instruction of others is a peculiar craft. But, in truth, the lines of Wordsworth on a kindred theme might be applied to those to whom the name of author is a bugbear:

Or haply by a temper too severe,

Or a nice backwardness, afraid of shame;

Nor having eer, as life advanced, been led

By circumstance to take unto the height

The measure of themselves, these favored beings,

All but a scattered few-live out their time

Husbanding that which they possess within,

And go to the grave unthought of. Strongest minds
Are often those of whom the noisy world
Hears least.

The spontaneous effusion of thought would roll back at least a part of the great tide of mere imitative or mechanical writing, that threatens to overwhelm the public mind and patience. If each one endowed by nature as the poet supposes, gave forth that which he had an impulse to utter, and nothing else, we should have more authors and fewer volumes; the choicest essence of every man's experience, and the most delicate aroma of every fancy's flowering. Treasures are even now lying lost in private letters, which would suffice for the germ of many a work with which the press and the people groan. Pearls lie ungathered in many a conversation, that would put to shame the elaborate artificial gems that glitter in ostentatious efforts at style and effect. As many people are wiser than they know, as there are those not so wise as they think; as many need a fillip to their vanity, as there are that would be the better for an extinguisher on their conceit. The standard of writing would be instantly raised, if the stores of wit and wisdom, love and power, that warm life creates in the depths of

many a dull-seeming mind, were conscientiously devoted to the general good-considered common property, of which the individual possessor is only one of the stewards. What are rubies, so long as they are not brought out into the sun that formed them? They belong to the day, and fulfil their destiny when, set in gold, they contribute to the world's beauty, or pass from hand to hand as agents in the world's affairs. If it be culpable to hoard our worldly goods when we see our brother have need, it is worse to keep back our good thoughts-far more needed than food or raiment. "Man shall not live by bread alone." See with what simplicity even Poetry is content to teach the humblest truths:

Distempered nerves

Infect the thoughts; the languor of the frame
Depresses the soul's vigor. Quit your couch-

Cleave not so fondly to your moody cell;

Nor let the hallowed powers that shed from Heaven
Stillness and rest, with disapproving eye

Look down upon your taper, through a watch

Of midnight hours unseasonably twinkling.

Take courage-and withdraw yourself from ways

That run not parallel to Nature's course.

Rise with the lark! your matins shall obtain

Grace, be their composition what it may,
If but with hers performed.

One might suppose such a homily taken from Armstrong's Art of Health, but it is Wordsworth who condescends to lecture on early rising. Why are homely themes considered inconsistent with great ones or the low with the high? Why not learn from Nature how common things borrow dignity from the medium through which they pass? If it were not for a petty notion as to the graceful and the worthy, many a fresh thought

would fall like dew on the world's parched heart, instead of exhaling in mere "peculiarity "-is not that the word for those who wish to be true to the inward promptings?-or dropping in tears, through despair of sympathy or fellowship.

The sincere horror which many people feel at the name of authorship is a mere delusion; for who is shocked at being the author of a long letter-a veritable piece of composition; of a conservatory, an exhibition of taste;-or of a great blotchy looking piece of worsted-work, a proof of misapplied perseverance;—or a new fashion, an attempt at invention? But a book! Ah! that is the bugbear. But if a book were simply an ebullition-a manifestation-an expression of sentiment-a token of the within-why should pride or diffidence have any thing to do with it?

Is a person supposed to be invariably proud of the book he writes? How often is it an engine of the keenest mortification, from its failure to express his thought! Instead of being suspected of pride or vanity, the author deserves credit for humility, when he throws himself before the world, saying "Here is my thought do you like it? I hope you do! To me it seems to have a true life, and I sow it in hope that it may spring up and bear fruit in other hearts."

If we were contented with things as they are--if no pictures of the possible ever colored the shifting surface of our thoughtsif the actual world were beautiful enough, and our actual lot in it happy enough, to satisfy the longings of the divine within us-it would be less wonderful that we should feel no impulse towards bringing our inner and higher selves into communication with the secret hearts of those about us. People walking at leisure over a flowery plain, with no fixed object in view, no

difficulties to surmount, no advice to ask, no aid to give, might naturally enough stray about in silence, caring little for each other for want of a common object. But ascending a rugged steep, beset with snares and pitfalls, and cheered by few passages of beauty-leading none the less to all that the imagination and the heart were created to covet-can we plod on, with no need of sympathy, no interest in the success or failure of others, no desire to make our hard-earned knowledge of parts of the way useful to the toiling? Especially when we find flowers and fruit, is it generous not to tell?

One good result of shaping and fixing our thoughts in words, is the greater power and prominence given to the Ideal by thus endowing it with a body something less spiritual than its own. Its influence for good-for refreshment for consolation-is greater, both for ourselves and others, when we have caught and held it while it can be examined and applied. We call its effects illusion, sometimes; are they not rather truth, and the common and vulgar in which we are content to live the illusions?

We are shy of confessing our Ideal; the world's formalities and pretended realities govern us with so deadly a power. Heartless ridicule is the sharpest of swords to a sensitive mind. Not all the consciousness of truth and worth that earnest sincerity of purpose inspires, can fully shield us from the fear of this; and many a thought is crushed into silence by despair of sympathy. In this view, authorship may indeed be deemed a craft or mystery by itself, since it requires elements not found in every character; there is sensitiveness,-yet it does not suffice to deter; and seeming despair, yet, with a secret talismanic drop of hope at the core-hope that amid the scorn of the many will

yet be found that precious elixir-the sympathy of the few. Without this, no one could write, even though he "understood all mysteries."

There is no phantom that we chase more hopelessly than Leisure. If it does not come to us, we need never give ourselves the trouble of pursuing it. If it be for us, we can find it in town; if not, we shall be as far from it in the country. We carry ourselves and our habits with us wherever we go, and circumstances, though important, have less to do with the disposition of our time than we suppose. We never quite leave home behind, or we should more easily be content with new scenes and people. Every day of our refugees brought its full employment with it; each morning had its plan-offspring mostly of the doings of the day before. Every body wondered that there was so little time for anything! "I have not accomplished a bit more here than I should have done at home !" murmured Miss Grove, plaintively, over her worsted-work.

Rural amusements are particularly thievish of time, from the fatigue they occasion. There is a sweet weariness after a day in the fresh air, that leaves us fit for nothing but talking or dreaming. This idle fallow state of mind and body is good for both, let severe utilitarians say what they will.

"I feel positively ashamed," would Miss Ingoldsby excla.m, of my idleness. Not a single thing of any value have I done since we came here. I brought books, they are almost unopened; work, I have hardly even thought of it. This will never do! See what an amount of spinning our hostess and