grapple them to you. They fly, like eagles, too near game below, for your vulture

the sun; and there lies

beak to feed upon.

[Great thoughts belong, only and truly, to him whose mind can hold them. No matter who first puts them in words; if they come to a soul, and fill it, they belong to it; whether they floated on the voice of others, or on the wings of silence, and the night.]

To be up with the fashion of the time,—to be ignorant of plain things and people, and to be knowing in brilliancies, is a kind of Pelhamism, that is very apt to overtake one in the first blush of manhood. To hold a fair place in the after-dinner table-talk, to meet distinction as a familiarity, to wear salon honors with aplomb, to know affection so far as to wield it into grace of language, are all splendid achievements with a man of the world. Instruction is caught, without asking it; and no ignorance so shames, as ignorance of those forms, by which natural impulse is subdued to the tone of civilian habit. You conceal what tells of the man; and cover it with what smacks of the roué.

Perhaps, under such training, and with a slight memory of early mortification to point your spirit, you affect those gallantries of heart and action, which the world calls flirtation. You may study brilliancies of speech, to wrap their net around those susceptible hearts, whose habit is too naïve by nature, to wear the

You win approaches by

leaden covering of custom. artful counterfeit of earnestness; and dash away any naïveté of confidence, with some brave sophism of the world. A doubt or a distrust, piques your pride, and makes attentions wear a humility that wins anew. An indifference piques you more, and throws into your art a counter indifference,-lit up by bold flashes of feeling, sparkling with careless brilliancies, and crowned with a triumph of neglect.)

It is curious how ingeniously a man's vanity will frame apologies for such action. It is pleasant to give pleasure; you like to see a joyous sparkle of the eye, whether lit up by your presence, or by some buoyant fancy. It is a beguiling task to weave words into some soft, melodious flow, that shall keep the ear, and kindle the eye;-and to strew it over with half-bidden praises, so deftly couched in double terms, that their aroma shall only come to the heart hours afterward; and seem to be the merest accidents of truth. It is a happy art to make such subdued show of emotion, as seems to struggle with pride; and to flush the eye with a moisture, of which you seem ashamed, and yet are proud. It is a pretty practice, to throw an earnestness into look and gesture, that shall seem full of pleading, and yet-ask nothing!

And yet it is hard to admire greatly the reputation of that man, who builds his triumphs upon womanly

weakness: that distinction is not over enduring, whose chiefest merit springs out of the delusions of a too trustful heart. The man who wins it, wins only a poor sort of womanly distinction. Without power to cope with men, he triumphs over the weakness of the other sex, only by hypocrisy. He wears none of the armor of Romans; and he parleys with Punic faith.

-Yet, even now, there is a lurking goodness in you, that traces its beginnings to the old garret home; there is an air in the harvest heats, that whispers of the bloom of spring.

And over your brilliant career as man of the world,— however lit up by a morbid vanity, or galvanized by a lascivious passion, there will come at times, the consciousness of a better heart struggling beneath your cankered action,-like the low Vesuvian fire, reeking vainly under rough beds of tufa, and scoriated lava. And as you smile in loge, or salon, with daring smiles; or press with villain fondness, the hand of those lady votaries of the same god you serve, there will gleam upon you, over the waste of rolling years, a memory that quickens again the nobler, and bolder instincts of the heart.

Childish recollections, with their purity, and earnestness,- —a sister's love,-a mother's solicitude, will flood your soul once more with a gushing sensibility that yearns for enjoyment. And the consciousness of some

lingering nobility of affection, that can only grow great, in mating itself with nobility of heart, will sweep off your puny triumphs, your Platonic friendships, your dashing coquetries,-like the foul smoke of a city, before a fresh breeze of the country autumn.

YOU

III.

MANLY HOPE.

OU are at home again;-not your own home, that is gone; but at the home of Nelly, and of Frank. The city heats of summer drive you to the country. You ramble, with a little kindling of old desires and memories, over the hill sides that once bounded your boyish vision. Here, you netted the wild rabbits, as they came out at dusk, to feed; there, upon that tall chesnut, you cruelly maimed your first captive squirrel. The old maples are even now scarred with the rude cuts you gave them, in sappy March.

You sit down upon some height, overlooking the valley where you were born; you trace the faint, silvery line of river; you detect by the leaning elm, your old bathing place upon the Saturdays of Summer.