After all, as in every matter arising from the affairs of this world, a great deal of our happiness, so far as it is concerned by the system of recognition, lies with ourselves. If we are prudent, and take counsel from experience, we may avoid much of this nodding and bowing misery which would otherwise fall to our share. A man, for instance, should not be always goggling and staring about him; otherwise he will be sure to fall in with flying nods, which he could as well dispense with, if he does not even hit some person, perhaps, on the other side of the way, who, not having seen him for a long time, thinks it is duty—Lord confound him!—to come across the Hellespont of mud, and shake the spirits out of him with half an hour of tediousness and common-place. When you debouch from your door, never look along the street in the direction you are not to travel, or ten to one but you see some one who, having the infelicity, poor devil, to catch your eye, must put himself on to a canter to come up to you; and so you get mutually entangled, perhaps for half the day. I give this caution with a particular emphasis; for I have observed that nine out of every ten men look back in the way described, as if it were one of the involuntary motions or inclinations of human nature. As you are walking along, never cast your regards upon any one coming obliquely across the street, or in all probability you are shot dead by an eye of your acquaintance, which, if it had not hit you, would have passed on innocuous. The eye is the principal mischief in all these cases. A man is often snared by that part of him, and dragged a hundred yards along a dirty street, for all the world like a silly salmon hooked by the nose, and laid, after half a mile of tugging and hauling, exhausted on the shore. Keep your eye well to yourself, and you are tolerably safe; for of this you may be assured, no man will come up to attract your attention, unless he be a country cousin, who was just looking about for you. Every mother’s son of them is actuated by the same principles with yourself, and is glad to escape all the nodding he can. So reciprocal is this feeling, that many persons whom you are taking means to avoid, will, if you observe them narrowly, be found to be doing all they can to assist in the process. If you pretend, for instance, that you cannot see that gentleman there coming aslant the way, on account of the intense brightness of the sun, you will see out at the tail of your eye that he is pretending to be as much put about by the sunshine as yourself, and is doing all he can to shade his eyes from Phœbus and you, exactly in the same fashion with yourself. If you walk, as you ought to do, with your eyes fixed below what painters call the point of sight, but suddenly raise them for a moment, in order to look about you, it is ten to one but you see your very bosom friend—your confessor—the man whom you wear in your heart of hearts—in the act of