have been still more marked in France. In America, some traveller has remarked, "there is comfort everywhere, but no joy." America is accordingly the only country which has no art. rior gaiety of which a word by-and-by is so interior, and its outward aspect often so grim, that he is vulgarly considered to have himself been a sinner in this sort. Good art is nothing but a representation of life; and that the good are gay is a It is, as we have said, a vulgar error to commonplace, and one which, strange to consider Dante a melancholy poet. In say, is as generally disbelieved as it is, the whole range of art, joy is nowhere exwhen rightly understood, undeniably true. pressed so often and with such piercing The good and brave heart is always gay sweetness as in the "Paradiso;" and it in this sense; that, although it may be flashes occasionally through the dun atafflicted and oppressed by its own misfor- mosphere of the other parts of the poem. tunes and those of others, it refuses in The "Inferno" is pervaded by the vigorthe darkest moment to consent to despond-ous joy of the poet at beholding thorency; and thus a habit of mind is formed oughly bad people getting their deserts; which can discern in most of its own and the penances of purgatory are conafflictions some cause for grave rejoicing, templated by him with the grave pleasure and can thence infer at least a probability which is often felt by the saner sort of of such cause in cases where it cannot be persons, even in this world, under the discerned. Regarding thus cheerfully and sufferings they acknowledge to be the hopefully its own sorrows, it is not over- appropriate punishment of and purification troubled by those of others, however ten- from the sins they have fallen into. der and helpful its sympathies may be. Shakespeare is the most cheerful of poIt is impossible to weep much for that in ets. We read his deepest tragedies withothers which we should smile at in our out contracting even a momentary stain selves; and when we see a soul writhing of melancholy, however many tears they like a worm under what seems to us a may have drawn from us. Calderon flies small misfortune, our pity for its misery among horrors and disasters on the wings is much mitigated by contempt for its of a bird of paradise, without any resultcowardice. ing incongruity; and like things may be said of the greatest painters and musicians until quite recent times. But since about the beginning of this century how many of our geniuses have mingled their songs with tears and sighs over "insoluble problems " and "mysteries of life" which have no existence for a man who is in his right senses and who minds his own business; while the "scrannel pipes of the smaller wits have been playing to the sorry Yankee tune of "There's nothing new, and there's nothing true, and it doesn't signify." Music has taken to imitate the wailing of lost spirits or the liveliness of the casino; and the highest ambition of several of our best painters seems to have been to evoke a pathos from eternal gloom. A couple of generations ago most people would have opened their eyes wide at any one who should have thought remarks like these worth making. Such truth formed part of the universal tradition of civilization and moral culture. But a wilful melancholy, and, the twin sign of corruption, a levity which acutely fears and sympathizes with pains which are literally only skin deep, have been increasing upon us of late in a most portentous way. The much vaunted growth of “humanity" has been due rather to a softening of the national brain than of its heart. Huge moral ill, the fact of national degradation, the prospect of national disaster, arouses less pain in the sympathetic hearts of humanitarians than the yelp of a poodle which has had its ear pinched. Men and times do not talk about the virtues they possess. Which is most inhuman; to punish with rack and wheel the treason which voluntarily sacrifices or jeopardizes the welfare of millions, or to condone or ignore it for the sake of momentary ease? The England in which melancholy and levity are becoming prevalent habits is merry England no more. "The nation thou hast multiplied, but not increased the joy." And we are not the only nation which deserves this lamentation of the prophet. The growths of melancholy and levity This is false art, and represents a false life, or rather that which is not life at all; for life is not only joyful, it is joy itself. Life, unhindered by the internal obstruction of vice or the outward obscurations of pain, sorrow, and anxiety, is pure and simple joy; as we have most of us experi enced during the few hours of our lives in which, the conscience being free, all bodily and external evils have been removed or at least