Very pertinently it was demanded of Plato, why a picked chicken,
which was clearly "a biped without feathers," was not, according to
his own definition, a man? But I am not to be bothered by any similar
query. Man is an animal that diddles, and there is no animal that
diddles but man. It will take an entire hen-coop of picked chickens
to get over that.

What constitutes the essence, the nare, the principle of diddling is,
in fact, peculiar to the class of creatures that wear coats and
pantaloons. A crow thieves; a fox cheats; a weasel outwits; a man
diddles. To diddle is his destiny. "Man was made to mourn," says the
poet. But not so: -- he was made to diddle. This is his aim -- his
object- his end. And for this reason when a man's diddled we say he's
"done."

Diddling, rightly considered, is a compound, of which the ingredients
are minuteness, interest, perseverance, ingenuity, audacity,
nonchalance, originality, impertinence, and grin.

Minuteness: -- Your diddler is minute. His operations are upon a
small scale. His business is retail, for cash, or approved paper at
sight. Should he ever be tempted into magnificent speculation, he
then, at once, loses his distinctive features, and becomes what we
term "financier." This latter word conveys the diddling idea in every
respect except that of magnitude. A diddler may thus be regarded as a
banker in petto -- a "financial operation," as a diddle at
Brobdignag. The one is to the other, as Homer to "Flaccus" -- as a
Mastodon to a mouse -- as the tail of a comet to that of a pig.