is indescribable.) It would be enough to provoke 
an angel, to be treated thus (all men think their 
wives are angels, when they marry them, not even 
excepting Socrates,) and we think even Xantippe 
was u good-tempered woman—not qniet and easy, 
to be sure, but only a little active and energetic, 
though Socrates did say he married her to try 
his temper, and see how patient be could be nuder 
trial. He tells his disciples so next morning, when 
they assemble at his house, Xantippe hears what 
he says and-They 
believe what he Bays, and write down that 
Xantippe was the worst scold in the world, and 
it has since passed into history. 
Moral. —Never marry a Philosopher, especially 
one of the qniet, easy sort Plowpoint. 
Henrietta, N. Y., 1860. 
[Written for Moore’s Rural New-Yorker.] 
WASHINGTON IRVING. 
averse to any employment. If labor is recog¬ 
nized at all by them, it is performed by females 
with the simplest rudest kinds of utensils. In¬ 
ventions of comfort, economy and utility, are 
unknown among them. Are they noted for any¬ 
thing it is fierce cruelty, barbarity and insolence. 
Their coBtnme, their dwellings, their customs and 
characters,—all plainly exhibit a lack of comfort, 
utility and refinement, which J.obor has produced 
and established for us. 
From the •myriad evidences thickly crowding 
the historic page, and looming up around us in 
imposing beauty and magnificence, we can but 
belieye the Omniscent decree expressly adapted 
to, and immediately calculated for, arousing the 
energies and might of man's secret nature, and 
perfecting the purpose of his creation. 
Jackson Co., Mich., 1860. S. F. Haddock. 
BY CLARA P. YAWCKR 
HE sleeps Ids lost sleep,” in his dear native land, 
On the banks of his own noble river; 
Where tbe Highlands he hallowed, like sentinels stand, 
To watch o'er his slumbers forever. 
To that “Grave" on the Hudson, from o'er the vast main, 
Fond eves arc now tearfully turning; 
And the hearts that so loved him, in England and Spain, 
*Are over it tenderly yearning, 
How proudly America boastetlr his birth— 
Great Master Magician of story! 
While love for the beautiful lingers on Earth, 
His name will he haloed with Glory. 
Oh the hearts he with rapturous emotion has thrilled— 
The brows with glad smiles he has brightened— 
The eyes that with pity's sweet tear* he has filled— 
And the dark, lonely hours he has lightened. 
O’er his grave's “peaceful bosom.” no wife's wild despair, 
No daughter, or son’s lamentations: 
But the large, loving heart, that lies mouldering there 
Is mourned by the tear drops of nations. 
Where the waves gently murmur, and mountain winds 
Bigb, 
ne rests with-the lanrel above him; 
But Washington Irving— as ages go by,— 
Will live in the hearts that must love him. 
MY LITTLE BOAT. 
T Written for Moore's Rural New-Yorker.] 
SPIRIT OF HOPE. 
I have a little boat 
To sail upon the tide; 
In it three little children 
Are sitting side by side. 
And I work, because these children 
Are sitting side by side. 
All ’round me on the sea of life 
Are stronger ships than mine, 
With better sails and brighter flags— 
And they tell me, “ Mine is thine— 
Come into ours.” I bless them! 
But my bout, it keeps its way, 
For I’m trusting to u Pilot 
Who never leads astray! 
And I will not leave my little boat; 
It shall sail upon the tide; 
Because three little children 
Are sitting side by side. 
They toll me that it cannot be 
Upborne on the world's wild wave 
That a woman's heart and a woman’s hand 
Were not made to be.so brave; 
That fashion cannot cover, 
With her robes of grace and lace, 
The form of her who over- 
Steppeth her rank of place; 
That the power of human prejudice. 
And the strength of human pride, 
Will wreck my little boat, 
With the children side by side. 
Would you tell the shipwrecked not to land, 
Though the land be near to see, 
Because it is a woman’s hand 
Trembling for mastery?— 
Because it is a woman’s voice 
Thatriseth o'er thd tide, 
To ransom back her little boat, 
With the children side by side? 
Oh! when earth's forms shall pass away, 
And ihe farhiun periaheth— 
When the greater ships come riding home— 
Where the wandering entereth— 
Then shall my feeble woman’s boat 
Safely at anchor ride; 
Because three little children 
Are sitting side by side. 
[Written for Moore’S Rural New-Yorker.] 
LOST OPPORTUNITIES. 
[Written for Moore's Rural New-Yorker.] 
