VI.

VII.

DEAR MR. EDITOR,

EING one of an unfortunate and,

BEIN

alas! numerous class of persons, too old and too stupid to set about reforming the world; of that sex that hath been commanded to keep silence in the congregation, and of a mind that considers free will and independent thought the privilege of reasonable beings, I occasionally, in the small hours of night, while I lie awake, amuse myself reviewing the manners, habits of mind, and pursuits of the class among which I live and move. Happily, the world, as regards society, has little charm for me, being of a homely countenance that few delight in; of an unaccomplished mind, that feels more pleasure in an andante movement of Haydn or Scarletti than in the tornado and avalanche of a Thalberg or a Liszt. Give me a simple tuneful air from the lips of a modest maiden, who seeks to immortalize the author ra

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ther than herself, and I care not for your shakes, quavers, and trills, suitable, no doubt, to exercise the organs of the voice, but not to exercise emotions of pain or pleasure in the heart, as God intended when He gave the thrush and lark their merry notes, and filled the nightingale with plaintive sweetness. must be falling sadly behind the age, for I see more elevation and grandeur in the poorest old master,' with the brownness of centuries, the atmosphere of age veiling it as with a garment, than in many of the strange delineations of our yearly exhibitions. To be sure, being of ordinary stature, it is not many I can enjoy with unimpaired vision now-a-days. It may be our women are retrograding in the scale of beauty, or do not cultivate the art of being graceful, as their mothers did. These painters say they copy Nature as she is; and as it is the most difficult, so is it the noblest work of man, whether as painter or

poet, to render our mother' faithfully. Like her children, she has her dark, ungraceful mood, in contrast to her fruitful, sunny one; but so varied, so changeful, so numberless are her glances, it will be strange if he find not sufficient beauty for his lifetime, without falling back upon the untempting for lack of better fare. It seems to me as natural for a woman's face to be pretty as coarse and unrefined. Whatever is beautiful in nature I take to be the rule; whatever plain, the sad exception.

Ah! if people would have more self-respect (not self-conceit), more independence and reliance on the judgment God gives them; less doing what others do, and those others because somebody' else does it, we'd have more following of the real and true in life, more earnestness, and less surface show. I was quite startled and grieved only the other day at the appearance of my dear niece Mary: a comely girl enough, though with none too much complexion. Well, she came to chat with me on sundry matters connected with a certain day' next month; and so pale and sallowyes-a yellowish white-she looked, that I exclaimed, soothingly, 'Men will be men, my dear! they can't help it. Sit down, and tell me what's the matter.' 'Why, aunt,' she cried, laughing quite immoderately, 'it must be mauve!' I told her gravely that, however pretty in itself the colour of her bonnet might be, it had the unpleasing effect of extracting every particle of colour from her cheeks. To-morrow, doubtless, she will startle me with a coiffure of the fashionable magenta, solferino, or some shade equally unsuited to her complexion. Young ladies care not how ugly, inconvenient, or unsuitable an article of dress may be, if it be the fashion. Oh, modern Baal that female Israel will bow the knee to! Fancy one of Titian's beauties with a magenta ribbon round her head! What is adornment to one is disfigurement to another; and, without giving too many thoughts to the clothing of the body, each one of us may modify or improve our natural

persons, by a just and artistic choice of colour and fall of drapery, without spending more, indeed not so much, of that necessary evil, money, which is a consideration to most of us. If our young girls would but appreciate the beauty of simplicity, they would not paint the lily or scent the rose. As it is, fifteen out of twenty are mere living lay-figures for milliners and dressmakers-an honourable destiny, truly! Night after night I am woke from my peaceful slumbers at the moderate hour of half-past ten, by strange noises and whisperings in the next room to mine. Pacings up and down, drawers pulled in and out, boxes knocked about with evident irritability, turnings and twistings before cheval glasses, pullings, tyings, buttonings, pinning, lacing, fastening of wreaths, bunches of scentless flowers, laces, ribbons, puffings, quillings, rushing of sandalled feet, hurry and scurry -and all this commotion because Miss Louisa chooses to follow the multitude at eleven o'clock P.M., spend night after night in dancing and flirtation, and day after day in the unpleasant languor attendant upon hysteria and headache. The former word has been coined to meet the exigencies of the age, I suppose, since I daily learned a page of 'Johnson.' In my time young ladies were young ladies, not domestic opera-dancers. Ah, Mr. Editor, when I see so many of my own sex spending the morning and mid-day of their existence like foolish birds that sport from spray to spray, spreading their pretty plumage in the bright sunlight that glitters on their wings, I wonder whether the winter season that must come will find them stored and housed, ready to meet the storms and rains that fall in every lifetime! Is such the education for our wives and future mothers? or do those who, going to the other extreme, proclaim the so-called 'rights' of woman, privileges, that cannot go hand in hand with her constitution, mental calibre, or real well-beingdo those, I say, elevate womanhood to her original dignity, or keep her in that grand and beautiful dependence, by which her strength is made perfect in her weakness?

If woman seeks to occupy the same public and political pedestal as man, she must be prepared to tread unflinchingly the same rough roads to fame; and, even if gained, it would prove, constituted as she is, most unsatisfactory to her heart and mind. She would give her feebler strength, her sensitive power, her delicate fancy for bread, and find she was given but a stone-a cold, unsatisfying substance, not the yielding, nourishing food that woman needs. She must be willing to give up the courtesy and manly deference that her sex has ever deservedly inspired; she must expect no Make way for the ladies.' She throws down the gauntlet of open and equal combat; therefore she must brave the brunt of the battle, scale the walls of the fortress unaided, perhaps discouraged, receiving no quarter when she gives none.

