ly past like a river, but to
clutch and hold them, thoughtfully, long enough to examine and,
in a manner, sieve them, to halt them in the mind for meditation.
The relentless fluidity of life, the ease with which it vanisheth
down the channel of the days, is the problem the thoughtful man
must deal with. The urgent necessity is to dam the stream here
and there so we can go swimming in it.

Time is a breedy creature: the minutes propagate hours, the hours
beget days, the days raise huge families of months, and before we
know it we are crowded out of this sweet life by mere surplus of
Time's offspring. This is a brutish Malthusianism which must be
adamantly countered. Therefore it is my counsel that every man,
ere he retire for the night and commit his intellect to
inscrutable nothingness, do let it hop abroad for a little
freedom. Life must be taken with a grain of saltation: let the
spirit dance a measure or two ere it collapse. For this purpose
it is my pleasure, about the hour of midnight, to draw a jug of
cider from the keg and a book from the shelf. I choose some
volume ill written and stupidly conceived, to set me in conceit
with myself. I read a few pages, and then apply myself to the
composition of verses. These done, I burn them, and go to bed
with a cheerful spirit.

THE WORLD'S MOST FAMOUS ORATION

Address to An Employer Upon Demanding a Raise, or, The Battle of
Manila Envelopes

_As Planned_ _As Delivered_

I think you will admit, If you are not too
sir, that the quality busy, sir, there is one
of my work during the other matter--in fact,
last two years has been the truth of the matter
such that my services in fact is exactly--well,
could not easily be replaced. sir, I was precisely
I speak more wondering whether--of
in pain than in anger course I know this is a
when I say that it has bad time--indeed I have
been a matter of profound been very pleased to see
surprise to me to business picking up a
note that you have not bit lately, and I am sure
seen fit to acknowledge my own department has
my value to the firm in been--but t