ours. As it is, in these days of "revival," you only meet with
considerable contempt, and evil opinion, which, as it comes rather late
upon you, comes as an amusing novelty and additional provocative. But
you may be sure what you can afford to do, the Curate cannot. For the
present, therefore, let his few indulgences that way be a secret. He
will mend in time. For so it happens, that though the longer we live the
more we have to laugh at, we lose considerably our power of laughing.
And that--between ourselves be it said, Eusebius--is, I think, a strong
proof of our deterioration. A man, to laugh well, must be an honest
man--mind, I say _laugh_: when Shakspeare says

"A man may smile and smile,
And be a villain,"

he purposely says _smile_, in contradistinction to laugh. He cannot
laugh and be a villain. A man cannot plot and laugh. A man may be much
less innocent even when he thinks himself devout, than in his hour of
merriment, when he assuredly has no guile; but a man may even pray with
a selfish and a narrow mind, and his very prayers partake of his
iniquity: no bad argument for a prescribed form. A man that laughs well
is your half-made friend, Eusebius, from the moment you hear him. It is
better to trust the ear than the eye in this matter--such a man is a man
after your own heart. _After your own heart_, did I say, Eusebius? Words
are the _ignes fatui_ to thoughts, and lead to strange vagaries--of
which you have here a specimen; but these few words remind me to tell
you an anecdote, in this lull of the _Horae Catullianae_, which I would on
no account keep from you. And you will see at once in it a large history
in the epitome and the very pith of a fable--such as AEsop's. But I
assure you it is no fable, but the simple plain truth; and I will vouch
for it, for I had it from the month of our friend S., the truest,
honestest of men, who saw with his own eyes, and heard with his own
ears, the persons and the sayings. S. was travelling some time ago,
beyond the directions of railroads, in a coach. There were two
companions--preachers as he found, self-dubb'd Reverends of some
denomination or other, besides that reverend one of their own. Their
conversation, as is usual with them, was professional, and they spoke of
their brethren. In speaking of different preachers, one was mentioned,
of whom one of the speakers said emphatically--"Now that's what I call
a really good man--that's _a man after my o