liberally to its pages. We want whatever is good literature, whether it pertain immediately to College life, or to anything interesting to educated men. Let every contributor, writing nothing for popularity, candidly tell what he thinks and feels. Depth and power are of great value, but they are not all that is excellent in writing. Let the profound man be profound, but let no other try to be so, for the effect will be a failure. In this Magazine wit is very desirable. The inhabitants of this College world love to laugh. Let the humorous man be humorous, but let no other make himself ridiculous by attempting it. The advice of Sidney Smith is golden. "Look in thy heart and write." We want your honest, outspoken sentiments. We want thoughts which come clear and strong from the stirring brain, full and earnest from the manly heart. Let there be independent thinking and fearless utterance. This is what College needs, and it will give the Lit. character and interest. We say these things because the success of the Magazine depends on you, as well as upon ourselves. If you will strike hands with us in this work, we shall engage in it cheerfully, and, so far as we can, prove ourselves worthy of the confidence reposed in us.

EDITORS.

REFINEMENT is twofold in its nature. There is refinement in character and refinement in manners. The former pertains to what a man is; the latter to what he appears to be.

Refinement in character is fineness and purity of soul. It has for its basis that pure taste, that lively sense of propriety and delicacy of feeling, which prompts the exactly appropriate word or action, on every occasion, and under all circumstances. It perceives intuitively the feelings of others, and regards them tenderly. It is keenly sensitive to injury, highly appreciates kindness, and is warmly grateful for favors. It has an ardent love for whatever is pure and beautiful, is deeply disgusted with impurity and coarseness, and hates with perfect hatred all that is ugly and foul. It delights in fine thoughts and elevated sentiment, and mourns that it is ever compelled to breathe the atmosphere of any other. Of such character, refinement in manners is the legitimate expression. It is the graceful and pleasing deportment in which a noble nature chooses to stand forth.

cence.

Yet not unfrequently, genuine refinement exists with manners rough and repulsive. We have often seen a rude and awkward backwoodsman, possessed of such purity of thought and delicacy of feeling, as might well put to shame those who, too stupid to see through the seeming into the real, would laugh at his uncultivated expressions and uncouth appearance. Endowed with native nobility, such a man is made pure by communing with the rocks, the hills and the streams amid which he dwells in innoBut because the nature and ease of one's manners depend upon the kind and amount of his social intercourse, the secluded countryman does not learn the forms adapted to set forth his excellence to the best advantage. Such a man is gold, but he is gold in the ore. We love to meet him out among bis native hills and woods, and talk with him. We always leave him, better satisfied with human nature-feeling that true character and manhood are realities. We like him, not because he is ungainly and apparently harsh, but because in spite of this, he is really fine and gentle. In disagreeable contrast, however, there are scores of men in every community with a polished exterior, but coarse nature. Men whose ordinary conversation is laden with impurity, and whose practices are too base to be mentioned, move in what is called "best society," appearing there with unexceptionable conduct. They "do sugar o'er the devil himself." They dress in good taste; by their deportment they please, perhaps fascinate; conversing, they display talent and culture; the sentiments they express are adapted to the company they are in, and on the whole, unless they remain too long in one circle--long enough for the cloven foot to appear-the impression they leave is favorable in the highest degree. With such, refinement is an art, not an element of character. With them it consists in something to be said and done on certain occasions, not something that is to grow up in the man, permeating and pervading his whole being. The lives of such men are lies. They palm themselves off for noble, when they are mean. They go through all the appropriate motions and offer all the fine remarks. But that is not refinement, any more than getting on one's knees is praying, and in the long run, it will avail little more with the world than mockery will with heaven. Such men are not gold; it is only the gilding that shines, and it will soon wear off. "Murder will out." So common are refined manners without the corresponding character, so numerous are those who employ a finished exterior and courteous bearing, merely as a veil for their coarse nature, and a snare by which to accomplish their base ends, that the world has learned to regard a man's appearance only as slight indication of what he is, and to subject every individual to scruti

