gigantic proportions, and a sensitive tenderness which is wonderful. "Some fretful tempers wince at every touch, He shakes with cold; you stir the fire and strive He likes yours little, and his own still less. 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." "MOTHER, our vessel is homeward bound; "We come, we come; through the beaded foam Round our cheery fire, and long to greet, "Mother, thy truant may love the sea, Return I to thee o'er the trackless main ;— "Tell Anne, my little chattering pet, As blithe and glad as when last we met? "I should grieve if Time, in passing, laid Or that guileless heart were crushed by care, I loved the sweet child,-and older grown, "Rejoice, dear mother, at my success, "Rememberest thou the boding fears That drenched thy cheek with a flood of tears, It hath thinned our crew but scathed not me. "Health hath breathed on our ship again, you; Christmas approacheth-is here-is gone, 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. |