action, or
cause of action, are strictly fortunate. But let it be ever so little
oblique, the new medium will exaggerate its obliquity; and the farther
it departs from uprightness, the more frightfully it is distorted.

Hoops and coins, which cannot preserve their equilibrium when in rest,
keep it when set in motion. Man also in activity finds his safest
position.

As it takes a diamond to cut and shape a diamond, so there are faults
so obstinate that they can be worn away only by life-long contact with
similar faults in those we love.

Learn the virtue of action. Who inquires whether momentum comes from
mass or velocity? But velocity has this advantage; it depends on
ourselves.

The grass is green after these October rains, because in the July
drought it struck deep roots.

MISERIES.

No. 1.

Did you ever try to eat a peach elegantly and gracefully? Of course
you have. Show me a man who has not tried the experiment, when under
the restraint of human surveillance, and I shall look upon him as a
curiosity. There is no fruit, certainly, which has so fair and
alluring an exterior; but few content themselves with feasting their
eyes upon it. How fresh and ripe it looks as it lies upon the plate,
with its rosy cheek turned temptingly upward! How cool and soft is the
downy skin to the touch! And the fragrance, so suggestive of its rich,
delicious flavor, who can resist? Ah, unhappy wight! Bitterly you
shall repent your rashness. Any other fruit can be eaten with
comparative ease and politeness; a peach was evidently intended only
to be looked at, or enjoyed beneath your own tree, where no eye may
watch and criticize your motions.

I see you, in imagination, at a party, standing in the middle of the
room, plate in hand, regarding your peach as if it were some great
natural curiosity. A sudden jog of your elbow compels you to a
succession of most dexterous balancings as your heavy peach rolls from
side to side, knocks down your knife, and threatens to plunge after it
when you stoop to regain it. You look distractedly round for a table,
but all are occupied. Even the corner of the mantel-shelf holds a
plate, and you enviously see the owner thereof leaning carelessly
against the chimney, and looking placidly round upon his less
fortunate companions. You glance at the different groups to see if any
one else is in your most unenviable predicament. Ah, yes! Yonder
stands a gentleman worse off yet, for, in additi