ankind in general, is more decided than that of
the talker by his talk:--the latter invariably talks to best purpose
with his pen. And good conversationists are more rare than respectable
talkers. I know many of the latter; and of the former only five or
six:--among whom I can call to mind, just now, Mr. Willis, Mr. J. T.
S. S.--of Philadelphia, Mr. W. M. R.--of Petersburg, Va., and Mrs.
S----d, formerly of New York. Most people, in conversing, force us to
curse our stars that our lot was not cast among the African nation
mentioned by Eudoxus--the savages who, having no mouths, never opened
them, as a matter of course. And yet, if denied mouth, some persons
whom I have in my eye would contrive to chatter on still--as they do
now--through the nose.

* * * * *

All in a hot and copper sky
The bloody sun at noon
Just up above the mast did stand,
No bigger than the moon.--COLERIDGE.

Is it possible that the poet did not know the apparent diameter of the
moon to be greater than that of the sun?

If any ambitious man have a fancy to revolutionize, at one effort, the
universal world of human thought, human opinion, and human sentiment,
the opportunity is his own--the road to immortal renown lies straight,
open, and unencumbered before him. All that he has to do is to write
and publish a very little book. Its title should be simple--a few
plain words--"My Heart Laid Bare." But--this little book must be _true
to its title_.

Now, is it not very singular that, with the rabid thirst for notoriety
which distinguishes so many of mankind--so many, too, who care not a
fig what is thought of them after death, there should not be found one
man having sufficient hardihood to write this little book? To _write_,
I say. There are ten thousand men who, if the book were once written,
would laugh at the notion of being disturbed by its publication during
their life, and who could not even conceive _why_ they should object
to its being published after their death. But to write it--_there_ is
the rub. No man dare write it. No man ever will dare write it. No man
_could_ write it, even if he dared. The paper would shrivel and blaze
at every touch of the fiery pen.

* * * * *

For all the rhetorician's rules
Teach nothing but to name the tools.--HUDIBRAS.

What these oft-quoted lines go to show is, that a falsity in verse
will travel faster and endure longer than a falsity in p