THE SOLAR ECLIPSE.-It does not happen So strong is the feeling produced by more than once in a lifetime to see such a glo- community of dislike, that, though it may rious and magnificent sight as that from which be a ludicrous thing to state, it is neverI have just returned; that is, the total eclipse theless true, if a person began by disliking of the sun. I have seen many eclipses before, two other persons, he might eventually but never anything to equal this. I was en- become attached to both of them, by pergaged to go with the Morgans to the top of the ceiving and sympathizing with their dislike hill to see it. Got up at six, and found it a lovely morning; rode up to Morgan's about half a mile, carrying with me glasses, smoked glass, and sun hat. Got there before seven, and found eclipse already begun. Got our two mirrors and watched the hole in the sun grow bigger and bigger. It began from the top, and we all went off to the highest point on the hill, from whence we could see all Ôoly and the mountains round. When the eclipse got so far, the cold on mountain grew much greater, the grass was so wet that no one's boots kept it out, the feet and hands grew cold, and with your back to the sun the light over the country was like twilight, or the earliest dawn. Gradually the lower streak got thinner and thinner, until at last there shone a light like the famous lime-light, and in a moment or two that went out and the - sun was totally concealed; many stars were visible, the whole country looked dark- that is, half dark, like moonlight the crows stopped cawing, and for two minutes and a half the total eclipse lasted, a sight I shall never forget, and then the lime-light again appeared at the bottom rim of the sun, and gradually more and more of him appeared, the crows began again at once, and the cocks began to crow, the shadow now was inverted, and by degrees got smaller, until at nine o'clock the eclipse was over. I cannot but suppose that the scientific men must have had grand opportunities of observation, and that to-day's pencil will carry home many a description. Anything more beautiful, more sublime, or more perfect, it would be impossible to conceive. Upway House, Mercara, R. N. TAYLOR. From Good Words. HINTS FOR ESSAYS. BY THE AUTHOR OF "FRIENDS IN COUNCIL." WE wonder at the marvellous devices in the animal and vegetable world for preventing anything being carried to an extreme. Even pain has its limits. But we often fail to see that there is the same beneficent arrangement in the moral world. Take, for instance, this fact - that a common hatred, or dislike, or fear, forms one of the strongest bonds of liking and attachment. This great law has helped to preserve the balance of power; has saved the existence of states; and, even in private life, has prevented hatreds and dislikes going into universal disruption. of each other. been manifest. In the early part of the In history, the effect of this law has sixteenth century, the perpetual combinations, caused by dislike and fear amongst the great powers of Europe, gave a large opportunity for civilization to develop itself, effectually preventing the predominance of any one power, which predominance would have been a great evil for the world. Thus we may see how such an untoward element in human life as hatred, or dislike, is made to conform eventually to the highhatreds unavoidably flow into combinaest and best purposes. And thus it is that tions of affection, regard, and conjoint action. Disproportion, some say, is the cause of the keenest misery in the world; for instance, the disproportion between the powers, capacities, and aspirations of man and his circumstances especially as regards his physical wants. The power of speech given to man seems to be disproportionate to his other qualifications. It seems as if man, to have that power, should be a better creature than he is. Now contemplate a family quarrel in which you are a disengaged bystander all the persons engaged in the quarrel coming and telling you their respective grievances. You cannot fail to notice how each one has embittered by some injudicious remark, or injurious epithet, the original cause of quarrel; and thus has made a general reconciliation much more difficult. You rise from the contemplation of this quarrel, saying. "These people really ought never to have been trusted with the power of speech, so bad is the use which they have made of it, by unkind sarcasms, injurious epithets, and unwarrantable innuendoes. All their communications ought to have been made, not in speech, but by barking, like dogs; and then the quarrel might easily have been brought to a happy conclusion. Their power of speech is quite disproportionate to their other, and much smaller gifts, of rationality, charity, and tolerance." Lavater says "that you never know a man until you have divided an inheritance with him." I would also say that you never know a man until you have got into a scrape with him, and can see whether he is willing to take his fair share of the blame. Men are hardly ever so ungenerous as when they have been colleagues in some affair which has turned out to be unfortunate. men 66 - than indulgence, or even than forbearance. Most persons show great favouritism in their likings and dislikings of moral qualities. They have their pet virtues, and there are vices which they especially ab-trying." His or her merits (for he or hor. It would be but a shallow explana- found out. Find them out and appreciate she is sure to have some) have not been tion of this fact to say, with Butler, that them a great deal of the trouble of dealing with