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KIDD'S OWN JOURNAL. 



a grasp. Never put much trust in its owner; for 

 he is either meanly cunning, or contemptibly 

 feeble-minded. Be also cautious of your enthu- 

 siastic wringers, who grasp your hand like a vice, 

 upon a first interview; and throw an expression 

 of beaming delight into their faces, intended to 

 make you believe that the great object of their life 

 is accomplished in meeting you ! Believe rather 

 in the warm hearty shake where the forks of the 

 thumbs and first fingers closely meet each other: 

 and the very wrist is almost included in the 

 grasp, — without squeezing all the blood away 

 from the hand for five minutes afterwards, 

 and pressing the fingers together like figs 

 in a drum. The man who does this, and 

 looks you well in the face at the same time, has 

 not much harm about him. If he cannot bear to 

 meet a direct gaze, he is either a lunatic or a 

 swindler — most probably the latter. — These are 

 fair arguments. How icy cold some people are! 

 How flabby are their digits, whilst pretending to 

 be glad to see you! Out upon them ! say I. What 

 say you, Mr. Editor? — Sylvia. 



[Fie, little Sylvia! you, who know us "by 

 heart," ought not to ask us such a question.] 



HUMAN SORROW,— EVANESCENT. 



How strangely soon are the dead forgotten ! 



There is surely nothing which so forcibly 

 brings before us the passing nature of all earthly 

 things as our insensible, but certain forgetfulness 

 of those who in life were so dear — at the hour 

 of death so lamented! When the stricken 

 mother sees her child borne from her earthly 

 home to the last long dwelling-place, would she 

 not scorn the voice of prophecy, which might 

 whisper to her that the memory of that hour 

 would at least return less bitterly when time had 

 softened the blow? When the sister hangs in 

 hopeless grief over the grave of her who has been 

 the bright companion — the fond friend of her 

 young life, would she listen to the voice that 

 spoke of glad days to come, and new hopes and 

 joys, where the image of the lost one should 

 come rarely, and bring with it a more tempered 

 sorrow? Ah! no; in the first hour of uncon- 

 trollable grief, earth seems robbed of its' beauty ; 

 and the mourner deems that beauty gone for ever. 



And yet, return to that home in a few short 

 months; there is scarcely a trace left to tell of 

 those who have passed away! It is a merciful 

 work, that work of time — for the weight of life 

 would become intolerable if the first agony 

 of the last parting were to remain unsoftened. 

 But surely it is not the less strange, that the deepest 

 wounds should so soon heal — that what remains of 

 life should so soon blot out the memory of death! 



In remembering how transitory are our sorrows 

 in this world, should we not be reminded that 

 earth's joys are also fleeting? 



There are, doubtless, some few exceptions to 

 this forgetfulness of the dead. There are some 

 to whom themidnight winds sigh mournfully, as 

 voices from the grave ; there are some, who can 

 only see in the bright summer day a gladsome- 

 ness which meets no echo in their joyless heart 

 — for the sunbeam is playing upon the grave 

 who, in the long-ago time, loved the 



bright days as they did. There are some who 

 dare not trust their thoughts to range through 

 past years, lest the voices of the dead should 

 cry aloud of hopes that have withered — of jovs 

 that have passed away. 



But it is rare to find any who are thus 

 clinging to the past. Much often er does a 

 passing cloud alone — when some long silent 

 chord is touched — speak of those who are now 

 but a memory, and a memory which is fast dying 

 into distance. 



Cannot every one of us attest the truth of this? 

 Alas! now-a-days, the death of a fond wife, or 

 a fond husband, seems to cause but a month's 

 regret. Another object presents itself; and it is as 

 readily idolised in turn! Poor human nature! 



A PICTURE OF DECEMBER. 



Now the brief days are cold, cheerless, and 

 gloomy. The woods are naked and desolate. 

 There is a sad, leaden, melancholy color about 

 the sky. The open country is silent, the fields 

 are empty, and the lanes abandoned by the village 

 children; and excepting the robin, you hear not 

 the voice of a bird amid the whole landscape. 

 You wander on in the direction; and there, upon 

 the large frozen pond, surrounded by a few aged 

 willows, you behold a group of hardy rustics 

 amusing themselves with the healthy exercise of 

 sliding, and making a strange, hollow, and un- 

 earthly sound, as they run upon the ice. 



You see the sportsman far off, with his dog 

 and gun; and behold the white smoke rolling 

 beside the hedge in the valley, while the report 

 awakens the low and sleeping echoes. Further 

 on, along the frozen and cheerless road, you see 

 the village carrier's grey tilted cart, rocking 

 between the naked hedgerows. bee,it movesslowly 

 on past the cold white guide post, by the em- 

 bankment which is covered with withered and 

 hoary grass, beside the long plantation where the 

 snow is piled beneath the dark green fir tree, past 

 the reedy pool where the flags stand with their 

 sharp froken edges, looking as if they would cut 

 like a sabre — so sharp, cold, keen, and piercing 

 do they appear. — Thomas Miller. 



" BE MERRY AND WISE." 



There is a large class of people, who deem 

 the business of life far too weighty and momen- 

 tous to be made light of; who leave merriment 

 to children, and laughter to idiots; and who hold 

 that a joke would be as much out of place* on 

 their lips as on a gravestone or in a ledger. 



Surely it cannot be requisite to a man's being 

 in earnest, that he should wear a perpetual 

 frown. Is there less of sincerity, in nature doing 

 her gambols in spring, rather than during the stiff- 

 ness and harshness of her wintry gloom? And is 

 it altogether impossible to take up one's abode 

 with truth, and let all sweet homely feelings grow 

 about it and cluster around it and to smile upon 

 it as a kind father or mother, and to sport with it, 

 and hold light and merry talk with it, as with a 

 loved brother or sister-, and to fondle it, and play 

 with it as with a child? No; otherwise did Soc- 

 rates and Plato commune with truth ; no other- 

 wise Cervantes and Shakspeare. 



