tabies' IWt-jlelro. 
BABY GRACE. 
BY NATHAN tTPHAM. 
Have you ever seen our baby ? 
She Is only twelve month* old. 
Yet she 1# a winsome lnily, 
Half her worth can ne’er bo told 1 
Could you *e« this precious baby, 
Could you read her happy face, 
See her cre -p or crow then, maybe, 
You would gut jra her irniuo was GRACE. 
“ Ghacie,” though. we always call her. 
And she knows her name »o well! 
Should there aught of 111 bernll bar, 
Hearts how sad, no tomrue can tell! 
In this cradle take a peep now. 
And you'll see the merry elf: 
Softly, softly ! she’* asleep now; 
Ah I she sweetly wakes herself. 
When she talks, i/ml might not know it; 
Watch her, watch her, now you see 
How her hands und feet eali show it, 
As she, laughing, welcomes me. 
Hark I did'st hear it? That was “ Papa,” 
Shu was trying then to say; 
"Point to papa. Git AC ik !” Ha, ha! 
Hogue, to point the other way 1 
And she sings the sweetest song, too,— 
Never hireling warbled so,— 
That we almost feel It wrong to 
ICeup her in our home below 1 
Such n song It seems, In heaven, 
Baby-angel* all might sing; 
With no sins to be rorglvon, 
Sweetest incense they would bring 
To that holy throne of glory, 
Where subUtnesi anthem rings 
With the lowly JffiBCS’ story. 
Now enthroned us ‘ King of kings. 
Yes ! we feci that earth Is brighter 
For this pure, celestial ray; 
And we know our hearts are lighter 
While wo walk Life'* thorny way. 
For she lifts our souls above us 
With her gentle, dimpled hand, 
While her blue oyc*, as they love us, 
Seem to speak the Promised Land. 
Father, grunt to us the power 
Thu* to guide her little feet, 
That wtieno’er Thou pluck’Bt the flower. 
It niuy breathe heaven's Incenso sweet. 
CHRONIC DISCONTENT. 
A few good people are troubled with this 
disease. Here and there a woman may he 
found who exhibits every symptom thereof. 
Her lot is hard. Her clothes are plain. 1 Ier 
social pleasures are limited. Her ambitions 
nre repressed. So she sighs over her sewing, 
pines over her patchwork, cries over her 
cares. She has many of the elements of a 
worthy wife and mother; hut this chronic 
discontent is undermining her character. She 
longs for something outside her possessing, 
and lacks self-discipline to set aside that 
longing. 
This is bad enough at the best. At the 
worst it is incalculably had. And when is 
the worst apparent? When the discontent, 
from being chronic, surges up into an acute 
form, and results in domestic revolutions, 
possibly dishonor. To-day, while we write, 
there is a man on trial for his life. All the 
country knows his story,—a story wc cer¬ 
tainly should not here recall hut for the les¬ 
son it teaches. A discontented woman sat 
by his fireside, and called him husband. She 
wanted much: chiefly, she desired social 
position, and all the glittering gewgaws 
which attend thereon. This desire begat 
continual unrest. From a faithful compan¬ 
ion she grew to be an alien. Another could 
better satisfy her inordinate craving,—that 
vanity which in so many instances proves 
criminal, and all her truest womanhood was 
sacrificed. 
Part of the final result is known. One life 
has been yielded up, and another is jeopar¬ 
dized. Is the discontent cured? Will the 
woman who might have remained an honor¬ 
ed wife and mother, go through life with her 
conscience untroubled and serene, in the 
face of all that, has been made public? And 
if cured, what a remedy! Unseemly, if not 
unholy; overthrowing and trampling upon 
all that Is | urest and most hallowed,—how 
it shames our common humanity, and makes 
us to blush for the innocence and conscious 
goodness that is lost! 
Not all discontent has this bitter ending, 
but does any of it lead to betterness? Any 
of the chronic kind, we mean, which is not 
akin to worthy ambition, but is peevish, and 
restless, and fretful. There is a laudable 
outreacking after nobler tilings, and this 
should never bo repressed. But the nobler 
things are of bucIi a real nobleness that they 
cannot he mistaken for things baser. They 
form part of the birthright of every woman. 