that person will be removed. Compound for sins they are inclined to, The value of imagination, in domestic govBy damning those they have no mind to." ernment, is very great. If we could have The cause of this kind of favouritism lies statistics on the subject, we should find, I much deeper than that. I own that I think, that the children of unimaginative think with him, who says that cruelty and people are particularly prone to go wrong. jealousy are the vices which he delights real belief in unreal merits will serve the It may be noted as a curious fact, that a most to inveigh against. They seem to be the deepest and the most lasting. Mere purpose. An illustration of this is afforded in a work of fiction. In "David Coppersensuality, or even falsehood, would vanish away in a new state of existence; but field," my aunt's belief in Mr. Dick's sacruelty and jealousy seem to be ingrained gacity saves that poor man, and properly in a man who has these vices at all. Mil-saves him, from becoming the inmate of a ton has shown much judgment, as it appears to me, in making jealousy the cause of rebellion amongst the fallen angels. Moreover, jealousy is such a stupid, illogical passion. Somebody likes you better than me, therefore I am to hate you. Thus jealousy reasons, and seems to forget one of the most obvious facts in human life, namely, that one is liked by any person, accordingly as one presents a likeable appearance to that person. Nothing can prevent the operation of this natural law. It is no good your urging that you are the father, mother, brother, sister, husband, or lover, of the person by whom you wish to be supremely loved. If you are not lovable to him, or her, all argument, all exhortation, all passion, is thrown away, which is intended to produce love. You can force the outward show, but not the inward feeling. A jealous person will exclaim, "Why don't you confide in me?" The real answer is, "You are not a person to be confided in ;" and all claims for confidence come to nothing when confronted with that important fact. Jealousy is, therefore, the peculiar vice of stupid people. madhouse. Where you have shown the least favour, you will find the most gratitude. If you give an office to the fittest man, he will never forget the benefaction. Men are so much pleased at receiving their just due. There have been a great many books written about old age; but to my mind they are for the most part eminently unsatisfactory. It is rather an offensive word to use, especially considering the greatness of the writers who have treated to me to be twaddly. They dilate upon the subjects, but their lucubrations seem the comforts of old age; and what they say applies scarcely to anybody, for where is the old man who admits to himself that he is old? Indeed, an old man often feels that he is younger than when he was what is called young. The world exclaims (t' at is the young world) how can men whose expectation of life is, according to the calculations of an insurance office, only five years at the most, commit themselves to a policy which will need generations to be carried out in all its fulness? and how can they underIn domestic rule, esteem is more potent take undertakings of which they cannot expect to see the budding, much less the fruitage? But all history denies the validity of this remark. Several of the greatest things in art, in science, in literature, in arms, and in policy, have been done, or begun, by old men. vancement in the world; but it implies a base compliance with the world, and indicates the worst of cowardice. You know that when many persons condemn you, the worldly man or woman, if ever so much called your friend, is sure to go with The poets and other writers of fiction the majority. Nay, more; it indicates have been much truer to real life in this that the person possessed by the world, matter, than the essayists and moralists. has no higher aspirations than those which Most of these writers have depicted fiery are worldly, and has abjured his individuold men who have shown the utmost reality. According to the deeper meaning solve at the latest periods of life. More- of the word, a person may be intensely over both in history and in fiction, men worldly who lives quite out of the throng. have been described and depicted com- There have been worldly monks and nuns, mencing vast undertakings, and putting and even worldly saints; while, on the the seal to an arduous course of policy, other hand, there have been persons living when labouring under mortal sickness, in the full current of what is called the which is surely an equivalent to old age. world, who have been most unworldly. For fellness of purpose commend me to an The original meaning of the word "world" old man. Perhaps the causes of this fell- as taken from the Scriptures, means "this ness are that he has outlived sentiment; order of things;" and mankind is so great has acquired a great distrust of the world; at least in aspiration, that the meanest and, therefore, is not to be diverted from minded person does not quite like that it his purpose by any minor considerations. should be said of him that he goes entirely Again, both the physical and the mental with this order of things. Happily there powers of old men are greatly underrated is much less of worldliness, than is generby the young and the middle-aged. It is ally supposed. Very often, behind appatrue, perhaps, that they cannot see as well; rent worldliness, there is an element of cannot ride as well; cannot find their way unselfishness, and even of romance, which across the country as well as younger entirely