By this centripetal and centrifugal process, the social atmosphere is subjected to a continual state of agitation. _Language_ is altogether too tame to give full effect to their meaning, and all the varieties of _dumb show_, of _gesticulation_, _shrugs_, and wise shakes of the head, are called into requisition, to effectually and unmistakably express their ideas. The usages of good society are regarded by them as a great restraint upon their besetting propensity to expatiate in phrases of grandiloquence, and to magnify objects of trivial importance. They are always sure to initiate topics which will afford scope for admiration; they delight to enlarge upon the unprecedented growth of cities, villages, and towns; upon the comparative prices of 'corner lots' at different periods; and to calculate how rich they _might_ have been, had they only known as much _then_ as _now_. They experience a gratification when a rich man dies, that the wonder will now be solved as to the amount of his property; and when a man fails in business, that it is _now_ made clear--what has so long perplexed them--'_how he managed to live so extravagantly_!' See them at an agricultural fair, and they will be found examining the 'mammoth squashes' and various products of prodigious growth--or they will install themselves as self-appointed exhibiter of the 'Fat Baby,' to inform the incredulous how much it weighs! See them at a conflagration, and they wonder what was the _cause_ of the fire, and _how far_ it will extend? They long to travel, that they may visit 'mammoth caves' and 'Giant's Causeways.' We talk of the 'Seven Wonders of the World,' while to them there is a successive series for every day in the year--putting to the blush our meagre stock of monstrosities--making 'Ossa like a wart.' Nothing gratifies them more than the issuing from the press of an anonymous work, that they may exert their ingenuity in endeavoring to discover the author; and, when called on for information on the subject, prove conclusively to every one but themselves, that they know nothing whatever about the matter. The ocean is to them only wonderful as the abode of 'Leviathans,' and 'Sea Serpents,' 'Krakens,' and 'Mermaids'--abounding in 'Maeelstroms' and _sunken_ islands, and traversed by 'Phantom Ships' and 'Flying Dutchmen' in perpetual search for some 'lost Atlantis;'--all well-attested incredibilities, certified to by the 'affidavits of respectable eye-witnesses,' and, we might add, by 'intelligent contrabands,'--and all in strict conformity with the convenient aphorism '_Credo quia impossibile est_.' They are ever ready to bestow their amazement upon a fresh miracle as soon as the present has had its day--like the man who, being landed at some distance by the explosion of a juggler's pyrotechnics, rubbed his eyes open, and exclaimed, '_I wonder what the fellow will do next!_'