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spire, often gives to such a plain the dig- cultivate the frame of mind appropriate to nity which arises from the suggestion of the inter-sermonic spaces of a Scotch Sablimitless expanse; and in travelling along bath, when the native peasant discovers a the most featureless of European steppes or congenial form of amusement in calmly American prairies there are some objects spitting over a bridge. The genuine sailor to serve more or less as milestones, and so can be perfectly happy in a waking doze, to help the imagination to realize the dis- or in pacing backwards and forwards with tance traversed. But the circle visible as many thoughts as the Polar bear at the from the deck of a ship has a radius of Zoological Gardens. The passenger who not more than some five or six miles, and has had the misfortune of a tolerable eduthere is no visible proof that the view is cation, and therefore suffers from occanot always bounded by the same identical sional intellectual cravings, must seek for horizon. The waves might, for anything some kind of spiritual opium. The parthat appears, be like the fifty elephants ticular nature of the dram will of course which some Eastern potentate caused to be vary according to his idiosyncrasy. Playdriven round in a circle so as to delude his ing cards, although the most obvious revisitors with the appearance of an indefinite source, is open to two or three obvious obmultitude; their number impresses us no jections. Few people can spend their more than the bars in his revolving cage whole time without impatience in playing ought to impress a squirrel. Day after cards, and the amusement generally inday we see the same succession of objects, volves confinement to the stifling air of the with enough variation to make us sick at cabin. It is better to sit on deck with one time and to leave our dinners at an- some printed matter having the outward other, but yet varying within singularly semblance of a book. The most popular narrow limits. In short, when regarded and obvious prescription is a volume of serwith dispassionate eyes, we fear it is im- mons, and the benevolence of some steampossible to deny that the sea is a monoto- boat proprietors has made ample provision nous and singularly commonplace object, of such spiritual sedatives. But, as a rule, excepting always the cases in which it the dose requires a little sweetening. Most serves as an admirable background to fine persons, from habit, shrink too much from coast scenery. But why there should be so the sight of such a medicine to be capamuch sea out of sight of land is a problem ble. of taking it kindly. The mind's stomwhich to our present understandings must ach instinctively rejects it. The choice will be abandoned as inscrutable. generally lie between a solid history, which has the merit of flattering the patient into the belief that he is doing a virtuous action, and a novel of the maundering domestic school-one of those admirable performances which seek to flavour a diary with a dash of the sermon. The mind is thus, as it were, pleasantly tickled without being roused into over-activity. And it may be wise occasionally to take a few turns upon deck, or play the lively game of shovelboard with a strict view to the improvement of the appetite.

The more practical question remains, of the best means of lowering our intellects into harmony with our circumstances. The first condition to be desired is of course to subordinate the spiritual as much as possible to the physical nature. The models which nature sets before us are the jellyfish, as an embodiment of the purest indolence; or, for persons of more irrepressible spirits, the porpoise, which is invariably in a state of rollicking conviviality about nothing at all. An animal which can be constantly throwing somersaults in the dulness of the deep The fact that morality is subject to cersea conveys a more useful moral than the tain geographical limitations is well known, busy bee or other favourites of our child- though not often avowed. Upon the sea, the hood's moralists. There are generally to duty of hard labour may be said to become be found on board ship a few persons who inoperative. The duty of bearing Chrisseek relief in affecting, and perhaps at tian charity would, on the contrary, almost times in really manifesting, a noisy ex-appear to be inverted. When one is forced hilaration—in bad puns and small practi- into social relations by the forcible means cal jokes, and some of those conventional of being locked up together in a big box, symptoms of high spirits which pass muster it is unnecessary to maintain the bond by amongst a dreary company. Persons of more spiritual means. One has necessarily more normal temperament will find it so many interests in common with one's easier to adopt the opposite alternative. fellow-passengers that it is permissible to They will linger lovingly over meals, and indulge to some extent in the pleasures of lie in their berths as late as is compatible malevolence, harmless because they cannot with breakfast. At other times they will lead to any rupture. Now it is very

