be a book worth reading and worth remembering. Though there is more rubbish printed now than there ever was before, there are also more really good, sound, useful books on every subject than ever issued from the press in any previous era. For good reading-nay, for the best reading-you never need be at a loss. And when I speak of good, useful books, I do not mean necessarily heavy books. Some people have a notion that the more uninteresting a book is, the more merit and profit there is in its perusal; indeed, if a volume, which professes to furnish solid information, be written in a pleasant, agreeable style, which commends itself to popular tastes, they immediately distrust its accuracy, call its statements into question, and stigmatise it as flimsy, poor, watery, wanting power, &c. The books of great scholars are not always the most improving for minds of average calibre; and it is not the getting through so many books of standard celebrity that we should endeavour to achieve, so much as the feeding and invigorating of our minds with that which they can assimilate. I pity the girls and the boys too of fifty or sixty years ago; their choice lay chiefly between trashy and too often licentious novels, and heavy tomes of divinity and philosophy, or history, which, in spite of its extreme dulness, was too often unreliable. Religious biographies as a whole are to be eschewed, chiefly because of their extreme untruthfulness, though not wilful but ignorant untruthfulness. They are nearly always one-sided, for they give only one aspect of a man's life-that which is falsely and injuriously called his "religious life," this said religious life being almost as great and as hurtful a mistake as that of "finished education," since a religious life, apart from any other life, is a terrible delusion. If the whole life be not religious there is no religious life at all. We cannot keep our "earthlies and our heavenlies in separate pockets." Religion must permeate the whole life or it is nothing. And it is this assumption of a separate and distinct life, the spiritual divorced from the temporal, which makes the ordinary run of religious biographies and pious memoirs far from edifying reading. That there are books of this class free from the faults of their kind it is certain; for instance, Stanley's "Life of Dr. Arnold," and Mrs. Oliphant's recent "Francis of Assisi," and some others. It is a good plan, if you have time for it, not to begin by reading too widely; it is always easy to enlarge your field, but at first it answers very well if you read a number of books, one after another, all relating to the same subject or to the same period. It not only gives you fuller knowledge, but enlarges your views, and gives you the opportunity of weighing the respective merits of different opinions. Nothing stunts mental growth so much as looking at truths from one side only; one-sided truths quickly degenerate into falsehoods, and then they are more harmful than the blackest lie. If possible, have a regular time for your reading, and adhere to it as far as you reasonably can; but let the system be rather for yourself than for others. Take Miss Sewell's advice:-" Make your plans of leather, not of stone." The virtue of system and regularity has two sides to it-practise it on one side only, and it is soon a vice. Do not make your own plans-really your own will— an excuse for the avoidance of plain duties; if your reading-hour arrives, and your family or friends make lawful claims upon your leisure, it is very certain that the reading must be deferred if you would keep a clear conscience. It must not give way to indolence, to frivolous pretences, but it must give way to superior duties, such as are sure to fall to the lot of any sensible, helpful daughter at home. If the novel tempts you, or if some gossiping acquaintance entices, or if you feel too lazy to read anything so solid as the book in hand; if you think it would be pleasanter to practise a little longer, or try over your new songs, or go on with your fancy-work, resist with all your strength the rising temptation. By so doing, you gain not only your hour of study, but something which is of far more importance, the victory over weakness and self-indulgence, which is self-discipline of the very highest order. But if, on the other hand, your mother asks you to take the little ones for a walk, or to sit in her sick-chamber, or delegates to you sundry duties in the kitchen, or in the linen-closet, then your course of action is unmistakable. The book must be cheerfully laid aside, the study hour deferred, or perhaps for that day foregone; the mother's comfort must be considered, the little ones attended to, and you will find that in the end you have lost nothing. Let filial devotion, kindliness, womanly tenderness, domestic charities be cultivated, even if the rich fields of mental culture have apparently to lie fallow for a season. The moralities, which are indeed the very essence of the spiritualities, are always to be preferred when they appear to clash to the absolute intellectualities, which will do well enough if not exalted to the place of the former. Study is a duty, but a secondary duty compared with family claims. At the same time no kind, no wise mother will interfere with her home-daughters' course of study if she can possibly avoid it. The plan, whatever it be, ought to be submitted to her; a truly sensible mother will rejoice to find that