GEMS FROM LATE READINGS.

BY MISS ELLEN PICKERING.

"An humble appreciation of your powers might save you pain; but I doubt if your humility exceeds your knowledge. Fascinated by harmony of tone and grace of manner, you perceive not a deficiency in energy—a want of moral courage. You close your eyes against every token of an over-sensitiveness to ridicule, veiled beneath the more graceful cloak of fastidious taste. You will not understand that pride and weakness fashion a character which, however seemingly amiable in many other points, is not such as to repay the devotion of a woman's love. A strong mind will make itself known; and where all is perfect harmony, no unmodulated tone, no sudden and impulsive movement, no springing into action, there is art, and that may not be trusted—or there is over-refinement, wasted powers, a trivial mind, without a noble aim—or there is weakness, which fears ridicule—a moral cowardice: or there is mediocrity, that cannot rise above the common herd—that dares not dare—that may pass unnoted in prosperity, but whose powers rise not in adversity. Such should not be throned in woman's heart! He is not worthy woman's tender, self-denying love, whom a sneer will change—a laugh will part—he will be found wanting—he will stand aloof when the faint heart turns to him for consolation. Wo to you! wo to you, especially if you trust such. You cannot always tread on flowers; choose one who can and will smooth down a rugged path. The gilded vessel, the child's plaything, rides gayly on a glassy sea—but life is not a glassy sea; the storm must come. If you would reach the peaceful port, embark not in a summer yacht; select a ship that can abide the storm—a mind that can maintain its course—that struggles—and will conquer. Look there," he continued, for she made no reply, taking up a highly finished drawing from the table, the performance showing more pains than genius, and contrasting it with a bold, free sketch which lay beside it, "there they are exactly, the one all harmony, or insipidity as I should call it; a model of weakness—highly finished—not a stroke wanting—complete as a whole—but how poor a whole! Without the possibility of amendment, too: deficient in energy—not a bold line: and were such put in it would be out of place—it would spoil the keeping. Now look on this! A bold and vigorous outline—the work of mind, seizing the attention: soul, not manner; thought, not mechanism; it may be filled up ill, but it may also be filled up well: there is the capability of greatness: there may be faults in the petty details, but the whole will compel admiration, and not weary in the survey. This other makes me yawn. Better choose the bold, the frank, the generous, with all his faults; he may be rash, unthinking, wasting the powers whose force he knows not; but the capabilities of amendment are within him. What say you to my exordium?"

It is great injustice to assert that delicacy of feeling is confined to the higher ranks, and is the offspring of refinement and education; these may nourish and increase, but they cannot give it. It is innate; the child of the untutored heart; the very essence of the beautiful: chained to no climate, bounded to no rank.

We have seen the wealthy, those who thought themselves the great ones of the earth, take leave of those of fallen fortunes with undimmed eye and steady voice, as though they knew not that there was cause for sorrow, guessed not that the heart was well nigh broken, and only stayed the expression of its grief that the cold gaze might not mock it. We have seen the lowly ones of earth, lowly in station, but how high in worth! part from the same; and the lip could not speak for the heart's feeling; and the tears of the mourner, repressed before lest the cold should mock, mingled with theirs. The first passed on with stately step, and a cold offer of future service; the last plucked the only rose from the favorite tree, and placed it by the traveler's cloak with a trembling hand and quivering lip. They thought that the traveler would prize it as a memorial of a once happy home. That single rose, and its kind and delicate giver, can they ever be forgotten? If all the memories of misfortune were like that who would not be unfortunate? What feeling so endearing, so ennobling as gratitude? Even love, though it may have more of beauty and brightness, is not so generous and so pure.

What a glorious day! Not a heavy cloud in all the sky, only a few fleecy forms floating across the rich blue vault, and the sun shining out in all its summer splendor, as though it had never shone before, looking down for the first time on the gladsome earth, instead of having run its course unnumbered years—undimmed in lustre—unimpaired in power.

