KIDD'S OWN JOURNAL. 



139 



wants to know if Heaven is a long way off, 

 and if she shall ever be a bright angel ; and 

 she would like to say a little prayer, her 

 heart is so full, if she only knew how ; but, 

 poor sweet little Mabel, she has no mother! 

 [Alas ! Fanny, your remarks — noble though 

 they be — will avail little in England. Our 

 children are habitually brought up as 

 heathens ; or made hypocrites of, from their 

 very cradle, — their own parents setting the 

 example ! The innocence of childhood, in 

 which you and ourself so greatly rejoice, is 

 by the world ridiculed. Children are taught 

 deception by their nurses, ere they can yet 

 speak. Fear performs the natural part of 

 Love ; and the child's quick perceptions soon 

 imbibe the conventional deceits of life. The 

 world is cold, hollow, heartless. A child per- 

 mitted to say a prayer, or talk of Heaven ; — 

 monstrous absurdity ! Blessed innocents ! 

 A higher care is bestowed on ye. The Great 

 God has ye in his safe keeping ; and often 

 removes ye mercifully to a better world, ere 

 sin has defiled your infant minds!] 



MISTAKEN PHILANTHROPY. 

 " Don't moralise to a man on his back; help him up, 

 set him firmly on his feet, and then give him advice and 

 means." 



There's an old-fashioned, verdant piece of 

 wisdom for you ; altogether unsuited for the 

 enlightened age we live in ; fished up pro- 

 bably from some musty old newspaper, edited 

 by some eccentric man troubled with that 

 inconvenient appendage called a heart ! 

 Don't pay any attention to it. If a poor 

 wretch — male or female — comes to you for 

 charity, whether allied to you by your own 

 mother, or mother Eve, put on the most 

 stoical " get-thee-behind-me " expression you 

 can muster. Listen to him with the air of a 

 man who " thanks God he is not as other men 

 are." If the story carry conviction with it, 

 and truth and sorrow go hand in hand, button 

 your coat up tighter over your pocket-book, 

 and give him a piece of — good advice ! If 

 you know anything about him, try to rake 

 up some imprudence or mistake he may have 

 made in the course of his life, and bring that 

 up as a reason why you can't give him any- 

 thing more substantial ; and tell him that his 

 present condition is probably a salutary dis- 

 cipline for those same peccadilloes ! — ask him 

 more questions than there are in the As- 

 sembly's Catechism about his private history ; 

 and when you've pumped him high and dry, 

 try to teach him — on an empty stomach — 

 the "duty of submission." If the tear of 

 wounded sensibility begins to flood the eye, 

 and a hopeless look of discouragement settles 

 down upon the face, " wish him well," and 

 turn your back upon him as quick as possible. 

 Should you at any time be seized with an 

 unexpected spasm of generosity, and make 

 up your mind to bestow some worn-out old 



garment, that will hardly hold together till 

 the recipient gets it home, you've bought 

 him, body and soul, of course, and are 

 entitled to the gratitude of a lifetime ! If he 

 ever presumes to think differently from you 

 after that, he is an " ungrateful wretch," and 

 " ought to suffer." As to the " golden rule," 

 that was made in old times ; everything is 

 changed now, it is not suited to our meridian. 



People should not get poor ; if they do, 

 you don't want to be bothered with it. It is 

 disagreeable ; it hinders your digestion. You 

 would rather see Dives than Lazarus ; and 

 it is my opinion your taste will be gratified 

 in that particular. 



[Very little doubt of that, dear Fanny !] 



OWLS KILL HUMMING-BIRDS ! 



" We are not to suppose that the oak wants stability 

 because its light and changeable leaves dance to the music 

 of the breeze ; nor are we to conclude that a man wants 

 solidity and strength of mind because he may exhibit an 

 occasional playfulness and levity." 



No, indeed ! So, if you have the bump of 

 mirthfulness developed, don't marry a tomb- 

 stone. You come skipping into the parlor, 

 with your heart as light as a feather, and 

 your brain full of merry fancies. There he 

 sits ! stupid, solemn, and forbidding. 



You go up and lay your hand on his arm ; 

 he's magnetised completely, and looks in 

 your face with the same expression he'd wear 

 if contemplating his ledger. 



You turn away and take up a newspaper. 

 There's a witty paragraph ; your first impulse 

 is to read it aloud to him. No use ! He 

 wouldn't see through it till the middle of next 

 week. Well, as a sort of escape-valve to 

 your ennui, you sit down to the piano and 

 dash off a waltz ; he interrupts you with a 

 request for a dirge. 



Your little child comes in, — Heaven bless 

 her ! — and utters some one of those innocent 

 prettinesses which are always dropping like 

 pearls from children's mouths. You look to 

 see him catch her up and give her a smother- 

 ing kiss. Not he! He's too dignified! 



Altogether, he's about as genial as the 

 north side of a meeting-house. And so you 

 go plodding through life with him to the 

 dead-march of his own leaden thoughts. You 

 revel in the sunbeams ; he likes the shadows. 

 You are on the hill-tops ; he is in the plains. 

 Had the world been made to his order, earth, 

 sea, and sky would have been one universal 

 pall — not a green thing in it except himself! 

 No vine would " cling," no breeze "dally," 

 no zephyr " woo.'' Flowers and children, 

 women and squirrels, would never have 

 existed. The sun would have been quenched 

 out for being too mercurial, and we should 

 have crept through life by the light of the 

 pale cold moon ! 



No — no — make no such shipwreck of your- 

 self. Marry a man who is not too ascetic to 



