I remember his insisting very especially (among other things) upon the
      idea that the principle source of error in all human investigations lay in
      the liability of the understanding to under-rate or to over-value the
      importance of an object, through mere misadmeasurement of its
      propinquity. “To estimate properly, for example,” he said, “the influence
      to be exercised on mankind at large by the thorough diffusion of
      Democracy, the distance of the epoch at which such diffusion may possibly
      be accomplished should not fail to form an item in the estimate. Yet can
      you tell me one writer on the subject of government who has ever thought
      this particular branch of the subject worthy of discussion at all?”


      He here paused for a moment, stepped to a book-case, and brought forth one
      of the ordinary synopses of Natural History. Requesting me then to
      exchange seats with him, that he might the better distinguish the fine
      print of the volume, he took my armchair at the window, and, opening the
      book, resumed his discourse very much in the same tone as before. “But for your exceeding minuteness,” he said, “in describing the monster,
      I might never have had it in my power to demonstrate to you what it was. In the first place, let me read to you a schoolboy account of the genus
      Sphinx, of the family Crepuscularia of the order Lepidoptera, of the class
      of Insecta—or insects. The account runs thus:

      “‘Four membranous wings covered with little colored scales of metallic
      appearance; mouth forming a rolled proboscis, produced by an elongation of
      the jaws, upon the sides of which are found the rudiments of mandibles and
      downy palpi; the inferior wings retained to the superior by a stiff hair;
      antennæ in the form of an elongated club, prismatic; abdomen pointed. The
      Death’s-headed Sphinx has occasioned much terror among the vulgar,
      at times, by the melancholy kind of cry which it utters, and the insignia
      of death which it wears upon its corslet.’”


      He here closed the book and leaned forward in the chair, placing himself
      accurately in the position which I had occupied at the moment of beholding
      “the monster.”


      “Ah, here it is,” he presently exclaimed—“it is reascending the face
      of the hill, and a very remarkable looking creature I admit it to be. Still, it is by no means so large or so distant as you imagined it,—for
      the fact is that, as it wriggles its way up this thread, which some spider
      has wrought along the window-sash, I find it to be about the sixteenth of
      an inch in its extreme length, and also about the sixteenth of an inch
      distant from the pupil of my eye.”




HOP-FROG


      I never knew anyone so keenly alive to a joke as the king was. He seemed
      to live only for joking. To tell a good story of the joke kind, and to
      tell it well, was the surest road to his favor. Thus it happened that his
      seven ministers were all noted for their accomplishments as jokers. They
      all took after the king, too, in being large, corpulent, oily men, as well
      as inimitable jokers. Whether people grow fat by joking, or whether there
      is something in fat itself which predisposes to a joke, I have never been
      quite able to determine; but certain it is that a lean joker is a rara
      avis in terris. About the refinements, or, as he called them, the “ghost” of wit, the king
      troubled himself very little. He had an especial admiration for breadth in
      a jest, and would often put up with length, for the sake of it. Over-niceties wearied him. He would have preferred Rabelais’ “Gargantua”
      to the “Zadig” of Voltaire: and, upon the whole, practical jokes suited
      his taste far better than verbal ones. At the date of my narrative, professing jesters had not altogether gone
      out of fashion at court. Several of the great continental “powers” still
      retain their “fools,” who wore motley, with caps and bells, and who were
      expected to be always ready with sharp witticisms, at a moment’s notice,
      in consideration of the crumbs that fell from the royal table. _Our_ king, as a matter of course, retained his “fool.” The fact is, he
      _required_ something in the way of folly—if only to counterbalance the
      heavy wisdom of the seven wise men who were his ministers—not to
      mention himself. His fool, or professional jester, was not only a fool, however. His value
      was trebled in the eyes of the king, by the fact of his being also a dwarf
      and a cripple. Dwarfs were as common at court, in those days, as fools;
      and many monarchs would have found it difficult to get through their days
      (days are rather longer at court than elsewhere) without both a jester to
      laugh with, and a dwarf to laugh at. But, as I have already observed, your
      jesters, in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred, are fat, round, and
      unwieldy—so that it was no small source of self-gratulation with our
      king that, in Hop-Frog (this was the fool’s name), he possessed a
      triplicate treasure in one person. I believe the name “Hop-Frog” was _not_ that given to the dwarf by his
      sponsors at baptism, but it was conferred upon him, by general consent of
      the seven ministers, on account of his inability to walk as other men
      do. In fact, Hop-Frog could only get along by a sort of interjectional
      gait—something between a leap and a wriggle—a movement that
      afforded illimitable amusement, and of course consolation, to the king,
      for (notwithstanding the protuberance of his stomach and a constitutional
      swelling of the head) the king, by his whole court, was accounted a
      capital figure. But although Hop-Frog, through the distortion of his legs, could move only
      with great pain and difficulty along a road or floor, the prodigious
      muscular power which nature seemed to have bestowed upon his arms, by way
      of compensation for deficiency in the lower limbs, enabled him to perform
      many feats of wonderful dexterity, where trees or ropes were in question,
      or any thing else to climb. At such exercises he certainly much more
      resembled a squirrel, or a small monkey, than a frog. I am not able to say, with precision, from what country Hop-Frog
      originally came. It was from some barbarous region, however, that no
      person ever heard of—a vast distance from the court of our king. Hop-Frog, and a young girl very little less dwarfish than himself
      (although of exquisite proportions, and a marvellous dancer), had been
      forcibly carried off from their respective homes in adjoining provinces,
      and sent as presents to the king, by one of his ever-victorious generals.