December 31.
OF ull good resolutions with which the surprising optimism of mankind is prone to burthen itself at New Year none is more ins than the resolution to keep a diary. Even in the making of it the) lurks at the back of the mind a conviction, born, perhaps, of many years' similar experiment, that the new resolution will hardly endure beyond the first fortnight of January. Yet from a Mrs. Jameson lifted into literary celebrity by her brilliant pictures of Italian travel entitled Diary of an Ennuyée, down to the schoolboy who wrote " Father sliped on the stars (? stairs) and broke his coller bone we had erthy potatoes for dinner," there are few that have not known what it was to be fired with ambition to record the acts of their hands and the self-commonings of the inmost soul, One man is methodical; the greater reason that at New Year he should strengthen himself in- method; and what better means could be found of ensuring that regularity which he emulates in all his affairs than a diary? Another man is casual, happy-go-lucky he leves his hat on the writing table, his umbrella in the fireplace, and never knows from one week's end to another whether quarter-day will find him in Berkeley Square or the Bankru] Court. For him also the New Year shall be an occasion df
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.