THINGS OF IMPORTANCE.

THIS is a comprehensive category, and the items are as various as the contents of an old clothes shop. Everybody in the world has his "things of importance;" but he finds it hard to persuade his neighbours that they are not trifles, about which no wise man would ever trouble himself. And yet, from the everlasting bustle that goes on, one might fancy that nothing was ever transacted on the surface of the earth but things of importance!

Geographers tell us that the heights of the highest mountains in the world are in proportion to their size, not more than the inequalities on the rind of an orange; and the affairs of life keep the mountains in countenance: the important things that fill the whole field of vision to-day with their imposing bulk, dwindle down from the colossal to the merely mortal, when to-day becomes yesterday, and on the morrow they become absolutely invisible to the strictest investigations of history or scandal.

In the experience of every man, the important things of to-day are degraded into the trifles of to-morrow; nearly every occurrence of life is more indebted to the momentum of falling from the passing moment than for any specific gravity of its own. If it did not make one smile it might well make one laugh, to look back on all the things of importance that have agitated us in their time. Where are they now? Their joy and sorrow have perished with them, they have vanished even from our memory, and are now no more to us than the scenes of a well-written novel or play : indeed, we come to regard them with precisely the same sort of feeling.

It is the same with our wishes. A man may possibly desire no more refined vengeance on his enemy, than to grant him the wish that lay nearest his heart five years previously. So long as life remains, men will put forth fresh desires every day, as trees put forth fresh leaves every spring; but the same destiny is laid on each, that the old in both cases must fall off and die; men must moult their feelings and desires in the course of nature, and very miserable and good for nothing they feel at such seasons; but vitality is strong, and so long as life remains men must go on

wishing and hoping, and transacting their "things of importance" till death comes to place them under other conditions of being of which we know nothing.-Perhaps whilst it is going on, the most important thing in the eyes of all concerned, man, woman, or confidante, is a love affair—a real fit of desperation, be it understood; not the tepid sentiment of preference, such as well-broughtup young ladies are instructed is all they ought to indulge in if they wish to continue respectable. Decidedly there is nothing in life worthy to be compared to a strong passion that calls into activity every faculty of body and soul: it is like the bursting forth of a volcano, showing all the strength and fire that lay hidden below the surface. It is not a thing that can last long, (the whole world must infallibly go to the deuce if it did); it dies away, leaving at first the appearance of desolate barrenness, but after a while there springs up a richness and fertility of soul that was not so before. By those very individuals the passion of love comes to be regarded as a mere dream, or as a milliner once phrased a dress cap, "a charming delusion, with beautiful blue."-They retain of their former fires only a comfortable warmth fit for domestic purposes.

If it were possible to place in array all the men and women on whom a grande passion had been lavished-all the objects of an unfortunate attachment- the amazement of everybody would be extreme, when they beheld the show of very ordinary mortals which would appear to their disenchanted view! In love, it is an emphatic truth," that nothing is, but all things seem." When the heat of passion has passed away, the objects, when beheld in the cool light of reflection, generally seem greater bores than the average run of the sons and daughters of Adam. Few who have been the object of passionate love ever turn into sterling friends. The things we most eagerly grasp at, are like the pebbles in a sparkling brook; so long as the sun shines on them, and they glitter with moisture, they look to be very precious things: but in a little while they become dry and dim; one finds them good for nothing but to make roads withal to tread under our feet every day.

History is nothing but a museum for the fossil remains of things that were of importance in their day and generation; but we can seldom realise the tranquil assurance it gives, that the most important of important things will petrify into matters of fact, only interesting as they in their turn are types of similar griefs or interests that will touch those who come after us to the end of

time: for no emotion of either joy or sorrow is a private property; there is no monopoly in nature; we are all one family, though, to be sure, we occasionally meet with those whom we do not feel any pride in claiming for relations. Hence it is that men are libellously said, "to hate their own likeness in a brother's face"-but it is no such thing; it is not the likeness they object to but the very little justice that is done to it. Who is there who does not from his soul protest against a caricature, or even a photographic portrait ?-Nurses tell little children that " beauty is but skindeep ;" and we may rest assured that the importance of the most important people in the world is of even greater tenuity-a very little goes a great way, and a square inch of the reality may be beaten out to an extent exceeding that of gold-leaf. The people and things of the most Augustan ages are not gold,-only gilded with importance; the staple material of which they are made up is the same in all times. People have such a mania for fancying themselves and their concerns exceptions to the general rule, whereas every man is an average specimen brick, of the individual amount of real importance invested in the sons of men. To be sure, the inheritance of each is infinitesimal-but what of that? Each man has the gift to see himself with microscopic eyes which magnify a thousandfold. This is a wise provision of nature; for nobody would have the heart to transact his own affairs if he only saw them as they appear to other people. No wonder, then, our affairs are mismanaged when we turn them over to somebody else to do for us!

