mind is broken. A babyish, nerveless fear has driven the sentiment of hope from his soul. He cringes to every phantom of apprehension, and obeys the impulses of cowardice, as though they were the laws of existence. He is the very Jeremiah of conventionalism, and his life is one long and lazy lamentation. In connection with this maudlin brotherhood, his humble aim in life is to superadd the snivelization of society to its civilization. Of all bores he is the most intolerable and merciless. He drawls misery to you through his nose on all occasions. He stops you at the corner of the street to intrust you with his opinion on the probability that the last measure of Congress will dissolve the Union. He fears, also, that the morals and intelligence of the people are destroyed by the election of some rogue to office. In a time of general health he speaks of the pestilence that is to be. The mail can not be an hour late but he prattles of railroad accidents and steamboat disasters. He fears that his friend who was married yesterday will be a bankrupt in a year, and whimpers over the trials which he will then endure. As a citizen and politician, he has ever opposed every useful reform, and wailed over every rotten institution as it fell. He has been, and is, the foe of all progress, and always cries over the memory of the "good old days." In short, he is ridden with an eternal nightmare, and emits an eternal wail. -E. P. Whipple. THE UNDISCOVERED COUNTRY. COULD we but know The land that ends our dark, uncertain travel, Aught of that country could we surely know, Who would not go? Might we but hear The hovering angel's high imagined chorus, Or catch, betimes, with wakeful eyes and clear, With one wrapt moment given to see and hear, Were we quite sure To find the peerless friend who left us lonely; LV.—THE DRUNKARD'S DEATH. At last, one bitter night, he sunk down on the door-step, faint and ill. The premature decay of vice and profligacy had worn him to the bone. His cheeks were hollow and livid; his eyes were sunken, and their sight was dim. His legs trembled beneath his weight, and a cold shiver ran through every limb. The long-forgotten scenes of a misspent life crowded thick and fast upon him. He thought of the time when he had a home, a happy, cheerful home, and of those who had peopled it, and flocked about him then, until the forms of his elder children seemed to rise from the grave, and stand about him, so plain, so clear, and so distinct they were, that he could touch and feel them. Looks that he had long forgotten were fixed upon him once more; voices long since hushed in death sounded in his ears like the music of village bells. But it was only for an instant. The rain beat heavily upon him; and cold and hunger were gnawing at his heart again. He rose and dragged his feeble limbs a few paces further. The street was silent and empty; the few passengers who passed by, at that late hour, hurried quickly on, and his tremulous voice was lost in the violence of the storm. Again that heavy chill struck through his frame, and his blood seemed to stagnate beneath it. He coiled himself up in a projecting doorway and tried to sleep. But sleep had fled from his dull and glazed eyes. His mind wandered strangely, but he was awake and conscious. The wellknown shout of drunken mirth sounded in his ear, the glass was at his lips, the board was covered with choice, rich food; they were before him; he could see them all; he had but to reach out his hand and take them-and, though the illusion was reality itself, he knew that he was sitting alone in the deserted street, watching the rain-drops as they pattered on the stones; that death was coming upon him by inches, and that there were none to care for or help him. He Suddenly he started up in the extremity of terror. had heard his own voice shouting in the night air, he knew not what or why. Hark! a groan! another! His senses were leaving him; half-formed and incoherent words burst from his lips, and his hands sought to tear and lacerate his flesh. He was going mad, and he shrieked for help till his voice failed him. He raised his head and looked up the long, dismal street. He recollected that outcasts like himself, condemned to wander day and night in those dreadful streets, had sometimes gone distracted with their own loneliness. He remembered to have heard, many years before, that a homeless wretch had once been found in a solitary corner, sharpening a rusty knife to plunge into his own heart, preferring death to that endless, weary wandering to and fro. In an instant his resolve was taken; his limbs received new life; he ran quickly from the spot, and paused not for breath until he reached the river side. He crept softly down the steep stone steps that lead from the commencement of Waterloo Bridge down to the water's level. He crouched into a corner, and held his breath, as the patrol passed. Never did prisoner's heart throb with the hope of liberty and life half so eagerly as did that of the wretched man at the prospect of death. The watch passed close to him, but he remained unobserved; and after waiting till the sound of footsteps had died away in the distance, he cautiously descended, and stood beneath the gloomy arch that forms the landing-place from the river. The tide was in, and the water flowed at his feet. The rain had ceased, the wind was lulled, and all was, for the moment, still and quiet-so quiet that the slightest sound on the opposite bank, even the rippling of the water against the barges that were moored there was distinctly audible to his ear. The stream stole languidly and sluggishly on. Strange and fantastic forms rose to the surface and beckoned him to approach; dark, gleaming eyes peered from the water and seemed to mock his hesitation, while hollow murmurs from behind urged him onward. He retreated a few paces, took a short run, a desperate leap, and plunged into the water. Not five seconds had passed when he rose to the water's surface, but what a change had taken place in that short time in all his thoughts and feelings! Life-life-in any form, poverty, misery, starvation,-any thing but death! He fought and struggled with the water that closed over his head, and screained in agonies of terror. The curse of his own son rang in his ears. The shore, but one foot of dry ground, he could almost touch the step. One hand's breadth nearer and he was saved, but the tide bore him onward, under the dark arches of the bridge, and he sank to the bottom. Again he rose and struggled for life. For one instant, for one brief instant, the buildings on the river's banks, the lights on the bridge through which the current had borne him, the black water, and the fast-flying clouds were distinctly visible; once more he sank, and once more he rose. Bright flames of fire shot up from earth to heaven and reeled before his eyes, while the water thundered in his ears and stunned him with its furious roar. A week afterwards the body was washed ashore some miles down the river, a swollen and disfigured mass. Unrecognized and unpitied, it was borne away to the grave, and there it has long since mouldered away. -Charles Dickens. LVI. SHORT SELECTIONS. DECEIT. THINK'ST thou there are no serpents in the world Do bask their spotted skins in fortune's sun, LABOR. -Joanna Baillie. "LABOR is worship," the robin is singing; Idleness ever despaireth, bewaileth; Keeps the watch wound or the dark rust assaileth! -Mrs. Osgood. |