Physiognomies of Victor and Flamin.--Boiling-Point of
Friendship.--Splendid Hopes for us.
Who would have thought it of Cicero (if he had not read it) that a man
of so many years and so much sense would sit down in his St. John's
Island, and manufacture _beginnings_, introductions, pre-existing germs
in advance for the market? However, the man had this advantage, that
when he wrote a torso on any subject, he had his choice among the heads
lying ready made to his hand, of which he could screw one on to the
trunk according to the corpuscular philosophy.--As to myself, who have
nothing sedate about me, no one can wonder that I on my Moluccian
Frascati[73] have reeled and twisted beforehand whole skeins of
beginnings. When Spitz afterward brings a Dog-day, I have already
commenced it, and have nothing to do but just to clap the historical
remnant on to the introduction.--This very beginning itself I have
selected for to-day.