m with whatever rhyming nonsense I
could call to mind, but it was no use; all of these things had an element
of reality that robbed them of half their charm, whereas "Hey diddle
diddle" had nothing in it that could conceivably concern him.

So again it is with the things that gall us most. What is it that rises
up against us at odd times and smites us in the face again and again for
years after it has happened? That we spent all the best years of our
life in learning what we have found to be a swindle, and to have been
known to be a swindle by those who took money for misleading us? That
those on whom we most leaned most betrayed us? That we have only come to
feel our strength when there is little strength left of any kind to feel?
These things will hardly much disturb a man of ordinary good temper. But
that he should have said this or that little unkind and wanton saying;
that he should have gone away from this or that hotel and given a
shilling too little to the waiter; that his clothes were shabby at such
or such a garden-party--these things gall us as a corn will sometimes do,
though the loss of a limb way not be seriously felt.

I have been reminded lately of these considerations with more than common
force by reading the very voluminous correspondence left by my
grandfather, Dr. Butler, of Shrewsbury, whose memoirs I am engaged in
writing. I have found a large number of interesting letters on subjects
of serious import, but must confess that it is to the hardly less
numerous lighter letters that I have been most attracted, nor do I feel
sure that my eminent namesake did not share my predilection. Among other
letters in my possession I have one bundle that has been kept apart, and
has evidently no connection with Dr. Butler's own life. I cannot use
these letters, therefore, for my book, but over and above the charm of
their inspired spelling, I find them of such an extremely trivial nature
that I incline to hope the reader may derive as much amusement from them
as I have done myself, and venture to give them the publicity here which
I must refuse them in my book. The dates and signatures have, with the
exception of Mrs. Newton's, been carefully erased, but I have collected
that they were written by the two servants of a single lady who resided
at no great distance from London, to two nieces of the said lady who
lived in London itself. The aunt never writes, but always gets one of
the servants to do so for