Another privilege of talking is to misquote.—­Of course it wasn’t Proserpina that actually cut the yellow hair,—­but Iris. (As I have since told you) it was the former lady’s regular business, but Dido had used herself ungenteelly, and Madame d’Enfer stood firm on the point of etiquette.  So the bathycolpian Here—­Juno, in Latin —­sent down Iris instead.  But I was mightily pleased to see that one of the gentlemen that do the heavy articles for the celebrated “Oceanic Miscellany” misquoted Campbell’s line without any excuse.  “Waft us home the message” of course it ought to be.  Will he be duly grateful for the correction?]

—­The more we study the body and the mind, the more we find both to be governed, not by, but according to laws, such as we observe in the larger universe.—­You think you know all about walking,—­don’t you, now?  Well, how do you suppose your lower limbs are held to your body?  They are sucked up by two cupping vessels, ("cotyloid” —­cup-like—­cavities,) and held there as long as you live, and longer.  At any rate, you think you move them backward and forward at such a rate as your will determines, don’t you?—­On the contrary, they swing just as any other pendulums swing, at a fixed rate, determined by their length.  You can alter this by muscular power, as you can take hold of the pendulum of a clock and make it move faster or slower; but your ordinary gait is timed by the same mechanism as the movements of the solar system.

[My friend, the Professor, told me all this, referring me to certain German physiologists by the name of Weber for proof of the facts, which, however, he said he had often verified.  I appropriated it to my own use; what can one do better than this, when one has a friend that tells him anything worth remembering?

The Professor seems to think that man and the general powers of the universe are in partnership.  Some one was saying that it had cost nearly half a million to move the Leviathan only so far as they had got it already.—­Why,—­said the Professor,—­they might have hired an earthquake for less money!]

Just as we find a mathematical rule at the bottom of many of the bodily movements, just so thought may be supposed to have its regular cycles.  Such or such a thought comes round periodically, in its turn.  Accidental suggestions, however, so far interfere with the regular cycles, that we may find them practically beyond our power of recognition.  Take all this for what it is worth, but at any rate you will agree that there are certain particular thoughts that do not come up once a day, nor once a week, but that a year would hardly go round without your having them pass through your mind.  Here is one which comes up at intervals in this way.  Some one speaks of it, and there is an instant and eager smile of assent in the listener or listeners.  Yes, indeed; they have often been struck by it.