FIRST OF NOVEMBER, - the Earthquake-day. -
There are traces of age in the one-hoss-shay.

A general flavor of mild decay,
But nothing local, as one may say.

There couldn't be, - for the Deacon's art
Had made it so like in every part

That there wasn't a chance for one to start.
For the wheels were just as strong as the thills,

And the floor was just as strong as the sills,
And the panels just as strong as the floor,

And the whippletree neither less nor more,
And the back-crossbar as strong as the fore,

And spring and axle and hub ENCORE.
And yet, AS A WHOLE, it is past a doubt

In another hour it will be WORN OUT!
First of November, 'Fifty-five!

This morning the parson takes a drive.
Now, small boys, get out of the way!

Here comes the wonderful one-horse-shay,
Drawn by a rat-tailed, ewe-necked bay.

"Huddup!" said the parson. - Off went they.
The parson was working his Sunday's text, -

Had got to FIFTHLY, and stopped perplexed
At what the - Moses - was coming next.

All at once the horse stood still,
Close by the meet'n-house on the hill.

- First a shiver, and then a thrill,
Then something decidedly like a spill, -

And the parson was sitting upon a rock,
At half-past nine by the meet'n-house clock, -

Just the hour of the Earthquake shock!
- What do you think the parson found,

When he got up and stared around?
The poor old chaise in a heap or mound,

As if it had been to the mill and ground!
You see, of course, if you're not a dunce,

How it went to pieces all at once, -
All at once, and nothing first, -

Just as bubbles do when they burst.
End of the wonderful one-hoss-shay.

Logic is logic. That's all I say.
- I think there is one habit, - I said to our company a day or two

afterwards - worse than that of punning. It is the gradual
substitution of cant or flash terms for words which truly

characterize their objects. I have known several very genteel
idiots whose whole vocabulary had deliquesced into some half dozen

expressions. All things fell into one of two great categories, -
FAST or SLOW. Man's chief end was to be a BRICK. When the great

calamities of life overtook their friends, these last were spoken
of as being a GOOD DEAL CUT UP. Nine-tenths of human existence

were summed up in the single word, BORE. These expressions come to
be the algebraic symbols of minds which have grown too weak or

indolent to discriminate. They are the blank checks of
intellectual bankruptcy; - you may fill them up with what idea you

like; it makes no difference, for there are no funds in the
treasury upon which they are drawn. Colleges and good-for-nothing

smoking-clubs are the places where these conversational fungi
spring up most luxuriantly. Don't think I undervalue the proper

use and application of a cant word or phrase. It adds piquancy to
conversation, as a mushroom does to a sauce. But it is no better

than a toadstool, odious to the sense and poisonous to the
intellect, when it spawns itself all over the talk of men and

youths capable of talking, as it sometimes does. As we hear flash
phraseology, it is commonly the dishwater from the washings of

English dandyism, school-boy or full-grown, wrung out of a three-
volume novel which had sopped it up, or decanted from the pictured

urn of Mr. Verdant Green, and diluted to suit the provincial
climate.

- The young fellow called John spoke up sharply and said, it was
"rum" to hear me "pitchin' into fellers" for "goin' it in the slang

line," when I used all the flash words myself just when I pleased.
- I replied with my usual forbearance. - Certainly, to give up the

algebraic symbol, because A or B is often a cover for ideal
nihility, would be unwise. I have heard a child laboring to

express a certain condition, involving a hitherto undescribed
sensation (as it supposed,) all of which could have been

sufficiently explained by the participle - BORED. I have seen a
country-clergyman, with a one-story intellect and a one-horse

vocabulary, who has consumed his valuable time (and mine) freely,
in developing an opinion of a brother-minister's discourse which

would have been abundantly characterized by a peach-down-lipped
sophomore in the one word - SLOW. Let us discriminate, and be shy

of absolute proscription. I am omniverbivorous by nature and
training. Passing by such words as are poisonous, I can swallow

most others, and chew such as I cannot swallow.
Dandies are not good for much, but they are good for something.

They invent or keep in circulation those conversational blank
checks or counters just spoken of, which intellectual capitalists

may sometimes find it worth their while to borrow of them. They
are useful, too, in keeping up the standard of dress, which, but

for them, would deteriorate, and become, what some old fools would
have it, a matter of convenience, and not of taste and art. Yes, I

like dandies well enough, - on one condition.
- What is that, Sir? - said the divinity-student.

- That they have pluck. I find that lies at the bottom of all true
dandyism. A little boy dressed up very fine, who puts his finger

in his mouth and takes to crying, if other boys make fun of him,
looks very silly. But if he turns red in the face and knotty in

the fists, and makes an example of the biggest of his assailants,
throwing off his fine Leghorn and his thickly-buttoned jacket, if

necessary, to consummate the act of justice, his small toggery
takes on the splendors of the crested helmet that frightened

Astyanax. You remember that the Duke said his dandy officers were
his best officers. The "Sunday blood," the super-superb sartorial

equestrian of our annual Fast-day, is not imposing or dangerous.
But such fellows as Brummel and D'Orsay and Byron are not to be

snubbed quite so easily. Look out for "la main de fer sous le gant
de velours," (which I printed in English the other day without

quotation-marks, thinking whether any SCARABAEUS CRITICUS would add
this to his globe and roll in glory with it into the newspapers, -

which he didn't do it, in the charming pleonasm of the London
language, and therefore I claim the sole merit of exposing the

same.) A good many powerful and dangerous people have had a
decided dash of dandyism about them. There was Alcibiades, the

"curled son of Clinias," an accomplished young man, but what would
be called a "swell" in these days. There was Aristoteles, a very

distinguished writer, of whom you have heard, - a philosopher, in
short, whom it took centuries to learn, centuries to unlearn, and

is now going to take a generation or more to learn over again.
Regular dandy, he was. So was Marcus Antonius; and though he lost

his game, he played for big stakes, and it wasn't his dandyism that
spoiled his chance. Petrarca was not to be despised as a scholar

or a poet, but he was one of the same sort. So was Sir Humphrey
Davy; so was Lord Palmerston, formerly, if I am not forgetful.

Yes, - a dandy is good for something as such; and dandies such as I
was just speaking of have rocked this planet like a cradle, - aye,

and left it swinging to this day. - Still, if I were you, I
wouldn't go to the tailor's, on the strength of these remarks, and

run up a long bill which will render pockets a superfluity in your
next suit. ELEGANS "NASCITUR, NON FIT." A man is born a dandy, as

he is born a poet. There are heads that can't wear hats; there are
necks that can't fit cravats; there are jaws that can't fill out

collars - (Willis touched this last point in one of his earlier