in the heat of battle, by flight, and by a sustained blowing up of
tumbrils, under the miserable purpose of shaking the British steadiness.
But the evidences are not clear; whereas my brother insisted that the
presence of sham men, distributed extensively amongst the human race, and
meditating treason against us all, had been demonstrated to the
satisfaction of all true philosophers. Who were these shams and make-
believe men? They were, in fact, people that had been dead for centuries,
but that, for reasons best known to themselves, had returned to this
upper earth, walked about amongst us, and were undistinguishable, except
by the most learned of necromancers, from authentic men of flesh and
blood. I mention this for the sake of illustrating the fact, of which the
reader will find a singular instance in the foot note attached, that the
same crazes are everlastingly revolving upon men. [2]

This hypothesis, however, like a thousand others, when it happened
that they engaged no durable sympathy from his nursery audience, he
did not pursue. For some time he turned his thoughts to philosophy,
and read lectures to us every night upon some branch or other of
physics. This undertaking arose upon some one of us envying or admiring
flies for their power of walking upon the ceiling. "Poh!" he said,
"they are impostors; they pretend to do it, but they can't do it as
it ought to be done. Ah! you should see _me_ standing upright on the
ceiling, with my head downwards, for half an hour together, and
meditating profoundly." My sister Mary remarked, that we should all
be very glad to see him in that position. "If that's the case," he
replied, "it's very well that all is ready, except as to a strap or
two." Being an excellent skater, he had first imagined that, if held
up until he had started, he might then, by taking a bold sweep ahead,
keep himself in position through the continued impetus of skating. But
this he found not to answer; because, as he observed, "the friction