DAILY HABITS. 233 



contemplated essays. He first states a question, and 

 then sets down the heads of an excursive reply to it. 

 Here is one of these essays in skeleton, I copy verbatim 

 from Miller's MS. 



'Query Whether Writing or Painting convey to the mind the 

 more vivid ideas. 



'Original method of transmitting history and communicating 

 ideas. Egyptian Hieroglyphics Mexican ditto North American. 

 The deaf boy. 



* Disadvantages of this method. The operation of mind indescrib- 

 able, the achievements of conduct. Causes given for effects and 

 effects for causes. Winter personified as a Hog. The animals made 

 symbolical. Idolatry. 



' 1st Conclusion, that the field of Painting is extremely narrow, and 

 that narrow field filled with uncertainty. That of Writing, on the 

 other hand, wide and clear.' 



' Painting in a different view. In one particular province of 

 description more clear than Writing. A drawing gives a more 

 minute idea of a person, a building, a landscape, or a machine, than 

 any written description. To men of common minds it gives more 

 vivid ideas of things of a different province, but not to men of genius. 

 The illustrations of the Waverley Novels ; of Milton's Paradise Lost ; 

 of Shakespeare. This perhaps a consequence of the painter's inferiority 

 to the writer. Happy illustration involved in Tarn O'Shanter by Thorn 

 and the sculpture of the ancients. The Italian school The Flemish. 



' Conclusion 2nd. In one narrow field Painting gives more vivid 

 ideas than Writing. In another field it almost disputes the palm ; 

 but the fields of Writing as extended as human thought or the works 

 of the Creator. Nay, infinite ; seeing God is a writer.' 



We shall take another of these outlined essays or 

 Debating Society speeches, they would serve equally 

 well for either. 



' Query Whether Luxury be advantageous or disadvantageous to 

 a State. 



' A brief view of the history of Luxury from the most remote to 

 the present times. Assyria. The feast of Belshazzar. Persian 

 Luxury in its primitive cast. The savage a great drinker, the Persian 

 so. The boast of Cyrus over his brother Artaxerxes. The men who 

 live by hunting often obliged to fast for a long time, and in the habit 

 of gorging voraciously. The Persians ate only once a day. Consola- 

 tion of the Abderites. The Greeks similar in this respect to the 

 Persians. Plato's remark on the Sicilians. The Spartans and 

 Athenians luxurious in the latter days of their respective States. 



' Roman luxury very peculiar. Cleopatra's pearls. Esopus the 