Dishwashing, and only that; patchwork, 
and that alone; bread-making, and nothing 
more,— are vexatious, and womanhood ought 
not to he content therewith. Yet these 
things form part of daily life, and must be 
looked to. They need not occupy all the 
thought, or all the time. Beside them there 
can he much that is uplifting. As they, 
however, are in numerous cases inevitable, is 
it not best to accept them with complacency ? 
Many there are who never complain, in 
M hose breasts tliis chronic discontent rankles 
perpetually. We are sincerely sorry for 
them. Their lives, that might else be full of 
sweet joyfulness, are embittered. Domestic 
ties chafe them. God grant that in some 
luckless moment the ties bo not rudely 
snapped asunder, and all future happiness 
utterly destroyed ! This is the danger—that 
out of such discontent unholy things may 
spring, blasting and wrecking. The home- 
life is very susceptible to outward influences. 
It cannot be too zealously guarded from even 
the weakest agency of evil. It cannot be 
too carefully shut, in from every enemy to 
peace. And an enemy the most inimical is 
that chronic difficulty of which we have 
been moved to speak. Insidious, it is yet in 
a greater or less degree deadly, it has 
worked the ruin of more unions than we 
care to number, and is chargeable with a 
large proportion of the strife and bickerings 
which are only too common in families. We 
impeach it of causing unhappiness beyond 
measure, and in the minds of all thoughtful 
people it must stand convicted. 
-- 
VICTORIA AND EUGENIE. 
Assuming that our lady friends take pleas¬ 
ure in reading everything worthy of credit 
about the two most eminent women of our 
time, we reproduce the following, by Justin 
McCaktiiy, from the Galaxy: 
About a dozen years, I suppose, have 
passed away since L saw the Empress Eu¬ 
genie and Queen Victoria sitting side by 
side. Assuredly the difference, even then, 
might, well have been called a contrast, al¬ 
though the Queen was in her happiest time, 
and has worn out terribly fast since that 
period. But the quality which above all 
others Queen Victoria wanted, was just 
that In which the Empress of the French is 
supreme—the quality of imperial, womanly 
grace. 
I have never been a rapturous admirer of 
the beauty of the Empress; a certain nar¬ 
rowness of contour in the face, the eyes too 
closely set together, and an appearance of 
artificiality in every movement of the fea¬ 
tures, seem to me to detract very much from 
the charms of her countenance. “But, her 
queenly grace of gesture, of altitude, of form, 
of motion, must ho admitted to he beyond 
cavil, and superb. Nhe looks Just the woman 
on whom any sort of garment would hang 
with grace and attractiveness; a blanket 
would become like a regal mantle if it fell 
round her shoulders; I verily believe she 
would actually look graceful in Mary Walk- 
eh's costume, which I consider decidedly 
the most detestable, in an artistic sense, ever 
yet introduced by mortal woman. 
Poor Queen Victori a looked awkward and 
homely indtyd by the side of this graceful, 
noble form; this figure that, expressed so 
well the combination of suppleness and af¬ 
fluence, of imperial dignity and Charming 
womanhood. Time lias not. of late spared 
the face of the Empress of the French. 
Lines and hollows are growing fast there; 
the bright eyes are sinking deeper into their 
places; the complexion is fading and cloud¬ 
ing. But the grace of form and movement 
is still there, unimpaired and unsurpassed. 
The whitest, and finest shoulders still sur¬ 
mount a noble bust, which, but that its am¬ 
plitude somewhat exceeds the severe pro¬ 
portions of antique Grecian beauty, might 
be reproduced in marble to Illustrate the 
contour of a Venus or a Juno. I have sel¬ 
dom looked at the Empress of the French 
or at any picture or bust of her, without 
thinking how Mary Woiitjlky Montagu 
would have gone into bold and eloquent rap¬ 
tures over the superb womanhood of that 
splendid form. 
-- 
MARRYING TITLES. 