quiescent. And, though these glimpses of perfect sunshine are few and far between, the joy of life will not be wholly obscured to us by any external evil - provided the breast is clear of remorse, | dead plants that now appear above its envy, discontent, or any other habitually surface. The kindly snow obliterates the cherished sin. The opportunities and torn and abraded scars of nature; but it hindrances of joyful life are pretty fairly distributed among all classes and persons. God is just, and his mercy is over all his works. If gardens and parks are denied to the inhabitant of a city lane, his eye is so sharpened by its fasts that it can drink in its full share of the sweetness of nature from a flowering geranium or a pot of crocuses on his window-sill. There are really very few persons who have not enough to eat. Marriage is open almost equally to all, except, perhaps, the less wealthy members of the upper orders. None are without opportunities of joy and abundant reasons for gratitude; and the hindrances of joy are, if justly considered, only opportunities of acquiring new ca pacities for delight. In proportion as life becomes high and pure it becomes gay. The profound spiritualities of the Greek and Indian myths laugh for joy; and there are, perhaps, no passages of Scrip. ture more fondly dwelt upon in the Roman Breviary than those which paint the gladness of the uncreated Wisdom: "When he balanced the foundations of the earth, I was with him, forming all things and was delighted every day, playing before him at all times, playing in the world and my delight is to be with the children of men." From St. James's Gazette. THIS morning We looked upon a world unknown, On nothing we could call our own; Around the glistening wonder bent The blue walls of the firmament; No cloud above, no earth below; A universe of sky and snow. The sun shines, and a rosy suffusion lies over the landscape. All the fences are buried deep, and the trees stand starkly outlined against the sky. Millions of snow crystals glint athwart the fields. Birds swarm in the garden the home birds more confiding and the wild birds tame. Tits hang to the suet-bags, and a general assembly flock to the cornsheaf. A ring-ouzel flies wildly from a rowantree, and four or five species of thrushes are among the berries of the shrubs. So softly winnowed is the falling snow that it scarce bends the few grasses and not the less effectually reproduces the prints of her children. To the light the snow reveals the doings of the night. Does a mouse so much as cross, she leaves her delicate tracery on the white coverlet. Away from the homestead, rabbits have crossed and recrossed the fields in a perfect maze. That ill-defined “ pad” tracks the hare to the turnips. Pheasants and wood-pigeons have scratched for mast beneath the beeches, and we find red blood-drops along the fence. These are tracked to a colony of weasels in the old wall. Last night a piteous squeal might have been heard from the half-buried fence, and the little tragedy would be played out upon the snow. Five wild swans cleave the thin air far up, and fly off with outstretched necks. The tiny brown wren bids defiance to the weather; darting in and out of every hole and crev ice, and usually reappearing with the cocoon of some insect in its bill. These delicate footprints reproduce the long toes of the lark, and those are the tracks of meadow pipits. The hedge-berries are mostly gone; and here the redwing and fieldfare have run along the fence bottoms in search of fallen fruit. Those larger tracks by the sheep-troughs show that the hungry rooks have been scratching near, and the chatter of magpies comes from the fir-tree tops. Scattered pine cones betoken a flock of incessantly chat tering crossbills, and once in the fir wood we caught a glimpse of the scarlet appendages of the rare Bohemian waxwing. The gaudily colored yellow-hammer shows well against the snow, and bathes its or ange plumage in the feathered rain. How our British finches seem to enjoy the frost and snow! Certain it is that now their stores of food become scant; but then they throw in their lot with the spar rows of barn door and rick yard. The bright bachelor finch stands out from his pure setting, and the daws look black against the snow. "Tweet," "tweet," comes through the cold, thin air, and is startling in its stillness; and now we may hear as well as see the flight of a flock of linnets and goldfinches. Here observe a tall, nodding thistlehead, its once darkgreen leaves shrivelled up and turned to grey, its purple flower rays to russet brown. They contain ripened reeds. A goldfinch hangs to the under surface, and a rose-breasted linnet clings to the topmost spray. The two frail things are not unlike in form, though the goldfinch is