voured them all: I studied them, analyzed them, and came back to them continually. The Primitives attracted me by their admirable expression of sweetness, holiness, and fervor The great Italians fascinated me by their mastery and charm of composition. There were

URING the first days after my arrival in Paris my fixed idea was to find out the gallery of Old Masters I started early one morning with this intention, but as I did not dare ask my way, for fear of being laughed at, I wandered at random through the streets, hoping, I suppose, that the Musée would come to meet me! I lost myself several days running in this fruitless search. During my wanderings one day I came across Notre Dame for the first time. It seemed to me less fine than the Cathedral of Coutances. I thought that the Luxembourg was a fine palace, but too regularly beautiful -the work, as it were, of a coquettish and mediocre builder ❤

At length, I hardly know how, I found myself on the Pont Neuf, where a magnificent pile, which from the descriptions which had been given me, I supposed must be the Louvre. Without delay I turned

moments when the arrows of St. Sebastian seemed to pierce me, as I looked at the martyr of Mantegna.

The masters of that age have an incomparable power. They make you feel in turn the joys and the pains which thrill their souls. But when I saw that drawing of Michelangelo's representing a man in a swoon, I felt that was a different thing. The expression of the relaxed muscles, the planes and the modeling of that form exhausted by physical suffering gave me a whole series of impressions. I felt as if tormented by the same pains. I had compassion upon him. I suffered in his body with his limbs I saw that the man who had done this was able, in a single figure, to represent all the good and evil of humanity. It was Michelangelo! That explains all. I had already seen some bad engravings of his work at Cherbourg; but here I touched the heart and heard the voice of him who has haunted me with such power during my whole life.

my steps there and climbed the great staircase with a beating heart and the hurried steps of a man who feels that the one great wish of his life is about to be fulfilled

My hopes were not disappointed. I seemed to find myself in a world of friends, in the midst of my own kinsfolk. My dreams were at length realized. For the next month the Old Masters were my only occupation in the daytime. I de

-Millet's First Visit to the Louvre.

Adversity has no friends.-Tacitus.

OSEPHINE was dead. The fall of the Emperor, her hero, her Cid, had bewildered and unnerved her s Frightened at the din of war that shook the whole realm, she had lived in terror at Malmaison. The allied kings paid her every attention, and in showing the King of Prussia over her lovely grounds when she was ill, broken out with an eruption, she had, it is said, brought on a fatal relapse. Murmuring the words "Elba "—"Bonaparte"-she died, while her hero was yet in exile.

He

It is a revelation of his true character that before setting out on his last campaign he should claim one day out of the few fate gave him, and devote it to memories, to regrets, to recollections of the frail, but tender-hearted woman who had warmed to him when all the world was growing cold. He went to Malmaison, almost alone, and, with Hortense, walked over the grounds, seeing the old familiar places, and thinking of the" old familiar faces." lingered in the garden he himself had made, and in which he used to love to work when he was First Consul, surrounded by trees and flowers, and inhaling the breath of nature. He used to say that he could work better there than anywhere else. He wandered through the park, looking out on the trees he had planted in those brilliant days long ago. Every spot had its silent reminder of glories that were gone, of friends he would see no more.

He asked to be told everything about Josephine-her last days, her sickness, her dying hours; no details were too trivial to escape him. And as they told the story he would break in with exclamations of interest, of fondness, of sorrow. On this visit to the chateau he wanted to see everything that could remind him of her, and of their old life together -the death-chamber at the last. Here he would have no companion "My daughter, let me go in here alone! and he put Hortense back, entered, and closed the door. He remained a long

while, and when he came out his eyes showed that he had been weeping. -Thomas E. Watson.

OCIETIES exist under three forms sufficiently distinguishable. 1. Without government, as among our Indians. 2. Under governments wherein the will of every one has a just influence, as is the case in England in a slight degree, and in our states, in a great one. 3. Under governments of force: as is the case in all other monarchies and in most of the other republics. To have an idea of the curse of existence under these last, they must be seen. It is a government of wolves over sheep. It is a problem, not clear in my mind, that the first condition is not the best. But I believe it to be inconsistent with any great degree of population. The second state has a great deal of good in it. The mass of mankind under that enjoys a precious degree of liberty and happiness. It has its evils too: the principal of which is the turbulence to which it is subject. But weigh this against the oppressions of monarchy, and it becomes nothing. I prefer dangerous liberty rather than quiet servitude. Even this evil is productive of good It prevents the degeneracy of government, and nourishes a general attention to the public affairs. I hold it that a little rebellion now and then is a good thing, and as necessary in the political world as storms in the physical. Unsuccessful rebellions indeed generally establish the encroachments on the rights of the people which have produced them. An observation of this truth should render honest republican governors so mild in their punishment of rebellions, as not to discourage them too much. It is a medicine necessary for the sound health of government.

-Thomas Jefferson.

Economizing for the purpose of being independent is one of the soundest indications of manly character.

-Samuel Smiles.

The true work of art is but a shadow of the divine perfection.—Michelangelo.

