Volume 4 — SLIDING SCALES OF DESPAIR.

The London Morning Chronicle, after an observation that a hurriedly written epitaph always appears, in the course of time, to require revisal, expresses its admiration for the good sense of a Parisian sculptor, who, when he took his instructions for a monument, insisted upon the veuve inconsolable or the heartstricken husband penning the intended inscription, and even signing the holograph, as a further authority to him for immortalizing so much utter despair. "The day before the record was actually to be cut for eternity, his habit was to send the inscription book to the mourner's house, lest any correction should be desired. The havoc which, upon receiving back the volume, he usually found made among laudatory adjectives and adverbs of infinity, was, to a good man, a delightful evidence of the cooling and healing powers of time."