EARLY LIFE. 65 



brother should be blind in one eye, the other in both 

 one lying on straw, the other in prison/ ' Thy lot 

 shall change/ replied the animal of the star. * It is 

 true thou shalt always be half blind ; but then, this 

 excepted, thou shalt be happy enough, provided 

 always thou shalt not form the foolish project of 

 being perfectly wise/ 'That, then, is out of the 

 question 1 ' said Memnon, with a sigh. ' As impos- 

 sible/ said the other, ' as to think of being perfectly 

 clever, strong, powerful, or happy. Even we our- 

 selves are far from it. There is, indeed, one globe 

 where all that may be had ; but in the hundred 

 thousand millions of others which are sprinkled over 

 space, everything is got by degrees. One feels less 

 pleasanter in the second than in the first; still 

 less in the third than the second ; and so on, down to 

 the last, where every mother's son is an absolute fool/ 

 ' I greatly fear/ said Memnon, ' that our little terra- 

 queous globe is precisely the little habitation of the 

 universe about which you are doing me the honour to 

 speak/ ' Not altogether/ said the spirit, ' but nearly 

 so ; everything must have its place.' ( But stay/ 

 said Memnon ; ' some poets and philosophers, then, are 

 in the wrong to say that everything is for the best ? ' 

 'They are quite right/ said the philosopher of the 

 upper regions, ' if we consider the arrangement of the 

 whole universe/ ' Ah ! ' replied poor Memnon, ' I 

 shall never be able to see that, till I've got back my 

 other eye/ ' 



"We returned to Edinburgh for the college session 

 VOL. i, E 



