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the sphere of our sympathies and enables us to take an interest in a wider range of subjects than those connected with our own personal history.

V. Another common hindrance to pleasant conversation is thus forced upon our notice. It is ignorance.

Talking is often dull because the talkers are dull. They run on in a vapid chatter about the personal concerns of themselves or their neighbours for the simple reason that they have nothing else to talk about. A harp that has no strings can make no music, and a mind that has no ideas can produce nothing worthy of the name of conversation.

Now, as we noticed a little while ago, people cannot help being stupid if nature has made them so, but people can help being ignorant. The poverty and vulgarity of mind we are speaking of can be remedied by any one who knows how to read.

At all events it is well that we should stand face to face with the fact that the want of habitual study, thought, and observation, must make conversation narrow in its range and commonplace in its style.

Wordsworth's lines on "Personal Talk" illustrate so well the connection between reading and conversation that we must make room for two or three of them, and commend them all to the attention of our readers.

"I am not one who much or oft delight

To season my fireside with personal talk
Of friends who live within an easy walk,
Or neighbours daily, weekly in my sight.
Better than such discourse doth silence long,
Long barren silence, square with my desire.

Wings have we, and as far as we can go
We may find pleasure: wilderness and wood,
Blank ocean and mere sky, support that mood,
Which with the lofty sanctifies the low.
Dreams, books are each a world, and books we
know

Are a substantial word both pure and good;
Round these, with tendrils strong as flesh and
blood,

Our pastime and our happiness will grow.
Here find I personal themes a plenteous store,
Matter wherein right voluble I am."

One more caution needs perhaps to be

added here. In avoiding ignorance we must take heed not to run into pedantry.

Pleasant and profitable as it is with congenial companions to talk over books and poems, or science and art, it would be quite possible to speak of these subjects in such a manner or at such times as to make oneself certainly tiresome and perhaps ridiculous.

To talk in order to show off your learning is pedantic. To talk about things not understood by your company is pedantic. To use long and hard words when short and plain ones would do as well is pedantic. All displays of knowledge in short must be classed under the head of pedantry, which arise either from vanity, from want of consideration for others, or from want of

common sense.

A female pedant (if we may dare to touch on so delicate a subject) used to be called a "blue stocking." But it has been well observed that a lady's stockings may be as blue as she likes provided her other garments are long enough to cover them. A saying as wise as it is witty. If the softness and grace and modesty of the feminine character remain, the more learning the better. The woman's smile will not be less sweet, nor her voice the less musical, nor her gentleness and kindness the less winning for all her acquirements; while through their influence her judgment will be the clearer, her sympathies the wider, and her conversation the more agreeable.

Many other things might be mentioned which spoil the pleasure of our social intercourse, such as affectation, airs of superiority, talking familiarly of great people in order to magnify ourselves; loud, positive, dogmatic tones of voice; a contradicting and "putting down" manner; an unwillingness to bear contradiction ourselves, etc. Enough, however, has been suggested on this painful side of our subject. If the faults to which we have ventured to call attention were recognised, watched against and in any degree overcome, the characters of our talkers would be proportionately improved and their conversation certainly made more agreeable.

LOST IN THE SNOW.

(See Illustration, Page 49).

[After a terrible snowstorm, in the North-Western States of America, several years ago, the following sad incident was reported from Fort Ridgley. The schoolmistress had discharged her scholars, telling them to run home. Some escaped with but slight injuries, but seven of the little ones lost their way in the blinding drifts, and were found dead.]

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Whelmed in the treacherous drift.

Roughly are hushed their cries: Fond ears no more shall list their merry

voice,

Or fond hearts dance to mark their laughing eyes,

Or at their step rejoice.

But lo! amid the storm

A wonder dawns upon my straining sight; I dimly see approach a glorious Form Arrayed in glistening white.

Over the drift He stoops,

And lights it with the sweetness of His Face, And clasps each blossom, where in death it droops,

With tenderest embrace.

Upwards their way they took,

Those little ones, and their Almighty Friend; Wrapt in His robe, whiter than snow they look,

As heavenward they ascend.
When in the silent ground,

Life's discipline all done, I am laid low,
Lost to the world, may I in Him be found
Whiter than driven snow!

DON'T SPARE THE FIRE.

T home we are our own masters. People can either shiver or not, as they please. Extraordinary individuals still exist who consider it bordering on a crime to light a bedroom fire, and will allow their children and guests to sleep in damp and cheerless rooms sooner than encounter the scowls of the housemaid and the danger of disturbing the orderly household. They think not of the doctor's bills that might be avoided by a precaution rather than a luxury, and hold that those whose blood does not circulate freely are effeminate, un-English, and in a measure to be despised if they find

RICHARD WILTON, M.A.

comfort in artificial heat and are caught tempering the morning bath with a dash out of the hot-water can. It never strikes these misguided people that some there are who cannot sleep unless they are warmed through, and that it is impossible to treat every constitution with Spartan severity. These, however, are things that concern the individual alone and the conscience of the householder. The children, who suffer so much from the cold, are most to be pitied when they are in the care of well-meaning but shortsighted parents who regulate health by the whims and wishes of their domestic servants.-The Church Standard.

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JUDGE BLAKE'S HARD TIME.*

BY WILLIAM N. BURR.

