An article to be made of telling the stories of the tiles of an old-fashioned chimney-piece to a child.
A person conscious that he was soon to die, the humor in which he would pay his last visit to familiar persons and things.
A description of the various classes of hotels and taverns, and the prominent personages in each. There should be some story connected with it,—as of a person commencing with boarding at a great hotel, and gradually, as his means grew less, descending in life, till he got below ground into a cellar.
A person to be in the possession of something as perfect as mortal man has a right to demand; he tries to make it better, and ruins it entirely.
A person to spend all his life and splendid talents in trying to achieve something naturally impossible,—as to make a conquest over Nature.