I CAN'T.

THIS is a phrase which is "teetotally" banished from Fanny's "Fern dictionary." Read the following exordium, and you'll never think of doubting her assertion, that she is "a little Bunker-Hill" herself a genuine Napoleon in petticoats.

แ Apollo! what a face! doleful as a hearse; folded hands; hollow chest; whining voice; the very picture of cowardly irresolution. Spring to your feet, hold up your head, set your teeth together, draw that fine form of yours up to the height that God made it; draw an immense long breath, and look about you. What do you see? Why, all creation taking care of number onepushing ahead like the car of Juggernaut, over live victims. There it is; and you can't help it. Are you going to lie down and be crushed?

"By all that's holy, no! dash ahead! You've as good a right to mount the triumphal car as your neighbor. Snap your fingers at croakers; if you can't get round a stump, leap over it, high and dry! Have nerves of steel, a will of iron; never mind sideaches, or heartaches, or headaches; dig away without stopping to breathe, or to notice envy or malice. Set your target in the clouds and aim at it. If your arrow falls short of the mark, what of that? Pick it up and go at it again. If you should never reach it, you'll shoot higher than as if you only aimed at a bush. Don't whine, if your friends fall off. At the first stroke of good luck, by Mammon! they'll swarm around you like a hive of bees, till you are disgusted with human

nature.

"I can't!' Oh, pshaw! I throw my glove in your face, if I am a woman! You are a disgrace to corduroys. What! a man lack courage! A man want independence! A man to be discouraged at obstacles! A man afraid to face anything on earth save his Maker! Why! I'm a little 'Bunker Hill,' myself! I've the most unmitigated contempt for you! you little pusillanimous pussy cat! There's nothing manly about you, except your whiskers."

MRS. SMITH'S REVERIE, WRITTEN

OUT BY FANNY FERN.

"All dissimulation is disloyality to love."

'VE thought so before,' said Mrs. Smith; 'but now

IT

I know it, because I read it in the newspapers. These editors beat the Dutch for understanding human nature, (all except female nature;) there they are decidedly benighted. However, it isn't for my interest to throw any light on that subject; it is an interesting study that I shan't interfere with. But this is a digression. As I was saying, 'dissimulation is disloyalty to love.' Didn't Mr. Smith tell me, when he asked me, on his knees, to make him the happiest of men, that I was the only daughter of Eve he ever fancied; and didn't I, before the honey-moon was over, find in his old bachelor trunk, locks of hair

of every color the sun ever shone upon? And doesn't it do me good to put my matrimonial foot on the cricket that I stuffed with them? Certainly-I only wish I had their entire scalps!

"Well-didn't he come home one Sunday, with a face as long as an orthodox steeple, and give me the text and heads of the discourse,' when he had been off rolling ninepins all the morning? And didn't I always know, when he kissed me, or gave me a twenty dollar bill, (which was much more acceptable!) that it was the premonitory symptom of a desperate flirtation with somebody? and wasn't I sure, when that buff vest, and blue coat with bright brass buttons, went on, that there was immense execution to be done somewhere on forbidden ground?

"Well-'Life is short;' so is Mr. Smith. No help for either, that I know of! I'm too busy, amusing myself, to attend to his little derelictions. If there's anything that I ignore it is curiosity. It is so decidedly a masculine failing that I scorn to be guilty of it!"

MOOREST thou thy bark so soon, little voyager? Through those infant eyes, with a prophet's vision, sawest thou life's great battle-field, swarming with fierce combatants? Fell upon thy timid ear the far-off din of its angry strife? Drooped thy head wearily on the bosom of the Sinless, fearful of earthly taint? Fluttered thy wings impatiently 'gainst the bars of thy prison-house, sweet bird of Paradise?

"God speed thy flight! No unerring sportsman shall have power to ruffle thy spread pinions, or maim thy soaring wing. No sheltering nest had earth for thee, where the chill wind of sorrow might not blow! No garden of Eden, where the serpent lay not coiled beneath the flowers! No