up to ardent ambition. This first taste | his own, his young talent does not go on of the sweets of popularity is among the developing as it ought to do. Nature few sensations of a lifetime that are never provokingly orders that in the fuller life forgotten. Indeed we may say that to of manhood, as in early life, precocity realize one's own brilliant success in this should sometimes be followed by mediocway prospectively, and through the eager rity. The pledge given by college repuhopes of a few warm admirers, is the tation, and even by the first essays in most delicious mode of enjoying success. public life, is sometimes illusory, just as Yet no form of human bliss is quite free the pledge given by exceptional infantile from taint of imperfection, and even the endowments. And when this happens youthful aspirant who has succeeded in the promising young man may be said to awakening this romantic interest in his be hardly used. He is not only forefuture finds that there are drawbacks to doomed to personal disappointment, but his delight. It not infrequently happens is made the unwilling instrument of oththat this newly awakened admiration is ers' disappointment. On the whole, howvery unintelligent. Where there is very ever, it is probable that society is not little actual performance to build upon, unjust in demanding a fulfilment of the people easily get erroneous ideas of a early promise which it has recognized man's special capabilities and aims. A and honored. Allowing for an occasional newly-created hero has to be magnani- arrest of intellectual development, and for mous, and to submit with good grace to a the interruptions of progress by feeble great deal of foolish misapprehension. health, we must admit that most of the In most cases he must be content to disappointments that occur are traceable be recognized as tending to greatness, to a want of persistence in the promising without expecting people to understand aspirant. Many who are possessed of wherein exactly his greatness is likely to considerable natural powers are not indismanifest itself. The situation will some-posed to make a short, strenuous effort times be a trying one. If, for example, after greatness, though they much dislike one of the newly-formed circle of admir-long and sustained exertion. With such ers puts the hero of the moment through the first sip of flattering recognition acts a long and searching examination under as a narcotic; it brings a perfect content an exaggerated idea of his attainments and powers, he will very likely feel bored, and be ready to anathematize the inconveniently importunate questioner for not having taken the trouble of ascertaining his real position and pretensions. It is, however, in relation to the future that the position of a promising young man is most beset with difficulties. When society thus advances its meed of praise in return for a promissory note, it is apt to be somewhat exacting. The young writer or painter who has excited this lively interest in his future must make up his mind to be carefully watched. And the very people who were most unreflecting in taking his future reputation on trust will be apt to be equally unreasonable in their expectations. If we add to this that the first conceptions formed, as has been observed, are very often quite erroneous and greatly exaggerated, we see in what an awkward situation the promising young man is likely to be placed. Even if he does advance according to his own anticipations, and fulfil all the hopes that could reasonably be grounded on his first performances, he may excite a measure of disappointment. And then it sometimes happens that, through no fault of

with the present, and paralyzes the organs of action. The very sweetness of the prospective enjoyment of full success may easily render the mind which is not too deeply devoted to the ends of truth or beauty indifferent to a future realization of anticipations. The only guarantee against this early defection from lofty aims is the existence of strong and genuine devotion and high conscientiousness, and these qualities do not appear to be common. While there are many who thus abandon effort in literature and art through the undermining influence of an agreeable lethargy, there are others who do so because their incipient success has brought them other and more material advantages. Distinction is an obvious passport into society, and promising young men, finding this out, are under a temptation to forego further celebrity in favor of the material rewards which social posi tion brings with it. We have heard it said of more than one promising writer that he would have made his mark in literature had he not married a woman of society. In his case there is clearly no room for excuse or explanation. When a youthful aspirant in literature relaxes effort under the sedative influence of pres

From The Spectator.

DEAN CHURCH ON INTELLECTUAL
IMPATIENCE.

IT was a fine discrimination which induced the Dean of St. Paul's, in his address of the 12th inst. to the Junior Clergy Society, to choose for his subject "Temper," or, as we should prefer to call it, intellectual impatience. That is what he means by his careful definition of the sense in which he uses "temper," and though his is the better word for his purpose, conveying as it does something of moral reprobation, for ours the equivalent we suggest is the more useful, as it does not demand the recurring and, therefore, vexatious explanations rendered needful

