The eminent medical man stands, if not upon higher ground, at least in a more interesting position.  As he mingles with the gay assembly, or visits the crowded ball, he knows the latent ills, the hidden, yet incurable disorders of the laughing throng by which he is encircled; he sees premature death lurking under the hectic flush on the cheek of the lovely Fanny, and trembles for the fate of the kind-hearted Emily, as he beholds her mirthfully joining in the mazy dance.  He, too, by witnessing the frequently recurring scenes of death, beholds the genuine sorrow of the bereaved wife, or the devoted husband—­and can, by the constant unpremeditated exhibitions of fondness and feeling, appreciate the affection which exists in such and such places, and understand, with an almost magical power, the value of the links by which society is held together.

Middle Life.

There is more healthful exercise for the mind in the uneven paths of middling life, than there is on the Macadamized road of fortune.  Were the year all summer, how tiresome would be the green leaves and the bright sunshine—­as, indeed, those will admit, who have lived in climates where vegetation is always at work.

Unwelcome Truth.

Plain speaking was Mousetrap’s distinctive characteristic; his conversation abounded in blunt truisms, founded upon a course of thinking somewhat peculiar to himself, but which, when tried by the test of human vice and human folly, proved very frequently to be a great deal more accurate than agreeable.

Stockbrokers.

“I know some of them brokering boys are worth a million on Monday, and threepence on Thursday—­all in high feather one week, and poor waddling creturs the next.”

Mercantile Life.

A dark hole of a counting-house, with a couple of clerk chaps, cocked up upon long-legged stools, writing out letters—­a smoky fireplace—­two or three files, stuck full of dirty papers, hanging against the wall—­an almanack, and a high-railed desk, with a slit in a panel, with “bills for acceptance” painted over it.  They are the chaps “wot” makes time-bargains—­they speculate for thousands, having nothing in the world—­and then at the wind-up of a week or two, pay each other what they call the difference:  that is to say, the change between what they cannot get, and what they have not got.

The Secret Spring.

There are with all great affairs smaller affairs connected, so that in the watch-work of society, the most skilful artist is sometimes puzzled to fix upon the very little wheel by which the greater wheels are worked.

“Bad Company.”

The subject under discussion was the great advantages likely to arise from the establishment of the North Shields Sawdust Consolidation Company, in which Apperton told Maxwell there were still seventy-four shares to be purchased:  they were hundred pound shares, and were actually down at eighty-nine, would be at fifteen premium on the following Saturday, and must eventually rise to two hundred and thirty, for reasons which he gave in the most plausible manner, and which were in themselves perfectly satisfactory, as he said, to the “meanest capacity;” a saying with which it might have been perfectly safe to agree.