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Kit Carson had a remarkably retentive memory, and a wonderful aptitude for comprehending the mazes of rivers, mountains, and valleys.

As to France, formerly the steadiest of all nations, so deeply attached to her dynasty of eight hundred years, although some of her kings were little worthy true affection; many of whose citizens have been born in houses a thousand years old, from families whose names went back to the darkness of heroic times; which was once so retentive of her old memories, living in her traditions, her former deeds of glory, even in the monuments raised in honor of her kings, her great captains, her illustrious citizens; which was chiefly devoted to her time- honored religion, mindful that she was born on the day of the baptism of Clovis; that she grew up during the Crusades; that a virgin sent by Heaven saved her from the yoke of the stranger; that, on attaining her full maturity, it was religion which chiefly ennobled her; and that her greatest poets, orators, literary men, respected and honored religion as the basis of the state, and, by their immortal masterpieces, threw a halo around Catholicism France, which still retains in her external appearance something of her old steadiness and immutability, so that to the eye of a stranger, who sees her for the first time, solidity is the word which comes naturally to his mind, as expressive of every thing around him, has only the look of what she was in her days of greatness, and on the surface of the earth there is not to-day a more unsteady, shaky, insecure spot, scarcely worthy of being chosen by a nomad Tartar as a place wherein to pitch his tent for the night, and hurry off at the first appearance of the rising sun on the morrow.

His quick perception and powers of observation and reflection, and his retentive memory were remarkable; his judgment was good, his mental grasp and comprehension equal to any emergency, his intentions were always honest, and his skill and tact, with a determination to always maintain the right, begot confidence and made him successful and great.

"Such is a slight and inadequate sketch of the grand celestial bed, which, being thus completely insulated, highly saturated with the most genial floods or electrical fire! fully impregnated moreover, with the balmy vivifying effluvia of restorative balsamic medicines and of soft, fragrant, oriental gums, balsams and quintescence, and pervaded at the same times with full springing tides of the invigorating influences of music and magnets both real and artificial, gives such elastic vigour to the nerves, on the one hand, of the male, and on the other, such retentive firmness to the female; and, moreover, all the faculties of the soul being so fully expanded, and so highly illuminated, that it is impossible, in the nature of things, but that strong, beautiful, brilliant, nay, double-distilled children, if I may use the expression, must infallibly be begotten."

There is none other God but Him, the One, the Incomparable, the Lord of strength, the Unconditioned. They whose sight is keen, whose ears are retentive, whose hearts are enlightened, and whose breasts are dilated, recognize both truth and falsehood, and distinguish the one from the other.

They were as much afraid of our goods as they were of our people; and indeed they had reason: for our woollen manufactures are as retentive of infection as human bodies, and if packed up by persons infected, would receive the infection and be as dangerous to touch as a man would be that was infected; and therefore, when any English vessel arrived in foreign countries, if they did take the goods on shore, they always caused the bales to be opened and aired in places appointed for that purpose.

This is not to say that the drawing-up of a tentative scenario ought not to be one of the playwright's first proceedings. Indeed, if he is able to dispense with a scenario on paper, it can only be because his mind is so clear, and so retentive of its own ideas, as to enable him to carry in his head, always ready for reference, a more or less detailed scheme.

He had been tolerably well educated; and being fond of reading, with a retentive memory, he possessed a good deal of information. Left an orphan, without a friend in the world, he had come to sea; and quitting his ship at Charleston, he had entered on board the Pocahuntas. I mention these three of my shipmates for reasons which will hereafter be seen.

They stood a few paces apart, Rose with her look bent vaguely towards the shore, Edmund, still reading his letters, apparently unaware of her presence. He was thus able to take a long exposure sun-picture of the white figure on a sensitive memory that would prove but too retentive of the impression. But he had to speak at last. "Is it you?"