And in all cases the case absolute!
Self-construed, I all other moods decline;
Imperative, from nothing we derive us;
Yet as a super-postulate of mine,
Unconstrued antecedence I assign

To X, Y, Z, the God infinitivus."

This spider's-web of the world, which we spin out of our own brains, without knowing it, is a rare place to catch flies. The house that we thus make, is at once a good habitation for the I, and a prison for the Not I, which Not I-or, as it has been corrupted, naughtywe catch and eat. Philosophy has done great things for humanity.

The original apple which tempted Eve seems to grow still in a good many orchards. "Ye shall be as Gods,"

gives a fascinating flavor to the old fruit. But it must be confessed that few are able to bear their apotheosis gracefully, after they have effected their object. We must judge these self-asserted divinities by their works; and thus judged, few will stand the trial. They would be Jupiters; but they snivel instead of thunder, and darken instead of lighten. They command the mountain to assume the shape of their thought, but the mountain very properly declines, believing probably that the change would not be for the better. Nature, very well contented as she is, refuses to rush into hazardous speculations. They are thus thwarted in their ambition at the outset. They are monarchs without subjects and without a domain. The only thing left for them is to write books stating their claims, and asserting with inconceivable assurance that the external world has acknowledged them. The truth, however, leaks out, in spite of their hardy assertions. The public turns a deaf ear to their complaints. The trunk-makers make sad havoc with their printed sheets. Nature not only will not be theirs, but grudges them the

smallest portion of her corn and potatoes. The ox looks at them in the fields, and wonders if they have a steak in the country. The calf grows mutinous at the idea of being killed for the purpose of giving business to their digestive powers. If they look upwards, the clouds growl out sarcasms on their pretensions, or mockingly mimic their writings in an extempore drizzle of mist. The stars treat them with even more provoking nonchalance, keeping up an incessant and malicious winking, which says more plainly than words could express "You think, poor thing, that you can mould us, do ye?" There is hardly an object in creation which does not have a fling at them in some way, from the musquito which tipples in their blood, to the horse which declines their company by giving them a throw into the mud. Nature will not be bullied by philosophy. Hard words and impudent pretensions butter none of her parsnips. It would be a curious investigation for botanists, to discover if the flowers, celebrated in some verses as exponents of the writer's thoughts, felt at all flattered by being thus patronized; or if a rumored insurrection in the vegetable kingdom, arising from rage at perversions of their qualities in certain straw-covered volumes, did actually occur. Astronomers,

also, may tell us of more than one star that emigrated to the region of the nebulæ, rather than be caricatured in transcendental verse. The different kingdoms of creation, indeed, far from admitting the government of their selfelected lords, are getting to be confoundedly chagrined at being introduced to an intelligent public in perverted shapes. Even the violet and the daisy, the most modest and chicken-hearted of flowers, and therefore the most easily imposed upon, have become querulous, and exhale spite. Chaucer, Spenser, Shakspeare, Milton, never raised such a disturbance; for they humbly followed nature, insinuated themselves into her good graces, and

were taken into her confidence. They never fibbed about any of her children. They received their knowledge as a gift, instead of bragging of it as their own. The rose bloomed in their pages as contentedly as in its own garden. Everything, from the whirlwind to the zephyr, from the cataract to the rivulet, felt at home in their verse; for the nature and laws of each were respected, and no coercion was employed, no trap was laid, to lug them in to serve the purpose of caprice or perverseness. Now the complaint brought by natural objects against the transcendental poets is, that their existence is first impudently denied, and then to this insult is added the further injury, of making them stand as emblems of certain individual inanities or perversities, having no existence out of the rhymer's own head, and held by them in the utmost contempt. They feel somewhat as Dr. Johnson might have felt, had he seen himself quoted by a radical or sentimentalist, as a supporter of doctrines he despised. They say that a transcendentalist does not seek to discover their form and qualities by examining them, but rather by inspecting himself. This charge is a weighty one, and if there exists in the community any of the old horror against cruelty to animals and vegetables, it will have its effect.

After all, honesty is the best policy, in thinking as well as trading. If a writer presumes to dash his thin skull against the iron walls of Fact, he will do little more than expose to a grinning public the somewhat limited capital of brain he carried into the business. If the "Me" assumes the god, it must do something more than seem to shake the spheres, before the "Not Me" will admit its right to the distinction of man. To get disgusted with outward things, and retire into some little chamber of the brain to hatch conspiracies against the existence and order of nature, is to spend one's time in raising the smallest kind of intellectual potatoes. Besides, the ad

venture will not succeed. One individual cannot whip the universe. Doubts must occasionally creep in. The assertion of infallibility is never free from cavil. The struggle will be something like that recorded of Dame Partington in the great Sidmouth storm, when the waves came rushing in upon the beach, threatening the overflow of houses and lands. "Dame Partington lived upon the beach, and in the midst of the storm she was seen at the door of her house with mop and pattens, trundling her mop, squeezing out the sea-water, and vigorously pushing away the Atlantic ocean. The Atlantic was roused. Mrs. Partington's spirit was up; but it need not be said the contest was unequal. The Atlantic ocean beat Mrs. Partington. She was excellent at a slop or a puddle, but she should not have meddled with a tempest."

BROTHERHOOD.

BY ELIZABETH OAKES SMITH.

LOVE! it is the soul's anointment;
"Tis the need of every heart;
Going forth, at God's appointment,
To reclaim its severed part.

Pardon, then, the fault and weakness-
Human these, though grieving thou:

Lift the burden in thy meekness;
Love and trust thou, even now.

Now we need the friendly brother
Not tomorrow, but to-day:
Bear we must from one another;

Love we must, and love alway:

Not the wise and the strong-hearted -
Human hearts yearn not for such;
Better is its love imparted

To the tempted over-much.

Love the weak and tendril-yielding,
Who else succorless were left;
Who imploringly ask shielding,

Ere they be of strength bereft.

Art thou strong, and unexempted
From the shame, remorse and woe?
Veil thy face, O thou untempted!
Only God the heart can know.

THE DIVORCE OF LEARNING AND LABOR.

BY HORACE GREELEY.

I WOULD not, if I could, conceal my conviction, that before Education can become what it should and must be, we must reform the Social Life whence it proceeds, whitherto it tends. To the child daily sent out from some ricketty hovel or miserable garret, to wrestle with poverty and misery for such knowledge as the teacher can impart, what true idea or purpose of Education is possible? How can he be made to realize that his daily tasks concern the Soul, the World, and Immortality? He may have drilled into his ears, day after day, the great truth that "the life is more than meat, and the body more than raiment," but so long as his own food and raiment are scanty and wretched, his mind will be engrossed by a round of petty and sordid cares. (I speak here of the general fact; there will be striking instances of the con