intimated her wish to keep them. Charles very thankfully acquiesced, and then spoke of the portrait.

about two inches, and received from the | paintings with remarks which showed a Cerberus of the house a letter. Rapidly cultivated taste and judgment, and then shutting himself in, he read the perfumed missive. It was a polite note from Madame Pellissier, intimating her wish for him to call upon her at once with the necessary materials for commencing a portrait, she had the canvas ready, and adding a desire to see any finished paintings he might have on hand.

"Well, M. Dupont, you may commence this morning, if you please, but I have a peculiar notion, and that is, that artists should know a little of the person they are about to paint, to do it well. I flatter myself that you would be far more effective

by an hour's conversation with the sitter."

Charles smilingly agreed that the young widow's theory was a very plausible one, and entered into a very animated discussion with her on his own art, which he soon found she had studied very considerably. The afternoon glided away very pleasantly, and when he arose to take leave, Madame Pellissier put a small pocket-book in his hand, pointing at the same time to the two pictures.

Charles blushed, as the high-souled artiste always does on receiving money from such as Leonie Pellissier, but accepted the welcome payment with thanks and a bow. The first sitting was then fixed for the following Monday, and our hero hurried away towards his home. He went not to his own room, he went to that of Constance. He knocked quickly, she opened. He rushed in, caught her in his arms, and imprinted on her lips and cheeks and forehead a dozen kisses.

A radiant smile of joy passed over the face of the young artist. It was not, how-in your likeness, if you always commenced ever, the prospect of relief from misery; it was not the chance of a career, of having money. Such things have but little influence over the mind of the true artiste, whether poet, painter, or author. Much is said of the improvidence and deserved poverty of literary men; but the calculating and sordid minds of their ordinary judges are not able to understand that spirits such as theirs cannot bend to mere material details. Their souls are so constituted that often their misery is a happiness. It awakens strange thought and reflection. Not to have suffered is not to have lived. And then when the artiste who has suffered long, has money, if he were to spend as your careful, prudent man would, he would as lief not have it. The plotting and in triguing necessary to make the most of it would destroy all the pleasure of having. He must enjoy it, though fully aware that the day of suffering must come again. Now Charles, one of those beings in whom mind is more powerful than matter, rejoiced in his month's starvation. It had shown him the heart of his beloved, and he would not have starved for all the wealth the world can give. Noble and generous hearts are not rare, especially among the divine sex, which God created to compensate man for every ill in life, but still they are not found at every step. Charles knew, he was certain, that he owed his present good fortune to Constance; and hence his joyful and happy smile.

He made himself as neat and clean as he could, took two small paintings which he had just finished, in the hope of finding a purchaser, and started for the Rue de Helder, where resided Madame Pellissier. He was agreeably surprised to find a young and elegant Paris lady, who received him with affability, examined his two small

Charles, are you mad? What is the matter? Will you be quiet ?"

“My beloved Constance, I am so happy, and I know it is your doing. I have sold my pictures, and I have a portrait to paint. But, sly girl that you are, you forget that only last Sunday you told me all about Madame Pelissier."

"You are not offended, Charles-"

'Offended, my dear little wife-"

"Your wife, Charles. I dare not hope for that. An artist, a great artist, for you will be one, cannot marry a poor work-girl. I see now how wrong I have been. But I never thought of the future. I am happy in your society, and I forget."

"Constance, there is but one joyous hope in this heart, and that is the hope to see you my wife. Without you there is no future for me. Constance, why do so many youthful geniuses fall by the way,

On the following Monday, Charles paid a visit to Madame Pellissier, He was now neatly and cleanly dressed, and though still pale not so cadaverous-looking as he had been on the former occasion. The young widow received him very warmly. She had been much charmed with him on the former occasion, and had looked forward with pleasure to the second sitting. To the young man's great surprise, she gave him the addresses of half-a-dozen friends who desired to avail themselves of his talents. Charles was overwhelmed with joy. His dream was now realized, and he could support himself and wife by his art. There was no longer any necessity for beginning life in the very humble way which at first the young conple had decided on.

why do so many men of promise and great- | his only parent, so that they were as happy ness die away unknown, why do so many as ever were two single-minded beings, who poetic and godlike hearts sink into obscu- were wise enough to know that if we cannot rity, but that they are alone? We artistes, find happiness in wedded love, we cannot more than any men, need a guiding star. find it at all. Ours is home work, and there is no home where woman is not. How would you have a man have patience through the daily drudgery of his labor, with naught but four grim walls to gaze at. No, we must have a voice to cheer us, an eye to beam on us, a lip to smile at us, and press on ours; and that voice, that eye, and that lip must be the voice and eye and lip of woman. Constance, it is we alone who know what woman is, and who alone know her value. She is not the plaything and toy of the profligate, the slave and drudge of the sordid, the obedient serf of the plodding man of business, but the companion and equal of the man of intellect-the only real man amid the world's millions. Constance, there are angels in the heavens above, and if, by God's blessing, we are to see them, our eyes accustomed to see such dull objects as this world discloses in its ordinary pictures, would be dazzled by their brightness, had we not woman given us to prepare our minds easily for any amount of beauty in the future spiritual existence. You, Constance, are my guiding star, my angel. With you I shall succeed, without you I shall fail. Alone and unaided I cannot walk. Give me thy hand, be, oh be my wife."

