"Yes; I was going to say," Jack continued, "this swift transposition from the cultivation of civilization to the handiwork of Nature is whimsically illustrative of the people.

But his Comment is more illustrative than analytic, more literal than imaginative, and its chief value lies in the abundance of current legends which it contains, and in the number of stories related in it, which exhibit the manners or illustrate the history of the times.

The reader will also peruse with interest the following paragraph, illustrative at once of the habits of the horse, and of our author's familiarity with the race: "The horse is an intelligent animal, and seems to delight in the society of man.

" This answer was taken to be merely illustrative by everybody except, perhaps, Mr. Barney and Mr. Nott, each of whom, it subsequently appeared, had particularly noted Mr. Lincoln's reply.

One more anecdote I must find room for, because it is curiously illustrative in several ways of those tempi passati, che non tornano piu.