society, I was so struck by his attainments, the
originality of his views, and the wide extent of
his knowledge of life — ' Have you that down?"

"No," said he, in some confusion; "I am
only at 'entertainments.'"

"I said 'at-tainments,' sir," said I, rebukingly,
and then repeating the passage word for
word, till he had written it, — " ' that I conceived
for him a regard and an esteem rarely accorded
to others than our oldest friends.' "One word
more: ' Potts, from certain circumstances, which
I cannot here enter upon, may appear to you
in some temporary inconvenience as regards
money——'"

Here the captain stopped, and gave me a
most significant look: it was at once an
appreciation and an expression of drollery.

"Go on," said I, dryly. "'If so,' " resumed I,"
' be guardedly cautious neither to notice his
embarrassment nor allude to it; above all, take
especial care that you make no offer to remove
the inconvenience, for he is one of those whose
sensibilities are so fine, and whose sentiments
so fastidious, that he could never recover in his
own esteem the dignity compromised by such
an incident.'"

"Very neatly turned," said he, as he re-read
the passage. " I think that's quite enough."

"Ample. You have nothing more to do than
sign your name to it."

He did this, with a verificatory flourish at
foot, folded and sealed the letter, and handed
it to me, saying,

"If it weren't for the handwriting Bob would
never believe all that fine stuff came from me;
but you'll tell him it was after three glasses of
brandy-and-water that I dashed it off that will
explain everything."

I promised faithfully to make the required
explanation, and then proceeded to make some
inquiries about this brother Bob, whose nature
was in such a close affinity with my own. I
could learn, however, but little beyond the
muttered acknowledgment that Bob was a
"queer 'un," and that there was never his
equal for "falling upon good luck, and spending
it after," a description which, when applied to
my own conscience, told an amount of
truth that was actually painful.

"There's no saying," said I, as I pocketed
the letter. " If this epistle should ever reach
your brother's hand, my course in life is too
wayward and uncertain for me to say in what
corner of the earth fate may find me; but if we
are to meet, you shall hear of it. Rogers" — I
said this in all the easy familiarity which brandy
inspired — "I'll tell your brother of the warm
and generous hospitality you extended to me,
at a time that, to all seeming, I needed such
attentions — at a time, I say, when none but
myself could know how independently I stood
as regarded means; and of one thing be
assured, Rogers, he whoe caprice it now is to
call himself Potts, is your friend, your fast friend,
for life."

He wrung my hand cordially — perhaps it was
the easiest way for an honest sailor, as he was,
to acknowledge the patronising tone of my
speech but I could plainly see that he was
sorely puzzled by the situation, and possibly
very well pleased that there was no third party
to be a spectator of it.

"Throw yourself there on that sofa," said he,
"and take a sleep." And with that piece of
counsel he left me, and went up on deck.

OF RIGHT MIND.

I SHOULD like to know how many people in
the world have absolutely healthy minds. I
reckon up mv friends and enemies upon my
fingers, and, beginning with my best friend, or
worst enemy, myself, find one with a twist here,
one with a soreness there, one with this
eccentricity, and one with that infirmity. Ideal
health of body is not possessed by one in a
million of civilised men, and I almost doubt
whether there be a man in Europe with an
absolutely healthy mind. If there be such a man,
rely upon it he stands at the head of the class
of social bores. For he must have, to be
healthy, that abomination of desolation, a
well-balanced mind, in which, because there is
everything in equal proportion, there is nothing in
agreeable excess. Anything like exclusive
regard for a particular idea upsets the balance;
and so it is that to the men whose minds are
not whole, round, and perfect, we owe all the
progress of the world.

There should be fuller recognition than there
is yet of the set of truths that run from such a
starting-point. Complete health of body is
rare, though we know pretty well what to eat,
drink, and avoid, in the way of corporal nourishment,
and have not much power of interference
with the growth of our own legs and arms. But
we commit minds to absolute starvation; we
bend, dwarf, maim, and otherwise disfigure or
distort the ideas of the young, looking at schools
too often as if they were jelly-moulds, and the
young mind a jelly. The result to the mind
is very much what it would be to the body if
we grew infants in moulds for the improvement
of tneir figures. We do not get improvement
of the figure, but distortions of an unexpected
form, and lasting sickness. The mind, which
every word that reaches it affects, is meddled
with so easily, so hardly understood, the signs
of health or sickness in it are so undetermined
by the multitude, that we should fall into the
most hopeless confusion of wits but for the
truth underlying social intercourse of every
sort, that men and women are good fellows in
the main, and that there is an unseen guiding
and sustaining hand upon the instincts and the
strivings of their nature.

Perkins's temper is an asthma to his mind;
Wilkins's nervous sensitiveness a tic doloureux; J
ones's eternal talk about himself is an obesity
of consciousness that retards all the movements
of his wit; fidgety Smith has St. Vitus's
dance in the brain. A hermit's cell — perhaps
the nutshell within which so many things are
said to lie — would contain all the absolutely