A place where the inactivity and inertia of the people infects even the animal and vegetable worlds; and the cows and pigs are too lazy to eat enough to ensure their pinguitude, but drawl about the streets, perambulating specimens of embodied animated laziness, displaying through their skins their osseous economy. Where the very trees don't leaf out till August and the flowers are too backward to bloom till snow comes, and where the river itself, too lazy to run down hill, sometimes from sheer indolence stops flowing, to take a rest; dams itself up, and overflows the railroad. Yet here has the late lamented Damphool resolved to bury himself, establishing thereby an undisputed title to the expressive name he bears; and I can only hope that in his exile some stray copy of this book may be wrecked within his reach, that he may come to know the present heartfelt lament of me, Doesticks. I have ever tried, O mighty Damphool, to forgive thy faults and overlook thy frailties! Some have said that thou wert lazy, but such have never seen thee eat. What though thou wert foppish to a degree. I could forgive thy Shanghae coats, thy two-acre turn-down collars and thy pantaloons so tight thou hadst to pull them on with boot-hooks; thy gorgeous cravat, with its bow projecting on either side like a silken wing; thy lemon-colored kids; thy cambric handkerchiefs, dripping with compounds to me unknown; and thy blanket shawl, which made thee resemble a half-breed Scotchman. I could overlook the boarding-school-ism of the Miss Nancyish "Journal," filled with poetry rejected of the press, with unmeaning prose, with dyspeptic complaints of hard fortune, or bilious repinings at thy lot, and all the senseless silliness which thou didst inscribe therein. I could endure the affected airs thou didst assume before the lady boarders, that they might think and call thee _Poet_; the abstracted air, the appearance of being lost in thought, and the sudden recovery of thy truant wits with a spasmodic start; the shirt-collar loose at the neck, and turned romantically down over the coat; the long hair brushed back behind thy noticeable ears, to show thy "marble forehead." I could admire that self-appreciation of personal charms which made thee certain all the young ladies were smitten unto matrimony with thy fascinations. How faithful wert thou in thy gastronomical affections! how constant to thy first love--fried oysters; and how attentive to the choice of thy mature judgment--boiled turkey, with celery. How unwavering in thy economy, never parting with a dime in charity, in generosity, or in friendly gift, but only disbursing the same for a full equivalent in the wherewithal to decorate the outer man, or gratify the inner individual. How consistent in thy devotion to music and the drama; always attending the opera or theatre whenever generous friends would buy the tickets.