There arc a class of American ladies in 
Rome who are setting their caps for the Ro¬ 
man nobility. Many of the nobility are said 
to be poor, and the one thing a Count wants 
is money, provided he gets an American 
woman with it. Europeans expect from 
each other a pedigree us lung as a ramrod, 
but “ I’m an American,” puts genealogy out 
of doors, mid there’s no further talk about 
1 ions rampant or bears conchant, heroic 
grand-uncles and distinguished great-grand¬ 
nephews. Blood is pitted against dollars. 
It. is considered highly fashionable and trans- 
cendentally honorable to become Mrs. Count 
Macearoni; not a thought is ever given to 
the character or capacity of the Count; his 
title gives him a litany of virtues, and of 
course, he must be good, and a useful mem¬ 
ber of society. 
-- 
Two Washington ladies, one an Ameri¬ 
can, the other a foreigner, have specially dis- 
tinquished themselves during the season for 
their extreme usage of the “ corsuge cut low.” 
The latter received quite a pointed rebuke 
at an entertainment lately. She was lan¬ 
guidly eating an ice, leaning back on a sofa, 
while a gentleman languished at her side. 
Another gentleman, alter watching the pret¬ 
ty little scene, took a “ tidy ” from a chair, 
and, going up to the lady, deliberately ad¬ 
justed it round her neck, saying he was 
afraid she would spill the ice on her hand¬ 
some dress. 
-» - 
It matters not how often you stoop, if 
what you stoop for is worth picking up. 
hoict Hdstfllann. 
) 0 cfep 
A VICK TORY. 
BY Mas. JAMES H. LAN8LEY. 
[The following tribute to Mr. Jambs Vick, tbo 
popular Seedsman and Florist, was contributed to 
the Rutland iVL) Dally Herald by one of bis fair 
customers, a lady of Poult noy.and wo reproduce It at 
her rnqqout, believing many of our friends will say 
Amen to the last two linos.— Kd*. Rural.) 
" MR. Vick, do you know that I've long bad a mind 
To tell you wo think you exceedingly kind, 
For sending your Seeds and your Rulbs to us all, 
That our home may lie happy, spring, wluteraud fall; 
For now. while I write, there are bursting to viow 
The natlonul Hyacinths, red, white and blue. 
The Camellia, *o lovely, how thrifty It grows, 
With a liulf-dozen blossoms, eaeli big as a rose. 
The Fuchsias, all colors, from purple to white, 
in clusters of tiriles to tbo coiling m height; 
The Ivy Is climbing from window to wail, 
Just over Hie Cactus, the queen of them all j 
BosldPS the above, in your last, Floral Guide, 
You sent us your picture, which, when we espied, 
We took from the book and hung over the roses, 
Whero your faco. at. this writing, calmly reposes. 
Success to you ever In all your good deeds. 
For VICK is the victor In flowers and seeds.” 
LITERARY ART. 
Literary excellence is not solely a mat¬ 
ter of genius, or talent. One or the other of 
these must oxfljt, to insure it; but if they lie 
not complemented by literary art there is no 
real excellence. Hundreds of men have 
much genuine talent, who will never excel. 
They have no art, and to acquire it seems 
beyond their power. For the possession of 
talent is by no means a guarantee of ability 
to so culture that talent us to render it capa¬ 
ble of finished performances. Talent is a 
gift; but art is an accomplishment. The 
one we may Imply find ourselves possessed 
of without effort; the other we must labor 
to possess. 
In every department of literature the ln- 
dispcnsiiblcness of :u’t to positive excellence 
is manifest. Fiction demands the truest art. 
It tests art to the uttermost,. The novel that 
is not artistic.— in point of conception and 
execution, in the grouping of its characters 
and the unity of its entire design,—is a 
miserable mental outgrowth. Garibaldi’s 
" Rule of the Monk” Is an example. Its illy 
linked chapters try the reader’s patience to 
the lust degree. Whatever merit sueh a 
work may, indeed, lay claim to, is quite 
neutralized by the defect painfully apparent 
to every one. Howsoever great the interest 
we may come to feel in it, it can jin Elly sur¬ 
vive the Inartistic interruptions ai/w mifortu- 
natc doublings of the plot. 