PUT AWAY THAT FROWN, 
He was going away, my bright, impulsive, gen¬ 
erous-hearted. wayward Cousin Harry, who had 
been to me even as a brother ever since the sor¬ 
rowful time when my Aunt Alice, his youthful 
mother, bad closed her blue eyes in the fresh 
sum duct of her life, and laid down beside her 
noble husband, where the trees of the “Pine Tree 
State” walled a Bighfcd melody above her grave. 
He was going where the blue Pacific waves dash 
everlastingly against the coral reefs of Australia, 
and most bitter was the pain of parting, for wc 
knew that the years that must elapse before the 
wanderer’s return would bleach tbe sunny brown 
curls and dim the flashing eye, and change the 
merry-hearted boy to a care-worn, weary man, 
and, perhaps,—ah, no! we never dwelt on that 
thought,—it was too great anguish to admit even 
tbe possibility of a lasting farewell, to think that 
the singing voice might be hushed, and the rare 
sweetness of the winning smile might be qncnchcd 
forevermore, in that distant land, so far removed | 
from home. 
lace,— you are angry,— really vexed, and, per¬ 
haps, with good reason. Something has gone 
wrong—or yon think so—and you are indignant. 
But is yotir care-worn wife, or your little children, 
in there, to blame? Hid they cause your trouble? 
If you go in now, you will knock down the first 
chair that comes in your way—kick away the 
play-things—frown at the children, and snap at 
your wife, if she ventures a word ever so pleas¬ 
antly. The little ones will huddle off in the 
corner, and whisper about their “cross father,” 
and the patient wife will sigh and look more 
weary than ever. 
Why will you allow yourself to darken the 
[Written ter Moorv's Rural New-Yorker.] 
LABOR. 
But I knew all the trials and per¬ 
plexities that would beset his way, and yet, amid 
all the parting counsel, 1 never pointed him to 
that tender Guide who rvould smooth the thorny 
path to his young and untried feet,—who would 
sojourn in the lodge of the way-fairing man in the 
wilderness, and cheer his sinking heart with many 
I saw him launch his 
[Written for Moore's Rural New-Yorker.] 
HOPE. 
r.v tne sweat of tliy face shalt thou eat,” was 
the decree of Omniscience. Omnipotence set the 
law in glory above the heavens, and graved the 
record irnperi&hably In the foundations of the 
earth, for, “the firmament sheweth his handi¬ 
work; and the earth Ire lias established forever.” 
Thousands of years of experience; the multifold* 
inousproductions looming up in grandeur, beauty 
and sublimity,—giant achievements of this Pro¬ 
tean power,—have proven its adaptation to man’s 
necessity, and well established the proverb,_* 
I.ahor is honor. 
Look around upon the world's greatness,—its 
triumphs of art,—its brilliant achievements,—its 
philosophic and prophetic wisdom. What power 
erected those proud structures of the ancients,— 
reared those lofty encircling walls of a Jerusalem, 
a Thebes, a Nineveh,—constructed those time- 
derying pyramids, which have stood thousands of 
years, objects of a world’s curious wonder? What 
powerful voice called into existence those white¬ 
winged messengers that “walk the waters like a 
tiling of life?” Whence, again, those splendid 
cities,— that grand Imposing cathedral with its 
spire reaching hundreds of feet in the heavens,— 
that oiglity-thousand-hiding theatre of a Pom- 
pey,— or that more curious combination of holts, 
bars and cables, swung high above the seething, 
raging waters, uniting an Empire and a Republic 
—Niagara Suspension Bridge. 
Hough - handed, liard-fisted labor, tugging, 
sweating and groaning, lifted the huge rock from 
its bed; raised the smooth marble from the 
quaiTy; piled up those walls; reared those lofty 
Pyramids,—those monuments of human strength, 
which seem to challenge the time-god as he 
sweeps the cycle of eternity. It has rescued from 
the secret caverns of ocean its rich store of pearl 
“Tree Hope,” says one author, “is based on 
energy of character. A strong mind always 
hopes, and always has reason to hope, because it 
knows the mutability of human affaire, and how 
slight a circumstance m 
course of events.” 7” 
the liability to change, might at first 
consistent with hope. When wc 
of the many Hums that 
have brightened by the 
rently trivial event, 
present condition ever 
a wise and loving word, 
frail boat, and sail away on life’s groat ocoau, and 
knew he was destitute of compass and guiding- 
star; yet, I never told him of the Great Master 
who would “sit at the helm while the wearied 
sailor slept.” For years he has rested beneath 
the shadowy trees of that clime, and the bitterness 
of my groat sorrow 
ay change the whole 
The Idea last expressed, of 
—i appear in¬ 
think, however, 
our future prospects 
occurrence of an appa- 
we may still hope that, be our 
so unpromising, it inay ere 
long change for the better. Adversity may spread 
dark clouds over our sky to-day; on the morrow 
the sunlight of prosperity may dispel them all. 
