iner was aware of in his apothegm--"that a clean
skin may be regarded as next in efficacy to a clear conscience." But the
Doctor had but a very imperfect notion of the meaning of the words
"clean skin"--his observation being not even skin-deep. A wash-hand
basin, a bit of soap, and a coarse towel, he thought would give a
Cockney on Ludgate-hill a clean skin--just as many good people think
that a Bible, a prayer-book, and a long sermon, can give a clear
conscience to a criminal in Newgate. The cause of the evil, in both
cases, lies too deep for tears. Millions of men and women pass through
nature to eternity clean-skinned and pious--with slight expense either
in soap or sermons; while millions more, with much week-day bodily
scrubbing, and much Sabbath spiritual sanctification, are held in bad
odour here, while they live, by those who happen to sit near them, and
finally go out like the stink of a candle.

Never stir, quoth the Doctor, "without paper, pen, and ink, and a
note-book in your pocket. Notes made by pencils are easily obliterated
by the motion of travelling. Commit to paper whatever you see, hear, or
read, that is remarkable, with your sensations on observing it--do this
upon the spot, if possible, at the moment it first strikes you--at all
events do not delay it beyond the first convenient opportunity."

Suppose all people behaved in this way--and what an absurd world we
should have of it--every man, woman, and child who could write, jotting
away at their note-books! This committing to paper of whatever you see,
hear, or read, has, among many other bad effects, this one
especially--in a few years it reduces you to a state of idiocy. The
memory of all men who commit to paper becomes regularly extinct, we have
observed, about the age of thirty. Now, although the Memory does not
bear a very brilliant reputation among the faculties, a man finds
himself very much at a stand who is unprovided with one; for the
Imagination, the Judgment, and the Reason walk off in search of the
Memory--each in opposite directions; and the Mind, left at home by
itself, is in a very awkward predicament--gets comatose--snores loudly,
and expires. For our own part, we would much rather lose our Imagination
and our Judgment--nay, our very Reason itself--than our Memory--provided
we were suffered to retain a little Feeling and a little Fancy.
Committers to paper forget that the Memory is a tablet, or they
carelessly fling that mysterious