uietest fellows are forced to fight for their _status quo_, and
sometimes, though they would not move a finger or sacrifice a button for
the chance of 'getting on,' are sulkily compelled to cut capers like the
rest. Nature will have it so, and has no end of resources, and will not
suffer even the sluggish to sit still, but if nothing else will do, pins
a cracker to their skirts, in the shape of a tender passion, or some
other whim, and so sets them bouncing in their own obese and clumsy way,
to the trouble of others as well as their own discomfort. It is a hard
thing, but so it is; the comfort of absolute stagnation is nowhere
permitted us. And such, so multifarious and intricate our own mutual
dependencies, that it is next to impossible to marry a wife, or to take
a house for the summer at Brighton, or to accomplish any other entirely
simple, good-humoured, and selfish act without affecting, not only the
comforts, but the reciprocal relations of dozens of other respectable
persons who appear to have nothing on earth to say to us or our
concerns. In this respect, indeed, society resembles a pyramid of
potatoes, in which you cannot stir one without setting others, in
unexpected places, also in motion. Thus it was, upon very slight
motives, the relations of people in the little world of Chapelizod began
to shift and change considerably, and very few persons made a decided
move of any sort without affecting or upsetting one or more of his
neighbours.

Among other persons unexpectedly disturbed just now was our friend
Captain Devereux. The letter reached him at night. Little Puddock walked
to his lodgings with him from the club, where he had just given a
thplendid rethitation from Shakespeare, and was, as usual after such
efforts, in a high state of excitement, and lectured his companion, for
whom, by-the-bye, he cherished a boyish admiration, heightened very
considerably by his not quite understanding him, upon the extraordinary
dramatic capabilities and versatilities of Shakespeare's plays, which,
he said, were not half comprehended.

'It was only on Tuesday--the night, you know, I fired the pistol at the
robbers, near the dog-house, through the coach window, returning all
alone from Smock-alley Theatre. I was thinking, upon my honour, if I had
your parts, my dear Devereux, and could write, as I know you can, I'd
make a variation upon every play of Shakespeare, that should be strictly
moulded upon it, and yet in no respe