Even while the rain-drops of sorrow are falling, 
Hope hendfi her beauteous how of promise o’er 
us, radiating with its bright prismatic colors the 
darkest storm-cloud. 
Hope is an exquisite artist—beautiful pictures 
does she paint upon the canvass of the future; and 
when weary, wayworn, despairing; we think never 
again to taste of the fount of joy, Hope will lend 
to her lovely creations their greatest charm, and 
thus lure os onward, often to positions or honor 
and usefhlnesiv W ithoot Hope, seldom would there 
bo anything great or good achieved—none may 
expect success to attend them cm life's great battle 
field, who go half-hearted to the conflicts—and 
Hope it is that inspires the soul with strength and 
courage for every emergency. 
A propensity to hope is a mine of wealth that 
proves a never-failing source of comfort to the 
lortunate possessor. Never do we see such an 
one constantly thinking and talking of the ills 
of life; never speaking of this world but as a “vale 
of tears —a desert where blossom no beautiful 
flowers—where flow no cooling streams. Ah, no, 
[Written for Moore's Rural New-Yorker.] 
A PLEA FOB XANTIPPE 
unsoftened by the thought 
that my untiring hand guided him to the Gentle 
Shepherd who would lead him “iu the green pas¬ 
tures and by the still waters" of the better land. 
Another lost opportunity will awaken the deep¬ 
est remorse in my guilty conscience as long as my 
dulled cars hear the heavenly whisper, “ye knew 
your duty and ye did it not,” It was a stately 
man in the full flush and splendor of his vigorous 
manhood, whom I heard covering with scornful 
ridicule scutimonts so sacred that angels might 
utter them with hushed breath and ■wing-shaded 
face. 1 had long respected and esteemed him, 
and the reviling words foil with a cold weight on 
my heart, but 1 was silent. A single word, nay, a 
mildly, rebuking glance, might have had gentle 
power to turn his wandering feet from the broad 
and dangerous way along which he was hasten¬ 
ing. but the word was unspoken, 1 was faithless 
to the trust confided to me. aud the golden oppor¬ 
tunity fled by on rapid wings, never to return. 
One pleasant summer, 1 often noticed a pale, 
lovely girl, who sat opposite to me in the village 
academy. She was dressed in the deepest mourn¬ 
ing, and the silken lashes of her dark eyes were 
often heavy with unshed tears. I noted this,— I 
saw that the fair cheek was pale with sickness of 
the mind rather than of the body,— ] knew that 
she was a stranger and an orphan, unloved and 
unknown, and that sympathy would be pr 
A few years since, an Athenian lawyer made an 
eff'orttoreverse and expunge from the records the 
sentence of Socrates. How it resulted wc do 
not know’, hut it has suggested to us that it is not 
too late to sue before the bar of public opinion, 
for some change in the popular verdict against 
Met. Socrates, generally called, out of spite, we 
suppose, X anti I’m — a name held ever since as a 
term of reproach and a synonym of shrew, vixen 
and scold. 
The world has never heard but one side of this 
story. Plato, and all the other pupils and disci¬ 
ples of Socr ates, would, of course, unite in prais¬ 
ing their illustrious master, and they would 
naturally portray, as vividly as possible, any out- 
brakes of his wife’s temper, in order to show the 
wonderful patience and forbearance of their idol,— 
these being qualities on which he particularly 
prided himself. 
Now wc can readily believe that Socrates was 
very patient — more so even than Job. It has 
always been a private, pet heresy of ours, to pic¬ 
ture Mrs. Socrates as an active, energetic, go- 
ahead woman, married — as is often the case with 
those who have the reputation of being shrewish 
wives,— to one of those quiy, easy, goodish, good- 
for-nothing fellows, who hated nothing so much as 
work, (in fact was loo easy to hate any thing else,) 
and who liked nothing so much ns lounging 
VALUE OF WIT. 
