the trial of

the disorder of our own fancy; those of which we can see the end are hers; those that fly from us, and of which we can see no end, are our own. Want of goods is easily repaired; poverty of soul is irreparable." Adversity has been called the trial Adversity of principle. Without it a man hardly principle. knows whether he is an honest man. "However mean your life is, meet it and live it," says Thoreau; "do not shun it and call it hard names. It is not as bad as you are. It looks poorest when you are richest. The fault-finder will find faults even in paradise. Love your life, poor as it is. You may perhaps have some pleasant, thrilling, glorious hours, even in a poor-house. The setting sun is reflected from the windows of the almshouse as brightly as from the rich man's abode; the snow melts before its door as early in the spring. I do not see but a quiet mind may live as contentedly there, and have as cheering thoughts, as in a palace. The The town's town's poor seem to me often to live the most independent lives of any. May be they are simply great enough to receive without misgiving. Most think that they are above being supported by the town; but it often happens that they are not

poor.

above supporting themselves by dishonest means, which should be more disreputable. Cultivate poverty like a garden herb, like sage. Do not trouble yourselves much to get new things, whether clothes or friends. Turn the old; return to them. Things do not change; we change. Sell your clothes and keep your thoughts. God will see that you do not want society." "O, beloved The philoso- and gentle Poverty!" exclaims Souvespher's exclamation. tre's philosopher in his attic; "pardon me for having for a moment wished to fly from thee, as I would from Want; stay here forever with thy charming sisters, Pity, Patience, Sobriety, and Solitude; be ye my queens and my instructors; teach me the stern duties of life; remove far from my abode the weakness of heart, and giddiness of head which follow prosperity. Holy Poverty! teach me to endure without complaining, to impart without grudging, to seek the end of life higher than in pleasure, farther off than in power. Thou givest the body strength, thou makest the mind more firm; and, thanks to thee, this life, to which the rich attach themselves as to a rock, becomes a bark of which death may cut the cable without awakening all our fears. Continue to sus

"Holy Poverty!"

66

apostro

dream.

tain me, O thou whom Christ hath called Blessed." "O hunger, hunger, immor- Hunger tal hunger!" apostrophizes John Buncle. phized. "Thou art the blessing of the poor, the regale of the temperate rich, and the delicious gust of the plainest morsel. Cursed is the man that has turned thee out-ofdoors, and at whose table thou art a stranger! Yea, thrice cursed is he, who always thirsts, and hungers no more!" Poverty, or rather indifference to worldly wealth, is that which Renan claims to have most faithfully practiced. My dream," Renan's he says, "would be to be lodged, fed, clothed, and warmed, without having to bestow a thought about it, by somebody who would take me by contract and leave me to do what I pleased." Phædrus relates, in one of his fables, that when Hercules was received into heaven, and was saluting the gods who thronged around with their congratulations, he turned away his look when Plutus drew near, assigning as a reason for this to Jupiter, who inquired the cause of his strange conduct, that he hated Plutus Hercules because he was a friend to the bad; and, besides, corrupted both good and bad with his gifts. As to low living and high thinking, so often extolled by the philosophers

and Plutus

Two good

actors.

a careless concern for the things of this world and a pitch of excellence sublimely superhuman-they are not without their provoking inconveniences and melancholy effects, as examples prove. Cardell Goodman and Benjamin Griffin, both good actors long after Shakespeare, shared, we are told, the same bed in their modest lodging, and having but one shirt between them, wore it each in his turn. The only dissension which ever occurred between them was caused by Goodman, who, having to pay a visit to a lady, clapped on the shirt when it was clean, and Griffin's day for wearing it! "Edgar A. Poe I remember seeing on a single occasion," writes the author of Memories of Many Men and Some Women. "He announced a lecture to be delivered at the Society Library building Poe's lecture on Broadway, under the title of The Universe. It was a stormy night, and there were not more than sixty persons present in the lecture-room. I have seen no portrait of Poe that does justice to his pale, delicate, intellectual face and magnificent eyes. His lecture was a rhapsody of the most intense brilliancy. He appeared inspired, and his inspiration affected the scant audience almost painfully. He wore

on The

Universe.

his coat tightly buttoned across his slender chest; his eyes seemed to glow like those

glowed like

raven's.

His eyes of his own raven, and he kept us entranced his own for two hours and a half. The late Mr. Putnam, the publisher, told me that the next day the wayward, luckless poet presented himself to him with the manuscript of The Universe. He told Putnam that in it he solved the whole problem of life; that it would immortalize its publisher as well as its author; and, what was of less consequence, that it would bring to him the fortune which he had so long and so vainly been seeking. Mr. Putnam, while an admirer of genius, was also a cool, calculating man of business. As such, he could not see the matter in exactly the same light as the poet did, and the only result of the interview was that he lent Poe a shilling to take him home to Fordham, where he then resided."

Readers of Dickens will remember DIGESTION. Georgiana Pocket - a a cousin of Miss Havisham's an indigestive single woman, who called her rigidity religion, and her liver love. It is Emerson, I believe, who speaks of brains paralyzed by stomach. He says also that he knew a witty phy