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gigantic proportions, and a sensitive tenderness which is wonderful.

"Some fretful tempers wince at every touch,
You always do too little or too much;

He shakes with cold; you stir the fire and strive
To make a blaze; that's a roasting him alive.
Serve him with venison, and he chooses fish ;
With sole, that's just the sort he would not wish,
E'en his own efforts double his distress,

He likes yours little, and his own still less.
Thus, always teasing others, always teased,
His only pleasure is to be-displeased."

The first thing to be considered is its origin. Temper we may suppose to be the effect of habitual indulgence in a mild kind of anger; and, as we all know, anger is of the deadly sins. A man who indulges in it, or a woman either, is no more a good or a virtuous being than a common drunkard or glutton. One takes a pleasure in eating or drinking, another in keeping up a sore place, and irritating himself, and wounding others. If accompanied, as it may often be, and is, with a moderately good heart and conscience, the sufferings and reproaches of the person with a temper are dreadful. No amount of apology, no self-reproaches, will, however, make up for an insulting word, or a vulgar rude action, and men and women with tempers often are victims their whole lives through to these little words. If they are very selfish, after a time they look upon themselves as victims; they excuse their frantic folly merely as a foible. Mr. Leech, in Punch, has satirized this pretty smartly. A young married couple have had a tiff; the drawing-room is thoroughly upset, and looks like the saloon of the Great Eastern after the storm; tables are overset, chairs and looking-glasses broken-the whole place is a wreck. But the storm is over; the wife sits in indignant tears, and the husband is repentant. "Forgive me, Maria," he gasps; "I confess that I am a little warm.” The figure he cuts is contemptible enough, and, of course, the caricature is a caricature; it is exaggerated; but, in every-day life,

men will make fools of themselves for the merest trifle; a button off a shirt, a bed ill-made, a dinner not very well cooked, a guest not arrived, a plate broken-upon these trifles, for which, perhaps, no one is strictly to blame, how many pleasant days and hours are lost, how many words spoken which are never forgiven, how many an angry, sullen look and secret stab are given, and how many a wound is dealt which rankles for years afterwards! The good-natured man is free from this; he may be a fool, but he escapes such condign and severe punishment. He, too, is a hero in his quiet way; and a woman who preserves her temper is a heroine. Pope's great ideal was one who could keep her temper-who was

"Mistress of herself, though China fall.”

And the self possession such a woman must possess will be indeed its own great reward, and a rare gift.

Temper is also a most hurtful iudulgence. Hippocrates tells that the most dangerous of maladies are they which disfigure the countenance; and this temper always does. It is often indulged in at dinner-time, and then or at any other meal checks the digestion. A man with a temper can no more enjoy his life than he can his dinner. He may get the best place, but he To a good-natured man,

does not make the best meal. life, and dinner, and tea, and supper, even an ugly wife and troublesome children, sharp fortune, checks and troubles, are all coloured over with a gorgeous colour, a prime glory, which results from an humble and a grateful heart. It is from these enthusiastic fellows that you hear what they fully believe, bless them!—that all countries are beautiful, all dinners grand, all pictures superb, all mountains high, all women beautiful. When such a one has come back from his country trip, after a hard year's work, he has always found the cosiest of nooks, the cheapest houses, the best of landladies, the finest views, and the best of dinners. But with the other the case is indeed altered. He has

always been

robbed; he has positively seen nothing; his landlady was a harpy, his bed-room was unhealthy, and the mutton was so tough that he could not get his teeth through it. Perhaps neither view is quite true; we shall be safest in the middle course; the view was passable, the landlady an ordinary landlady, and the mutton good English mutton-that is all. But oh, for the glorious spectacles worn by the good-natured man!-oh! for those wondrous glasses, finer than the Claude Lorraine glass, which throw a sunlit view over everything, and makes the heart glad with little things, and thankful for small mercies! Such glasses had honest Izaak Walton, who, coming in from a fishing expedition on the river Lea, bursts out into such grateful talk as this:"Let us, as we walk home under the cool shade of this honeysuckle hedge, mention some of the thoughts and joys that have possessed my soul since we two met. And that our present happiness may appear the greater, and we more thankful for it, I beg you to consider with me, how many do at this very time lie under the torment of the gout or the toothache, and this we have been free from, and let me tell you, that every misery I miss is a new blessing."

(By permission of the Author.)

:

THE HOMEWARD BOUND.

By the AUTHORESS of "God's Providence House."

"On Christmas-day I shall dine with you in England."
Last Letter home of a Ship Surgeon.

"MOTHER, our vessel is homeward bound;
Leaps not thy heart at the welcome sound?
Flashes not gladly thy thankful eye?
Hath not Hope chidden the starting sigh?
Throbs not thy pulse with an eager joy,
Impatient yearnings to clasp thy boy?

"We come, we come; through the beaded foam
Our vessel cutteth her pathway home.
Proudly she parteth the swelling tide,
And dasheth the froth from her painted side;
Where farewell tears of the weeping wave
Glisten like gems from a mermaid's cave.
"Ere Christmas cometh, I trust to stand,
With unchanged heart, on my native strand,
Though somewhat altered in form and mien,
From the pale and fragile youth, I ween:
I almost question thy power to trace
Thine only one in my sunburnt face.
"Oh! light of heart I had need to be,
Each moment bringing me nearer thee;
Yet slowly, slowly Time's pinions move,
Parted from home and the friends we love.
But the time of meeting draweth near,
And I shall partake your Christmas cheer.
"Never hath home been so dear as now;
And.I lean at eve o'er the vessel's prow,
Picturing forms I was wont to meet

Round our cheery fire, and long to greet,
Kindly and warmly, the friendly band
Fancy hath called from the shadow-land.

"Mother, thy truant may love the sea,
Its dashing billows and breezes free;
Yet wearied turns from its wild unrest
To the holy calm his home possessed,
And yearns for the gentle smile and tone
That none save a mother's lip hath known.
"As flew the dove to the ark again,

Return I to thee o'er the trackless main ;—
More welcome thy wandering son will be,
Preserved from the perils that walk the sea.
I've learned the value of childhood's home,
And nought shall tempt me again to roam.

"Tell Anne, my little chattering pet,
I bring her the promised paroquet.
Our names are aye on its saucy tongue,-
Ask if the bird hath done grievous wrong.
Is the young gipsy as merry yet,

As blithe and glad as when last we met?

"I should grieve if Time, in passing, laid
On that open brow a darker shade,

Or that guileless heart were crushed by care,
Or sorrow silvered her auburn hair.

I loved the sweet child,-and older grown,
Would make the pure-thoughted girl my own.

"Rejoice, dear mother, at my success,
The love-gift of Fortune I possess;
Sufficient to keep the heart from care,
Not o'er-abundant to place it there;
Enough to furnish each real want,
Though Luxury's slaves might deem it scant.

"Rememberest thou the boding fears

That drenched thy cheek with a flood of tears,
When I left my home to tread the deck?
Yet I'm safe and well, and fear no wreck ;-
The fever hath passed and left me free,

It hath thinned our crew but scathed not me.

"Health hath breathed on our ship again,
Gaily we scud o'er the watery plain ;-
Gaily, for now we are homeward bound,
Soon we shall leap upon English ground.
Joy, joy, my dear mother, for me and
Till Christmas merry,―adieu! adieu!”

you;

Christmas approacheth-is here-is gone,
But where is the long-expected one?

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Round the hearth his childhood's playmates meet,— Where is the friend they had hoped to greet?

Mother, his wanderings aye are o'er;

Friends, he will meet ye on earth no more.

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