he sweeping scythe-stroke of death, or the whisper of some one poor,
puny, idle, and unmeaning word!

Then, as to "the sense of satiety in eating." It is produced in us by
three platefuls of hotch-potch--and, to the eyes of an ordinary
observer, our dinner would seem to be at an end. But no--strictly
speaking, it is just going to begin. About an hour ago did we, standing
on the very beautiful bridge of Perth, see that identical salmon, with
his back-fin just visible above the translucent tide, arrowing up the
Tay, bold as a bridegroom, and nothing doubting that he should spend his
honeymoon among the gravel-beds of Kinnaird or Moulinearn, or the rocky
sofas of the Tummel, or the green marble couches of the Tilt. What has
become now of "the sense of satiety in eating?" John--the
castors!--mustard--vinegar--cayenne--catchup--pease and potatoes, with a
very little butter--the biscuit called "rusk"--and the memory of the
hotch-potch is as that of Babylon the Great. That any gigot of mutton,
exquisite though much of the five-year-old blackfaced must assuredly be,
can, with any rational hopes of success, contend against a haunch of
venison, will be asserted by no devout lover of truth. Try the two by
alternate platefuls, and you will uniformly find that you leave off
after the venison. That "sense of satiety in eating," of which Dr
Kitchiner speaks, was produced by the Tay salmon devoured above--but of
all the transitory feelings of us transitory creatures on our transit
through this transitory world, in which the Doctor asserts nature will
not suffer any sudden transitions, the most transitory ever experienced
by us is "the sense of satiety in eating." Therefore, we have now seen
it for a moment existing on the disappearance of the hotch-potch--dying
on the appearance of the Tay salmon--once more noticeable as the last
plate of the noble fish melted away--extinguished suddenly by the vision
of the venison--again felt for an instant, and but for an instant--for a
brace and a half of as fine grouse as ever expanded their voluptuous
bosoms to be devoured by hungry love! Sense of satiety in eating indeed!
If you please, my dear friend, one of the backs--pungent with the most
palate-piercing, stomach-stirring, heart-warming, soul-exalting of all
tastes--the wild bitter-sweet.

But the Doctor returns to the subject of travelling--and fatigue. "When
one begins," he says, "to be low-spirited and dejected, to yawn often
and be drows