200 



KIDD'S OWN JOURNAL. 



DOMESTIC LAYS.— No. V. 



TO A WIFE DURING ILLNESS. 



BY THE AUTHOR OF " THE NECKLACE. " * 



Leave thee ! nay, dearest, to urge it were vain; 

 I've shar'd in thy pleasure, I'll share in thy pain. 

 I am not weary, love. How should I be 

 Weary of waiting or watching by thee f 

 While others partake in those dear smiles of thine, 

 To cheer thee in sickness is mine — only mine. 

 I've lov'd thee, how fondly thine heart will avow ! 

 But never so fondly, so deeply as now. 

 I've gaz'd on thy features with rapture and pride, 

 When health's rosy flush to each wild pulse 



replied ; 

 But I reck'd not there slumber'd within my 



heart's sphere 

 A chord which, awaken'd, could make thee more 



dear : 

 Nor knew that love's tone, with its exquisite thrill, 

 Could be made by affliction more exquisite still. 

 Love nurs'd amid pleasure, like pleasure, is brief, 

 But haliow'd and lasting, when cradled in grief ; 

 Deep feelings spring up from the 3ark soil of pain ; 

 And the flower blooms brightest 'mid tempest and 



rain. 

 Together we've wept o'er the grave of our pride, 

 And felt by that sorrow more closely allied ; 

 For not when enjoyment sat wreath'd on thy brow 

 Did I love with the feeling I own for thee now. 

 And oh ! it is sweet, with my hand clasped in 



thine, 

 To feel its soft pressure replying to mine ; 

 To maik those dear eyelids their curtains unclose, 

 To rerd t) thee waking, or watch thy repose. 

 Yes, dearest ! — my heart of these duties may 



boast, 

 And what we've long cherished we value the most. 

 We may watch with delight the wild blossoms 



appear, 

 But the flower we've nurtur'd is ever most dear; 

 We may pause 'mid the flocks of the valley or 



wold, 

 But we love the pet lamb of " our own" little fold. 

 Yes ; thou art to me both the lamb and the 



flower, 

 Still cherish 'd more dearly for each passing hour, 

 That brings me the sweetest enjoyment I prove, — 

 The watching the slumbers op her I most 



love. 



* See vol. iii., page 243. 

 ASTOUNDING FACTS. 



All who have inquiring minds, and 

 who can "humble" themselves to take a peep 

 into the wonders of nature, need not venture 

 far to make a beginning. 



Some animalculse are so small, that many 

 thousands together are smaller than the point 

 of a needle. Leewenhoek says, there are 

 more animals in the milt of a codfish than 

 men on the whole earth; and that a single 

 grain of sand is larger than 4,000 of these 

 animals. Moreover, a particle of the blood 

 of one of these animalculge has been found by 

 calculation, to be as much less than a globe 



of l-10th of an inch in diameter, as that 

 globe is less than the whole earth. He states 

 that a grain of sand, in diameter but the 

 100th part of an inch, will cover 125,000 of 

 the orifices through which we perspire ; and 

 that of some animaleuke, 3,000 are not equal 

 to a grain of sand. 



Human hair varies in thickness from the 

 250th, to the 6,000th part of an inch. The 

 fibre of the coarsest wool is about the 500th 

 part of an inch in diameter, and that of the 

 finest only the 1,500th part. The silk line, 

 as spun by the worm, is about the 5,000th 

 part of an inch thick ; but a spider's line is 

 perhaps six times finer, or only the 30,000th 

 pait of an inch in diameter, insomuch that a 

 single pound of this attenuated, yet perfect 

 substance, would be sufficient to encompass 

 our globe. Speaking of odors, the author 

 says, a single grain of musk has been known 

 to perfume a room for the space of twenty 

 years. How often, during that time, the air 

 of the apartment must have been renewed, 

 and have become charged with fresh odor ! At 

 the lowest computation, the musk had been 

 subdivided into 320 quadrillions of particles, 

 each of them capable of affecting the olfac- 

 tory organs ! 



The diffusion of odorous effluvia may also 

 be conceived from the fact, that a lump of 

 assafoetida, exposed to the open air, lost only 

 a grain in seven weeks. Again, since dogs 

 hunt by the scent alone, the effluvia emitted 

 from the several species of animals, and from 

 different individuals of the s.-ime race, must 

 be essentially distinct ; and being discerned 

 over large spaces, must be subdivided beyond 

 our conception, or power of numbers. 



The human skin is perforated by a thou- 

 sand holes in the space of a square inch. If, 

 therefore, we estimate the surface of the 

 body of a middle-sized man to be sixteen 

 square feet, it must contain no fewer than 

 2,304,000 pores. These pores are the 

 mouths of so many excretory vessels, which 

 perform the important functions in the ani- 

 mal economy of insensible perspiration. 



Knowing this, how needful is it to practise 

 extreme cleanliness ; and how universal 

 ought ths use of the bath to be ! 



LIFE. 



Whilst here on earth, how oft we see 

 The verdant blossoms on the tree, 

 Which yesterday in splendor shone, 

 The morrow's light finds dead and gone ! 

 Then look thee round ! Life's just like this : — 



To-day in boasting pride we meet, 

 And taste the draughts of earthly bliss, 



So promising, so rich, and sweet; 

 But ore those draughts have quench'd our thirst, 



The vital spark gives way, 

 And we are slumbering in the dust, — 



Forgotten with the day ! 