"temper." There can be little doubt that intellectual impatience, like many other intellectual foibles, tends in our day to increase, till it becomes almost a vice. It is developed both by increased intelligence, and by the increased rapidity with which the intelligence is fed with facts. We understand more than we did, and therefore sympathize more; and, when we

ent partial success, a serviceable friend
may proffer a plausible excuse, putting
down the later inactivity to overwork and
consequent debility. But when a man
deliberately binds himself by social ties
which are incompatible with a hearty car-
rying forward of his early plans, his want
of sincerity and depth is patent to all.
Such temporary aspirants must therefore
be ready to brave the resentment which
naturally follows the willing extermination
of agreeable hopes. They generally man-
age to put a good face on the situation,
which is apt to seem a little ludicrous to
a thoughtful onlooker. The gains accru-
ing to them from their change of life are
sufficiently real and palpable to render
them callous to the contempt with which by the conventional meaning attached to
their former admirers and well-wishers
are apt to visit their infidelity. It might
perhaps be expected that, in view of so
many disappointments, society would
grow more chary in the recognition of
early signs of distinguished ability. And
there is no doubt that a certain measure
of caution in this respect would be a very
good thing. It is, of course, well enough
to encourage first efforts by a just recog- perceive an evil, become more impatient
nition, but this is a very different thing for its removal, so impatient as to forget
from hastily making a hero of the begin- that though we may now understand that
ner in science and art before he has fully denudation produces floods, and may hear
won his spurs. A man who is sincerely that a flood occurred in Castile half an
devoted to the ends of truth does not hour ago, neither our new knowledge nor
need the stimulus of this prospective ap- our new control of an instrument as quick
plause; he can wait for a later and fully- as thought will make the needed trees
earned praise. On the other hand, the grow up one hour the faster. We have
prospect of this rapid social recognition gained speed in certain departments of
serves to incite the half-hearted and the action, especially the diffusion of news,
pretentious to a fleeting and deceptive till the sense of time in our minds has
effort. Yet we very much doubt whether become impaired, and we expect haste in
people will ever grow wiser in this re- changes involving natural processes or
spect. The motives which lead them to revolutions of thought which none of our
take up a new-comer who seems to give discoveries help to accelerate. The tree
promise of intellectual distinction are too does not grow, or the child become a man,
powerful to be readily curbed by consid- or enslaved races become free one whit
erations of prudence. A new figure in the quicker for the telegraph, nor are
the world of letters is too interesting a human stupidities very much diminished.
phenomenon to be passed by: even if the All that happens is that we feel more
eager admirers face the possibility of be- keenly and see more rapidly what is
ing deceived, they are scarcely likely to wrong, and that our impatience, or "tem-
withhold their interest. The selection of per," with obstructive facts, or events, or
a promising protégé may be made all the men, exercises more power over our own
more exciting and pleasant by the pres- minds. We fret, not only to have things
ence of an element of uncertainty. It altered, but to have them altered now,
seems specially chivalrous to back up a with a bitterness which, as Dean Church
young aspirant whose career is by no justly says, is not the fire which burns in
means assured. And so we may be pretty some men against a great abuse, or the
certain that good-natured people will, in indignation which the best men feel
spite of frequent disappointment, con- against a cruelty or a baseness, but is
tinue eagerly to accept and endorse liter-only temper, a querulous and weak, be-
ary and artistic promise whenever it cause powerless form of rage against what
makes its appearance.
cannot be altered. There is no greater

snare for good men, for they seem to to hope, and therefore to exert himself. themselves not only to be justified in their That is one cause, at least, of the lethargy impatience, but to derive from it a new so often observed in old philanthropists, energy, a stronger impulse to exertion in and of changes such as Dean Church the right direction. As a rule, however, mentions took place in Lamennais, who, when under this influence they only exert finding that he could not make the Roman themselves for mischief, either by mistak- Church what he believed it might be made, ing the men whose conduct worries them, first lost faith in it, and then in Christianor by acting before anything is ripe, or, ity. Like a petulant child, if the rules above all, by using weapons to which, but were not altered he "would not play," but for a governing impatience, they would sulk in a corner. One sees that change disdain to resort. A good deal, for in- forever in the victims of "temper," the stance, of the new bitterness of party men who cannot be satisfied when they feeling is due to this cause, - that is, to a have done their share, and there is no quickened impatience of the unfairness, greater cause of loss to the reservoir of or slowness, or blundering of the opposite philanthropic force. If the situation adside, so fiery that it must find vent some-mits of it they try compulsion, and are how and does find vent in exaggeration beaten by the resistance of human nature, and impassioned appeal, and above all, in the course of the better terrorists; and rancor against opponents; which leads to if not, they give way and retreat as from nothing, except an increased inability to an incurable world, as hundreds of saintly understand, and therefore to defeat them. Catholics have done. The men who can The defect may be and very often is, as the go on pegging away, on behalf of right, dean has noticed, a defect of good men; against hope, without losing "temper," or but it never can lead to good, for it must misjudging opponents, or resorting to diminish the clearness of mental vision, questionable means, are very few, and and therefore decrease the effectiveness grow fewer every day; and yet how strong of action. It is natural enough to rage they are! Suppose a man of intellectual because men cut down trees, till a country impatience had been in Abraham Linis a desert; but to stop the cuttings, the coln's place. first thing is to understand the motive for cutting, and more may be done to stop the practice by a sympathetic comprehension of that, and a consequent effort to remove that, than by any indulgence of " temper," even though it should seem for the moment to increase force. No increase of man's force will alter things not within man's control, and there never was a great cause yet, be it the enfranchisement of a nation or the purification of a Church, or only the improvement of a tenure, which had not in it certain conditions wholly beyond man's control, or at least beyond rapid change. All the bitterness in the world against the misery caused by hunger will not enable Ireland to grow rice, or make Celts Saxons, or alter at a stroke the prejudices of ages. You may be as impatient as you please that railway accidents should occur, but the impatience will not affect that proportion of them caused by "act of God," such as changes of temperature suddenly affecting metal, or human failures of mental power such as caused the Vauxhall accident, or those unexpected combinations of incident which we call chances. Impatience under such circumstances does but cloud the judgment and embitter the nature, and if much indulged, wears out energy till the man, in a kind of despair, ceases