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HE thought often comes to me that Gilbert was born with a genius for finding out people who have a hard time. One day last week a new family appeared down on the bottoms, put up a tent, moved into it for the winter, and hung out a sign bearing the words, "Washing, Ironing and Mending." Before Saturday night Gilbert knew all about their hardships, and had dropped so much of the oil of comfort and good cheer into the lives of the shrinking, discouraged man and woman that, as they told me to-day when I called upon them-at Gilbert's suggestion,-" It seems 's if the Lord hasn't altogether forgot us yet, though we had just about reached the point of givin' up and not believin' in nothin' nohow."

Hans Hansen, a Swedish express-driver, who has had one misfortune after another during the past year-first it was sickness and death in his family; then an unprincipled brother cheated him out of something or other that of right belonged to him; then a cow that excelled all other cows in the neighbourhood fell sick one night and died before morningadded another hardship to the list last week by breaking his leg. Gilbert heard of it in less than an hour, and gave up an evening of comfort at home to go over on the North Side to see the poor man. And now he has just been telling us of another man who has been having a hard time.

"I called on Judge Blake this morning," Gilbert began as we sat down to the suppertable this evening. "I thought I'd just run in and talk over that mining business a little, though I don't suppose we can do much with those new claims before spring; but I didn't get a chance to say a word of the matter I went to talk about. The Judge was having one of his 'un-happy-state-of-mind' spells, as old Aunt Clarindy would say, and so I tried to get him under the influence of something that would give pleasure to himself and more comfort to those about him."

"I suppose you found the Judge packing up

his pile of deeds, notes, certificates, and what not of that ilk, preparatory to his long-anticipated advent into the county poor-house, didn't you?" I remarked, attempting facetiousness; for I knew Judge Blake, or thought I knew him, about as well as any man of my acquaintance.

"Not exactly," laughed Gilbert in reply; "but that which you have suggested would hardly have been any more foolish, to my mind, than was the unwarranted grumbling mood in which I found that man, sitting as he was in his warm cheery library-a perfect picture of comfort and quiet it was, but for the scowl on the brow of the man who calls that fine house his own. He grumbled about this, that, and the other, until one might have thought the woe of the world rested on Judge Blake alone. His mines had not yielded during the year all he expected; rents are lower than they were two months ago; two of his down-town store-rooms have been vacant for a week, and one of his tenants could pay him only two-thirds of his rent the first of the month, promising the other third, however, by the tenth. He went on at such a rate that I began to think if dyspepsia were catching it were best for me either to attempt to cure the Judge at once or not expose myself further to what might prove a calamitous result; so I said to him:

66 6

"Judge, you have a horse in the stable and a fine sleigh haven't you?'

"Yes,' he replied; 'do you want to borrow the rig to give some miserable invalid a sleighride ?'

"I was going to propose that you and I take a little drive out together this morning,' I said. 'It will do you good to get out of doors, and I want you to make a call or two with me.'

"On some of your hard-time folks, I presume, to teach me that there are trials and tears in this world which I know not of,' he snapped, at the same time going to the door and calling to his man to bring around the sleigh. 'Well, I suppose I do grumble more than there is any need of doing: but I tell

*This is an American story, but it has an English moral which is worth acting upon, especially just now.

you what 'tis, Gilbert, those miserable people down on the bottoms are not the only ones that have a hard time of it in this world.'

"The Judge's fine turnout was soon in readiness, and putting on his heavy overcoat, fur cap and gloves, he announced himself at my service.

"I drove down town, occasionally giving him a sort of good-fellow pat on the back as we passed certain blocks which bear his name, and then we went over to the North Side and stopped at Mrs. Mallory's.

"Now for tears and trouble, and a longfaced recital of life-long trials,' said the Judge, as we alighted.

"I did not say a word, for just then we caught the sound of Mrs. Mallory's voice, singing:

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shrewd, lawyer-like way, began to question the good woman as to her circumstances and needs. He found out some things she would never have told voluntarily, and indeed I doubt if she knew sometimes just how much information she was giving him, he put his questions so shrewdly; but when we were back again in the sleigh the Judge took the reins, explaining to me that he proposed to do the directing as to where we should go next. He drove back to Merilar street, and devoted himself for half an hour to ordering coal, provisions, etc., etc., to be sent to Mrs. Mallory, No. Street, North Side. Then we drove back to his house in silence.

"He gave the horse and sleigh over into the hands of his hired man, and then so urgently invited me to go with him into the library that I abandoned the thought of accomplishing all I had planned for the forenoon and went with him. When we were again seated before the grate he looked up and said :

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GATHER UP THE FRAGMENTS.

HAT life art thou living?

A life of giving,

Not of mere golden store,
But more-much more?

Is it a shelter?

Doth it impart

Love, rest, and thankfulness Unto one heart?

Is it a wilderness,

Harsh and severe,—— Those who pass over it Feeling "How drear"?

Is it a simple life,

Soft to the touch,Not one of many words,

But of "love much "?

BY E. A. HAMILTON.

Or doth base selfishness
Lurk, as thine aim,
Through all thy usefulness?
Tremble with shame!

Is thine a grateful life,
True in its tone,-
Yielding in thankfulness
What God hath sown,-

Sounding an echo meek

(Heard through the strifeTrembling indeed, and weak) Of the Great Life?

If so, thy life may be
Humble, unknown:.
Yet it is leading thee
Up to a throne.

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