minute late at the car-station, or taken a desperately bad bill in
exchange for good silver, or been caught in a thunderstorm with white
pantaloons and no umbrella, knows that the unavoidable surprises of
life are in themselves staggerers of quite frequent occurrence, and
require not the aid of human invention. But the surprises which we
most dread are not those which _naturally_ fall to us as part of the
misfortune we are born to inherit; not those which result from
unforeseen accidental circumstances, from carelessness on our own part
or from the folly of others, from revolutions in the elements or in
the affairs of nations; these we _can_ bear, by using against them the
best remedies we possess, or by viewing and enduring them as wisdom
and philosophy teach us to do. No; our only prayer, in this
connection, is that we may be saved from our friends; not from their
carelessness, but from their deliberate schemes against our security.

In order to reconcile this apparent contradiction in terms, take the
following instance of a friendly propensity. You walk into your house
at dusky twilight, at that particular hour of evening at which your
_own brother_, if he be a reasonable being, would not expect you to
recognize him; one of your family extends his (or her) head from the
parlor, and calls upon you at once to enter, and greet "an old
friend." You obey, and are immediately confronted with an individual
whose countenance wears an expression associated with some
reminiscences of your youth, but so dim and undefined is it, that you
cannot, for the life of you, give it its appropriate name or
place. What is to be done? The recollections of early childhood are
expected spontaneously to burst forth from under a heap of later and
more vivid associations, and the name, residence, business, and whole
history of the unwelcome guest are called upon to suggest themselves
within a second's time.