contradicts the supposed worldlimen. But how little these small dis-ness. For example, the great satirist of qualifications have to do with the great modern times has satirized worldliness in events of life Judgment is almost always the heads of families a worldliness which strengthened by increase of years. Reso- is often nothing more than devotion to the lution is as often increased as diminished. interests, real or supposed, of children. And to meet the main delusion which be- Again, when the worldliness is directed sets the minds of the young when talking even to self-advancement, it often has a of the old, it may be observed that men, touch of romance in it, and does not imply even in extreme old age, are as fond of the all the baseness which would belong to world, care as much for the world, and any one who really believed in the world, even take more interest in the future of and was content to subject himself enthe world, than the very young man who tirely to "this order of things." There is sees the world opening before him, and a great difference between loving the honthinks that he is to do great things in it. ours and rewards of the world, and using the world to gain these things, and being really worldly. If I am right in what I have said above, the moral to be drawn is, that you rob a State of some of its most precious materials for thought and action when you place a bar, by reason of age, against the employment of old men even in those situations and those commands which some people fancy can only be well filled or wisely undertaken by those who are comparatively young. It may appear, at first thought, that the word " worldly" should convey much reproach, and be a very unwelcome epithet even to the most worldly people. The word is terribly significant. When it is applied to man or woman, it does not merely mean that he or she desires ad The world is imposed upon by action. This may be seen in many ways. For instance, what has been called a "masterly inactivity" does not yet gain its just credit. Few people can estimate what has been the amount of thought when they do not see any distinct action arising from that thought. Another very striking instance of the weight and credit that are given to action is to be seen in the way with which people deal with responsibility. It is almost absurd to see how men suppose they have got rid of their own responsibility, by throwing it upon others, or by adopting a | doing so by minor illustrations upon which negative, instead of a positive course just as if you avoided responsibility, or did not in some measure decide, merely because you decided to do nothing yourself. we are all likely to be more agreed. Formerly there was much abuse in the Pension List. We corrected this abuse by limiting the grant of pensions for eminent services in art and literature, to the ridiculous sum of £1,200 a year. Formerly there was much abuse (less, however, than is generally supposed) in the choice of men to fill the public offices. We correct that abuse by rushing into an opposite extreme, and nearly taking away all choice whatever. The length of a and palpable instances of this want of day would not suffice for giving patent Those who flatter grossly are for the most part very stupid people, or very deficient in tact; and one of the signal proofs of their stupidity is, that they make no distinction between the flattery that may be expressed in writing and that which is expressed in speech, in the presence of the person intended to be flattered. Now most men will receive without much objection, and even with considerable Some great man, I think it was David pleasure, flattery of the former kind, while Hume, maintained that an increase in ineven the vainest men are apt to resent, al-dustry was the increase that would do most as an insult, the flattery which is ad dressed to them vivâ voce. A good maxim for worldly men, is to be very chary of offending those persons whom they observe to have good memories. Revenge is chiefly a function of good memory. You cannot expect those persons who remember well to be as forgiving as other men. Memory is a faculty which has, comparatively speaking, but little choice in the exercise of its functions. It would surprise men of feeble memories, if they could know with what clearness and intensity a long past injury or insult comes back to the mind and soul of a man of potent memory. He flushes up with anger at the remembrance, as he did at the first reception of the insult, or the injury. He must be a man of extraordinary sweetness of disposition if he can always continue to forgive. In short, with the majority of mankind, forgiveness is but a form of forgetfulness. moderation. most for mankind. I am by no means sure that he might not include an increase of moderation under the head of industry; for it is, perhaps, the indolence of mankind that makes them so ready to rush from one extreme to the other, as being the easiest mode of settling the matter with their consciences. It must, however, be admitted, that hardly anything is more significant of that nature than the style of his writing. I presume to think that several of those persons who have great reputations in the world for their style of writing, are singular examples of a bad style of writing. There has often been a fanciful discus- Take Tacitus, for instance; he is, to my sion, among thoughtful men, as to the pe- mind, an eminently bad writer. Three culiar virtue or quality which, if increased scholars were lately employed in translatwould do most service to mankind. I ven- ing a passage from Tacitus. They had ture