never see the day. Do the old men mind it, as a matter of fact? Why, no. They were never merrier; they have their grog at night, and tell the raciest stories; they hear of the death of people about their own age, or even younger, not 5 as if it was a grisly warning, but with a simple childlike pleasure at having outlived some one else; and when a draught might puff them out like a guttering candle, or a bit of a stumble shatter them like so much glass, their old hearts keep sound and unaffrighted, and they go on, bub10 bling with laughter, through years of man's age compared to which the valley at Balaclava was as safe and peaceful as a village cricket-green on Sunday. It may fairly be questioned (if we look to the peril only) whether it was a much more daring feat for Curtius to plunge into the gulf, 15 than for any old gentleman of ninety to doff his clothes and clamber into bed.

We live the time that a match flickers; we pop the cork of a ginger-beer bottle, and the earthquake swallows us on the instant. Is it not odd, is it not incongruous, 20 is it not, in the highest sense of human speech, incredible, that we should think so highly of the ginger-beer, and regard so little the devouring earthquake? The love of Life and the fear of Death are two famous phrases that grow harder to understand the more we 25 think about them. It is a well-known fact that an immense proportion of boat accidents would never happen if people held the sheet in their hands instead of making it fast; and yet, unless it be some martinet of a professional mariner or some landsman with shat30 tered nerves, every one of God's creatures makes it fast. A strange instance of man's unconcern and brazen boldness in the face of death!

We confound ourselves with metaphysical phrases, which we import into daily talk with noble inappropriateness. We have no idea of what death is, apart from its circumstances and some of its consequences to others; and although we have some experience of living, there is not 5 a man on earth who has flown so high into abstraction as to have any practical guess at the meaning of the word life. All literature, from Job and Omar Khayyam to Thomas Carlyle or Walt Whitman, is but an attempt to look upon the human state with such largeness of view as 10 shall enable us to rise from the consideration of living to the Definition of Life. And our sages give us about the best satisfaction in their power when they say that it is a vapour, or a show, or made out of the same stuff with dreams. Philosophy, in its more rigid sense, has been at the same 15 work for ages; and after a myriad bald heads have wagged over the problem, and piles of words have been heaped one upon another into dry and cloudy volumes without end, philosophy has the honour of laying before us, with modest pride, her contribution towards the subject: that 20 life is a Permanent Possibility of Sensation. Truly a fine result! A man may very well love beef, or hunting, or a woman; but surely, surely, not a Permanent Possibility of Sensation! He may be afraid of a precipice, or a dentist, or a large enemy with a club, or even an undertaker's 25 man; but not certainly of abstract death. We may trick with the word life in its dozen senses until we are weary of tricking; we may argue in terms of all the philosophies on earth, but one fact remains true throughout that we do not love life, in the sense that we are greatly preoccu- 30 pied about its conservation; that we do not, properly speaking, love life at all, but living. Into the views of the

least careful there will enter some degree of providence ; no man's eyes are fixed entirely on the passing hour; but although we have some anticipation of good health, good weather, wine, active employment, love, and self-approval, 5 the sum of these anticipations does not amount to anything like a general view of life's possibilities and issues; nor are those who cherish them most vividly, at all the most scrupulous of their personal safety. To be deeply interested in the accidents of our existence, to enjoy keenly 10 the mixed texture of human experience, rather leads a man to disregard precautions, and risk his neck against a straw. For surely the love of living is stronger in an Alpine climber roping over a peril, or a hunter riding merrily at a stiff fence, than in a creature who lives upon a 15 diet and walks a measured distance in the interest of his constitution.

STUDENTS' THEMES: EXPOSITION

HOW TO SAIL A KNOCKABOUT

It will be necessary before describing the sailing of a boat to give a brief description of its hull and rigging. Let us take, for example, the small knockabout. This is a trim little craft about twenty-five feet from stem to stern. The rig is a small sail or jib before the mast and a main- 5 sail aft of the mast, comprising together an area of about four hundred square feet. Ropes, called sheets, haul in or let out the sails, and a rudder connected with a tiller in the standing-room, controls the direction in which the boat sails. Ballast, fastened on the keel, prevents her capsiz- 10 ing, and makes her a safe boat for a beginner.

After hoisting the sails, we must see that the halyards, which raise and lower the sails, are carefully coiled and that the sheets are clear. Make the tender fast to the end of the mooring line and pull in on this rope until the boat 15 swings away from the tender. Now jump quickly aft and, by hauling in the jib sheet, cause the jib to fill and the boat's head to swing slowly off to leeward. Now, hauling in the main sheet, which is the rope which controls the mainsail, make it fast as she gathers headway.

Suppose that the wind is coming from the left or port side of the boat, while both jib and mainsail are hauled in flat. This is called sailing "close hauled on the port tack."

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If the boat is well designed, the tendency of the wind pressure in the jib to force the boat's head off to leeward will be exactly counteracted by the wind-pressure in the mainsail, which tends to make the boat's head point toward the 5 direction from which the wind is coming. In this case there will be little occasion to use the rudder to keep her on her course, since she will practically steer herself.

To tack, or come about on the starboard tack, push the tiller toward the starboard side of the boat as far as it will 10 go. Quickly she will point up into the wind until the

sails flutter and spill the wind. This is the exact time to let go the leeward jib sheet. As soon as the wind, coming now from the other side of the boat, begins to fill the mainsail, haul in and make fast the leeward jib sheet, 15 that one which was on the windward side of the boat on the other tack. This manoeuvre, which takes considerable space for explanation, will be accomplished in a few seconds, during which time the boat will lose little headway.

To run off before the wind, pull the tiller in the direc20 tion opposite to that which you wish to take, at the same time slacking off the main and jib sheets until the boat is following the direction of the wind. The mainsail will now be at right angles to the hull and will do most of the pulling, since the jib will not draw unless held out to 25 windward. It can be held out by a pole extending from the mast to the lower after end of the jib.

To jibe, to shift the mainsail from one side of the mast to the other without coming up into the wind, with the sails on the port side of the boat, pull the tiller 30 slowly to starboard, at the same time hauling in the mainsheet rapidly until the pressure of the wind comes on the other side of the mainsail. Then let the sheet run until