What could the fond and loving girl reply to this speech-to the many a rhapsody delivered in accents of profound conviction, and with eyes that flashed though brimful of tears? She promised to become his wife, and then, when the delight of Charles had a little abated its first violence, they sat down to discuss their plans.

Madame Pellissier had given a thousand francs (£40) for the two pictures, in France a most exorbitant price. But then, Madame was an artist herself and paid like one; while Charles, modest as he was, set too high a price upon his own genius, to be astonished at any thing of the kind. The lovers very sagely reasoned that in Paris they might very well start in life with a thousand francs, and they agreed that they should be married while they had the money. Constance was an orphan, and Charles answered for the consent of his old mother,

"Madame, I thank you warmly, both for myself and Constance."

"And Constance !" said Madame Pellissier, turning very pale, though without being noticed by the artist, who was fixing his easel in a good light.

"

'Yes, madame. To her-she could not deny it—I owe my first start in my profession. I have long loved her, and now that fortune smiles on me, I mean at once to make her my wife."

"You do well and nobly," said Leonie, with a very sickly smile; and then she added to herself, "Thank God, he has spoken so plainly. I certainly have taken a very strange liking to him, but crushed so early it will not take root. Courage, my woman's heart."

"I am ready, madame."

"And I am at your disposition," exclaimed Leonie, gayly, and the sitting commenced. The young widow, who, with a warm and generous heart, was peculiarly open to a romantic passion, had certainly found her feelings lean very strongly towards Charles Dupont. But as she had no intention of rivalling poor Constance, she, thus suddenly checked, succeeded at once in mastering what was as yet a mere growing inclination. She felt rather proud of being able to do So, and promised herself genuine satisfaction in witnessing the happiness of the young couple.

been careful to appeal-surrounding the latter by all such lights and colors as make the most showy impression on that faculty. It is the "pomp and circumstance of glorious war" that, in the eyes of men, have so long "made ambition virtue." The clamor of the trumpet and the roll of the drum have stifled, many and many a time, the "still, small voices" in the misgiving heart. Like the great gong which was kept sounding in the temple of the Mexican Dagon, while the human sacrifices were performing, the shout in the train of conquerors has been sedulously excited and fed, while widows and orphans were being made, and humanity was receiving those deep wounds, from which she could not recover in many a year of peace.-Athenæum.

THE CYNIC.

salvation of the city, is rebuked by the less showy, but also less equivocal service of the goose of the Capitol; and Alexander the Macedonian shares his historic immortality with his horse, Bucephalus. And, by the way, this same showy and dramatic figure of the armed Curtius, engaged in his sacrifice, may stand as, in itself, an expression, in the form of apologue, of the entire philosophy of a great part of ancient history. Overlooking all the hidden causes, the inevitable moral sequences which mould the destinies of men, it has been ever the man in armor who, according to its crude teaching, ruled the issues of his age. The emergencies of the Commonwealth could only be met, or the wounds of humanity closed up, as the gulf in the Roman forum could only be filled by the warrior. All the earth of Rome's Seven Hills, and all the labor of her citizens, could do nothing towards clo- The Cynic is one who never sees a good sing the gap in her soil:—add the armed quality in a man, and never fails to see a man-and he filled it of himself! A better bad one. He is the human owl, vigilant in philosophy, in our day is reversing many a darkness, and blind to light, mousing for historic sentence; and history itself is, to a vermin and never seeing noble game. The great extent, being rewritten. Amid the Cynic puts all human actions into two classsoft, clear peace-lights of the world, the es-openly bad, and secretly bad. All virtue false glare of what once seemed human and generosity and disinterestedness are glory, stands detected; and, in the review merely the appearance of good, but selfish of even those wars which have had the ar- at the bottom. He holds that no man does gument of a national necessity, real or fan- a good thing except for profit. The effect cied, the world will scarcely make the mis- of his conversation upon your feelings is to take, to-day, of ranking the hero of battle chill and sear them; to send you away sour in the first class of heroes. Still, in the and morose. His criticism and inuendoes hour of contest for interests ill understood, fall indiscriminately upon every loving and amid the artificial morality which all thing, like frost upon flowers. If a man is such contests engender, it is intelligible said to be pure and chaste, he will answer: enough how the warlike conqueror should Yes, in the day time. If a woman is prohave so long imposed himself upon the nounced virtuous, he will reply: Yes, on world in gigantic dimensions. The wield- Sundays. Mr. B- - has joined the church: ing of great physical forces has the same ef- Certainly, the elections are coming on. The fect upon the imagination, that the directing minister of the gospel is called an example of great moral ones should have upon the of diligence: It is his trade. Such a man is reason; and the pictures of events are writ- generous: Of other men's money. This man ten on the imagination at once, as by a moral is obliging: To lull suspicion, and cheat you. Daguerreotype,-while their truths are im- That man is upright: Because he is green. pressed on the reason, through the slower Thus his eye strains out every good quality, process of analysis and induction. Imagina- and takes in only the bad. To him relition is a mirror that reflects merely the gion is hypocrisy; honesty, a preparation figures of events-and does so instantly; for fraud; virtue, only want of opportunity; while reason is a scale that measures their and undeniable purity, asceticism. The livequalities, and, to make no mistake in the long day he will coolly sit with sneering lip, reckoning, must do it slowly. To the ima- uttering sharp speeches in the quietest mangination, then, those who have had, or ner; and in polished phrase, transfixing evthought they had, an interest in war, have │ery character which is presented: His words