Wo have fmv artistic novel writers. Many 
wc have who manifest a certain genius in 
that line ; but for the most pal l it is a genius 
ignorant of art. Fenimork Cooper, take 
him all in all, was the best artist in fiction 
America has ever seen. In fact, no country 
lias, in tins respect, produced his Superior. 
Several of his works are models, in their 
way. Beginning in a manner not, especially 
marked, or striking, they move regularly, 
symmetrically, on to the end. There is no¬ 
where a break, a going back to bring up 
some neglected thread of the strand. The 
weaving is almost, perfect. Limited in ac¬ 
tion to a time brief, at. the longest, that 
time is filled to the full with incident, and 
wc are kept continually on the ■/tu vice till 
the climax comes. 
This art was not a chance possession of 
Cooper’s. Ho acquired it by much labor. 
His plots show careful elaboration,— that 
study of general plan and detail which be¬ 
trays the true artist. It is evident that be 
evolved a story bo completely, in his own 
mind, before attempting to work it out upon 
paper, that every little development was ex¬ 
pected and fully met. Every story-teller 
will allow that this pre-elaboration is most 
difficult, and few will deny that it character¬ 
izes artistic skill. Art leaves nothing to 
chance. Tho. artist works not blindly, but 
in tlic light of a clear conception, which it 
is his rare pleasure to embody. 
Poetry calls for moat careful art. A man 
may have beautiful poetic imagery, and yet 
be no poet, simply because the poetic art is 
wanting. All rhythm is art in numbers. A 
perfect linking of rhythm and rhyme makes 
up the sweetest art. Yet poetry is not art 
alone. It is an emotion,an inspiration. All 
the more difficult of mastery, then, is that 
art which would clothe it. about, and make 
it lovelier, diviner. The less ready should 
men he, then, to attempt it, when a present¬ 
ing of real poetic thought and feeling in gar¬ 
ments badly fitted and ungraceful is a kind 
of profanation which deserves the severe dis¬ 
pleasure of the gods. 
Seeing how essential to excellence art is, 
and realizing that it is not the acquisition of 
an hour, wc wonder, often, why so many en¬ 
tertain literary hopes,—why they take up 
the pen so wholly unfitted, with intent to do 
praiseworthy work. The country fairly 
swarms with conscious poets—poets only to 
their own conceited consciousness, who have 
ignored poetic art with a sort of sublime in¬ 
difference that is astonishing. Fiction-mon¬ 
gers abound who have no adequate idea of 
the demands of fiction,—who should serve 
their time as apprentices before setting up ns 
artists on their own responsibility. 
Possibly the great number of these people 
is due to the fact that literary art is decep¬ 
tive. It seems very easy of acquirement. 
Read one of Cooper's masterpieces, and 
you have no inkling of the difficulty in t.lio 
way of its evolvcment, The plot is not 
complicated ; the characters are not numer¬ 
ous; the incidents arc natural, and would 
tax the ingenuity hut little. To manage the 
whole is simple enough. So you imagine, 
in your blissful ignorance ; but you essay it, 
and directly you see things in a new light. 
Peruse one of Longfellow's unpretentious 
poems, and the writing of it seems to you 
no task at all. Evidently it almost wrote 
itself, the thing was so easy. Attempt one 
similar, and see if your idea of poetic art be 
not somewhat heightened. M here is nothing 
that so develops the worth of art. in litera¬ 
ture as the analytical study of it,—nothing 
that so enhances our respect for it as the en¬ 
deavor to compass those ends it only leads 
to by some other and easier means. 
- - 
“DIED.” 
There is only a card in the envelope 
that a friend sends us,—a little card edged 
with black, and hearing a few sad words, 
saddest of which is“ Died,” Only a curd; hut 
two fond hearts have wept over it, and it has 
come to ns the messenger of sorrow. Only 
a card, as much while as black—possibly a 
little more. It is fitting, so. It was a pure 
spirit that, winged its way heavenward when 
Edith May was translated; a pure spirit, 
white and unsullied. The. black shadow of 
grief should seem less to us llmu the sweet 
purity which will now never be tarnished. 
