cases alike a recognition, gradually becoming universal, of the thing itself, as a social necessity, has put down forever all idle attempts to throw ridicule upon it--upon literature, in the one case, as a most appropriate female ornament; and upon silver forks, on the other, as an element of social decorum. * * * * * The author has exerted himself every where to keep the text accurate; and he is disposed to believe that his own care, combined with the general accuracy of the press, must have enabled him to succeed in that object. But if it should appear that any errors have after all escaped him, he must request his readers to excuse them, after explaining that he suffers under the oppression of a nervous distraction, which renders all labors exacting any energy of attention inexpressibly painful. End of Project Gutenberg's Autobiographic Sketches, by Thomas de Quincey