[Dark Saint Alaick]

How much real comfort every one might enjoy if he would be contented with the lot in
which heaven has cast him, and how much trouble would be avoided if people would
only "let well alone." A moderate independence, quietly and honestly procured, is
certainly every way preferable even to immense possessions achieved by the wear and
tear of mind and body so necessary to procure them. Yet there are very few individuals,
let them be doing ever so well in the world, who are not always straining every nerve to
do better; and this is one of the many causes why failures in business so frequently occur
among us. The present generation seem unwilling to "realize" by slow and sure degrees;
but choose rather to set their whole hopes upon a single cast, which either makes or mars
them forever!
Gentle reader, do you remember Monsieur Poopoo? He used to keep a small toy-store in
Chatham, near the corner of Pearl Street. You must recollect him, of course. He lived
there for many years, and was one of the most polite and accommodating of shopkeepers.
When a juvenile, you have bought tops and marbles of him a thousand times. To be sure
you have; and seen his vinegar-visage lighted up with a smile as you flung him the
coppers; and you have laughed at his little straight queue and his dimity breeches, and all
the other oddities that made up the every-day apparel of my little Frenchman. Ah, I
perceive you recollect him now.