It is curious to observe the triumph of slight incidents over the mind:——What incredible weight they have in forming and governing our opinions, both of men and things——that trifles, light as air, shall waft a belief into the soul, and plant it so immoveably within it——that _Euclid_’s demonstrations, could they be brought to batter it in breach, should not all have power to overthrow it. _Yorick_, I said, picked up the chesnut which _Phutatorius_’s wrath had flung down——the action was trifling——I am ashamed to account for it—he did it, for no reason, but that he thought the chesnut not a jot worse for the adventure—and that he held a good chesnut worth stooping for.——But this incident, trifling as it was, wrought differently in _Phutatorius_’s head: He considered this act of _Yorick_’s in getting off his chair and picking up the chesnut, as a plain acknowledgment in him, that the chesnut was originally his—and in course, that it must have been the owner of the chesnut, and no one else, who could have played him such a prank with it: What greatly confirmed him in this opinion, was this, that the table being parallelogramical and very narrow, it afforded a fair opportunity for _Yorick_, who sat directly over against _Phutatorius_, of slipping the chesnut in——and consequently that he did it. The look of something more than suspicion, which _Phutatorius_ cast full upon _Yorick_ as these thoughts arose, too evidently spoke his opinion——and as _Phutatorius_ was naturally supposed to know more of the matter than any person besides, his opinion at once became the general one;——and for a reason very different from any which have been yet given——in a little time it was put out of all manner of dispute. When great or unexpected events fall out upon the stage of this sublunary world——the mind of man, which is an inquisitive kind of a substance, naturally takes a flight behind the scenes to see what is the cause and first spring of them.—The search was not long in this instance. It was well known that _Yorick_ had never a good opinion of the treatise which _Phutatorius_ had wrote _de Concubinis retinendis_, as a thing which he feared had done hurt in the world——and ’twas easily found out, that there was a mystical meaning in _Yorick_’s prank—and that his chucking the chesnut hot into _Phutatorius_’s ***——***, was a sarcastical fling at his book—the doctrines of which, they said, had enflamed many an honest man in the same place. This conceit awaken’d _Somnolentus_——made _Agelastes_ smile——and if you can recollect the precise look and air of a man’s face intent in finding out a riddle——it threw _Gastripheres_’s into that form—and in short was thought by many to be a master-stroke of arch-wit.