1856.] Shruhhe7^y and Vines. 391 



Vain dreamers! ye are but bubbles on the wave, ready to be lost on 

 the first surge of oblivion's breath. 



As we neared the Post-office, the news boys were crying the *' Even- 

 ing Times,'* only half a dime." A steamer had arrived — the news were 

 exciting — stirring events had transpired between the Russians and the 

 Allied powers. The town was all agog ! At last we reached home, 

 read the news, took tea, walked out with our wife to call on a friend. 

 Here the conversation took a turn en evciy other subject but that of 

 graves, grave-yards, or death. By ten o'clock we had returned home 

 and retired to bed, having quite forgotten that such a place as "Spring 

 Grove" was on the globe ! Such, reader, is the history of one after- 

 noon, with its joys and its sorrows, its pleasures and its pains, its 

 smiles and its tears, its anxieties and its cares, its thoughtfulness and 

 its thoughtlessness. 



Such is man ! Such is life ! 



Shrubbery and Tines. — Let there always be a lawn in front of 

 the house, and let the hardy climbers find all over it appropriate places 

 on which to rest and fasten their wondrous burdens of grace and love- 

 liness. Let honey-suckles and jessamines, clematis and bignonias, 

 and wistaries, and roses, cluster over it and wx'ave for it a veil of 

 beauty, which the sun shall every moment diversify with bewitching 

 light and shade, and in which the zephyrs shall always nestle, and rock 

 themselves to sleep; where the bees shall come light hearted, and sing 

 their monotonous lyrics of industry as they gather sweetest nectar; 

 and where the little birds shall build their annual nests and rear their 

 families not more loving than the one that dwells beneath those em- 

 bowering vines. Cultivating such natural ornaments upon and about 

 a house will refine the taste of the family, will improve the manners, 

 will elevate the morals, and strengthen the domestic and social affections 

 in their hearts. It will assist, also, in forming habits of industry and 

 frugality, as well as habits of observation and intelligent piety. Let 

 a family plan how best to adorn a yard, and decorate a house with 

 foliage, and they will find springing up in their hearts a unity of 

 feeling and strength of sympathy to which others are strangers. 

 Each one labors to promote the pleasures of each other — hence domestic 

 aiFection — hopeful patience: all seek to turn every spare hour to the 

 common profit — hence orderly arrangement of time, frugality and in- 

 dustry. — Ctdifoniia Journal. 



