concessions. No; I think you had better rather be put upon sometimes than be always arbitrary and dominant. There is genuine pleasure in yielding to another, in resigning your rights. Of course I don't mean always, because then you would at last have no rights to resign. They must have at least sufficient protection to give a value to their resignation. If you cut off your hand, you can't shake a friend's. But let us pass on.

Talking of temper, have we not all felt how truly fits of anger are called passion. We suffer; it seems as if an alien spirit snatched us up and whisked us out of ourselves before we could stop him. We don't get angry on purpose; we don't light the fire in the boiler, and blow the coals, and listen for the first simmerings of the heat. No. We are in a passion. The mighty mysterious influence, which will, suddenly perhaps, drop us all flustered and ashamed of ourselves, comes on like a squall. Oh yes, we know very well it is wrong; no one suffers from his passion more than the passionate man. It usually thwarts his object, putting him at a disadvantage; it exhausts his energy, and even if he manages to escape a quarrel, leaves him to be angry with himself. He feels his mistakes sooner

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than others, and, no doubt, for this reason, we sometimes deal more gently with him than with the stubborn, sulky, and compliant. A passionate man is often loved. The impulsiveness which exposes him to the spirit of anger has its influence in promoting generous, unselfish kindness. He is warm-hearted, though he boils over occasionally. The common culinary advice in such a case-namely, to take the pot off the fire-may perhaps convey to him the best lesson in the management of his susceptible temper: he must avoid provocation. When he feels the temperature rising, the best thing he can do is to whisk himself off at once, before it be too late. We must use common vulgar expedients to achieve great results. With a slate and pencil, we may calculate our latitude and longitude; the pickaxe leads to gold; the poet-laureate must fill his inkstand; Stephenson must oil his locomotive, or all his genius is barren.

So we may not despise

small causes when we try to check or guide anything so important to us as temper. A little paltry care, a word swallowed, a rising sentence stifled or struck down in us by some simple rule, may at least save us from humiliation, if not secure a victory.

POKING THE FIRE.

OTHING can be more irritating than the feeble, incomplete way in which some people poke their fires. I cannot bear to look at them. But I don't know which is worse, the indecisive "potter," or the ignorant, inartistic "smash" which batters down the pregnant covering of caked coal into black confusion, letting the precious materials of a blaze escape unignited up the chimney.

To stir a fire perfectly, requires the touch of a sculptor, the eye of an architect, and the wrist of a dentist. I never saw it done thoroughly well above a dozen times in my life; and though there are approximations, more or less distant, within the reach of ordinary men, do not suppose that the process is a simple one, capable of being performed in a single operation.

There is the tap, when the fire has eaten into the heart of a big upper boulder-coal, and

Phases of Fire-poking.

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its opening chinks require but a slight shock to part, and let the imprisoned flame spring forth. There is the lift, when the poker acts as a lever to the crust, and lets the rich loosened fragments drop into the red-hot cavern. There is the stir universal, when the mass has been left too long, and requires a thorough mixing. There is the ventilating poke, when the roof of the fabric has fallen heavily in, and the struggling flame has hardly power enough to overcome the incumbent mass. In this case the poker must be moved slowly, and left for a minute between the bars after the movement has been made. In con

trast to all this is the procedure of a woman; who is thus defined by an Irish archbishop: woman, a creature who does not reason, and who pokes the fire from the top."

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Then there are side pokes, and indeed many varieties of treatment adapted to the state of the patient for a fire is a living friend, though a capricious one, and must be managed with respect and affection. A friend, ay! Does he not glance a bright welcome when you enter your room of a morning? Is he not glad and merry when you come home? Does he not wink at you out of the window, when you mount the door-step? Is he not quiet and

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The Fire is a Friend.

considerate in your study or sick chamber? If you are dreamy, and sit with feet on fender, does he not sympathise with you, building fairy grottos, and peopling them with fantastic shapes, to suit and soothe your mood? A friend! I should think so. He is kind even when you turn your back upon him. But I grieve to see the unfeeling way he is often treated after months of closest intimacy. You have sat by his side; you have talked with him by the hour together; you have held your hands over him, as if you blessed him; you have looked into his heart through all the dull dead winter, and found it ever warm; and then, when fickle, gaudy summer comes, and the sun peers into the room, catching the fire's eye with an insulting stare, is it to be wondered at if he sometimes slips out in the sulks? You should have humoured him a little -drawn down the blind, and not left him alone to eat his heart up in neglect.

Putting on coals, too, is a delicate process. A good healthy fire does not much mind a heavy meal, but a dyspeptic requires to be fed with caution. The surest way, though a slow one, is to take up a lump at a time, in the tongs, and build a loose cairn above the feeble blaze. How quickly the flames search the