Only six days Upon earth! Just a little 
work-day week of life, with no strength for 
labor, and then a Sabbath at its ending that 
shall know no end forever and forever! Only 
a narrow edging of black; for could such 
a little being cast a broad shadow back 
as it went sunward ? “ Ah, yes, it might,” 
the heart says, until it stops a moment to re¬ 
member. Remembering, it hears the echo 
of a sweet word long since uttered —Suffer 
little children to come unto me;” and the 
shadow lessens—lessens—until we see it not 
at all, but look straight on to the brightness 
that shall never grow dim. 
“ Suffer little children." Not lead them, 
not carry them—only suffer them. Then 
they must want to go. And do they not? 
Standing so near the pearly gates ns they do, 
who can tell what music they hear, what 
balmy airs blow on them? It is easy for 
them to slip away from the loving arms here 
to the lovingarms there. Easy for them, hut 
so hard for us! So hard! We cannot, sec 
them as they go, for the weeping; hut we 
know they are gone by the dull pain in our 
arms that clasp nothing. 
“Died!” I low many hearts will echo it 
sadly and with tears! Little Ediths are 
leaving us daily, finishing their short weeks 
of life and entering on the Sabbaths never 
ending. A tender good-by to them all,—u 
tender hand-clasp for all who weep their loss. 
Losing is the common lot, and weeping the 
heritage Of humanity; but the losing and the 
weeping will end finally in finding and in 
joy. 
-- 
IDEA OF SLEEP. 
That death and sleep are very much alike, 
the sages all tell us; but see how attractive¬ 
ly Leigh Hunt describes the latter:—“It is 
a delicious moment, certainly, that, of being 
well nestled in bed, and feeling that you will 
drop gent ly to sleep. The good is to come— 
not past; the limbs have been just timl 
enough to render the remaining in one posi¬ 
tion delightful; the labor of the day is done. 
A gentle failure of the perceptions comes 
creeping over one; the spirit of conscious¬ 
ness disengages itself more and more with 
slow and hushing degrees, like a mother de¬ 
taching her hand from that of her sleeping 
child; the mind seems to have a balmy lid 
closing over it, like the eye; Mis dosing—Mis 
dosing—Mis dosed. The mysterious spirit 
has gone to take its rounds.” 
SANDWICHES. 
Every bird pleases us witli his lay—es¬ 
pecially the hen. 
The procuring of a divorce is called court¬ 
ing after marriage. 
What letter has never been used but 
twice in America ? A. 
Tins jealous man poisons his own ban¬ 
quet, and then eats of it. 
When must Time hang up his scythe? 
When lie shall he no mower. 
When the man in the moon indulges in 
sarcasm, it must he lunar caustic. 
What season of the year harmonizes 
most with the lion’s habits ? Springtime. 
The heart, of woman is a book whose 
leaves are uncut at the most interesting 
pages. 
“ Do you believe, sir, that the dead ever 
walk after death ?" “ No doubt of it, madam ; 
1 have heard the * Dead March in Saul.’ ” 
abbatl) fleabtng. 
TRIBULATION WORKETH PATIENCE. 
UV U. 1>. 8. 
CALM angel. Fattened, now with me abide! 
Chill falls, at noon, the gloom of evea-tidu : 
Content amt Joy with Youth long since liavo fled ; 
Without Illy presence, Faith and llopu are dead. 
Intruders by my hearth, alt Grief ami Caro, 
Oft holding council with the Hand Despair; 
While Fortune', ever, Just beyond my touch, 
Suspend* the prise she grasp* with miser clutch. 
Rallied and thwarted, HOW to then I ||y ; 
Forgive the scorn with which I passed thee by. 
Vainly pursuing still the hrlght-wlngcd train, 
RoluslnKt all. with sorrow to remain. 
Vanquished, 1 cease to beat my prison gale; 
Hut all the barrier* of relentless fate 
Cannot forbid thy entrance, to illume 
And bless with peaeo the dungeon's chcerloss glooui. 