by far the handsomer bird. His prettily shaped beak is flesh-colored, as also are his legs. His head has patches of scar let, white, and black, each well defined and setting off the other. The breast and back are of varying tints of warm russet brown, and the feathers of the wing are picked out with orange. His tail is alter nately elevated and depressed as he changes his position; and the patches of golden yellow are well brought out as he flutters from spray to spray. Thus do the linnet and the goldfinch go through the winter, together ranging the fields and feeding upon the seeds they can pick up. Along the meadow brook a stately heron has left its imprints; the water-hen's track is marked through the reeds; and there upon the icy margin are the blurred webs of the wild ducks. A bright red squirrel runs along the white wall. In its warm furs it shows sharply against the fence. Naturalists say that the squirrel hibernates through the winter; but this is hardly so. A bright day, even though cold and frosty, brings him out to visit some summer store. The prints of the squirrel are sharply cut, the tail at times just brushing the snow. The mountain linnets have come down to the lowlands; and we flush a flock from an ill-farmed field, where weeds run rampant. When alarmed the birds wheel aloft, uttering the while soft twitterings, and then betake themselves to the trees. The seeds of brooklime, flax, and knapweed the twite seems partial to, and this wild-weed field is to them a very paradise. Just now, walking in the woods, the cry of the bull. finch is heard as perhaps the most melancholy of all our birds; but its bright scarlet breast compensates for its want of cheeriness. A flock of diminutive gold. crests rush past us, and in the fir wood we hear, but cannot see, a flock of siskins. Higher up the valley, towards the hills, tracks of another kind begin to appear. On the fells we come across a dead herdwick trampled about with innumerable feet. We examine these closely, and find that they are only of two species- the raven and the buzzard. Further in the scrub we track a pine-marten to its lair in the rocks. The dogs drive it from its stronghold, and, being arboreal in its hab its, it immediately makes up the nearest pine trunk. Its rich brown fur and orange throat make it one of the most lithely beautiful of British animals. A pair of stoats or ermines, with their flecked coats just in the transition stage, have their haunt in the same wood. From the snow we see that last night they have threaded the aisles of the pines in search of food. This clear-cut, sharp track by the fence is that of the fox. Later we see the beautiful, buoyant creature bounding over the snow in graceful leaps. Fleet and wild as the wind, his speed and play of muscle are hidden by the long, soft fur. An exquisitely formed creature, we doubt as we look on him whether he is not worthy of the good things of the covert to which he was stealing. The most beautiful winter picture of this wintry morning is the red fox on the white snow. From St. James's Gazette. REVEREND AND DEAR BROTHER, For months and years you have preached to me long, long sermons; and I have a New Year's fancy to ask you to put yourself in my longsuffering place, in my very pew, and hearken to me while I preach to you. Settle yourself as comfortably as you can on my cushion. You will find listening for five minutes much harder than speaking for fifty. Suffer a word of exhortation: Be brief. Hitherto your sermons have been very dry. This perhaps you could not help; but, hang it all! I mean, need they have been so very long? Is it a thing fixed by fate that they should be quite so tedious? You have time to make them shorter, even short; and in all my days never heard I man, woman, or child complain of a ser mon too short. The past is past; by gones shall be bygones; but now, at the beginning of this new year, do heartily resolve that never again will you exceed fifteen minutes. Well do you know that I regularly ac company my wife and girls to church on Sunday morning; learn further that this I do determined to listen diligently to your discourse. And what happens? For the first five minutes I am all attention ; after a while I am conscious that I have had an illucid interval; and when about fifteen minutes have elapsed I find that I have quite given up pulling myself together. By no means can I draw myself from reverie; and with this my eyes and ears hav ing nothing to do, cease their functions altogether. Why, what happened on the The man who makes one leaf serve in a sermon where formerly were two is a public benefactor." Take your best sermon, tear it into halves or thereabout, and boldly throw one-half into the fire. The ending may seem abrupt; but it will afford us