ENERAL:-I have placed

you at the head of the Army of the Potomac. Of course, I have done this upon what appear to me to be sufficient reasons, and yet I think it best for you to know that there are some things in regard to which I am not quite satisfied with you. I believe you to be a brave and skilful soldier, which of course I like. I also believe you do not mix politics with your profession, in which you are right. You have confidence in yourself, which is a valuable if not an indispensable quality. You are ambitious, which, within reasonable bounds, does good rather than harm; but I think that during General Burnside's command of the army you have taken counsel of your ambition and thwarted him as much as you could, in which you did a great wrong to the country and to a most meritorious and honorable brother officer

I have heard, in such a way as to believe it, of your recently saying that both the army and the government needed a dictator.

Of course it was not for this, but in spite of it, that I have given you the command. Only those generals who gain successes can set up dictators.

What I now ask of you is military success, and I will risk the dictatorship

The government will support you to the utmost of its ability, which is neither more nor less than it has done and will do for all commanders.

I much fear that the spirit which you have aided to infuse into the army, of criticizing their commander and withholding confidence from him, will now turn upon you. I shall assist you as far as I can to put it down.

Neither you nor Napoleon, if he were alive again, could get any good out of an army while such a spirit prevails in it; and now beware of rashness.

Beware of rashness, but with energy and sleepless vigilance go forward and give us victories. Yours very truly, Abraham Lincoln.-(Letter to General J. Hooker, January 26, 1863.)

SERVED with General Washington in the Legislature of Virginia, before the Revolution, and, during it, with Doctor Franklin in Congress I never heard either of them speak ten minutes at a time, nor to any but the main point, which was to decide the questions s

They laid their shoulders to the great points, knowing that the little ones would follow of themselves. If the present Congress errs in too much talking, how can it be otherwise, in a body to which the people send one hundred and fifty lawyers, whose trade it is to question everything, yield nothing, and talk by the hour? That one hundred and fifty lawyers should do business together ought not to be expected.

-Thomas Jefferson.

EEP your minds so filled with

Truth and Love that sin, disease, and death can not enter them. It is plain that nothing can be added to the mind already full. There is no door through which evil can enter, and no space for evil to fill in a mind filled with goodness. Good thoughts are an impervious armor; clad therewith you are completely shielded from the attacks of error of every sort.

And not only yourselves are safe, but all whom your thoughts rest upon are thereby benefited.

The self-seeking pride of the evil thinker injures him when he would harm others. Goodness involuntarily resists evil. The evil thinker is the proud talker and doer. The right thinker abides under the shadow of the Almighty. His thoughts can only reflect peace, good will towards men, health, and holiness.

CH

-Mary Baker Eddy.

HILDREN are much nearer the inner truth of things than we are, for when their instincts are not perverted by the superfine wisdom of their elders, they give themselves up to a full, vigorous activity Theirs is the kingdom of heaven.-Friedrich Froebel.

It is the cause, and not the death, that makes the martyr.-Napoleon.

THINK I knew General Washington intimately and thoroughly: and were I called on to delineate his character, it should be in terms like these: His mind was great and powerful without being of the very first order; his penetration strong, though not so acute as that of a Newton, Bacon or Locke; and, as far as he saw, no judgment was ever sounder. It was slow in operation, being little aided by imagination or invention, but sure in conclu

irritable and high-toned; but reflection and resolution had obtained a firm and habitual ascendency over it If ever, however, it broke its bonds, he was most tremendous in his wrath. In his expenses he was honorable, but exact; liberal in contribution to whatever promised utility; but frowning and unyielding on all visionary projects, and all the unworthy

War is kind.

common remark of his officers, of the advantage he derived from councils of war, where, hearing all suggestions, he selected whatever was best; and certainly, no general planned his battles more judiciously se But if deranged during the course

calls on his charity. His heart was not warm in its affections; but he exactly calculated every man's value, and gave him a solid esteem pro

portioned to it s His person, you know, was fine; his stature exactly what one would wish; his deportment easy, erect and noble; the best horseman of his age, and the most

Do not weep. War is kind.

of the action, if any member of his plan was dislocated by sudden circumstances, he was slow in a readjustment. The consequence was that he often failed in the field, and rarely against an enemy in station, as at Boston and York. He was incapable of fear, meeting personal danger with the calmest unconcern.

Perhaps the strongest feature in his character was prudence, never acting until every circumstance, every consideration, was maturely weighed; refraining if he saw a doubt, but, when once decided, going through with his purpose, whether obstacles opposed. His integrity was most pure, his justice the most inflexible I have ever known, no motives of interest or consanguinity, of friendship or hatred, being able to bias his decision. He was, indeed, in every sense of the words, a wise, a good and a great man ☛ His temper was naturally

could be seen on horseback Although in the circle of his friends, where he might be unreserved with safety, he took a free share in conversation, his colloquial talents were not above mediocrity, possessing neither copiousness of ideas nor fluency of words. In public, when called on for a sudden opinion, he was unready, short and embarrassed Yet he wrote readily, rather diffusely, in an easy and correct style. This he had acquired by conversation with the world, for his education was merely reading, writing and common arithmetic, to which he added surveying at a later day. His time was employed in action chiefly, reading little, and that only in agriculture and English history. His correspondence became necessarily extensive, and, with journalizing his agricultural proceedings, occupied most of his leisure hours within doors. On the whole, his character was, in its mass, perfect; in nothing bad, in few