The whale is followed by waves. I would glide down the rivulet of quiet life, a trout. Australis [Southey] may be compared to an ostrich. He cannot fly, but he has such other qualities that he needs it not. Mackintosh _intertrudes_ not introduces his beauties. Snails of intellect who see only by their feelers. Pygmy minds, measuring others by their own standard, cry What a _monster_, when they view a man! Our constitution is to some like cheese--the rotten parts they like the best. Her eyes sparkled as if they had been cut out of a diamond-quarry in some Golconda of Fairyland, and cast such meaning glances as would have vitrified the flint in a murderer's blunderbuss. [A task] as difficult as to separate two dew-drops blended together on a bosom of a new-blown rose. I discovered unprovoked malice in his hard heart, like a huge toad in the centre of a marble rock. Men anxious for this world are like owls that wake all night to catch mice. At Genoa the word _Liberty_ is engraved on the chains of the galley slaves and the doors of prisons. Gratitude, worse than witchcraft, conjures up the pale, meagre ghosts of dead forgotten kindnesses to haunt and trouble [his memory]. The sot, rolling on his sofa, stretching and yawning, exclaimed, "_Utinam hoc esset laborare._" Truth still more than Justice [is] blind, and needs Wisdom for her guide. [Sidenote: OF THINGS VISIBLE AND INVISIBLE] [A Proof of] the severity of the winter--the kingfisher [by] its slow, short flight permitting you to observe all its colours, almost as if it had been a flower. Little daisy--very late Spring, March. Quid si vivat? Do all things in faith. _Never pluck a flower again!_ Mem. [Sidenote: May 20, 1799] The nightingales in a cluster or little wood of blossomed trees, and a bat wheeling incessantly round and round! The noise of the frogs was not unpleasant, like the humming of spinning wheels in a large manufactory--now and then a distinct sound, sometimes like a duck, and, sometimes, like the shrill notes of sea-fowl. [This note was written one day later than S. T. C.'s last letter from Germany, May 19, 1799.] O Heavens! when I think how perishable things, how imperishable thoughts seem to be! For what is forgetfulness? Renew the state of affection or bodily feeling [so as to be the] same or similar, sometimes dimly similar, and, instantly, the trains of forgotten thoughts rise from their living catacombs! [Sidenote:[Sockburn] October 1799] Few moments in life are so interesting as those of our affectionate reception from a stranger who is the dear friend of your dear friend! How often you have been the subject of conversation, and how affectionately! [The note commemorates his first introduction to Mary and Sarah Hutchinson.] [Sidenote: Friday evening, Nov, 27, 1799]