“There’s no use in such talk, Lois: what’s done’s done; and if the Lord let it be done, we may. We can’t always make people do as we would. There’s no use in being dragged through the world like a dog under a cart, hanging back and yelping. What we must do, we may as well do willingly,—as well walk as be dragged.” * * * * * [Sidenote: Influence of heredity and association.] It is strange that no human being grows up who does not so intertwist in his growth the whole idea and spirit of his day, that rightly to dissect out his history would require one to cut to pieces and analyze society, law, religion, the metaphysics, and the morals of his time; and, as all things run back to those of past days, the problem is still further complicated. The humblest human being is the sum total of a column of figures which go back through centuries before he was born. [Sidenote: Personal magnetism.] Supposing a man is made like an organ, with two or three banks of keys, and ever so many stops, so that he can play all sorts of tunes on himself; is it being a hypocrite with each person to play precisely the tune, and draw out exactly the stop, which he knows will make himself agreeable and further his purpose? * * * * * [Sidenote: Physical good humor.] That charming gift of physical good humor, which is often praised as a virtue in children and in grown people, but which is a mere condition of the animal nature. SAM LAWSON’S STORIES. [Sidenote: Effect of sinning.] “Ye know sinnin’ will always make a man leave prayin’.” * * * * * [Sidenote: Scepticism.] “You look at the folks that’s allers tellin’ you what they don’t believe,—they don’t believe this, an’ they don’t believe that,—an’ what sort o’ folks is they? Why, like yer Aunt Lois, sort o’ stringy an’ dry. There ain’t no ’sorption got out o’ not believin’ nothin’.” * * * * * [Sidenote: Life.] “That ’are’s jest the way folks go all their lives, boys. It’s all fuss, fuss, and stew, stew, till ye get somewhere; an’ then it’s fuss, fuss, an’ stew, stew, to get back again; jump here an’ scratch your eyes out, an’ jump there an’ scratch ’em in again,—that ’are’s life.” PEARL OF ORR’S ISLAND. [Sidenote: Life as a play.] There are those people who possess a peculiar faculty of mingling in the affairs of this life as spectators as well as actors. It does not, of course, suppose any coldness of nature or want of human interest or sympathy,—nay, it often exists more completely with people of the tenderest human feeling. It rather seems to be a kind of distinct faculty working harmoniously with all the others; but he who possesses it needs never to be at a loss for interest or amusement; he is always a spectator at a tragedy or a comedy, and sees in real life a humor and a pathos beyond anything he can find shadowed in books. * * * * *