Don't you see that all this is just as true of a poem? Counting

each word as a piece, there are more pieces in an average copy of
verses than in a violin. The poet has forced all these words

together, and fastened them, and they don't understand it at first.
But let the poem be repeated aloud and murmured over in the mind's

muffled whisper often enough, and at length the parts become knit
together in such absolute solidarity that you could not change a

syllable without the whole world's crying out against you for
meddling with the harmoniousfabric. Observe, too, how the drying

process takes place in the stuff of a poem just as in that of a
violin. Here is a Tyrolese fiddle that is just coming to its

hundredth birthday, - (Pedro Klauss, Tyroli, fecit, 1760,) - the
sap is pretty well out of it. And here is the song of an old poet

whom Neaera cheated. -
"Nox erat, et coelo fulgebat Luna sereno

Inter minora sidera,
Cum tu magnorum numen laesura deorum

In verba jurabas mea."
Don't you perceive the sonorousness of these old dead Latin

phrases? Now I tell you that, every word fresh from the dictionary
brings with it a certain succulence; and though I cannot expect the

sheets of the "Pactolian," in which, as I told you, I sometimes
print my verses, to get so dry as the crisp papyrus that held those

words of Horatius Flaccus, yet you may be sure, that, while the
sheets are damp, and while the lines hold their sap, you can't

fairly judge of my performances, and that, if made of the true
stuff, they will ring better after a while.

[There was silence for a brief space, after my somewhat elaborate
exposition of these self-evident analogies. Presently A PERSON

turned towards me - I do not choose to designate the individual -
and said that he rather expected my pieces had given pretty good

"sahtisfahction." - I had, up to this moment, considered this
complimentary phrase as sacred to the use of secretaries of

lyceums, and, as it has been usually accompanied by a small
pecuniary testimonial, have acquired a certain relish for this

moderately tepid and unstimulating expression of enthusiasm. But
as a reward for gratuitous services, I confess I thought it a

little below that blood-heat standard which a man's breath ought to
have, whether silent, or vocal and articulate. I waited for a

favorable opportunity, however, before making the remarks which
follow.]

- There are single expressions, as I have told you already, that
fix a man's position for you before you have done shaking hands

with him. Allow me to expand a little. There are several things,
very slight in themselves, yet implying other things not so

unimportant. Thus, your French servant has DEVALISE your premises
and got caught. EXCUSEZ, says the SERGENT-DE-VILLE, as he politely

relieves him of his upper garments and displays his bust in the
full daylight. Good shoulders enough, - a little marked, - traces

of smallpox, perhaps, - but white. . . . . CRAC! from the SERGENT-
DE-VILLE'S broad palm on the white shoulder! Now look! VOGUE LA

GALERE! Out comes the big red V - mark of the hot iron; - he had
blistered it out pretty nearly, - hadn't he? - the old rascal

VOLEUR, branded in the galleys at Marseilles! [Don't! What if he
has got something like this? - nobody supposes I INVENTED such a

story.]
My man John, who used to drive two of those six equine females

which I told you I had owned, - for, look you, my friends, simple
though I stand here, I am one that has been driven in his

"kerridge," - not using that term, as liberal shepherds do, for any
battered old shabby-genteel go-cart which has more than one wheel,

but meaning thereby a four-wheeled vehicle WITH A POLE, - my man
John, I say, was a retired soldier. He retired unostentatiously,

as many of Her Majesty's modest servants have done before and
since. John told me, that when an officer thinks he recognizes one

of these retiring heroes, and would know if he has really been in
the service, that he may restore him, if possible, to a grateful

country, he comes suddenly upon him, and says, sharply, "Strap!"
If he has ever worn the shoulder-strap, he has learned the

reprimand for its ill adjustment. The old word of command flashes
through his muscles, and his hand goes up in an instant to the

place where the strap used to be.
[I was all the time preparing for my grand COUP, you understand;

but I saw they were not quite ready for it, and so continued, -
always in illustration of the general principle I had laid down.]

Yes, odd things come out in ways that nobody thinks of. There was
a legend, that, when the Danish pirates made descents upon the

English coast, they caught a few Tartars occasionally, in the shape
of Saxons, who would not let them go, - on the contrary, insisted

on their staying, and, to make sure of it, treated them as Apollo
treated Marsyas, or an Bartholinus has treated a fellow-creature in

his title-page, and, having divested them of the one essential and
perfectlyfittinggarment, indispensable in the mildest climates,

nailed the same on the church-door as we do the banns of marriage,
IN TERROREM.

[There was a laugh at this among some of the young folks; but as I
looked at our landlady, I saw that "the water stood in her eyes,"

as it did in Christiana's when the interpreter asked her about the
spider, and I fancied, but wasn't quite sure that the

schoolmistress blushed, as Mercy did in the same conversation, as
you remember.]

That sounds like a cock-and-bull-story, - said the young fellow
whom they call John. I abstained from making Hamlet's remark to

Horatio, and continued.
Not long since, the church-wardens were repairing and beautifying

an old Saxon church in a certain English village, and among other
things thought the doors should be attended to. One of them

particularly, the front-door, looked very badly, crusted, as it
were, and as if it would be all the better for scraping. There

happened to be a microscopist in the village who had heard the old
pirate story, and he took it into his head to examine the crust on

this door. There was no mistake about it; it was a genuine
historicaldocument, of the Ziska drum-head pattern, - a real CUTIS

HUMANA, stripped from some old Scandinavian filibuster, and the
legend was true.

My friend, the Professor, settled an important historical and
financial question once by the aid of an exceedingly minute

fragment of a similar document. Behind the pane of plate-glass
which bore his name and title burned a modest lamp, signifying to

the passers-by that at all hours of the night the slightest favors
(or fevers) were welcome. A youth who had freely partaken of the

cup which cheers and likewise inebriates, following a moth-like
impulse very natural under the circumstances, dashed his fist at

the light and quenched the meek luminary, - breaking through the
plate-glass, of course, to reach it. Now I don't want to go into

MINUTIAE at table, you know, but a naked hand can no more go
through a pane of thick glass without leaving some of its cuticle,

to say the least, behind it, than a butterfly can go through a
sausage-machine without looking the worse for it. The Professor

gathered up the fragments of glass, and with them certain very
minute but entirely satisfactorydocuments which would have

identified and hanged any rogue in Christendom who had parted with
them. - The historical question, WHO DID IT? and the financial

question, WHO PAID FOR IT? were both settled before the new lamp
was lighted the next evening.

You see, my friends, what immense conclusions, touching our lives,
our fortunes, and our sacred honor, may be reached by means of very

insignificant premises. This is eminently true of manners and
forms of speech; a movement or a phrase often tells you all you