strange if a large proportion of our com-ing ill of our neighbour so very soon after panions are not persons who in many ways his back is turned. In a long voyage this shock our prejudices. Their nationality, their habits of eating, drinking, and clothing, their manners and customs, and, if we are fortunate, such waifs and strays of scandal as may have stuck by them, will all give room for backbiting and slander. It gives additional piquancy to the pursuit that on board ship there is a constant probability that everything said will be overheard, and thus to the ordinary pleasure of spreading evil report is added a kind of sporting flavour; we snatch a fearful joy when speak-speak, got the taste out of their mouths.

resource gradually dries up, and there must come in time a period when every one knows what every one can say about everybody else, and all the comments that can ensue. Persons have been known to come home from such trials with tempers unspoilt, and intellects enriched; but it must, we should imagine, be the secret hope of most companions in a long voyage that for some time to come they may see as little as possible of each other, till they have, so to

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And beyond the low black line

Of trees the dawn peeps red, And clouds blow woolly and fine In the blue lift overhead; And out of the air is shaken

A fresh and glistening dew,
And the city begins to waken

And tremble thro' and thro';
Now, while thro' street and lane
The people pour again,
And lane and alley and street
Grow hoarse to a sound of feet,
Here and there

A human shape comes, dark
Against the cool white air,

Flitting across the park :-
While over the shadowy green,
Singing his "Hark, oh! hark!**
Hovering, hovering, dimly seen,
Rises the Lark.

III.

"Mystery! O mystery!"

Clear he sings to lightening day.

"Mystery! O mystery! Up into the air with me,

Come away, come away!"

IV.

Who is she that, wan and white,
Shivering in the chilly light,
Shadeth weary eyes to see
Him who makes the melody?
She is nameless, she is dull,
She has ne'er been beautiful,

She is stain'd in brain and blood,

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Who is he, the stooping one,
Smiling coldly in the sun,
Arms behind him lightly thrown,
Pacing up and down alone?
'Tis the great philosopher,
Smoothly wrapt in coat of fur,
Soothly pondering, manwit wise,
At his morning exercise.

He has weigh'd the winds and floods,
He is rich in gathered goods,
He is crafty, and can prove
God is Brahma Christ nor Jove,
He is mighty, and his soul
Flits about from pole to pole,
Chasing signs of God about,
In a pleasant kind of doubt,—
What to help the mystery,
Sings the Lark to such as he?

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O Lark! O Lark! hadst thou the might Beyond the clouds to wing thy way, To sing and soar in wondrous flight,

It might be well for men this day.
Beyond that cloud there is a zone,

And in that zone there is a land,
And in that land, upon a throne,
A mighty Spirit sits alone,

With musing cheek upon his hand.
And all is still and all is sweet,
Around the silence of his seat;

Beneath the waves of wonder flow,
And coolly on his hands and feet

The years melt down as falling snow.

O Lark! O Lark!

XV.

Up! for thy wings are strong; While the day is breaking, And the city is waking,

Sing a song of wrong Sing of the weak man's tears,

Of the strong man's agony, The passion, the hopes, the fears, The heaped-up pain of the years, The terrible mystery.

O Lark! we might rejoice,

Could'st reach that distant land, For we cannot hear His voice,

And we often miss His hand; And the heart of each is ice

To the kiss of sister and brother; And we see that one man's vice Is the virtue of another; Yes, each that hears thee sing

Translates thy song to speech,
And, lo! the rendering

Ís so different with each.
The mighty are oppressed,
The foul man winneth best,
Wherever we seek, our gain
Is bitter, and salt with pain.
In one soft note and long
Gather our sense of wrong-
Rise up, O Lark! from the clod,

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Up, up, with soundless wings,Rise up to God! rise up, rise up, to God! Tell Him these things!

