o. He said he could do the
multiplication-table backward and paste sea-weed in a book; that he knew
how many times the word "begat" occurred in the Old Testament; and could
recite "The Boy Stood on the Burning Deck" and Wordsworth's "We Are
Seven."

"Werry good--werry good, indeed," said the man of the sea, "and ken ye
kerry coals?"

It is just the same when you want to marry. Great ability is not
required so much as little usefulness. Brains are at a discount in the
married state. There is no demand for them, no appreciation even.
Our wives sum us up according to a standard of their own, in which
brilliancy of intellect obtains no marks. Your lady and mistress is not
at all impressed by your cleverness and talent, my dear reader--not
in the slightest. Give her a man who can do an errand neatly, without
attempting to use his own judgment over it or any nonsense of that kind;
and who can be trusted to hold a child the right way up, and not make
himself objectionable whenever there is lukewarm mutton for dinner.
That is the sort of a husband a sensible woman likes; not one of your
scientific or literary nuisances, who go upsetting the whole house and
putting everybody out with their foolishness.

ON MEMORY.

"I remember, I remember,
In the days of chill November,
How the blackbird on the--"

I forget the rest. It is the beginning of the first piece of poetry I
ever learned; for

"Hey, diddle diddle,
The cat and the fiddle,"

I take no note of, it being of a frivolous character and lacking in the
qualities of true poetry. I collected fourpence by the recital of "I
remember, I remember." I knew it was fourpence, because they told me
that if I kept it until I got twopence more I should have sixpence,
which argument, albeit undeniable, moved me not, and the money was
squandered, to the best of my recollection, on the very next morning,
although upon what memory is a blank.

That is just the way with Memory; nothing that she brings to us is
complete. She is a willful child; all her toys are broken. I remember
tumbling into a huge dust-hole when a very small boy, but I have not the
faintest recollection of ever getting out again; and if memory were all
we had to trust to, I should be compelled to believe I was there still.

At another time--some years later--I was assisting at an exceedingly
interesting love scene; but the only thing about it I can call to mind
distinctly is that at