of it there is, betwixt these and our seven senses, especially some of them, for my own part, I own it, I am ashamed to confess. Let it suffice to affirm, that of all the senses, the eye (for I absolutely deny the touch, though most of your Barbati , I know, are for it) has the quickest commerce with the soul,—gives a smarter stroke, and leaves something more inexpressible upon the fancy, than words can either convey—or sometimes, get rid of.
—I’ve gone a little about—no matter, ’tis for health—let us only carry it back in our mind to the mortality of Trim’s hat.—“Are we not here now,—and gone in a moment?”—There was nothing in the sentence—’twas 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 head—he had made nothing at all of it.
⸻“Are we not here now;” continued the corporal, “and are we not”—(dropping his hat plump upon the ground—and 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 kneeded into the crown of it.⸺Nothing could have expressed the sentiment of mortality, of which it was the type and forerunner, like it,—his hand seemed to vanish from under it,—it fell dead,—the corporal’s eye fixed upon it, as upon a corpse,—and Susannah burst into a flood of tears.
Now—Ten 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 goose—like a puppy—like an ass—or in doing it, or even after he had done, had he looked like a fool—like a ninny—like a nincompoop—it had fail’d, and the effect upon the heart had been lost.