I suppose he will prove a superfluity, but I have got him on my hands, and I mean that he shall be as little in the way as possible.  One always comes across people in actual life who have no particular business to be where we find them, and whose right to be at all is somewhat questionable.

I am not going to get rid of the Register of Deeds by putting him out of the way; but I confess I do not see of what service he is going to be to me in my record.  I have often found, however, that the Disposer of men and things understands much better than we do how to place his pawns and other pieces on the chess-board of life.  A fish more or less in the ocean does not seem to amount to much.  It is not extravagant to say that any one fish may be considered a supernumerary.  But when Captain Coram’s ship sprung a leak and the carpenter could not stop it, and the passengers had made up their minds that it was all over with them, all at once, without any apparent reason, the pumps began gaining on the leak, and the sinking ship to lift herself out of the abyss which was swallowing her up.  And what do you think it was that saved the ship, and Captain Coram, and so in due time gave to London that Foundling Hospital which he endowed, and under the floor of which he lies buried?  Why, it was that very supernumerary fish, which we held of so little account, but which had wedged itself into the rent of the yawning planks, and served to keep out the water until the leak was finally stopped.

I am very sure it was Captain Coram, but I almost hope it was somebody else, in order to give some poor fellow who is lying in wait for the periodicals a chance to correct me.  That will make him happy for a month, and besides, he will not want to pick a quarrel about anything else if he has that splendid triumph.  You remember Alcibiades and his dog’s tail.

Here you have the extracts I spoke of from the manuscript placed in my hands for revision and emendation.  I can understand these alternations of feeling in a young person who has been long absorbed in a single pursuit, and in whom the human instincts which have been long silent are now beginning to find expression.  I know well what he wants; a great deal better, I think, than he knows himself.

          Wind-clouds and star-drifts.

II

     Brief glimpses of the bright celestial spheres,
     False lights, false shadows, vague, uncertain gleams,
     Pale vaporous mists, wan streaks of lurid flame,
     The climbing of the upward-sailing cloud,
     The sinking of the downward-falling star,
     All these are pictures of the changing moods
     Borne through the midnight stillness of my soul.

     Here am I, bound upon this pillared rock,
     Prey to the vulture of a vast desire
     That feeds upon my life.  I burst my bands
     And steal a moment’s freedom from the beak,