858.]
We ask leave to add two suggestions in favor of the Fijians, both, it would seem, of philosophic importance. If you do not like the Fijian national dish,—national in more than one sense,—have the dear sons of Nature, as Carlyle probably would call them, not the right to reply,—"We do not like your sauerkraut, if you are a German; your polenta, if you are an Italian; your olla podrida, if you are a Spaniard; nor your grit, if you are a Dane; your bacon and greasy greens, if you are a Southerner; nor your baked beans, if you are a Northerner; nor any other stuff called national dishes,—all of which are vile, except English roast beef and plum-pudding, and Neapolitan maccaroni."
The other suggestion is this: Is it likely that Nature has placed the Fijians exactly in the same meridian with Greenwich, which in some measure may be called the meridian of civilization, for nothing?—is it likely that all the solar and cosmic influences which must result from this fact have really left the Fijian in that state of hyper-brutality which you think is proved by his menage? Is it, we ask, fairly to be supposed? We think not.
We do not presume to know whether we have carried conviction to the minds of our readers; but even if we have not,—if we have only been sufficiently fortunate to give the first impulse to the great inquiry, we shall be satisfied. If we consider the history of some opinions now openly preached and vehemently maintained,—how timidly they were first hinted at, within our own recollection, and with what surprising rapidity they have risen to an unblushing amplitude, rustling and sweeping proudly and defiantly along the Broadway of human events and opinions,—how that which but a lustre ago was wicked is now virtuous,—we see no reason for despair; and our century may yet witness the time when it will be considered the highest mixture of philosophic courtesy and Christian urbanity to make the most graceful semi-lateral bow, as you pass your friend in the street, and, kissing the tip of your finger, to lisp, with bending head and smiling eye,—
"May I never disagree with you!"
THE PROFESSOR AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE.
WHAT HE SAID, WHAT HE HEARD, AND WHAT HE SAW.
[The Professor talks with the Reader. He tells a Young Girl's Story.]
When the elements that went to the making of the first man, father of mankind, had been withdrawn from the world of unconscious matter, the balance of creation was disturbed. The materials that go to the making of one woman were set free by the abstraction from inanimate nature of one man's-worth of masculine constituents. These combined to make our first mother, by a logical necessity involved in the previous creation of our common father. All this, mythically, illustratively, and by no means doctrinally or polemically.
The man implies the woman, you will understand. The excellent gentleman whom I had the pleasure of setting right in a trifling matter a few weeks ago believes in the frequent occurrence of miracles at the present day. So do I. I believe, if you could find an uninhabited coral-reef island, in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, with plenty of cocoa-palms and bread-fruit on it, and put a handsome young fellow, like our Marylander, ashore upon it, if you touched there a year afterwards, you would find him walking under the palm trees arm in arm with a pretty woman.