self will be equally perfect and equally valid.
Procrastination sometimes is rather advantageous than prejudicial. It
gives time for reflection, and may prevent our taking a step which would
have made us miserable for life; the delay of a courier has prevented
the conclusion of a convention, the signing of which might have
occasioned the ruin of a nation.

If, from affairs the most important, we descend to our pleasures and
amusements, we shall find new arguments in support of our assertions.
The putting off of a rendezvous, or a ball, &c. will make them the more
delightful. To _hope_ is to _enjoy_.

"Man never is, but always to be blest."

The anticipation of pleasure warms our imagination, and keeps those
feelings alive, which possession too often extinguishes.

"'Tis _expectation_ only makes us blest;
_Enjoyment_ disappoints us at the best."

Dr. Johnson has most sagaciously said; "Such is the state of life, that
none are happy, but by the anticipation of change: the change itself is
nothing: when we have made it, the next wish is, immediately to change
again."

However singular our assertions may have at first appeared to those who
have not considered the subject, we hope by this time we have made
converts of our readers, and convinced the "_Amateurs de Bonne Chere_"
of the truth and importance of our remarks; and that they will remember,
that DINNER is the only act of the day which cannot be put off with
impunity, for even FIVE MINUTES.

In a well-regulated family, all the clocks and watches should agree; on
this depends the fate of the dinner; what would be agreeable to the
stomach, and restorative to the system, if served at FIVE o'clock, will
be uneatable and innutritive and indigestible at A QUARTER PAST.

The dining-room should be furnished with a good-going clock; the space
over the kitchen fire-place with another, vibrating in unison with the
former, so placed, that the cook may keep one eye on the clock, and the
other on the spit, &c. She will calculate to a minute the time required
to roast a large capon or a little lark, and is equally attentive to the
degree of heat of her stove, and the time her sauce remains on it, when
to withdraw the bakings from the oven, the roast from the spit, and the
stew from the pan.

With all our love of punctuality, the first consideration must still be,
that the dinner "be well done, when 't is done."

It is a common fault with cooks who are anxious