Dr. Harvest, of Ditton, a very learned man, would unconsciously allow his horse to be loosened from his grasp, and walk home _with the bridle on his arm_. He would walk into his church on Sunday, _with his fowling-piece_. He would write a letter, address it, and send it to _three different persons_. He lost a lady, the daughter of a bishop, as his wife, by going out to _catch gudgeons_, forgetting that it was the morning of his marriage ceremony; and he once threw a glass of wine at backgammon, and swallowed the dice! After this we can no longer call caricatures the abstract philosopher who boiled his watch, and held the egg in his hand as the time-keeper; or the American, who put his candle to bed, and blew himself out; or the lady, who believed herself to be a post-letter, but waited patiently until the letter-sorter had examined her, to ascertain if she was single or double. EV. There is some hope of you now, dear Astrophel, for you are returning to matters of fact. From the deep interest of _dramatic scenes_ may spring the same apathy as that which _you_ have illustrated. Dr. Fordyce writes of one who forgot he was sitting on a hard bench, when Garrick brought in his dead Cordelia in his arms. And even the impression of _fatigue_ and _pain_ will often, for a time, leave us, when we are gazing on architectural or picturesque beauty. IDA. Are not those minds which are easily influenced by morbid sensibility, the minutiæ of existence, often thus depressed into a condition somewhat resembling the moroseness of these half-idiots? EV. Ay, even the mighty minds of heroes and of monarchs. Queen Elizabeth was often wont to sit alone, _in the dark_, in sorrow and in tears. We know not if the fate of Essex or of Mary were the cause, but the marble mind of Elizabeth was dissolved before she died. In Sully’s “Mémoires,” also, we read that the solitude of Charles IX., of France, was saddened by remorse, for his memory was ever pealing in his ear the shrieks and groans of the massacre of St. Bartholomew. During this influence we may often find that the features or actions are so deeply expressive as to prove an involuntary, though correct, index of the thought. According to the passions or subjects which occupy the mind, will be the play of feature or the movement of the body. “We might almost suppose the body thought.”