"Silence!" cried Pisistratus, clapping his hands to both ears. "I can no more alter the fate allotted to each of the personages whom you honor with your interest than I can change your own; like you, they must go where events lead them, urged on by their own characters and the agencies of others. Providence so pervadingly governs the universe, that you can not strike it even out of a book. The author may beget a character, but the moment the character comes into action, it escapes from his hands--plays its own part, and fulfills its own inevitable doom." "Besides," said Mr. Squills, "it is easy to see, from the phrenological development of the organs in those several heads which Pisistratus has allowed us to examine, that we have seen no creations of mere fiction, but living persons, whose true history has set in movement their various bumps of Amativeness, Constructiveness, Acquisitiveness, Ideality, Wonder, Comparison, &c. They must act and they must end, according to the influences of their crania. Thus we find in Randal Leslie the predominant organs of Constructiveness, Secretiveness, Comparison, and Eventuality--while Benevolence, Conscientiousness, Adhesiveness, are utterly _nil_. Now, to divine how such a man must end, we must first see what is the general composition of the society in which he moves--in short, what other gases are brought into contact with his phlogiston. As to Leonard, and Harley, and Audley Egerton, surveying them phrenologically, I should say that--" "Hush!" said my father. "Pisistratus has dipped his pen in the ink, and it seems to me easier for the wisest man that ever lived to account for what others have done, than to predict what they should do. Phrenologists discovered that Mr. Thurtell had a very fine organ of Conscientiousness, yet, somehow or other, that erring personage contrived to knock the brains out of his friend's organ of Individuality. Therefore I rise to propose a Resolution--that this meeting be adjourned till Pisistratus has completed his narrative: and we shall then have the satisfaction of knowing that it ought, according to every principle of nature, science, and art, to have been completed differently. Why should we deprive ourselves of that pleasure?" "I second the motion," said the Captain, "but if Levy be not hanged, I shall say that there is an end of all poetical justice." "Take care of poor Helen," said Blanche, tenderly; "not that I would have you forget Violante." "Pish! and sit down, or they shall both die old maids."