KIDD'S OWN JOURNAL. 



143 



of flesh-formers, and 73^ ounces of heat- 

 givers ; whilst that of the Dorsetshire agri- 

 cultural laborer is given as 20J ounces of the 

 flesh-formers, and 51| ounces of heat givers. 

 The Gloucestershire peasant is better off, 

 his diet being superior in nutritive value to 

 that of the Greenwich pensioner. The City 

 Workhouse, Edinburgh, enjoys the unenviable 

 position of issuing the lowest of above forty 

 public diet-tables in different countries, it 

 containing but 13*30 ounces of flesh-formers, 

 and 31£ ounces of heat-givers — the latter 

 being about one-half only of the quantity 

 which even the Hindoo cultivator in Dhar- 

 war, Bombay, is able to procure ! 



From the quantity of these flesh-formers 

 in food, we may gather some idea of the rate 

 of change which takes place in the body. 

 Now, a man whose weight is 140 pounds, has 

 about 4 pounds of flesh in his blood, 27J 

 pounds in his muscular substance, &c, and 

 5 pounds of a material analogous to flesh 

 in his bones. A soldier or sailor eats these 

 37 pounds in about eighteen weeks ; so that 

 this period might represent the time required 

 to change and replace all the tissues of the 

 body, if all changed with equal rapidity, 

 which, however, is improbable. 



THE ART OF REASONING. 



A SECRET WORTH KNOWING. 



To reason well, is not so easy a matter 

 as it is supposed to be. For one reasoner, 

 we have one thousand cavillers, and disputers 

 about terms — words positively wasted in 

 idle nonsense. Apropos of this subject, are 

 a few brief remarks in our excellent contem- 

 porary The Critic. They are so much in unison 

 with our own sentiments, that we gladly 

 give them a place in a journal devoted 

 to " thought." We are not quite sure, says 

 our contemporary, that reasoning is an art. 

 It is not a mechanical process at all. It is 

 an act of the mind ; by which it advances ir- 

 resistibly from certain things known, to infer 

 other things unknown to it. This process 

 and its results we cannot prevent or control. 

 We may close our eyes to them ; we may 

 try not to recognise a conclusion that is in- 

 convenient ; but the mind is not the less 

 conscious of it — and this consciousness it is 

 that makes persons, who doubt anything 

 they want to believe, so fiercely to persecute 

 those who make them uncomfortable by op- 

 posing the belief which they profess. No 

 man who is confident in the conclusions of 

 his owm mind, and who thoroughly believes 

 because he is truly convinced, was ever yet 

 a persecutor, or desirous of preventing op- 

 ponents from being heard. Convinced that 

 he holdsthe truth, he never avoids discussion; 

 knowing that the more it is investigated the 

 more manifest will that truth became. 



A CHORUS OF FLOWERS. 



Hear our tiny voices, hear! 



Lower than the night-wind's sighs ; 

 'Tis we that to the sleeper's ear 



Sing dreams of Heaven's melodies! 

 Listen to the songs of flow'rs — 

 What music is there like to ours ? 



Look on our beauty — we were born 



On a rainbow's dewy breast, 

 Then cradled by the moon or morn, 



Or that sweet light that loves the West! 

 Look upon the face of flow'rs — 

 What beauty is there like to ours ? 



You think us happy while we bloom, 

 So lovely to your mortal eye ; — 



But we have hearts, and there's a tomb 

 Where ev'n a flow'ret's peace may lie ! 



Listen to the songs of flow'rs — 



What melody is like to ours ? 



Hear our tiny voices, hear! 



Lower than the night-wind's sighs, — 

 'Tis we that to the sleeper's ear 



Sing dreams of Heaven's melodies! 

 Listen to the songs of flow'rs — 

 What melody is like to ours ? 



NOTES ON ENGLAND. 



BY AN AMERICAN. 



In a book recently published, en- 

 titled " A Month in England, " the author, 

 H. T. Tuckerman (an American), makes 

 one or two singular observations. Being 

 correct as singular, we transplant them to 

 our columns. First let us listen to his ana- 

 lysis of 



AN ENGLISH AUTHOR'S BRAINS. 



I realised, when housed in London, " why" 

 it was a city so favorable to brain-work. 

 The exciting transitions of temperature, 

 which keep Transatlantic nerves on the 

 stretch, are seldom experienced in that humid 

 atmosphere. The prevalence of clouds is 

 favorable to abstraction. The reserve and 

 individuality of English life, surrounded but 

 never invaded by the multitude, gives singu- 

 lar intensity to reflection. Baffled without, 

 we naturally seek excitement within. The 

 electric current of thought and emotion 

 flashes more readily because it is thus com- 

 pressed. The spectacle of concentrated 

 human life and its daily panorama incites 

 the creative powers. 



We are not often won to vagrant moods 

 by those alluring breezes that steal in at our 

 casement at Rome, or tempted to stroll away 

 from book and pen by the cheerful groups that 

 enliven the sunny Boulevards ; and therefore, 

 according to the inevitable law of compensa- 

 tion, we build castles in the air in self-defence, 

 and work veins of argument, or seek pearls 

 of expression, wirh rare patience, beneath 

 the smoky canopy and amid the ceaseless 