A wit is a priceless man for a community; not 
a scandal-monger, a heel-biter, a detractor, a 
cynic, whose own happiness in life being spoilt, 
in bent upon making others miserable, hut a 
genial, benevolent reformer, a wholesome and 
winning though caustic surveyor of events.— 
People breathe more freely when they know there 
is such a man in the ascendant; for wicked men 
will he afraid of him, weak men will strive to be 
stronger, and quacks will not have it all their own 
way. Society is continually in need of the ex¬ 
ploits of that knight-errant, the wit. Evils creep 
in unawares; some good, hut very foolish man, 
perpetrates a good deal of nonsense, which is tol¬ 
erated, and even admired, by virtue of his good¬ 
ness, and fixed as an institution before its incon¬ 
venience is fully suspected. Honest sentiments, 
with errors sticking to them, are gradually heaped 
up into a monstrous aggregate of prejudice.— 
Some bloated and over-fed truth weighs society 
down like a huge nightmare, till the wit comes 
along to tickle the sensorium aud wake us up 
once more into day-light with a sensation of free, 
honest living, or the old moralities of the world 
get dull and commonplace, worn, trite, and bat¬ 
tered. the’ effigies nearly off from them. The wit 
is a general refurhisher, re-casting the old coin, 
and presenting it to us again current with the 
imago of to-day.—Century. 
ecious 
around the market place, and talking and arguing to her, and I longed to go and comfort her with 
with everyone that came in his way. All this loving words and soothing attentions. But pride, 
fine talk about his superior Philosophy, and about and timidity, and selfishness prevailed, and, like 
beating the Sophists in argument, is a humbug, the Priest and the Levite, I passed coldly by on 
and you would see it so too if you had been in the other side. There was no good Samaritan to 
Mrs. Socrates' place. Socrates loungingarouud hind up the bleeding wound, and ere the frosts ol’ 
the market place and disputing with the other autumn, May Somers had died of a broken heart, 
philosophers, is not a bit more respectable than a Oh, these lost opportunities! how often our 
modem loafer-husband, lounging around the guardian angels have cause to weep sadly over us 
tavern, post-office, or corner grocery. It is die- because of them. How many despairing hearts 
lance that “lends enchantment to the view.” mrelit he rntnfhrte.i _ w- „. i 
Beautifully illustrating the advantage which 
mental labor has gained iu lessening the con¬ 
sumption of human strength, we cite the building 
of one of the great Pyramids of Egypt. A mass 
of stone, amounting to 10,400,000 tuns, was raised 
to a great height, which employed the labor of 
one hundred thousand 
Now 
wurkin 
ineir pure crystal waters refresh log and beautify- 
ing all the rest; and if the dark Cypress of sorrow 
springs up to shadow their pathway, they turn to 
the tree of Hope, finding it ever flourishing— 
budded if not blossomed. 
But we are forced to acknowledge that the most 
beautiful, most promising of earthly hopes, must 
pass away. We are sometimes tempted to think 
that Hope has inexhaustible stoves, even in this 
life, but all know her fair gifts often fail to satisfy 
when culled from the fading things of time.— 
Ami when the soul becomes weary of the fetters 
that hind to earth, and longs for a purer, truer life 
—when we realize that our most noble powers are 
blighted and degraded, when we would have them 
strengthened and elevated—when the darkness of 
despair comes stealing o’er us, and we feci for¬ 
saken of all,—-Hope! immortal Hope! will cotne 
like an “Angel of Mercy,” and. bending over us 
will tell in gentle whispers of One that is “ mighty 
to save and strong to deliver,” who has gone to 
prepare a place of rest for those who walk in the 
“narrow way ” unto the end of their pilgrimage. 
Truly, many a weary wanderer has Hope helped 
to resist the blighting influence of the cares, sins 
and sorrows of earth, many—a difficult lesson of 
patient waiting taught the desponding Christian- 
We are thankful for the hopes of this earth, but 
more grateful for those that center beyond this 
“stage of action,” in that world of bliss, where 
every hope will he swallowed up in glorious real- 
izilti0D - Eulalie. 
Gainesville, N. Y., 1860. 
Living too Hion. 
■Mr, Hume hit the mark when 
he stated in the House of Commons—though his 
words were followed by “ laughter ”—that the tone 
of living in England is altogether too high.— 
What was true of the “ mother country,” is em¬ 
phatically true of the present “day and genera¬ 
tion" Republicans. Middle-class people are apt to 
live up to tlieir incomes, if not beyond them: 
affecting a degree of "style” which is most 
unhealthy in its effect upon society at large.— 
There is an ambition to bring up boys as gentle¬ 
men, or rather “ genteel ” men: though the result 
frequently is only to make them gents, They ac¬ 
quire a taste for dressc style, luxuries and amuse¬ 
ments, which can never form any solid foundation 
for manly or gentlemanly character; and the 
result is, there is a vast number of gingerbread 
young gentry thrown upon the world, who remind 
one of the abandoned hulls sometimes picked up 
at sea, with only a monkey on board. 
men for twenty years.— 
one man, nided by a steam engine, and 
at the same rate, would accomplish as 
much as twenty-seven thousand Egyptians. 
