"till thou art similarly situated." The wisdom whereof is feelingly expressed in the story of Plutarch. A Roman having repudiated his wife, his friends reproached him, remonstrating that she was fair and good, and had fine children. To which the husband replied by showing his foot, and saying, "This shoe is new, and well made; but none of you know where it pinches; I do.”

Garrick kept a book of all who praised and all who abused him. Franklin, in his autobiography, mentions a gentleman who, having one very handsome and one shriveled leg, was wont to test the disposition of a new acquaintance by observing whether he or she looked first or most at the best or worst leg. "He who cannot see the beautiful side," says Joubert, "is a bad painter, a bad friend, a bad lover; he cannot lift his mind and his heart so high as goodness." "There are heads," says the same wise aphorist, "that have no windows, and that daylight cannot strike from above. Nothing comes into them from the side of heaven." Who has read and not enjoyed the Life of John Buncle, Esq.? the model husband of seven perfect wives. The curious book is a treasure. It is romantic. It is optimistic. It is wholesome. So full of good animal spirits. The geese are all The houses all have libraries and observatories and conservatories and laboratories. The women are all learned and beautiful. The religion inculcated is without cant. The style is delicious. Many of the paragraphs end with short sentences, that suggest for all the world the licking of overladen lips, after "the hungry edge of the appetite" is cloyed. The flavor the queer book has! No wonder it has lived.

swans.

It was the fashion of old, when an ox was led out for sacrifice to Jupiter, to chalk the dark spots and give the offering a show of unblemished whiteness. "There goes Fritz," said one soldier to another, as the king went by. "What a shabby old hat he has on!" "Yes," said the

other, "but you do not see what a fine head it covers." On one occasion Louis XIV. asked Bourdaloue, the famous orator of Notre Dame, his opinion of Ornorato, the great jocular capuchin. "Sire," was the reply, "that preacher tickles indeed the ear, but also pricks the heart. People return at his sermons the purses they

steal at mine."

"Gil Blas (said his master), leave our neighbors to discourse as they please, but let not our repose depend on their judgments. Never mind what they think of us, provided our own consciences do not wince." "There

will always be some to hate you," said Publius Syrus, "if you love yourself." "Do well," Rubens would say, "and people will be jealous of you: do better, and you confound them."

My grandfather Titbottom "lived much alone, and was what people called eccentric-by which I understand, that he was very much himself, and, refusing the influence of other people, they had their revenges, and called him names."

"The

It is a very serious thing to do as you like. man, and still more the woman," says John Stuart Mill, "who can be accused of either doing 'what nobody does,' or of not doing what every body does,' is the subject of as much depreciatory remark as if he or she had committed some grave moral delinquency. Persons require to possess a title, or some other badge of rank, or the consideration of people of rank, to be able to indulge somewhat in the luxury of doing as they like without detriment to their estimation. To indulge somewhat, I repeat for whoever allow themselves much of that indulgence incur the risk of something worse than disparaging speeches they are in peril of a commission de lunatico, and of having their property taken from them and given to their relations."

"Men of true wisdom and goodness," remarks Field

ing, “are contented to take persons and things as they are, without complaining of their imperfections or attempting to amend them; they can see a fault in a friend, a relation, or an acquaintance, without ever mentioning it to the parties themselves or to any others; and this often without lessening their affection: indeed, unless great discernment be tempered with this overlooking disposition, we ought never to contract friendship but with a degree of folly which we can deceive; for I hope my friends will pardon me when I declare, I know none of them without a fault; and I should be sorry if I could imagine I had any friend who could not see mine. Forgiveness of this kind we give and demand in turn it is an exercise of friendship, and perhaps none of the least pleasant, and this forgiveness we must bestow without desire of amendment. There is perhaps no surer mark of folly, than an attempt to correct the natural infirmities of those we love the finest composition of human nature, as well as the finest china, may have a flaw in it; and this, I am afraid, in either case, is equally incurable, though nevertheless the pattern may remain of the highest value."

An amiable feature in Edmund Burke's disposition, we are told, was a dislike to any thing like detraction, or that insinuation against private character too often tolerated even in what is called good society, which, without amounting to slander, produces nearly the same effects. When this occurred in his own house by any one with whom he was familiar, he would directly check it, or drop a hint to that effect: "Now that you have begun with his defects," he would say, "I presume you mean to. finish with a catalogue of his virtues ;" and sometimes said, though mildly, "Censoriousness is allied to none of the virtues." When remarks of this kind were introduced by others whom it might have been rude to interrupt, he took the part of the accused by apologies, or by urging a

different construction of their actions, and, as soon as he could, changed the subject; exemplifying the advice he once familiarly, but wisely gave to a grave and anxious acquaintance, who was giving vent to some querulous lamentations, "Regard not trifles, my dear sir; live pleasantly."

It is best, wisely concluded Thackeray, on the whole, for the sake of the good, that the bad should not all be found out. You don't want your children to know the history of the lady in the next box, who is so handsome, and whom they admire so. Ah me, what would life be if we were all found out, and punished for all our faults? Jack Ketch would be in permanence; and then who would hang Jack Ketch?

XII.

THE ART OF LIVING.

THE eminent Theodore Parker, not long before his death, wrote from Rome, "Oh, that I had known the art of life, or found some book or some man to tell me how to live, to study, to take exercise, etc. But I found none, and so here I am." Alas! The art of life! We all sigh for it. If only some one knew it, and could impart it, how we should all flock to him to learn! "There is nothing so handsome and lawful," says Montaigne, "as well and truly to play the man ; nor science so hard as well to know how to live this life. . . . We say, 'I have done nothing to-day.' What! have you not lived? 'Tis not only the fundamental, but the most illustrious of your occupations. . . . 'Tis an absolute, and, as it were, a divine perfection, for a man to know how loyally to enjoy his being." To enjoy life, to relish it, without the transport of some passion, or the gratification of some appetite. To live to have the fewest regrets. Some such admonitory words as a wise man once caused to be written on his tomb, one would think, would be in every mind's eye, "Think on living." Yesterday-to-day. "We are all going to the play, or coming home from it." The past is dead, the present is without memory, the future is not assured; we are to be, in a sense, as if we had never been. If only we could live to-day upon the experience of yesterday, something like foresight would be given us, and to-morrow might be easier and more joyful. "Foolish man!" exclaims Goethe, "who passes the day in complaining of headache, and the night in drinking the