each other in rapid succession, to the _detail_ of _life_, how like a
comedy it seems!

It impresses us in the same way as a drop of water, crowded with
_infusoria_, seen through a microscope, or a little heap of cheese-mites
that would otherwise be invisible. Their activity and struggling with
each other in such little space amuse us greatly. And it is the same in
the little span of life--great and earnest activity produces a comic
effect.

No man has ever felt perfectly happy in the present; if he had it would
have intoxicated him.




ON WOMEN.


These few words of Jouy, _Sans les femmes le commencement de notre vie
seroit priv� de secours, le milieu de plaisirs et la fin de
consolation_, more exactly express, in my opinion, the true praise of
woman than Schiller's poem, _W�rde der Frauen_, which is the fruit of
much careful thought and impressive because of its antithesis and use of
contrast. The same thing is more pathetically expressed by Byron in
_Sardanapalus_, Act i, Sc. 2:--

"The very first
Of human life must spring from woman's breast,
Your first small words are taught you from her lips,