over next year, if you will give me better health, a better appetite, a better digestion, a better income, a better temper in ’62 than you have bestowed in ’61, I think your servant will be the better for the changes.  For instance, I should be the better for a new coat.  This one, I acknowledge, is very old.  The family says so.  My good friend, who amongst us would not be the better if he would give up some old habits?  Yes, yes.  You agree with me.  You take the allegory?  Alas! at our time of life we don’t like to give up those old habits, do we?  It is ill to change.  There is the good old loose, easy, slovenly bedgown, laziness, for example.  What man of sense likes to fling it off and put on a tight guinde prim dress-coat that pinches him?  There is the cozy wraprascal, self-indulgence—­how easy it is!  How warm!  How it always seems to fit!  You can walk out in it; you can go down to dinner in it.  You can say of such what Tully says of his books:  Pernoctat nobiscum, peregrinatur, rusticatur.  It is a little slatternly—­it is a good deal stained—­it isn’t becoming—­it smells of cigar-smoke; but, allons donc! let the world call me idle and sloven.  I love my ease better than my neighbor’s opinion.  I live to please myself; not you, Mr. Dandy, with your supercilious airs.  I am a philosopher.  Perhaps I live in my tub, and don’t make any other use of it—.  We won’t pursue further this unsavory metaphor; but, with regard to some of your old habits let us say—­

1.  The habit of being censorious, and speaking ill of your neighbors.

2.  The habit of getting into a passion with your man-servant, your maid-servant, your daughter, wife, &c.

3.  The habit of indulging too much at table.

4.  The habit of smoking in the dining-room after dinner.

5.  The habit of spending insane sums of money in bric-a-brac, tall copies, binding, Elzevirs, &c.; ’20 Port, outrageously fine horses, ostentatious entertainments, and what not? or,

6.  The habit of screwing meanly, when rich, and chuckling over the saving of half a crown, whilst you are poisoning your friends and family with bad wine.

7.  The habit of going to sleep immediately after dinner, instead of cheerfully entertaining Mrs. Jones and the family:  or,

8.  Ladies!  The habit of running up bills with the milliners, and swindling paterfamilias on the house bills.

9.  The habit of keeping him waiting for breakfast.

10.  The habit of sneering at Mrs. Brown and the Miss Browns, because they are not quite du monde, or quite so genteel as Lady Smith.

11.  The habit of keeping your wretched father up at balls till five o’clock in the morning, when he has to be at his office at eleven.

12.  The habit of fighting with each other, dear Louisa, Jane, Arabella, Amelia.

13.  The habit of always ordering John Coachman, three-quarters of an hour before you want him.