ny so wakeful and penetrating, as to make the concealment of the truth impossible. The expression of the eye, the lines on the face, the tones of the voice, the carriage of the head, are constantly revealing to others a character which we can get rid of by no temporary expedient whatever. Here it is hard to counterfeit. After a time, a man is sure to pass for what he is worth. None but the most unsophiscated get cheated permanently. Those who trust to what they can put on for the occasion, who have faith in any appearances except the natural outflow of a pure soul, will find that they have been leaning on a broken reed, and will prove themselves to be not only criminally deceitful, but also contemptibly shallow.

Just here, we believe, is the great failing in our college world. Among six hundred students, there is not one who cannot appear to good advantage. But it is a matter of regret, that so many are content with the power to seem gentlemen, and accordingly make no effort to be such. However, we believe, in no sphere of life do the mass of young men possess so much of fineness and delicacy of feeling. There are many constant and powerful influences to bring this about. Our studies, reading, the associations around us, are favorable. All truth is in its tendency elevating. Its acquisition is not only disciplinary, but also purifying. There is not a truth of God, whether it pertain directly to Him, or to the constitution of things He has ordained, but that while it expands the intellect that comprehends it, also lifts the soul that receives it, upward to its Author. Truth is the thought of God. It is pure, for its Source is Purity. He who deals with it, though it be abstract and far from the practical, is under a good influence. If he be coarse, he is so in spite of a refining power. The student of natural science is led forth into the boundless realms of boundless wonder. Everywhere, be it in the contemplation of atoms or of worlds, ineffable beauty waits to charm, and transcendent sublimity to exalt. The student of language holds converse with the minds, whose works have withstood the heavings and surgings of the ages, simply because they are full of the true, the beautiful and the good. Turning over a lexicon, he finds, multitudinous as the stars, single words that are poems-histories of far-gone times-revealers of the thought and feeling of buried nations. The student's reading, too, is the same in nature and effect. So far as he will, he breathes the sentiment and purpose which inspired the author. A book is a companion. Whoever goes into the college library, finds himself in the society of great and good men. If there, in the sacred presence of those who have lived and wrought for all time, he can be ignoble, he is strong in baseness. Moreover, the very

atmosphere the student breathes on college ground, is fitted to make him pure. These college halls are rendered sacred, by the holy aspirations of the good that have moved here. Within these brick walls, many of America's sons have laid the foundation of their greatness. If we will listen, these old, patriarchal elms will tell us such a catalogue of the noble and true, whose young manhood they have seen unfolding here, as shall inspire us with higher purposes, than can consist with the slightest tendency to coarseness. Such are some of the influences to which a student is liable. But these are not all. The intercourse of students with each other, so constant and intimate, is, perhaps, more effective than any other power in forming their character. This, since nothing so develops manhood as close contact with men, is one of the chief advantages of college life, yet it must be confessed, it is not altogether what it should be. None of our privileges is more generally, or more flagrantly, abused. Just in proportion as a man's work is intense, his relaxation is free. Hence, the spirit of abandon which characterizes the student's leisure hours. This feeling should be indulged largely, but it never need to tend towards coarseness. If a man is what he should be, keeping aloof from all that is not fine and pure, will be no restraint to him. There are those, who think that this delicacy of feeling belongs solely to woman, and in man it is unmanly. According to their theory, strength is the essential characteristic of manhood, and fineness that of womanhood. This is true, but a strong man without tenderness for others, and purity of taste, may be a monster.

"O, it is excellent

To have a giant's strength; but it is tyrannous

To use it like a giant.

Could great men thunder

As Jove himself does, Jove would ne'er be quiet;

For every pelting, petty officer,

Drest in a little brief authority,

Would use his heaven for thunder; nothing but thunder;

Merciful Heaven!"

We may as well remember that, when on earth, the Mightiest among men was the most delicate and pure. No better tribute can be paid to manhood, than the eulogium of Antony over Brutus :