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Ive gone a little aboutno matter, tis for healthlet us only carry it back in our mind to the mortality of Trims hatAre we not here now, and gone in a moment?There was nothing in the sentencetwas one of your self-evident truths we have the advantage of hearing every day; and if Trim had not trusted more to his hat than his headhe made nothing at all of it. Are we not here now; continued the corporal, and are we not (dropping his hat plumb upon the groundand pausing, before he pronounced the word)gone! in a moment? The descent of the hat was as if a heavy lump of clay had been kneaded into the crown of it.Nothing could have expressed the sentiment of mortality, of which it was the type and fore- runner, like it,his hand seemed to vanish from under it,it fell dead, the corporals eye fixed upon it, as upon a corpse,and Susannah burst into a flood of tears. NowTen thousand, and ten thousand times ten thousand (for matter and motion are infinite) are the ways by which a hat may be dropped upon the ground, without any effect.Had he flung it, or thrown it, or cast it, or skimmed it, or squirted it, or let it slip or fall in any possible direction under heaven,or in the best direction that could be given to it,had he dropped it like a gooselike a puppylike an assor in doing it, or even after he had done, had he looked like a foollike a ninny like a nincompoopit had faild, and the effect upon the heart had been lost. Ye who govern this mighty world and its mighty concerns with the engines of eloquence,who heat it, and cool it, and melt it, and mollify it,and then harden it again to your purpose Ye who wind and turn the passions with this great windlass, and, having done it, lead the owners of them, whither ye think meet. Ye, lastly, who driveand why not, Ye also who are driven, like turkeys to market with a stick and a red cloutmeditatemeditate, I beseech you, upon Trims hat. |
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