contain paste-board
figures moved by a small running stream of fine sand; Benjamin Franklin
will translate it for you: "_Quoiqu'elle soit tres solidement montee, il
faut ne pas BRUTALISER la machine_."--I will thank you for the pie, if
you please.

[I took more of it than was good for me,--as much as 85 deg., I should
think,--and had an indigestion in consequence. While I was suffering
from it, I wrote some sadly desponding poems, and a theological essay
which took a very melancholy view of creation. When I got better I
labelled them all "Pie-crust," and laid them by as scarecrows and solemn
warnings. I have a number of books on my shelves that I should like
to label with some such title; but, as they have great names on their
title-pages,--Doctors of Divinity, some of them,--it wouldn't do.]

----My friend, the Professor, whom I have mentioned to you once or
twice, told me yesterday that somebody had been abusing him in some of
the journals of his calling. I told him that I didn't doubt he deserved
it; that I hoped he did deserve a little abuse occasionally, and would
for a number of years to come; that nobody could do anything to make
his neighbors wiser or better without being liable to abuse for it;
especially that people hated to have their little mistakes made fun of,
and perhaps he had been doing something of the kind.--The Professor
smiled.--Now, said I, hear what I am going to say. It will not take many
years to bring you to the period of life when men, at least the majority
of writing and talking men, do nothing but praise. Men, like peaches and
pears, grow sweet a little while before they begin to decay--I don't
know what it is,--whether a spontaneous change, mental or bodily, or
whether it is thorough experience of the thanklessness of critical
honesty,--but it is a fact, that most writers, except sour and
unsuccessful ones, tired of finding fault at about the time when they
are beginning to grow old. As a general thing, I would not give a great
deal for the fair words of a critic, if he is himself an author, over
fifty years of age. At thirty we are all trying to cut our names in big
letters upon the walls of this tenement of life; twenty years later we
have carved it, or shut up our jack-knives. Then we are ready to help
others, and care less to hinder any, because nobody's elbows are in our
way. So I am glad you have a little life left; you will be saccharine
enough in a few years.

----Some of the sof