66 twine and wrapping-paper, and every suspicious circumstance. Be very careful not to be too kind. That often brings on detection. Only the other day we heard it said, somewhere, "Why, how good you have been, lately! I am really afraid that you have been carrying on mischief secretly. Our heart smote us. It was a fact. That very day we had bought a few books which we could not do without." After a while, you can bring out one volume, accidentally, and leave it on the table. Why, my dear, what a beautiful book! Where did you borrow it?" You glance over the newspaper, with the quietest tone you can command. "That! oh! that is mine. Have you not seen it before? It has been in the house these two months;" and you rush on with anecdote and incident, and point out the binding, and that peculiar trick of gilding, and everything else you can think of: but it all will not do; you cannot rub out that roguish, arithmetical smile. People may talk about the equality of the sexes! They are not equal. The silent smile of a sensible, loving woman will vanquish ten men. Of course you repent, and in time form a habit of repenting Another method, which will be found peculiarly effective, is to make a present of some fine work to your wife. Of course, whether she or you have the name of buying it, it will go into your collection and be yours to all intents and purposes. But it stops remarks in the presentation. A wife could not reprove you for so kindly thinking of her. No matter what she suspects, she will say nothing. And then if there are three or four more works which have come home with the gift-book, -they will pass through the favor of the other. These are pleasures denied to wealth and old bachelors. Indeed, one cannot imagine the peculiar pleasure of buying books, if one is rich and stupid. There must be some pleasure, or so many would not do it. But the full flavor, the whole relish of delight, only comes to those who are so poor that they must engineer for every book. They sit down before them, and besiege them. They are captured. Each book has a secret history of ways and means. It reminds you of subtle devices by which you insured and made it yours, in spite of poverty!-Star Pa pers. FAULTS. A man has a large emerald, but it is "feathered," and he knows an expert would say, "What a pity that it has such a feather!" it will not bring a quarter as much as it otherwise would, and he cannot take any satisfaction in it. A man has a diamond, but there is a flaw in it, and it is not the diamond that he wants. A man has an opal, but it is imperfect, and he is dissatisfied with it. An opal is covered with little seams, but they must be the right kind of seams. If it has a crack running clear across, it is marred, no matter how large it is, and no matter how wonderful its reflections are. And this man is worried all the time because he knows his opal is imperfect; and it would worry him even if he knew that nobody else noticed it. So it is in respect to dispositions, and in respect to character at large. Little cracks, little flaws, little featherings in them take away their exquisiteness and beauty, and take away that fine finish which makes moral art. How many noble men there are who are diminished, who are almost wasted, in their moral influence! How many men are like the red maple! It is one of the most gorgeous trees, both in spring, blossoming, and in autumn, with its crimson foliage. But it stands knee-deep in swamp-water, usually. To get to it, you must wade, or leap from bog to bog, tearing your raiment, and soiling yourself. I see a great many noble men, but they stand in a swamp of faults. They bear fruit that you fain would pluck, but there are briers and thistles and thorns all about it, and to get it you must make your way through all these hindrances.-Plymouth Pulpit, Third Series. H. W. BEECHER. WASHINGTON APPOINTED COM MANDER-IN-CHIEF. Washington was then (June 15, 1775) forty-three years of age. In stature he a little exceeded six feet, his limbs were sinewy and well proportioned, his chest broad, his figure stately, blending dignity of presence with ease. His robust constitution had been tried and invigorated by his early life in the wilderness, his habit of occupation out of doors, and his rigid temperance; so that few equalled him in strength of arm or power of en durance. His complexion was florid; his hair dark brown; his head in its shape perfectly round. His broad nostrils seemed formed to give expression to scornful anger. His dark blue eyes, which were deeply set, had an expression of resignation, and an earnestness that was almost sadness. At At eleven years old, left an orphan to the care of an excellent but unlettered mother, he grew up without learning. Of arithmetic and geometry he acquired just knowledge enough to be able to practise measuring land; but all his instruction at school taught him not so much as the orthography or rules of grammar of his own tongue. His culture was altogether his own work, and he was in the strictest sense a self-made man; yet from his early life he never seemed uneducated. sixteen he went into the wilderness as a surveyor, and for three years continued the pursuit, where the forest trained him, in meditative solitude, to freedom and largeness of mind; and nature revealed to him her obedience to serene and silent laws. In his intervals from toil he seemed always to be attracted to the best men, and to be cherished by them. Fairfax, his employer, an Oxford scholar, already aged, became his fast friend. He read little, but with close attention. Whatever he took in hand he applied himself to with care; and his papers, which have been prepared, show how he almost imperceptibly gained the power of writing correctly: always expressing himself with clearness and directness, often with felicity of language and grace. When the frontiers on the west became disturbed he, at nineteen, was commissioned an adjutant-general, with the rank of major. At twenty-one he went as the envoy of Virginia to the council of Indian chiefs on the Ohio and to the French officers near Lake Erie. Fame waited upon him from his youth; and