late Mr. Darwin (to whose
posthumous machinations the removal of the book was owing) will continue
to be confounded.--R. GANNETT.

RAMBLINGS IN CHEAPSIDE {2}

Walking the other day in Cheapside I saw some turtles in Mr. Sweeting's
window, and was tempted to stay and look at them. As I did so I was
struck not more by the defences with which they were hedged about, than
by the fatuousness of trying to hedge that in at all which, if hedged
thoroughly, must die of its own defencefulness. The holes for the head
and feet through which the turtle leaks out, as it were, on to the
exterior world, and through which it again absorbs the exterior world
into itself--"catching on" through them to things that are thus both
turtle and not turtle at one and the same time--these holes stultify the
armour, and show it to have been designed by a creature with more of
faithfulness to a fixed idea, and hence one-sidedness, than of that quick
sense of relative importances and their changes, which is the main factor
of good living.

The turtle obviously had no sense of proportion; it differed so widely
from myself that I could not comprehend it; and as this word occurred to
me, it occurred also that until my body comprehended its body in a
physical material sense, neither would my mind be able to comprehend its
mind with any thoroughness. For unity of mind can only be consummated by
unity of body; everything, therefore, must be in some respects both knave
and fool to all that which has not eaten it, or by which it has not been
eaten. As long as the turtle was in the window and I in the street
outside, there was no chance of our comprehending one another.

Nevertheless I knew that I could get it to agree with me if I could so
effectually button-hole and fasten on to it as to eat it. Most men have
an easy method with turtle soup, and I had no misgiving but that if I
could bring my first premise to bear I should prove the better reasoner.
My difficulty lay in this initial process, for I had not with me the
argument that would alone compel Mr. Sweeting think that I ought to be
allowed to convert the turtles--I mean I had no money in my pocket. No
missionary enterprise can be carried on without any money at all, but
even so small a sum as half-a-crown would, I suppose, have enabled me to
bring the turtle partly round, and with many half-crowns I could in time
no doubt convert the lot, for the turtle needs must go where the money