you will not wonder, nor perhaps will you blame me now, that I do not hasten to the wedding day. The day on which Deborah left her father's house was the saddest that she had ever known till then; nor was there one of the bridal party who did not feel that this was the first of those events, inevitable and mournful all, by which their little circle would be lessened, and his or her manner of life or of existence changed. [Footnote 1: SHAKESPEARE.] There is no checking the course of time. When the shadow on Hezekiah's dial went back, it was in the symbol only that the miracle was wrought: the minutes in every other horologe held their due course. But as Opifex of this opus, I when it seems good unto me, may take the hour-glass from Time's hand and let it rest at a stand-still, till I think fit to turn it and set the sands again in motion. You who have got into this my omnibus, know that like other omnibusses, its speed is to be regulated not according to your individual and perhaps contrariant wishes, but by my discretion. Moreover I am not bound to ply with this omnibus only upon a certain line. In that case there would be just cause of complaint, if you were taken out of your road. _Mas estorva y desabre en el camino Una pequeña legua de desvio Que la jornada larga de contino._ Whoever has at any time lost his way upon a long journey can bear testimony to the truth of what the Reverend Padre Maestro Fray Marco Antonio de Camos says in those lines. (I will tell you hereafter reader (for it is worth telling), why that namesake of the Triumvir, when he wrote the poem from whence the lines are quoted, had no thoughts of dedicating it as he afterwards did to D. Juan Pimentel y de Requesens.) But you are in no danger of being bewildered, or driven out of your way. It is not in a stage coach that you have taken your place with me, to be conveyed to a certain point, and within a certain time, under such an expectation on your part, and such an engagement on mine. We will drop the metaphor of the omnibus,—observing however by the bye, which is the same thing in common parlance as by the way, though critically there may seem to be a difference, for by the bye might seem to denote a collateral remark and by the way a direct one; observing however as I said, that as Dexter called his work, or St. Jerome called it for him, _Omnimoda Historia_, so might this opus be not improperly denominated. You have embarked with me not for a definite voyage, but for an excursion on the water; and not in a steamer, nor in a galley, nor in one of the post-office packets, nor in a man-of-war, nor in a merchant-vessel; but in A ship that's mann'd With labouring Thoughts, and steer'd by Reason's hand. My Will's the seaman's card whereby she sails; My just Affections are the greater sails, The top sail is my fancy.[2]