no one of his colony was so much spoken of He conducted the first military expedition from Virginia that crossed the Alleghanies. Braddock selected him as an aide, and he was the only man who came out of the disastrous defeat near the Monongahela with increased reputation, which extended 66 to England. The next year, when he was but four-and-twenty, "the great esteem in which he was held in Virginia, and his "real merit," led the lieutenant-governor of Maryland to request that he might be commissioned and appointed second in command" of the army designed to march to the Ohto; and Shirley, the commanderin-chief, heard the proposal "with great satisfaction and pleasure," for "he knew no provincial officer upon the continent to whom he would so readily give it as to Washington.' In 1758 he acted under Forbes as a brigadier, and but for him that general would never have been able to cross the mountains. Courage was so natural to him that it was hardly spoken of to his praise; no one ever at any moment of his life discovered in him the least shrinking in danger, and he had a hardihood of daring which escaped notice, because it was so enveloped by superior calmness and wisdom. He was as cheerful as he was spirited, frank and communicative in the society of friends, fond of the fox-chase and the dance, often sportive in his letters, and liked a hearty laugh. This joyousness of disposition remained to the last, though the vastness of his responsibilities was soon to take from him the right of displaying the impulsive qualities of his nature, and the weight which he was to bear up was to overlay and repress his gayety and openness. His hand was liberal: giving quietly and without observation, as though he was ashamed of nothing but being discovered in doing good. He was kindly and compassionate, and of lively sensibility to the sorrows of others; so that if his country had only needed a victim for its relief, he would have willingly offered himself as a sacrifice. But while he was prodigal of himself, he was considerate for othersever parsimonious of the blood of his countrymen. He was prudent in the management of his private affairs, purchased rich lands from the Mohawk Valley to the flats of the Kanawha, and improved his fortune by the correctness of his judgment; but as a public man he knew no other aim than the good of his country, and in the hour of his country's poverty he refused personal emolument for his service. His faculties were so well balanced and combined that his constitution, free from excess, was tempered evenly with all the elements of activity, and his mind resembled a well-ordered commonwealth; his passions, which had all the intensest vigor, owed allegiance to reason; and, with all the fiery quickness of his spirit, his impetuous and massive will was held in check by consummate judgment. He had in his composition a calm which gave him in moments of highest excitement the power of self-control, and enabled him to excel in patience even when he had most cause for disgust. Washington was offered a command when there was little to bring out the unorganized resources of the continent but his own influence, and authority was connected with the people by the most frail, most attenuated, scarcely discernible threads; yet, vehement as was his nature, impassioned as was his courage, he so restrained his ardor that he never failed continuously to exert the attracting power of that influence, and never exerted it so sharply as to break its force. In secresy he was unsurpassed; but his secresy had the character of prudent reserve, not of cunning or concealment. His understanding was lucid and his judgment accurate, so that his conduct never betrayed hurry or confusion. No detail was too minute for his personal inquiry and continued supervision, and at the same time he comprehended events in their widest aspects and relations. He never seemed above the object that engaged his attention, and he was always equal, without an effort, to the solution of the highest questions, even when there existed no precedents to guide his decision. In this way he never drew to himself admiration for the possession of any one quality to excess, never made in council any one suggestion that was sublime but impracticable, never in action took to himself the praise or the blame of undertakings astonishing in conception, but beyond his means of execution. It was the most wonderful accomplishment of this man that, placed upon the largest theatre of events, at the head of the greatest revolution in human affairs, he never failed to observe all that was possible, and at the same time to bound his aspirations by that which was possible. A slight tinge in his character, percep tible only to the close observer, revealed the region from which he sprung, and he might be described as the best specimen of manhood as developed in the South; but his qualities were so faultlessly proportioned that his whole country rather claimed him as its choicest representative, the most complete expression of all its attainments and aspirations. He studied his country and conformed to it. His countrymen felt that he was the best type of America, and rejoiced in it and were proud of it. They lived in his life, and made his success and his praise their own. Profoundly impressed with confidence in God's Providence, and exemplary in his respect for the forms of public worship, no philosopher of the eighteenth century was more firm in the support of freedom of religious opinion; none more tolerant or more remote from bigotry; but belief in God and trust in His overruling power formed the essence of his character. Divine wisdom not only illumines the spirit, it inspires the will. Washington was a man of action, and not of theory or words; his creed appears in his life, not in his professions, which burst from him very rarely, and only at those great moments of crisis in the fortunes of his country when earth and heaven seemed actually to meet, and his emotions became too strong for suppression; but his whole being was one continued act of faith in the eternal, intelligent, moral order of the