If a woman feel that within her urging to a path of intellectual work or human good, let her by all means, prayerfully, unostentatiously work till she gain the desired goal. If she have a partner willing and able to assist, encourage, sanction, and protect-then, indeed, you have one being for God's and man's approval. The manly, strengthening, working power, added to the woman's flexile, quick-sighted apprehension, makes an enduring whole. The splendid gem, solid and perfect in size and form, would not satisfy the lapidary's eye, until the brilliancy and reflecting light of the polisher's hand had brought out and spiritualized its beauty: then, indeed, it may shine in the diadem of kings, or, still better, be the pride of a loving, happy home. Only, in carrying out in its highest sense our Creator's own reflection-It is not good for man to be alone'-can either sex attain to perfect human happiness.

Strength, honour, understanding, wedded to gentleness, mercy, purity --this was the foreshadowing in the mind of God of the Perfect Man, who, possessing the attributes of both, became the Universal Saviour.

In the well-ordered household, each has his or her appointed work, the more correctly each act is performed by the one most suited

to perform it, the freer from] disturbance, jars, and confusion will that household be. This world is the great household of God. Man and woman the chiefs; each has his and her appointed task to do-step out of the rank, and confusion ensues. Each work is honourable, and each worker honoured by the Master of all; and not without a moral is the old Chinese proverb: 'Where man does not work, and woman does not spin, most assuredly somebody is dying of hunger or cold in the kingdom.' my prosiness, but I cannot help moralizing a little, and, perhaps, am becoming one of those I am about to mention. For the sake of brevity I call them 'Rakers.'

Excuse

They go about the world, and more especially their own family, bearing in a powerful and unyielding hand a long rake, wherewith they catch up every tiny straw or stick let fall by unfortunate individuals under their lawful or selfimposed surveillance. These instruments of torture have peculiar properties, for which the Rakers' have a patent among themselves. First, the smallness and closeness of the teeth enabling them to pounce upon the minutest atom imperceptible to ordinary mortals. Secondly, the extraordinary length of the rake, enabling it to stretch back days, months, years: recalling to memory things said, done, or imagined, that the offending party had happily forgotten, or was totally ignorant of. These wonderful 'Rakers' scrape up stores, from the past and present, of insignificant trifles, till they become a formidable heap, of motley hue and character, upon which the scavengers live, to the terror and discomfort of peaceful people. Nor are they content with the past and present-the future does not often escape. Fearful things are to happen: invasions of the French; continued insults from the Ameri

cans; blowings up and sinkings down of trial ships; tunnels from France to England, that are to undermine the foundations of our Constitution, and sink Britain in the sea. Various other little matters of the same kind are signs

of the latter end, and they themselves (doubtless) the latter day saints. After all, they are but ignoble imitators of many truly pious and well-meaning teachers of the people. Now it strikes me, that these well-meaning teachers often go a doubtful way to work. They tell their fellows they are miserable, undone sinners (you need not tell the hunchback he is deformed !), that the mass of those with whom we live and move are neither more nor less than ripening slowly but surely for a sorrowful eternity, illuminated by flames of fire! Now, very possibly, I am feeble-minded and soft-hearted, but I confess it would be little pleasure to me to walk out into the pure, free air of God, looking upon the faces of my fellows, just to feel that every other I meet the eager face of manhood, the hopeful glance of maidenhood, the hard-lined visage of the mechanic, and simple, unconscious one of the countryman, were all daily edging nearer the fearful precipice! Give people self-respect, make them feel their power and ability for good, but do not crush and dispirit them. Tell youth that it is vile; that it must utterly give up all delights of ear, eye, and senses as temptations to evil, and it will say-' God is a hard taskmaster. He gives us yearnings we dare not satisfy.' So youth turns away. Oh! teachers of the people, bid them embrace all lawful means of enjoyment; and so bright will those 'means' appear, resting in the sunshine of their Father's sanction, that the sullied and impure will yield no beauty to their sight. Tell a man on a long and perhaps weary journey, with many lets and hindrances of mental and worldly weight to bear, that such very burdens have sunk as frail as he; that the smiles of his youth's

love, the ties of kindred or friendship, ought not to be so dear to him, that the road he must travel is dusty, thorny, and only moistened by the dew of tears, and will not that man's heart sink within him; his onward step be trembling, if not stumbling? Cheer thy brother with an honest smile; sing to him glad songs, and make him sing with you. Bid him gaze his fill into earnest, loving eyes, search their depths, and place treasures in their care, hereafter to be claimed anew in the better country. Then will his soul expand within him at the bounty of his God, he will see that the land is beautiful. The thorns and briars he will crush beneath his feet; deep pits he will leap over as a hart; the flowers he will carry close to his bosom, his ear ringing with the glad voice of thanksgiving, and at last-when the bourne is in sight, and the border lands spread out dimly in the mists of his old age-will he be less thankful for the welcome salutation of the host? Ah! many a rude, uncultivated flower, with rough exterior and crooked form-if you pluck the outside crumpled leaves away, and probe with skilful hand -will have as pure and beautiful a heart within, as when it sprang fresh and young from the flowerbeds of heaven.

I have become too serious, perhaps, but I am old; so excuse querulity and an absence of the new style called by my young people 'slang.' The writings of that dear, good man, Mr. Addison, would now be considered, doubtless, as 'slow,' and himself a muff.' My infirmity of body prevents my being 'fast,' Mr. Editor, so you must excuse my taking so long a time to say so very little.

F. H.