her girl does not suppose her education to be finished, and she will encourage the desire for mental improvement, and will certainly sanction the system, and perhaps from the stores of her own superior wisdom make such suggestions as may render it more practical and more complete. But books are not your only source of knowledge; half the people in the world are ignorant and stupid, just because they walk about with the eyes of their mind fast closed. They can notice new fashions, new arrivals in their neighbourhood, new curtains in opposite windows; but they are blind to the most obvious facts in the world of Nature. Cultivate a habit of observation; do not get into a way of not noticing things; it is astonishing how much may be learnt from noticing. One day I said to a lady, "Is not that a beautiful beech-tree?" She replied with supreme disdain, "Oh, I know nothing about botany! I see no good in it." Now, she was not to be despised for her ignorance of botany; her narrow mind permitted her to "see no good in it; " still, she could well do without it; she simply lost a pure and noble pleasure; but she was to be pitied that she, who had seen trees all her life, did not know one common forest-tree from another; and seeing that she evidently despised all such knowledge as trivial and inutile, it was very difficult not to feel some little contempt for her. The mischief was not in her ignorance of wayside trees, but in her disdain of the book of Nature spread before her eyes. She neither observed things nor cared to observe. As a natural sequence, she seldom saw things in her own household that other people saw visibly enough; and she had no more notion of reading the minds of her children than she had of reading the great book of natural facts which was spread ever open for her, in vain. The sweet, pure, suggestive teachings of flowers, trees, birds, insects, sea, and skies, were all lost on her. And was she, in consequence, a model housewife? By no means; very far from it. How could a woman, with the eyes of her understanding fast shut, be a good housewife? Get your eyes wide open now, in your youth, for it is very hard work to open them at all in middle age, and quite impossible to command that clear, wide, discriminating vision which they attain who look about them and observe betimes. of I need not say Read also, if you can find time, standard authors in the languages you have been studying at school. Every new language acquired is a new key to fresh stores of knowledge, and out of knowledge comes wisdom; but keys that are never used are very little value. You will have leisure for a good deal of study if you economise your days; availing yourself of all the scraps of time, not loitering nor trifling away "only a few minutes." It is notoriously the busiest persons who read the most books; except in extreme and obvious cases, a person who says he or she "has no time for reading " is a tolerably idle person-busy-idle it may be; for there are plenty of people who profess and pretend to be "ever so busy" all day long, and would yet be extremely chagrined if, at bed-time, they were forced to produce the work actually completed. I am afraid that "Something attempted, something done," would seldom earn them a night's repose. AT LAST. I. As one whose unskilled fingers wandering o'er II. So I, my darling. Long, long years I knew Long years I knew, though voice and eye were dumb, L. B. 314 The Children's Hour. BAYARD KNIGHT'S AMBITION. BY MARIANNE FARNINGHAM. CHAPTER VII.-A BUSY TIME. PRESERVED fruit was not the only article which Mr. Reynolds allowed Bayard to sell. And it was not long before the money which he had saved was more than doubled by his sales. Many lads know the pleasure of spending money, but comparatively few know what pleasure sometimes comes through self-denial. Bayard's bank-book, for he had one of his own, was often looked into with a feeling of thankfulness. He found that the balance in his favour steadily increased, and though he did not spend very much time in dreaming, his dreams were pleasant ones, for in them he looked forward to the end of his efforts, and saw himself spending a happy time with those whom he loved the best. But between that future and the present were many years of hard work, as he well knew. He did not, however, shrink from them, nor wish, as some do, that the time would pass more quickly. Bayard loved his work, and love makes everything easy. But it was not always sunshine with him. His industry and perseverance helped to make enemies of other lads, whose indolence was silently reproved by his diligence. It happened one day that two of these were talking about Bayard. "He will never make anything, you know, with all his slaving," said one. "Not he," replied the other. "He has no manliness in him; he is a poor drudge who works morning, noon, and night, and takes no time to be happy." "He will be an old man before he is a young one." "Yes, and all that other people may profit by it. Look how he works for the master. I wouldn't do it if I had a hundred pounds a week for it." "Neither would he if he were not such a mean-spirited fellow, that he has not the courage to refuse." "Ah! Bayard Knight can do many things, but he cannot say 'No.'" Could he not though? A few weeks afterwards one of these lads got into trouble, because he had previously got into debt. "I do not know what I shall do," he said, ruefully, to his friend. "Cannot you help me?" |