universe. Integrity was so completely the law of his nature that a planet would sooner have shot from its sphere than he have departed from his uprightness, which was so constant that it often seemed to be almost impersonal. They say of Giotto that he introduced goodness into the art of painting; Washington carried it with him to the camp and the cabinet, and established a new criterion of human greatness. The purity of his will confirmed his fortitude; and as he never faltered in his faith in virtue, he stood fast by that which he knew to be just; free from illusions; never dejected by the apprehension of the difficulties and perils that went before him, and drawing the promise of success from the justice of his cause. Hence he was persevering, leaving nothing unfinished; free from all taint of obstinacy in his firmness; seeking and gladly receiving advice, but immovable in his devotedness to right. : Of a "retiring modesty and habitual reserve," his ambition was no more than the consciousness of his power, and was subordinate to his sense of duty; he took the foremost place, for he knew from inborn magnanimity that it belonged to him, and he dared not withhold the service required of him so that, with all his humility, he was by necessity the first, though never for himself or for private ends. He loved fame, the approval of coming generations, the good opinion of his fellow-men of his own time, and he desired to make his conduct coincide with their wishes; but not fear of censure, nor the prospect of applause could tempt him to swerve from rectitude, and the praise which he coveted was the sympathy of that moral sentiment which exists in every human breast, and goes forth only to the welcome of virtue. There have been soldiers who have achieved mightier victories in the field, and made conquests more nearly corresponding to the boundlessness of selfish ambition; statesmen who have been connected with more startling upheavals of society; but it is the greatness of Washington, that in public trusts he used power solely for the public good; that he was the life, and moderator, and stay, of the most momentous revolution in human affairs, its moving impulse and its restraining power. Combining the centripetal and the centrifugal forces in their utmost strength and in perfect relations, with creative grandeur of instinct he held ruin in check, and renewed and perfected the institutions of his country. Finding the colonies disconnected and dependent, he left them such a united and wellordered commonwealth as no visionary had believed to be possible. So that it has been truly said, "he was as fortunate as great and good." ["Of all great men, he was the most virtuous and the most fortunate."-M. GUIZOT: Essay on Washington, Hillard's translation.] out the civilized world of the human race, and even among the savages, he, beyond all other men, had the confidence of his kind. Washington knew that he must depend for success on a steady continuance of purpose in an imperfectly united continent, and on his personal influence over separate and half-formed governments, with most of whom he was wholly unacquainted; he foresaw a long and arduous struggle; but a secret consciousness of his power bade him not to fear; and whatever might be the backwardness of others, he never admitted for a moment the thought of sheathing his sword or resigning his command, till his work of vindicating American liberty should be done. To his wife he unbosomed his inmost mind: "I hope my undertaking this service is designed to answer some good purpose. I rely confidently on that Providence which has heretofore preserved and been bountiful to me. " His acceptance at once changed the aspect of affairs. John Adams, looking with complacency upon "the modest and virtuous, the amiable, generous, and brave general, as the choice of Massachusetts, said: This appointment will have a great effect in cementing the union of these colonies. "The general is one of the most important characters of the world; upon him depend the liberties of America. All hearts turned with affection towards Washington. This is he who was raised up to be not the head of a party, but the father of his country.Hist. of the United States, Vol. vii., Chap. xxxvii. GEORGE BANCROFT. EXTRACTS FROM FRITHIOF'S SAGA. [Esaias Tegner, the greatest poet of Sweden, was born in By, in the parish of Wärmland, 1782; died at Stockholm, 1846. After pursuing a brilliant course at This also is the praise of Washington: that never in the tide of time has any man lived who had in so great a degree the almost divine faculty to command the confidence of his fellow-men and rule the orders, was appointed pastor to a congregation at Stafje. the University of Lund he became professor of Greek and librarian in that seat of learning, and, on taking In 1824 he became Bishop of Wexiö. His poems of Frithiof, Axel, and The Children of the Lord's Supper have been translated into English, the last by Professor Longfellow. In 1853 a colossal statue was erected to willing. Wherever he became known, in VOL. IX. 201 CANTO I.-FRITHIOF AND INGEBORG. Two plants, for fostering nurture placed, One rose to seek the bright expanse, The other reared its blushing head, When earth's bright face rude blasts deform, Jocund they grew, in guileless glee, The noontide beam which gilt their sport, Her pilot soon he joyed to glide, No beetling lair, no pine-rocked nest, He sought each brook of rudest force, The earliest flower, spring's infant birth, But years of childhood smiling fled, A hunter grown, through den and dale, Breast closed to breast, they struggling stood: Since dear to beauty valorous deed, The fair one e'er the hero's meed : Assorted for the mutual vow, As martial helm to softer brow. When clustering near the social blaze, A tale beguiled the icy days, Of mystic names, supernal all, Rife in Valhalla's beaming hall; He mused: "Though Freya's braid is bright As corn-land waving amber light, "Iduna! mortal vision fails, "O! blue and clear is Frigga's eye, "What, Gerda, though thy cheeks may glow "I know a heart whose truth might claim "Ah! by one Nanna might my bier |