13. Joice was busy, and his wife was directing, and all were happy. But let no man hereafter pronounce an evening blessed, before the hour of supper has closed. Joice had complained already, that she wanted things to do with; and on the narrow table in the kitchen she had overturned a lamp, and oiled the bottom of the great dish on which the turkey was to be presented on the supper-table. 14. It became slippery, her fingers were slippery, and she was half blind; as she came waddling into the supper-room, with the treasures of her cookery, she stumbled, struck the poor spliced legs of the dining-table, the patchwork gave way, down went the table, dishes, and sauces on the ladies' gowns ; down went poor Joice in the midst of them; the fishline was revealed, the torn place in the table-cloth was seen, torn still more disastrously; my neighbor looked aghast, his wife was in tears, and the whole company were in confusion. 15. My neighbor, however, tried to jump out of his condition like a cat out of a corner. 66 So much for Mr. Hardwood, our cabinet-maker; I had just ordered a new table, but he never sends home his work in time." In saying this, he did not tell a lie; he just told half the truth. He had ordered a new table, and Mr. Hardwood had not sent it in time; but then he distinctly told the reason, and that was, he should not send it until he had settled off the old score. 16. "O poverty, poverty! I must allow, poverty is bad enough, though not so terrible when it comes alone. But avert from me the mingled horrors of pride and poverty, when they come upon us together! יי ! LESSON CXXIV. FORMATION OF CHARACTER. MRS. TUTHILL. 1. WHEN a young man has finished his collegiate course of education, he enters immediately upon the study of the profession, or into the business which he is to pursue. He looks forward with eager anticipation to the time when his name shall be honored among his fellow-men, or his coffers overflow with wealth, or when he shall be the messenger of mercy, and win many from the error of their ways. His course of study is still plainly marked out. He does not waste time in the choice of a pursuit, for his natural talents, the habitual bias of his mind, or the wishes of friends, have already decided the question. 2. Not so with a young lady. Having passed through the usual studies at school in a desultory manner, generally too desultory to produce a disciplined, well-balanced mind, she considers her education finished, or continues it without any special object in view. 3. Perhaps, my young friends, you have been absent for years from the home of your childhood; its gayer visions have flitted away; life begins to assume a sober reality. Casting a mournful glance of retrospection, you inquire, Of what value is the little knowledge acquired, if I go no farther? Like an armory in time of peace, arranged with much attempt at display, it seems brilliant and useless. You have, indeed, been collecting the weapons for life's warfare; their temper is not yet tried, but the strife has already begun. 4. This is the season for castle-building. How fascinating the rainbow visions that flit before a vivid imagination, yet how dangerous the indulgence! Exhausted with these wanderings, wild lassitude and ennui succeed. "Fancy enervates, while it soothes the heart, To joy each heightening charm it can impart, But wraps the hour of woe in tenfold night." 5. As their only resource, many young ladies in town rush with eagerness into society, drowning reflection in the all-absorbing career of fashionable gayety, filling up its brief intervals with novel-reading. Those whose home is in the country are disgusted with this "working-day world," and its plain, good folks. 6. Their refined education has unfitted them for cordial companionship with their friends and neighbors, whose useful common sense they cannot appreciate, and whose virtues, unadorned by the graces of polished life, they cannot admire. Too often, making no effort to settle themselves to the employments that should now devolve upon them, they live in a world of their own creation, or find one equally well fitted to their taste in the contents of the nearest circulating library. 7. Instead of wasting this precious period in fascinating dreams of future happiness, in enervating idleness, or unsatisfying gayety, let me urge upon you, my kind readers, the importance of the present golden moments. Sheltered beneath the paternal roof, guarded from outward evil by the vigilance of love, the perplexing cares and overwhelming anxieties of life are not yet yours. You now enjoy the best possible opportunity to gain a knowledge of yourself, your disposition, habits, prejudices, purposes, acquirements, deficiences, principles. 8. Much may have been done for you by parents and teachers; the strength of the foundation they have laid will be tested by the superstructure which must be built by yourself. Cheerfully, then, commence that self-education, without which all other education is comparatively useless. Shrink not from your high responsibilities; He who has encompassed you with them will give you strength for their fulfilment. 9. Has he not showered benefits upon you with unsparing hand? Your country, is it not a blessed one? Parents, kindred, friends, talents, and the means for improving them; competence, wealth, does not your heart overflow with gratitude to the Giver? Even now, he grants you that quiet home, where you may prepare yourself for another, with more tender affections, and more solemn responsibilities, and for another still beyond, and not very far distant, a home in heaven! 10. Woman's lot may be deemed a lowly one by those who look not into the deeper mysteries of human life, who know not the silent, resistless influences that mold the in tellectual and moral character of mankind. Woman's lot is a high and holy one; and she "who fulfils the conditions required by conscience, takes the surest way of answering the purposes of Providence." Conscientiously and cheerfully, then, go on with your own education, mental, physical, and moral. LESSON CXXV./ 25 MELANCHOLY. [The reader may scan the following piece, in which the lambus occurs with the Anapest.] 1. THE Sun of the morning, A moment to ponder, a season to grieve, In all that for brightness and beauty may seem a The Iambus is sometimes introduced into Anapestic verse, especially at the begin. ning of the line. It will be observed, that the pairs of short lines are, in fact, only one proken into two parts. 3. The soft cloud of whiteness, The stars beaming through, The deep sky of blue, Through vales that are still, The breezes that ever Sigh lone o'er the hill, Are sounds that can soften, and sights that impart A bliss to the eye, and a balm to the heart. LESSON CXXVI. / 2 TO A SISTER ON THE DEATH OF AN ONLY SON. 1. GENTLY, sister! Thy beauteous child Not floods of tears, nor wailings wild, Like passing dream his spirit caine, 2. How sadly now his brilliant eye The death-drops on his forehead lie, 3. Thy heart alone its anguish knows, |