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May morning; and when the wife asks for a little spendingmoney, the good man of the purse says, "All right; here's my pocket-book. My dear, take as much as you want, and come soon again." These wives at eveningtide always greet their companions home with a smile and say, "My dear, your slippers are ready and the muffins warm. Put your feet up on this ottoman. Bless the dear man!" These brothers always prefer the companionship of their own sisters to that of any one else's sister, and take them out almost every evening to lectures and concerts. And I suppose that in no public building to-night in this city, or in any other city, is there a more mild, affable, congenial and agreeable collection of people than ourselves.

The world has a great many delightful people who are casily pleased. They have a faculty of finding out that which is attractive. They are like a bee that no sooner gets out of the hive than it pitches for a clovertop. They never yet walked into a picture-gallery but they were refreshed and thankful. They saw some exquisite gem that kindled their admiration. There was some pleasant face in a picture that for hours kept looking over their shoulder. They will never forget how in one of them a vine in filial affection, with its tender arm hugged up an old grandfather of a tree that was about to feel the stiff breeze. They never came from a concert but there was at least one voice that they admired, and wondered how in one throat God could have placed such exhaustless fountains of harmony.

They like the spring, for it is so full of bird and bloom, and, like a priestess, stands swinging her censer of perfume before God's altar; and the summer is just the thing for them, for they love to hear the sound of mowing-machines, and battalions of thunderbolts grounding arms among the mountains; and autumn is their exultation, for its orchards are golden with fruit, and the forests march with banners

dipped in sunsets and blood-red with the conflicts of frost and storm.

And they praise God for winter, that brings the shout of children, playing blind-man's buff, with handkerchief they can see through, around a blazing fire, and the snow shower that makes Parthenons and St. Mark's Cathedrals out of a pigeon-coop, and puts brighter coronets than the Georges ever wore on the brow of the bramble, and turns the woodshed into a “royal tower" filled with crown jewels; and that sends the sleigh-riding party, in buffalo robes, behind smoking steeds. Three cheers for the goodnatured!

Henry V.'s Wooing.

WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE.

I' faith, Kate, my wooing is fit for thy understanding: I am glad thou canst speak no better English; for, if thou couldst, thou wouldst find me such a plain king that thou wouldst think I had sold my farm to buy my crown. I know no ways to mince it in love, but directly to say "I love you:" then if you urge me farther than to say “Do you in faith?” I wear out my suit. Give me your answer; i' faith, do: and so clap hands and a bargain: how say you, lady?

If I could win a lady at leap-frog, or by vaulting into my saddle with my armour on my back, under the correction of bragging be it spoken, I should quickly leap into a wife. Or if I might buffet for my love, or bound my horse for her favours, I could lay on like a butcher and sit like a jack-anapes, never off. But, before heaven, Kate, I cannot look greenly nor gasp out my eloquence, nor have I no cunning in protestation; only downright oaths, which I never use till urged, nor never break for urging. If thou canst love a fellow of this temper, Kate, whose face is not worth sunburning, that never looks in his glass for love of anything

he sees there, let thine eye be thy cook. I speak to thee plain soldier: if thou canst love me for this, take me; if not, to say to thee that I shall die, is true; but for thy love, by the Lord, no; yet I love thee too.

And while thou livest, dear Kate, take a fellow of plain and uncoined constancy; for he perforce must do thee right, because he hath not the gift to woo in other places: for these fellows of infinite tongue, that can rhyme themselves into ladies' favours, they do always reason themselves out again. What! a speaker is but a prater; a rhyme is but a ballad; a straight back will stoop; a black beard will turn white; a curled pate will grow bald; a fair face will wither; a full eye will wax hollow: but a good heart, Kate, is the sun and the moon; or, rather, the sun, and not the moon; for it shines bright and never changes, but keeps his course truly. If thou would have such a one, take me; and take me, take a soldier; take a soldier, take a king. And what sayest thou then to my love? speak, my fair, and fairly, I pray thee.

Put off your maiden blushes; avouch the thoughts of your heart with the looks of an empress; take me by the hand, and say "Harry of England, I am thine:" which word thou shalt no sooner bless mine ear withal, but I will tell thee aloud "England is thine, Ireland is thine, France is thine, and Henry Plantagenet is thine;" who, though I speak it before his face, if he be not fellow with the best king, thou shalt find the best king of good fellows. Come, your answer in broken music; for thy voice is music, and thy English broken; therefore, queen of all, Katharine, break thy mind to me in broken English, wilt thou have me? I kiss your hand, and I call you my queen.-Henry V, v., 2.

TONE OF ASSERTION.

(See Tone Drill No. 24.)

[The tone of Assertion denotes the feeling of aggressive positiveness. The ego dominates. The speaker means what he says and wishes the listener to know it.]

* A Gentleman.

GEORGE W. CURTIS.

A gentleman is not an idler, a trifler, a dandy; he is not. a scholar only, a soldier, a mechanic, a merchant; he is the flower of men, in whom the accomplishment of the scholar, the bravery of the soldier, the skill of the mechanic, the sagacity of the merchant, all have their part and appreciation. A sense of duty is his mainspring, and like a watch crusted with precious stones, his function is not to look pretty, but to tell the time of day.

Philip Sidney was not a gentleman because his grandfather was Duke of Northumberland, and his father lorddeputy of Ireland, but because he was himself generous, simple, truthful, noble, refined. He was born with a gold spoon in his mouth, but the gold is only the test. In the mouths of the base, it becomes brass and iron. George IV, called with bitter irony, the first gentleman in Europe, was born with the gold spoon, but his acrid humors turned it to the basest metal, betraying his mean soul. George Stephenson was born with the pewter spoon in his mouth, but the true temper of his soul turned it into pure gold. The test of a gentleman is his use, not his uselessness; whether that use be direct or indirect, whether it be actual service or only inspiring and aiding action.

"To what purpose should our thoughts be directed to various kinds of knowledge," wrote Philip Sidney, in 1578, “unless room be afforded for putting it into practice sɔ that public advantage may be the result?" And Algernon Sidney

*From "Literary and Social Essays." Copyright, 1895, by Harper & Bro.

said, nearly a century later, "I have ever had it in my mind. that when God cast me into such a condition as that I cannot save my life but by doing an indecent thing, He shows me the time has come wherein I should resign it."

And when that time came he did resign it; for every gentleman instinctively serves justice and liberty. He feels himself personally disgraced by an insult to humanity, for he, too, is only a man; and however stately his house may be and murmurous with music, however glowing with pictures and graceful with statues and reverend with books-however his horses may outtrot other horses, and his yachts outsail all yachts-the gentleman is king and master of these and not their servant; he wears them for ornament, like the ring on his finger or the flower in his buttonhole, and if they go, the gentleman remains. He knows that all their worth comes from human genius and human training; and loving man more than the works of man, he instinctively shuns whatever in the shape of man is degraded, outraged or forsaken. He does not make the poverty of others the reason for robbing them; he does not make the oppression of others the reason for oppressing them, for his gentility is his religion; and therefore with simple truth and tender audacity the old English dramatist Dekkar calls Him who gave the name to our religion, and who destroyed the plea that might makes right "the first true gentleman that ever breathed."

Peaceful Agitation.

CHARLES MACKAY.

We want no flag, no flaunting rag, for Liberty to fight; We want no blaze of murderous guns, to struggle for the right.

Our spears and swords are printed words, the mind our battle

plain;

We've won such victories before, and so we shall again.

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