Conscientiousness, 8 1/2 That fraction looks first rate.
Mirthfulness, 7 Has laughed twice since he came in. That sounds
well.
Ideality, 9
Form, Size, Weight,
Color, Locality,
Eventuality, etc., Average everything that can't be guessed.
etc. (4 to 6)
And so of other faculties
Of course, you know, that isn't the way the phrenologists do. They go
only by the bumps. What do you keep laughing so for (to the
boarders)? I only said that is the way I should practise "Phrenology"
for a living.
Joshua S. Morris
THE HARP OF A THOUSAND STRINGS
A Hard-Shell Baptist Sermon
(This characteristic effusion first appeared in a New Orleans paper.
The locality is supposed to be a village on the bank of the
Mississippi River, whither the volunteer parson had brought his
flatboat for the purpose of trade.)
I may say to you, my brethring, that I am not an edicated man, an' I
am not one of them as believes that edication is necessary for a
Gospel minister, for I believe the Lord edicates his preachers jest
as he wants 'em to be edicated; an' although I say it that oughtn't
to say it, yet in the State of Indianny, whar I live, thar's no man
as gets bigger congregations nor what I gits.
Thar may be some here to-day, my brethring, as don't know what
persuasion I am uv. Well, I must say to you, my brethring, that I'm a
Hard-shell Baptist. Thar's some folks as don't like the Hard-shell
Baptists, but I'd rather have a hard shell as no shell at all. You
see me here to-day, my brethring, dressed up in fine clothes; you
mout think I was proud, but I am not proud, my brethring, and
although I've been a preacher of the Gospel for twenty years, an'
although I'm capting of the flatboat that lies at your landing, I'm
not proud, my brethring.
I am not gwine to tell edzactly whar my tex may be found; suffice to
say, it's in the leds of the Bible, and you'll find it somewhar
between the first chapter of the book of Generations and the last
chapter of the book of Revolutions, and ef you'll go and search the
Scriptures, you'll not only find my tex thar, but a great many other
texes as will do you good to read, and my tex, when you shall find
it, you shall find it to read thus:
"And he played on a harp uv a thousand strings, sperits uv jest men
made perfeck."
My text, my brethring, leads me to speak of sperits. Now, thar's a
great many kinds of sperits in the world--in the fuss place, thar's
the sperits as some folks call ghosts, and thar's the sperits of
turpentine, and thar's the sperits as some folks call liquor, an'
I've got as good an artikel of them kind of sperits on my flatboat as
ever was fotch down the Mississippi River; but thar's a great many
other kinds of sperits, for the tex says, "He played on a harp uv a
_t-h-o-u-s-_and strings, sperits uv jest men made perfeck."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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