SCRAPS FROM OUR NOTEBOOK.

Tuapeka Times, Volume I, Issue 40, 14 November 1868, Page 6

SCRAPS FROM OUR NOTEBOOK.

No. IX.— APROPOS OF NOTHING. "Warm, sir? yes, decidedly warm; too warm, in fact, ?or me to" undergo the immense exertion cf penning a scrap. Utterly impossible for me, indeed, Mr. Editor, to work harder than I am doin^ at present, in a vain effort to keep myself cool. A perfect vacuum, indeed, is my unfortunate mind at the present time, only to be stirred into languid activity by sherry cobblers and the shower-bath. "What on earth subject can I undertake in such a condition? Notbin^, so nothing it shall be. Nothing is not so poor a theme, dear critic, as you saptently imagine, for though it of a verity is but a cipher, yet at times it possesses a numerical value. The number of members in our Provincial Executive may be five, but their sum total of brains and experience amounts to nothing — a blank of unfathomable dullness. Tae cou-age of our armed constabulary may be great, but Tito Kowarau can tell fieir achievments amount to nothing' after all. Nothing! ay, my friends, and worse fian notbin j, as many a widow and • helpless orphan can pitifully attest. It is nothing but a blast of wind says snu >3f i\ Oilcake, as he Btirs his fire ; but that blast of wind has sunk a noble vessel, laden with the hopes of happiness of a thousand families. Notning, ay, nothing but a wind-fall apple says Hodge, the bumpkin, while Newton discovers a law of gravitation. After all, nothing ia but a relative term, and only exists in the mind of him w'lo cannot grasp fie something tiat lie 3* hidden in its shadow. But enough, the weather is too hot for dialectics, and a mint julep is inviting mo to be cool.