Where are the works of man? his labors of the past? The eye looks on ruin; or time hath swept away even that poor trace; and a fable or tradition alone remains. But time hath no power over the Eternal or the works of His hands—itself His slave.

Out! out! treading the green turf—lying on some flowery bank—dreaming beneath the leafy shade. Who would be pent up within four stone walls on such a day, when he could forth with the blue above and the green below, and a thousand gleesome things around? What though the walls are gilded, and the lofty ceiling fretted; the Persian carpet soft as the woodland moss; whilst the luxuries of art, the beauties of genius, lend their splendors with a gorgeous profusion? Still it is only a magnificent prison. We see but little of the blue heaven; scarcely more of the varied tints of earth. The air we breathe is close; and the heart flutters to be free, as the imprisoned butterfly on the first day of spring. Who would not rather go forth into the fresh, free air, than be a prisoner even in a gilded cage? And Nature, is she not more beautiful than Art? Doth not that beauty make the step more buoyant, and the heart more light?

How one loves a summer day with all its gentle glories its murmured music—its delicious fragrance—its warmth, gladdening, not oppressing, its soft and soothing air—its dreamy feel, its shadows and its lights—its brilliant visions and its stirring thoughts—and more, far more, its loving memories!

BY G. P. R. JAMES.

It may seem perhaps a paradox to say that expectation is enjoyment. Nevertheless it is so on this earth. Fruition is for heaven. With the accomplishment of every desire there is so much of disappointment mingled that it cannot be really called enjoyment, for fancy always exercises itself upon the future; and when we obtain the hard reality for which we wished, the charms with which imagination decorated it are gone. Did we but state the case to ourselves as it truly is, whenever we conceive any of the manifold desires which lead us on from step to step through life, the proposition would be totally different from that which man forever puts before his own mind, and we should take one step toward undeceiving ourselves. We continually say, "if I could attain such an object, I should be quite contented." But what man ought to say to himself is, "I believe this or that acquisition would give me happiness." He would soon find that it did not do so; and the never-ceasing recurrence of the lesson might, in the end, teach him to ask what was the source of his disappointment? Was it that other circumstances in his own fate were so altered, even while he pursued the path of endeavor, as to render attainment no longer satisfactory?—was it that the object sought was intrinsically different when attained, from that which he had reasonably believed it to be while pursuing it?—or was it that his fancy had gilded it with charms not its own, and that he had voluntarily and blindly persuaded himself that it was brighter and more excellent than it was? Perhaps the answer, yes, might be returned to all these questions; but yet I fear the chief burden of deceit would rest with imagination, and that man would ever find he had judged of the future without sufficient grounds, and had suffered desire to stimulate hope, and hope to cheat expectation. Yet, perhaps, if he would but turn back and look behind, when disappointment and success had been obtained together, he would find that the pleasures lasted in the pursuit, especially at the time when fruition was drawing nearer and nearer, would, in the sum, make up the amount of enjoyment which he had anticipated in possession.

BY JOHN G. WHITTIER.

A DREAM OF SUMMER.

BY THE AUTHOR OF "GRANTLEY MANOR."

SILENCE.

What a strange power there is in silence! How many resolutions are formed—how many sublime conquests effected during that pause, when the lips are closed, and the soul secretly feels the eye of her Maker upon her! When some of those cutting, sharp, blighting words have been spoken which send the hot indignant blood to the face and head, if those to whom they are addressed keep silence, look on with awe, for a mighty work is going on within them, and the Spirit of Evil, or their Guardian Angel, is very near to them in that hour. During that pause they have made a step toward heaven or toward hell, and an item has been scored in the book which the day of judgment shall see opened. They are the strong ones of the earth, the mighty for good or for evil, those who know how to keep silence when it is a pain and a grief to them; those who give time to their own souls, to wax strong against temptation; or to the powers of wrath, to stamp upon them their withering passage.

BY CURRER BELL.

TIME.