He is generally very honest, and does
everything, like the man in the play, "with the best intentions." His
mind is incapable of entertaining more than one idea at a time; but to
that he holds fast, with the tenacity of the lobster's claw: he cannot
be diverted from it until, by some accident, a fresh idea displaces it;
and so on he goes from one blunder to another. His blunders, however,
which in the case of an ordinary man would infallibly result in disaster
to himself or to others, sometimes lead him to unexpected good fortune.
He it is, in fact, to whom the great Persian poet Sadi alludes when he
says, in his charming "Gulistan," or Rose Garden, "The alchemist died of
grief and distress, while the blockhead found a treasure under a ruin."
Men of intelligence toil painfully to acquire a mere "livelihood"'; the
noodle stumbles upon great wealth in the midst of his wildest vagaries.
In brief, he is--in stories, at least--a standing illustration of the
"vanity of human life"!_
_And now a few words as to the history and design of the following
work. When the Folk-lore Society was formed, some nine years since, the
late Mr. W.J. Thoms, who was one of the leading men in its formation,
promised to edit for the Society the "Merry Tales of the Mad Men of
Gotham," furnishing notes of analogous stories, a task which he was
peculiarly qualified to perform.
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