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MIRTH AND CHEERFULNESS.

Some, however, mistake mirth for cheerfulness. They feel that it is enough, if now and then they throw off gloom, and break through their heart-rending trials, and become sweet and mirthful. This, perhaps, is a little better than nothing. But it is not what you want. Let the beautiful pen of Addison instruct you. "I have always," says he, "preferred cheerfulness to mirth. The latter I consider as an act, the former as a habit of the mind. Mirth is short and transient; cheerfulness fixed and permanent. Those are often raised to the greatest transports of mirth who are subject to the greatest depressions of melancholy on the contrary, cheerfulness, though it does not give the mind such an exquisite gladness, prevents us from falling into any depths of sorrow. Mirth is like a flash of lightning, that breaks through the gloom of clouds, and glitters for a moment; cheerfulness keeps up a kind of daylight in the mind, and fills it with a steady and perpetual serenity."

One good method of reformation in wrong habits, and in little things, when you are away at school, is to review your life and see

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how you have treated your parents. If I mistake not, you will see some sad pictures,

when memory comes to

hold up her canvas,

Those little acts of

and shew you the past. disobedience, unkindness, which you hardly thought of at the time, should now come up before you and instruct you, not merely how you will behave towards them in future, but how you will now treat your companions. What we do and feel to-day will come up in the review hereafter. Charles Lamb, in writing to his friend, thus speaks of these memories in his own case. 66 "O my friend, I think sometimes, could I recal the days that are past, which among them should I choose. Not those 'merrier days,' not the 'pleasant days of hope,' not those wanderings with a fairhaired maid,' which I have so often and so feelingly regretted, but the days, Coleridge, of a mother's fondness for her school-boy. What would I give to call her back to earth for one day, on my knees to ask her pardon for all those little asperities of temper, which, from time to time, have given her gentle spirit pain! And the day, my friend, I trust, will

6

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SEVEREST PUNISHMENT.

come; there will be time enough for kind offices of love, if heaven's eternal years shall be ours. Hereafter, her meek spirit shall not reproach me. O my friend, cultivate the filial feelings and let no man think himself released from the kind charities of relationship. These shall give him peace at the last; these are the best foundation for every species of benevolence." The young lady should ever bear in mind, that the short answer, the impatient look, the unkind tone of voice, and the irritating reply, are not injuries inflicted on her companions merely. They recoil and do her a greater injury than they do others; and it is thus that a "little injury done to another is a great injury done to ourselves. The severest punishment of an injury is the consciousness of having done it; and no man suffers more than he who is turned over to the pain of repentance." The heart, in its outgoings and ingatherings, is the seat of our enjoyment. You want to draw from the hearts around you, as from wells of pure, clear, fresh, and unfailing pleasure. So do others wish to draw from you; and the max

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im is as old as Seneca, that, "if you wish to gain affection, you must bestow it." And she who does not make it a matter of principle and of calculation to do at least one act of love every day, is not out of her own dark shadow. Make it a matter of conscience, at all events, and at any cost, not to speak evil of any one. It would be better still not to hear evil spoken. It always takes two to make a slander, one to speak and one to hear; and it is sometimes difficult to decide which is the more guilty. Do not keep account of the good things you have said or done for others, and watch for their return. "Say all the good you can of all," says a quaint writer, "but if you would have evil spoken of any, turn that office over to the Devil." You will hereafter remember and think of one another, just as you now appear to one another. No time or circumstances can alter the impressions which you now make; and if you wish hereafter to be remembered by your associates with respect and kindness and love, you must shew a kind, friendly, and unselfish heart.

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SCHOOL-GIRLS NOT MATRONS.

You will not suppose I am trying to make the life of the school-girl a formal, stiff, always guarded condition. Far from it. I expect you will be school-girls, and not prim matrons. I expect you will do childish acts and say childish things; but what I want is, that these little things which you do and say shall be done and said with a view to make others happy: it is, that you make it a point in all that you do, whether it be to aid in a lesson, comfort in a sick-room, or only to pick up a pin, to do it all for the purpose of making others happy. We are the most appropriately dressed when others give our dress no thought; we are the most happy when we do not think of our own happiness, and most likely to be beloved, when we have no thought for ourselves. Treat your associates, not as young ladies who have met you here to compare notes, to see who has the most property, the finest homes, the gayest wardrobe, the brightest eye, or the fairest face, but as friends who have been thrown together on the sunniest spot in life, to see how you can aid and bless one another in providing