156 APHORISMS AND REFLECTIONS 



brains, and only wriggle the more, the more they are 

 smitten on the place where the brains ought to be. 



CCCXXXVIII 



I don't know what you think about anniversaries. 

 I like them, being always minded to drink my cup 

 of life to the bottom, and take my chance of the 

 sweets and bitters. 



cccxxxix 



Of the few innocent pleasures left to men past 

 middle life — the jamming common-sense down the 

 throats of fools is perhaps the keenest. 



CCCXL 



Life is like walking along a crowded street— there 

 always seem to be fewer obstacles to getting along 

 on the opposite pavement— and yet, if one crosses 

 over, matters are rarely mended. 



CCCXLI 



The great thing one has to wish for as time goes 

 on is vigour as long as one lives, and death as soon 

 as vigour flags. 



CCCXLII 



Whether motion disintegrates or integrates is, I 

 apprehend, a question of conditions. A whirlpool in 

 a stream may remain in the same spot for any 

 imaginable time. Yet it is the effect of the motion 

 of the particles of the water in that spot which 

 continually integrate themselves into the whirlpool 

 and disintegrate themselves from it. The whirlpool 