It did not enter into Dean Church's purpose to consider whether intellectual patience can be taught, for he was, of course, looking for a cure to self-restraint, founded upon religious feeling and trust in God; but we fancy that even in the intellect, means of improvement can be found. Experienced statesmen, for instance, often free themselves wonderfully from intellectual impatience. They have seen so much, and know so well how long-lived some evils are; how much may be done before anything seems to be done; how suddenly, after years of steady effort, the unendurable breaks away and disappears. They recognize, what we all forget, how much the element of time enters into everything human. Earl Russell said it took seven years in this country to pass any great measure. A man who knew that, and yet had passed many, could not feel temper as the inexperienced feel it, could not rage so at the stupidity of mankind, and the malice of opponents, and the perversity of events. He would know that his scheme, say, national education, would survive all that, and would fight on, unhasting, unresting, without rancor for his foes, perpetually convincing a few more and a few more, until at last all England was converted, and "truancy was registered in the code of defi

1

B

ap

nite and punishable offences. It is a in and laid her eggs at the bottom. Then
great force, that power of expectancy, and together they flew away, and came back
we believe the way to grow it is to recall with a spider, half killed (that is, stung to
much more than we do the slowness of a deadened state, but so that it would keep
things, the time they take, the long inter- and not putrefy), and poor spider was
vals during which no progress is made. tucked into the tunnel. The pair worked
It is the hardest thing in the world to on hunting for spiders all day and popping
remember historic intervals of time, to be them in, and night surprised them too
fully conscious that Rome took as many soon; so the male fetched a pellet of clay
years to master the shores of the Medi- and made a perfect door, closing up the
terranean as have elapsed between our hole from all intruders, and they disap-
time and the Crusades, to recollect that peared. In the morning, quite early, I
the old paganism was more centuries opened the shutter, without which they
perishing than have passed since the could not get at their work, and very soon
Reformation, to remember steadily that it they arrived. They cut and tugged at the
was nearly eighteen hundred years before still damp door, till it came away clear and
men saw that Christianity and slavery left the open arch, and several more un-
were irreconcilable, or that there must fortunate spiders were added to the larder
exist some morally right proportion be- of the future grub, laid in embryo at the
tween offence and punishment. It took end of the tunnel. Then it was closed
Romilly years to convince Englishmen with fresh clay, and made doubly secure
that larceny did not deserve death, and by an extra thickness of daubing. And
yet how utterly the possibility of inflicting immediately, without waiting to rest, an-
such a penalty for such a crime has passed
away! The cure for intellectual impa-
tience, the "temper" which is not anger,
but blinds as much as anger, is a full
realization of the fact that among the con-
ditions which man must obey, the effect
of time is one. You cannot replace its
result by any substitute whatever, any
more than you can give a man experience.
You may make him wise and full of
knowledge, but experience is an incom-
municable gift. Trust in God is the best
preventive of intellectual temper, but the
next best is a steady, conscious regard
towards the necessity of the element of
time, in all natural processes and all
human affairs. Energy can accomplish
much, but it cannot hurry an accurate
clock one second in a year.

From Hardwicke's Science-Gossip.
SPIDER-KILLING WASPS.

THE following is an interesting extract
from a lady's letter, dated Pieter Maritz-
burg: "In a corner of my bedroom win-
dow a bit of architecture has been going
on which has much interested us all. A
pair of slender wasps, with golden bodies
and purple wings, came and built, bit by
bit, most industriously and fast, seven
tunnels of clay; the male insect worked,
he fetched the moist pellets of clay from
a distant puddle outside the garden.
These he worked with mouth and paws
into shape most beautifully. When the
first tunnel was complete the female went