From The Saturday Review.
MÉSALLIANCES.

making society lenient to the little follies of married women, unless too strongly pronounced partly because the human heart insists on a certain amount of free will, which fact must be recognised; but partly, we must remember, because of the want of the young-lady element in society. In England, where our girls are let loose early, we have free-trade in flirting; consequently, we think that all that sort of thing ought to be done with before marriage, and that, when once a woman has made her choice and put her neck under the yoke, she ought to stick to her bargain, and loyally fulfil her self-imposed engagement.

THE French system of parents arranging the marriage of their children without the consent of the girl even being asked, but assumed as granted, is not so wholly monstrous as many people in England believe. It seems to be founded on the idea that, given a young girl who has been kept shut up from all possibility of forming the most shadowy attachment for any man whatsoever, and present to her as her husband a sufficiently well-endowed and nice-looking man, with whom come liberty, pretty dresses, balls, admiration, and social standing, One consequence of this free-trade in the chances are that she will love him and flirting and this large amount of personal live with him in tolerable harmony to the liberty is that love-marriages are more freend of the chapter; and this idea is by no quent with us than with the French, with means wholly beside the truth, as we find it whom indeed, in the higher classes, they are in practice. The parents, who are better next to impossible; and, unfortunately, the judges of character and circumstances than corollary to this is that love-marriages are the daughter can possibly be, are supposed too often mésalliances. There is of course to take care that their future son-in-law is up no question, ethically, between virtuous to their standard, whatever that may be, vulgarity and refined vice. A groom who and that the connexion is not of a kind to smells of the stable, and who speaks broad bring discredit on their house; and on this, Somersetshire or racier Cumberland, but and the joint income, as the solid bases, who is brave, faithful, honest, incapable of they build the not very unreasonable hy- a lie, or meanness in any form, is a better pothesis that one man is as good as another man than the best-bred gentleman whose for the satisfaction of a quite untouched life is as vicious as his soul is mean. The and virginal fancy, and that suitable exter- most undeniable taste in dress, and the nal conditions go further and last longer most correct pronunciation, would scarcely than passion. They trust to the force of reconcile us to cruelty, falsehood, or cowinstinct to make all square with the affec- ardice; and yet we do not know a father tions, while they themselves arrange for the who would prefer to give his girl to the smooth running of the social circumstances; groom, and who would think horny-handed and they are not far out in their calculations. virtue, dressed in fustian and smelling of The young people of the two lonely fight- the stables, the fitter husband of the two. house islands, who made love to each other If we take the same case out of our own time through telescopes, are good examples of and circumstances, we have no doubt as to the way in which instinct simulates the im- the choice to be made. It seems to us a pulse which calls itself love when there are very little matter that honest Charicles two or three instead of one to look at; for should tell his love to Aglaë in the broad we may be quite sure that had the light- Doric tongue instead of in the polished house island youth been John instead of Athenian accents to which she was accusJames, fair instead of dark, garrulous in- tomed; that he should wear his chiton a stead of reticent, short and fat instead of hand's breadth too long or a span too short; tall and slender, the lighthouse island girl that his chlamys should be flung across his would have loved him all the same, and brawny chest in a way which the young would have quite believed that this man bloods of the time thought ungraceful; or was the only man she ever could have loved, that, as he assisted at a symposium, he and that her instinctive gravitation was her should not hold the rhyton at quite the profree choice. The French system of mar- per angle, but in a fashion at which the reriage, then, based on this accommodating in- fined Cleon laughed as he nudged his neighstinct, works well for women who are not bour. Yet all these conventional solecisms, strongly individual, not inconstant by tem- of no account whatever now, would have perament, and not given to sentimentality. weighed heavily against poor Charicles But, seeing that all women are not merely when he went to demand Aglae's hand; and negative, and that passions and affections the balance would probably have gone do sometimes assert themselves inconve- down in favour of that scampish Cleon, who niently, the system has had the effect of was an Athenian of the Athenians, perfect

