114 With Feet to the Earth 



planet every day, is any one so above or 

 below the average that he never repeats 

 himself, or thinks or says as others do ? Is 

 it conceivable that the same thoughts, the 

 same phrases, should not get themselves 

 published in half a dozen tongues? The 

 blessed Autocrat tells how he replied to a 

 feminine sympathizer in his pains of lecture 

 travel, " Yes, I am like the huma, the bird 

 that never alights, being always in the cars 

 as he is always on the wing ;' ' and meeting 

 her years after said exactly the same thing. 

 A few minutes later his memory flashed up 

 within him and he was covered with con- 

 fusion. Now, it was no stock phrase with 

 him. He had said it but twice in his life, 

 and undoubtedly the second meeting pro- 

 voked an unconscious cerebration about 

 the first, so that a subtle train of ideas led 

 to a mechanical repetition of the figure. 

 Queer fates befall one in this world : I 

 knew a boy who used to be spanked be- 

 cause he was so fat. 



Well, we have been discoursing so fast 

 that we have not seen much, but remember, 

 in some quarters that is an advantage. If 