"When we take our walk abroad," and see all the labour that is done under the sun, what is the impression that it makes upon us? We wonder that people can be found to take interest in such things, and we criticise unmercifully the smallest discrepancy between the programme and the performance of our neighbours.

When one reflects on the amount of labour and pains that have been expended on what have eventually proved failures, it almost makes one tremble. A very tragical history might be written on unsuccessful men, if the world could be made to feel any interest in those who fail; and yet it requires an amount of actual talent even to achieve a failure.

How many people are there who trouble their heads about the list of patents that are regularly declared? Not one in a thousand. And yet if we could realise the amount of patience and labour, and time and money, and hope and fear, and sickness of heart,

that have had to be endured before a single item in that list could be produced, one would be apt to wonder that the madhouses are not as wide as Tophet; and yet nine-tenths of all this costly labour has been in vain, and comes under the compendious category of "inventions that did not, answer."

But still these things are hidden from our eyes; for if there were no man to undertake, in hope, labour that appears profitless in the eyes of others, the world would soon come to a dead stand-still.

King Solomon was wearied for want of some business of his own to transact. He was a bystander in the game of life, for he had soon played himself out; and that accounts for the terrible sagacity with which he discerns the worthlessness of all that is done under the sun. Such a keen conviction of the intrinsic uselessness of all things is not healthy it is a wisdom not intended for us.,

We look out of our window at the people passing along the streets, and sit idly in judgment on their personal appearance and general aspect, without in the least realising that they are, each and all, cherished and respectable totalities to their individual selves—that there is a personality in their very defects infinitely touching to the owners thereof. If the law of self-preservation were not implanted in the heart of each, it is to be feared very few of us would stand much chance of salvation if we got into danger.

Every man feels as if he were the sole person in the universe: the rest of the inhabitants have only a real existence in his eyes so far as they help or hinder him in his own path; and he has merely an historical belief in the personality of the men and women who do not come near him: himself and his own sensations are the only points he realises.

Take the most insignificant traveller who ever set foot on the deck of a steamer, and set him down in the heart of all the Russias: will he feel of less importance in his own eyes amongst the hundreds and thousands of strange beings who are gabbling their uncouth dialects, and leading their lives as best they may, than he did when in his own parlour, his feet cased in their worsted-work slippers, his coffee-pot steaming up its fragrance, his muffin overflowing with butter, and his well-trained wife down stairs to the moment to preside over the breakfast, and anxiously inquiring what he would like for dinner? No: never a bit of it. He is always the same man, and the impression people and things make upon him is the only idea he has of their intrinsic importance. If he write a book about what he has seen, HE will appear therein as the

centre, whilst the rest of the world passes like a panorama before him.

A man's sentiment for himself never fails.

One sometimes wonders that the world does not get out of patience with the folly and stupidity daily transacted upon it; and so, no doubt, it would (for the world is not altogether peopled by fools), but every man is patient and long-suffering towards his own share of folly. The virtue of mankind in that respect is certainly exemplary.

Everybody is, however, of importance for at least one period of their lives; and that is whilst they are BABIES. It makes one half sorry that people should grow up into hardened men and

women.

The man who was hanged the other day was once "the finest baby that ever was born;' and it would be possible to trace back his career, step by step, and as the weight of every day, "that brought its own evil with it," was cleared away, we should come at last to the human nature that lay beneath the human heart that called our own brother.

The most insignificant people-people for whom their neighbours feel profound contempt-have a soothing belief in a special providence, retained expressly to attend to their peculiar egotisms; it is lucky this source of comfort cannot fail, for if it were given to a man to see how very little his best friend identifies himself with his interests, he would never have the heart to live out half his days-it would be an unadulterated truth too much "above proof" for mortal senses to bear.

Nature is very good to all her children, for as half the hardships of the world are imaginary, she fences men round with an armour of hopes and delusions to keep them from being hurt, or, at least, to soften the pain. It behoves, then, every man to deal gently by the harmless vanities of his neighbour, seeing that he also is encompassed about with the same. There is nothing, so far as we can perceive, amongst the affairs of men, of sufficient importance to be of any intrinsic moment to the well-being of the universe; nothing that will materially influence its course. Let the world lay that to heart and grow modest ! On the other hand, nothing can be considered a trifle that brings either joy or sorrow to the meanest individual; therefore, it would be well if each one of us, instead of thinking great things of ourselves, would be more tolerant and kindly-affectioned to each other. We are all more