only a more agreeable surprise when it is preached again. Too heroic? Then we must cut, but firmly and thoroughly. The pruning-knife, gracefully removing tender shoots and dead twigs, is futile; vigorous strokes of the axe upon the branches are needed here. Lop off, brother; hew, and spare not. very last Sunday of the old year? While of a sermon; " or, to paraphrase Swift, you were discoursing of the ancient and wise Barzillai, who said, "I am fourscore years old and can I discern between good and evil? Let me die in mine own city," I only heard a voice of to-day crying, "I am too old for the ungrateful cares of office, and abundon them. Henceforth, Hawarden's castle shall be my cell; I devote my remaining years to Scotland's metaphysics and to sweet casuistry." This is what I heard in the droning that maybe was yours, and I caught myself nodding approval of so sagacious and patriotic a resolve. You observed my gesture; and when next we met you modestly declared If I may speak for myself - and there your pleasure that I agreed so cordially are many of my likes in every congregawith your remarks on Barzillai. Dear tion the time has fully come when brother, I never heard them, and, if I had, | something must be done. Soon it may doubt whether they were such as I could be too late. I am not the man I was; I have nodded assent to, save Homerwise. Believe me, you also spoke more than enough of Mahershalalhashbaz (have I the name aright?) and the spoiling of Samaria. If we are to dwell upon the spoiling of kingdoms, and whatever duty it may teach us or what lesson read, let us come nearer home a little. What care I about Samaria, or what cares any of my neighbors and yours? Samaria's fate was long since settled for good and all; but England's, England's Similarly, your Blastus, the king's chamberlain, only set me musing on King Mob's chamberlain; and he is quite a different person. In fine, after fifteen minutes, the more you preach, the more I cannot listen. It is not given to every clergyman to preach like Jeremy Taylor- true: and true it is that that is no fault of yours. Then preach not so long as Jeremy did: 'tis all I ask. And now, reverend and dear friend, for some practical application. You can set all this right by an earnest effort. Will you not make the attempt? Careful boil. ing down, free, judicious excision and the freer the more judicious will do all. Take this counsel. Learn the necessity of a brief pithiness, if you would be grate ful to your old listeners or a winner of new ones. Let it be known that you are short and determined to be shorter. Hang your study with brief, pertinent aphorisms such as, "Two heads are bet. ter than three, when they are the heads do not hear so well as once I did, and other things have changed. Half a century ago I had little mental food save at your own hospitable board; now my poor mind is surfeited and is getting morbidly enlarged. I am fed to repletion with dailies, weeklies, monthlies, quarterlies, and yet more solid volumes. But even Keren-happuch, dear girl! who goes be yond Jemima and Kezia themselves in admiration of your sermons, admits that they might be shorter; and my excellent wife, who differs from me on every other point, agrees with me on this. Let me now, in conclusion, impress my exhortation on you by an apposite anecdote. When his Royal Highness the Prince of Wales - who is so much and so deservedly beloved by us all was trav elling in Palestine, the late Dean of Westminster, who accompanied him on his tour, often edified the royal party with sermons appropriate to the interesting localities in which their Sunday halts were spent. After one such discourse his Royal Highness said, "Well, Dr. Stanley, you must admit I was very attentive today." "You were indeed, sir," replied the excellent divine; "but then my ser mon was very short." Do you, good Ecclesiastes, imitate the brevity of the dean; and I, so far as a lowly man may copy the manners of a royal high personage, will emulate the attentiveness of the prince. And now to our respective places again - you to your pulpit, I back to my pew. III. THE LITTLE PROPHETS OF THE CEVENNES, Contemporary Review,. 387 400 St. James's Gazette, 447 VII. Two EVENINGS WITH BISMARCK, SEA-SPELLS, . St. James's Gazette, PUBLISHED EVERY SATURDAY BY LITTELL & CO., BOSTON. TERMS OF SUBSCRIPTION. For EIGHT DOLLARS, remitted directly to the Publishers, the LIVING AGE will be punctually forwarded for a year, free of postage. Remittances should be made by bank draft or check, or by post-office money-order, if possible. If neither of these can be procured, the money should be sent in a registered letter. All postmasters are obliged to register letters when requested to do so. 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