in all the graces of the age, but not to be understands then how right his parents were compared to his rival in anything that makes when they cashiered his pretty Jane as a man noble or respectable. We, who soon as they became aware of what was read only from a distance, and do not see, going on, and sent that artful Sarah to the think that Aglaë's father made a mistake, right about—just a week too late. It is and that the honester man would have been the same with girls; but in a far greater exthe better choice of the two. It is only tent. If a youth's mésalliance is a millstone when we bring the same circumstances home round his neck for life, a girl's is simply to ourselves that we realize the immense destruction. The natural instinct with all importance of the social element; and how, women is to marry above themselves; and in this complex life of ours, we are unable we know on what physiological basis this to move in a single line independent of all instinet stands, and what useful social ends its touches. Imagine a fine old country it serves. And the natural instinct is as true family with a son-in-law who ate peas with in its social as in its physiological expreshis knife, said "you was" and " they is," sion. A woman's honour is in her husband; and came down to dinner in a shooting- her status, her social life, are determined jacket and a blue bird's-eye tied in a wisp by his; and even the few women who, havabout his throat! He might be possessor ing made a bad marriage, have nerve and of all imaginable virtues, and, if occasion character enough to set themselves free required, a very hero and a preux chevalier, however rough; but occasions in which a man can be a hero or a preux chevalier are rare, whereas dinner comes every day, and the senses are never shut. The core within a conventionally ungainly envelope may be as sound as is possible to a corrupt humanity, but social life requires manners as well as principles; and though eating peas with a knife is not so bad as telling falsehoods, still we should all agree in saying, Give us truth that does not eat peas with its knife, let us have honesty in a dress coat and pureheartedness in a clean shirt, seeing that there is no absolute necessity for these several things to be disunited.

Love-marriages, made against the will of the parents before the character is formed, and while the obligations to society are still unrealized, are generally mésalliances based on passion and fancy only. A man or woman of a mature age who knows what he or she wants may make a mésalliance, but it is made with a full understanding and deliberate choice; and if the thing turns out badly, they can blame themselves less for precipitancy than for wrong calculation. The man of fifty who marries his cook knows what he most values in women. It is not manners, and it is not accomplishments; perhaps it is usefulness, perhaps good-temper;

at all events it is something that the cook has and that the ladies of his acquaintance have not, and he is content to take the disadvantages of his choice with its advantages. But the boy who runs away with his mother's maid neither calculates nor sees any disadvantages. He marries a pretty girl because her beauty has touched his senses, or he is got hold of by an artful woman who has bamboozled and seduced him. It is only when his passion has worn off that he wakes to the full consequences of his mistake, and

from the personal association, are never able to thoroughly regain their maiden place. There is always something about them that clogs and fetters them, always a kind of aura of a doubtful and depressing kind that surrounds and influences them. If they have not strength to free themselves, they never cease to feel the mistake they have made, until the old sad process of degeneration is accomplished, and the "grossness of his nature" has had strength to drag her down. After a time, if her ladyhood has been of a superficial kind only, a woman who has married beneath herself may ease down into her groove, and be like the man she has married; if, however, she has sufficient force to resist outside influences she will not sink, but she will never cease to suffer. She has sinned against herself, her class, and her natural instincts; and so has done substantially a worse thing than the boy who has married his mother's maid. Society understands this, and, not unjustly, if harshly, punishes the one while it lets the other go scot-free; so that the woman who makes a mésalliance suffers on every side, and destroys her life almost as much as the woman who goes wrong. All this is as evident to parents and elders as that the sun shines. They understand the imperative needs of social life, and they know how fleeting the passions of youth are, and how they fade by time and use and inharmonious conditions; and they feel that their first duty to their children is to prevent a mésalliance which has nothing, and can have nothing, but passion for its basis. But novelists and poets are against the hard dull dictates of worldly wisdom, and join in the apotheosis of love at any cost- all for love and the world well lost; love in a cottage, with nightingales and honeysuckles as the chief means of paying the rent; Libusa and her

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