called divine salt by Homer, and holy salt by others; and by placing of
salt on the table, a sort of blessing was thought to be conveyed to
them. To have eaten at the same table was esteemed an inviolable
obligation to friendship; and to transgress the salt at the table--that
is, to break the laws of hospitality, and to injure one by whom any
person had been entertained--was accounted one of the blackest crimes:
hence that exaggerating interrogation of Demosthenes, "Where is the
salt? where the hospital tables?" for in despite of these, he had been
the author of these troubles. And the crime of Paris in stealing Helena
is aggravated by Cassandra, upon this consideration, that he had
contemned the salt, and overturned the hospital table.

P.T.W.

* * * * *



THE NOVELIST.

* * * * *


THE GAMESTER'S DAUGHTER.

_From the Confessions of an Ambitious Student._


A fit, one bright spring morning, came over me--a fit of poetry. From
that time the disorder increased, for I indulged it; and though such of