are softer than oil, yet they are drawn swords. | private efforts had been hitherto manifestly -H. W. Beecher.

A PLEA FOR EDUCATION.

BIGOTRY AND CANT.

inadequate to meet; but he earnestly exhorted the gentlemen of the grand jury, while continuing to administer justice for At the late assizes held at Stafford, Mr. the sake of preserving order and security, to Justice Talfourd, in an excellent charge to do so with a wise mercy towards those who the grand jury, pointedly drew the atten- were so adversely influenced by their detion of the gentlemen of the county to the plorable circumstances. A word of comawful state of ignorance among the crim- ment upon such an expression of opinion, inal population, as exemplified by the cal- from so high and estimable an authority as endar of prisoners for trial. Out of one hun- Mr. Justice Talfourd, is scarcely necessary dred and five persons in prison, waiting to be to convince those who have the power, of tried, many of them for offences of the most the necessity, for the sake of the security of serious character, only two had received life and property-to say nothing of what what, in jail language, is called a “superior mercy and charity dictate-of educating education," and only five could, according to the masses of the people, and substituting the same estimate, "read and write well," the beneficent agency of the teacher and while thirty-five were totally destitute of the school-house for the semi-barbarism of even the barest rudiments of education; and the policeman and the prison-the hulks the remaining sixty-three exhibited shades and penal settlements; or, in extreme cases, of ignorance more or less deplorable. The the revolting punishment of the gallows. learned judge forcibly illustrated his consciousness of the importance of even a small amount of knowledge, by saying that he believed the ordinary amount of education which the middle classes received, lifted them higher above the totally ignorant than genius itself was raised above respectable mediocrity; and that it was almost as impossible to comprehend the mental action, or enter into the feelings of those whom want of culture had sent out from the world of books, and who were, to a great extent, oblivious of the past, insensible to the present, and without hope and faith in the future, as it was to enter into the feelings of animals. He could scarcely conceive it possible, that an educated man could descend from the position in which his superior opportunities had placed him to the low level of those who were, unhappily, so degraded by ignorance. His extended experience had taught him that, when wages were lowing army occupied that town. Afterwards, among an uneducated people, there was no striking increase of crime, but that the jail calendars might serve as indexes of prosperity; for, with high wages and the opportunity they brought of indulging in intoxicating liquors, violent offences against person and property became alarmingly prevalent. It seemed as though physical luxury, acting upon ignorance, produced crime. The learned judge added, that it was no part of his duty to say, whether a public provision ought to be made for that evil, which

The origin of these two words is curious. The name," bigot," was first given by the English to the Normans, and was afterwards adopted by the French, for this reason, that the Normans, after their conversion to the true faith, so distinguished themselves by their enthusiasm, were so constantly speaking of God, and doing things with the name of God in their mouths that the words "By God" became characteristic of them; and hence the soubriquet of Bigot. Cant is derived from one Andrew Cant, a Scotch Presbyterian minister, of Charles the First's time. The country people called him 'Bobbing Andrew." He accompanied the Blue Bonnets across the Border, under General Leslie, and was one of the two preachers appointed to hold forth in the churches of Newcastle, while the Covenant

he occasionally preached before the Scotch Parliament. He was noted among his own parishioners as a rigid disciplinarian, morose and austere. Such was their ignorance and wickedness in his eyes, that he refused for two whole years to administer the sacrament of the Lord's Supper among them, Cromwell did not like him, and, after that general's advent to authority in Scotland, his influence fell away. His parishioners, whom he had ruled with a rod of iron, petitioned for his removal, and he was formally deposed from