Consider history the great mistress of wisdom 
—giant production of untiring mental toil—to 
whose records we arc indebted for the experience 
of bygone years, furnished with a pleasing and in¬ 
structive panorama of actual and real life iu the 
misty ages of the past—and, if we hut heed, giv¬ 
ing wisdom iu the morning of life. How natur¬ 
ally a smile of incredulity curls the lip, when his¬ 
tory tells us that hardly four centuries hack in 
time, an eclipse was viewed with fear and amaze¬ 
ment, aud a comet considered a sign of God’s 
wrath. Though we look upon this as an absurd 
superstition, but for tbe earnest, persevering labors 
of a Newton, a Kepler, and a Herschell, we. 
to-day. might cherish ideas equally ludicrous and 
absurd. 
Pre-eminent among the benefactors of their 
race are the names of Watt, Peele and Ste¬ 
phenson. Graven in letters of light above those 
inventions which shall benefit all ages and classes, 
when tlieir originators have mingled with the dust 
of the wayside, stand the names of Faust, Fulton, 
Franklin and Morse. Without printing, what 
would we be? Without means for rapidly multi¬ 
plying copies of printed matter, and their speedy 
circulation, what were we hut half a century past? 
“Made to re Better than Man.”— In a recent 
discourse, Henry Ward Beecher said that “God 
made woman to be better than man,” and we 
agree with a cotemporary that the learned divine 
never uttered a truer sentiment. The remark 
had been made substantially often enough before, 
by preachers, lecturers, romancers and poets. 
Like many trite maxima which survive in form 
when tlieir meaning is almost forgotten, lew who 
uttered, and still fewer who heard it, perhaps, 
understood the full scope and force of its allu¬ 
sions. 11 ow eloquently, pathetically full of sug¬ 
gestion it is! "God made woman to be better 
than man”—made her to he, morally and pbysi* 
cally, “a thing ol beauty and a joy forever.” But 
what does man make her—what doe.> society, 
what do the cold, crushing conventionalities of a 
crude civilization make her? Miehelot, in his 
celebrated book, tells us that “they all tend to 
make her existence an organized misery.” 
We Pass fob What we Are.—A man passes 
for what he is worth. Very idle is all curiosity 
concerning other people’s estimate of us, and all 
fear of remaining unknown is not less so. If a 
man know* that he can do any thing—that he can 
do it better than any one else—he has a pledge of 
acknowledgment of that fact by all persons. The 
world is full of judgment days, and into every 
assemblage that a man enters, in every action 
that he attempts, he is gauged and stamped. In 
every troop of boys that whoop and run in each 
yard and square, a new comer is well and accu¬ 
rately weighed iu the course of a few days, and 
stamped with' his right number, as if he had 
undergone a- formal trial of his strength, speed, 
and temper. A stranger comes from a distant 
school with a better dress, trinkets in his pockets, 
with airs and pretensions; An older hoy says to 
himself, “It’s no use; we shall find him out to¬ 
morrow." —Ralph Waldo Emerson. 
been disputing with the Philosophers and asking 
them puzzling questions. He had a first-rate din¬ 
ner at the house of one of his disciples, ami at 
night went to sup with Aspasia, (think of that, 
and that Mrs. Socrates knows it, too,) but her 
converstticm is so interesting, he does not eat 
much, so that he is quite hungry when he reaches 
homo. He sits down quietly and eats two-thirds 
of the scanty meal (scanty for both, but then 
Xantippe was not expecting him,) when the fol¬ 
lowing scene occurs - 
-(The blank spaces indicate that the scene 
Leap Teak,— A Scotch statute of l,22t> reads as 
follows:—" It is statut and ordaint that during the 
reine of her maist bliss it Magestie, ilk forth year, 
known as leap year, ilk maiden layde of baith 
high and low estait, shall hae liberty to bespeak 
ye mun she likes; albyit, if he refuses to tak hir 
to he his wif, he shall he mulcted in ye sum of 
ane poundis (£1) or less as his estait moi he, except 
and awis if he can mak it appear that he is be¬ 
trothed to ane woman, that he then shall be free.” 
The last, best fruit that comes to- perfection, 
even in the kindliest soul, is tenderness toward 
the hard; forbearance toward the unforbearing; 
warmth of heart toward the cold: and philanthro- 
phy toward’the misanthropic. 
No man knows one whit more of God than he 
possesses of Him. 