to put in a claim for moderation. If mastered the passage thoroughly; but it we look at history, or at the daily trans- was not to be made intelligible to the Engactions, public and private, of our fellow-lish reader without great additions and men, one of the most notable facts is their large explanations. Now, for a style proneness to rush from one extreme to an- to be good, I maintain that the language other. It may almost be maintained that should be easily translateable into another mankind are always in extremes. Politi- language. cally speaking, the British people may claim to be the most moderate people in the world; but even we are prone to rush into extremes. I could illustrate this by great political movements; but I prefer Gibbon affords another instance of a great writer having a very inferior style of writing. Before you can thoroughly understand many of his sentences, you have to unveil the sneer, or to recollect the allusion which gives pith and force to the sentence. The style which deals in long sentences, or in short sentences, or indeed which has any trick in it, is a bad style. suppose that the humblest and the least educated of the common people, are not able to comprehend great ideas, to sympathize with grand emotions, and even to master a long-continued series of facts, if only these things are communicated to them in language the order and method of which do not add any difficulty of comprehension. We are now entering upon a new and enlarged system of education. This will give the people of this country a great means of understanding the meaning of words. Let the authors of this country take care so to write that they may be The best thing which to my mind, has been ever said about style was said in a metaphorical way, the writer declaring that the style should as it were involve and display the subject-matter, as the drapery in a consummate statue folds over and around the figure. The man who has one style of writing, which he applies to all the various aspects of the subject he writes about, is a bad writer. To exem-well understood. plify this by the question of whether long sentences or short sentences should be used, it may be observed that the nature Among the benefactors of mankind, of the subject ought to govern the length those whom I would call Improvers, are of the sentence. Here, to get the fullness the rarest, as also the least appreciated of the sense of what you are saying, a according to their merits. No statues short sentence is required, which makes are put up to them. So far so good: the statement clear and concise: there, it is an undoubted gain for them. But with the same object in view, you have to it would be well if, during their lifetime, produce a long sentence, with many claus- they were more estimated and more ates, and with much parenthesis, because the tended to. subject requires it, and the mind of the There are three elements, in the right reader is to be kept in a state of balance arrangement and balanciug of which mostuntil the sentence comes weightily to aly depends the greatness and well-being of conclusion. a State. These elements are destruction, inaction, construction. They correspond to three classes of mankind. It would be a very shallow mode of looking at this matter if we were to make this classification coincident with political opinions. On the contrary, men are to be classed as Destructives, Inactives, Constructives, not according to party divisions which are of ten purely accidental, but according to innate difference of mind, and, perhaps, variety of culture. For example, there are Conservatives in politics who are by nature essentially destructive. There are Radicals who are by nature essentially constructive. Easy reading is the thing to be aimed at. The intelligence of the reader is always to be kept in mind. You lamentably fail in writing if you add by your style one jot of difficulty to the difficulty inherent in the subject of which you are treating. There are cruel writers in the world, who hardly ever seem to think of their poor readers, and who write as if it were a fine thing to add complexity of style to the difficulty of the subject. They have their reward. The busy world has no time to give to their vagaries of style; and surely it is a signal instance of failure, when a man ceases to make his meaning clear to the great majority of his fellow-countrymen who understand the words that he uses, but are grievously puzzled by the collocation of these words, or by the omission of certain words that ought to be there. It is a bold thing for an author to write about style; but one may perceive errors and deficiencies without being able to rectify them in one's own conduct. I cannot help adding a sort of postscript to this short essay; and it is that learned and thoughtful men who have much to say to the world, which the world would be the better for its being said to them, are labouring under a great mistake if they Now let us look at the merits and the failures which beset respectively these three classes of mankind. They are each in their way eminently useful. But the rise and fall of empires depend upon a just preponderance of one of these classes in critical periods in the history of nations. To begin with, the Inactives, or rather, as it should be said, those who counsel inaction, who may be anything but inactive themselves, are very useful. It is a dreadful thing to live in a State, where any fine day you may get up and find that such an alteration has been made in your laws, that your social, political, or religious relations are, in some important respect, |