other tunnel was built side by side with the first. For days, I think quite a fortnight, we watched their steady work, until seven of these wonderful tombs - or should I say habitations? were filled and closed. After the insects had quite finished and gone altogether, leaving the whole daubed together and cemented into one large lump of various shades of clay, I cut it out of the window, and have got it in a basket covered with net, so that we may see the exit of the young creatures that are to eat through all these spiders and break their way into the world some day. I opened one tunnel lengthwise that we might see and count the spiders - there were fifteen in it! Fatbodied little garden spiders of various sorts; one was too big to push in, so they had cut its legs off at the roots! We waited just a little too long before digging an opening into that wasp's mud castle. What we found was this: a long, transparent, brown case, and within it a wasp perfectly formed, but colorless. Not a trace of the fifteen spiders! And these must have been eaten by the little grub which came out of the egg-probably the egg was laid in the fat body of a spider; and when the spiders were all eaten we can only suppose the grub went through a change and came into the wasp, but how that beautiful case was formed over it I cannot imagine. You could see the creature inside perfectly as if it were made of glass, and the whole thing exactly fitted the tunnel of clay. After a few more days, another tunnel was opened, not by us, but by the perfected wasp itself. A round

hole at the end was cut as if with a sharp of our schoolboy days was marked " uninstrument, and out walked the pretty explored." In the very centre of that creature, slowly and sleepily. Then it space there is still however a blank, walked up on the top of the clay mound giving ample scope for work for the and spread its wings in the sun, and numerous Belgian expeditions that have looked out at the world quite ready to hitherto done so little. It was to fill up take its place at once on the business of this blank to some extent that the Geolife. We uncovered the net from the graphical Society, about two years ago, basket and let it fly; and next season I obtained subscriptions to send out an shall look out for another such erection, expedition under young Keith Johnston, and open the tunnel earlier, so as to see who had inherited an enthusiasm for geothe grub when half through its larder of graphical work quite worthy of the name cold meat. We saw another and much he bore. As his subordinate and as geololarger sort of wasp the other day running gist to the expedition, the society apalong with a very large fat caterpillar pointed another young Scotchman, Mr. which it had deadened; it held it by the Joseph Thomson, a pupil of Prof. Geikie, head in its mandibles, and the body trailed who recommended him to the Geographialong under the whole length of the wasp cal Society. To him, we grieve to say, it and out behind, and the caterpillar was so has been left to tell the story of the expefat that the wasp had to stride along on dition, which he did, and did well, on Montip-toe to carry it at all. At last it stopped day night at the opening meeting of the left the body a moment, and began like Geographical Society. This expedition a terrier to scratch at a hole: the loose is remarkable in many respects, in some earth fell away at once, and was evidently points more remarkable than any other only banked up to hide the hole from in- African expedition that we know of. The truders. The wasp ran in and disap- outline of its story is soon told. With peared; presently out he came again, one hundred and fifty of the best men backwards, with some earth which had that could be found in and around Zanzifallen in; and he did this several times, bar Keith Johnston left that place in May, throwing out all the earth which had tum- 1879, and striking at once to the southbled in. Then he ran and inspected the west, made for the north end of Lake body of the caterpillar, ran all round it Nyassa, which was the real starting-point gleefully, and dragged it nearer to his for fresh work. Little more than a month hole. Then we laughed to see the clever after the start, young Johnston, who fellow, sailor-like, turn himself round and seemed to have the nerve and stamina of pop down the companion, tail first; and an athlete, succumbed to the malarious then, peeping out, he reached out his head influences of the coast region, and was and arms, and seizing the caterpillar, buried by his companion at Behobeho, to pulled it down after him, into what seemed the north of the Lufiji River. Mr. Thoma long gallery, leading a great distance. son, inexperienced youth of twenty-two No doubt an egg was laid in the body of though he was, was equal to the emerthe caterpillar for the future grub's suste-gency. With admirable tact and nerve

nance.

From Nature.

A SUCCESSFUL AFRICAN EXPEDITION.

AFRICA is overrun with explorers of all nationalities. Too often of late have we had to read of failures, of abortive attempts on the part of expensively equipped expeditions to reach the field of their work, or of deaths by fever or assassination after the first difficulties were overcome. In spite of all, however, the unprecedented activity of recent years in this favorite field of exploration has pretty well filled up, with the leading features at least, that great blank space in the heart of the continent which in the rude maps

he took his place as the sole leader of the expedition, and accomplished even more than the work which the Society had chalked out for it. By an unexplored route, through barren wastes and over lofty mountains, through the sneaking Wakhutu and the warlike Mahenge, he and his followers made their way till their eyes were gladdened and their weary spirits refreshed by the sight of the wa ters of Nyassa. Thence, after brief rest, they resumed their march over the lofty and undulating plateau, which they found occupied the region between the north end of Nyassa and the south shore of Tanganyika. Leaving here the bulk of his followers, Mr. Thomson, with a handful of men, trudged his way over the rugged western shores of Lake Tangan. yika, to visit the Lukuga and settle the