With gentle hand, fold the dead past aside; 
For fut,uro conflicts armor meet provide. 
Tills be thy task; Invoking only thee, 
Serene and swoet life's remnant yet may be. 
It matters not what tempos! roars aloof. 
If thou a dweller art, beneath my roof; 
Though the bright sun at noonday leave the skies 
Above my head, night’s holy stars shall rise. 
-*♦♦-- 
SUPPLEMENTING THE SERMON. 
It is very certain that there is now -a-days 
a great, waste of sermonizing. We wonder, 
sometimes, that preachers do not get ab¬ 
solutely discouraged, so much of their best 
endeavor seems to fall wholly fruitless. Men 
go to church because it is proper to do so. 
listen to the sermon with a habit that is only 
halt conscious, and go away at the hour's end 
and pay no further heed. To them the 
earnestness of the preacher is as though it 
were not. 
And why? Because they have no lmbit. 
of supplementing the sermon with thought 
upon it. After-consideration, and personal 
application, are essential to the true fulfill 
ment, of Sabbath ministrations. A discourse 
carelessly listened to, and forgotten as soon 
as its delivery is ended, is not so fruitful as 
seed fallen on stony ground. Of course it is 
not to he supposed that any one will remem¬ 
ber an entire sermon, and he able to revolve 
it. in the mind for a considerable time after 
the hearing. But, it is a sorry effort, indeed, 
t hat has not t wo or three 11 mother thoughts,” 
as a good minister we know calls them 
which can he taken away by all who listen, 
and which, dwelt upon through the week in 
meditative moments, will give birth to a 
goodly family of others. 
It requires some little philosophy to enable 
one to get the full value of a sermon. 
Worldly thoughts will often creep into the 
mind, and divide attention, despite our well 
meaning. Then when we are attentive, and 
hear every word from beginning to end, we 
fail, somehow, to apply personal truth to 
ourselves, and so the sermon fails of Us ob¬ 
ject. It, is a little strange, when we slop to 
think of it, that we pay so much for our 
moral and religious benefit, and are content 
with so little return! As a matter of in¬ 
vestment, it would seem that, having sub¬ 
scribed a hundred dollars for support of the 
preacher, we ought to see to it that we get 
the interest on our money Sabbath by Sab¬ 
bath. 
We will not deny that the mere habit of 
church-going is beneficial to a person. Yet 
any one,—more especially any professing 
Christian,—ought to feel ashamed that the 
benefit derived is only of that negative 
kind. There should be benefit of a direct,, 
positive nature, that will have lasting effect 
on the character. The preacher’s words are 
bom of prayer and a purpose. They should 
go straight to the heart and leave their im¬ 
press. They should be turned over and over 
in the mind, and their wholu tucaulag com¬ 
prehended and made serviceable. If they 
be of personal rebuke, coming home closo 
and cutting, let them do their perfect errand. 
If they incite to a greater individual earnest¬ 
ness in the service of (i<m, Jet their inciting 
reach through all the week, and work out a 
nobler and more self-sacrificing life. 
- ++■* - 
WHITED SEPULCHERS. 
We pity wretchedness and shun the 
wretched; we utter sentiments just, honor- 
aide, refined, lofty, but somehow, when a 
truth presents itself in the shape of a duty, 
we arc unable to perform it. And so such 
characters become by degrees like the arti¬ 
ficial pleasure grounds of bad taste, in which 
the waterfall does not full, and the grotto 
offers only the refreshment of an imaginary 
shade, and the green Hill does not strike the 
sides, and the tree does not grow. Their 
lives are a sugared crust, of sweetness, trem¬ 
bling over black depths of hollowness; more 
truly still, “ whited sepulchers,” fair without 
to look upon, “within full of all unolean- 
ness.”— Rev. F. W- Robertson. 
-»» » 
A freedmkn’h teacher writes of a colored 
woman who, having learned her alphabet, 
said, “ Now I want to learn to spell Jesus, 
for ’pears like the rest will come easier if I 
learn to spell the blessed name first.” A 
good many things “ come easier" if wo 
learn that name first. 
