the senses, the eye (for I absolutely deny the
touch, though most of your Barbati, I know, are for it) has the quickest
commerce with the soul,--gives a smarter stroke, and leaves something
more inexpressible upon the fancy, than words can either convey--or
sometimes get rid of.

--I've gone a little about--no matter, 'tis for health--let us only
carry it back in our mind to the mortality of Trim's hat--'Are we
not here now,--and gone in a moment?'--There was nothing in the
sentence--'twas one of your self-evident truths we have the advantage of
hearing every day; and if Trim had not trusted more to his hat than his
head--he made nothing at all of it.

--'Are we not here now;' continued the corporal, 'and are we
not'--(dropping his hat plumb upon the ground--and pausing, before he
pronounced the word)--'gone! in a moment?' The descent of the hat was as
if a heavy lump of clay had been kneaded into the crown of it.--Nothing
could have expressed the sentiment of mortality, of which it was the
type and fore-runner, like it,--his hand seemed to vanish from under
it,--it fell dead,--the corporal's eye fixed upon it, as upon a
corpse,--and Susannah burst into a flood of tears.

Now--Ten thousand, and ten thousand times ten thousand (for matter and
motion are infinite) are the ways by which a hat may be dropped upon the
ground, without any effect.--Had he flung it, or thrown it, or cast it,
or skimmed it, or squirted it, or let it slip or fall in any possible
direction under heaven,--or in the best direction that could be given
to it,--had he dropped it like a goose--like a puppy--like an ass--or in
doing it, or even after he had done, had he looked like a fool--like a
ninny--like a nincompoop--it had fail'd, and the effect upon the heart
had been lost.

Ye who govern this mighty world and its mighty concerns with the engines
of eloquence,--who heat it, and cool it, and melt it, and mollify
it,--and then harden it again to your purpose--

Ye who wind and turn the passions with this great windlass, and, having
done it, lead the owners of them, whither ye think meet.

Ye, lastly, who drive--and why not, Ye also who are driven, like turkeys
to market with a stick and a red clout--meditate--meditate, I beseech
you, upon Trim's hat.

Chapter 3.VIII.

Stay--I have a small account to settle with the reader before Trim can
go on with his harangue.--It shall be done in two minutes.

Amongst many other book-debts, all of