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enough to supply room for many millions of living creatures, we should not merely find a raison d'etre for the outer planets, but we should be far better able to explain their purpose in the scheme of creation than on any theory hitherto put forward respecting them. Jupiter as an abode of life is a source of wonder and perplexity, and his satellites seem scarcely to serve any useful purpose. He appears as a bleak and desolate dwelling-place, and they together supply him with scarcely a twentieth part of the light which we receive from our moon at full. But regarding Jupiter as a miniature sun, not indeed possessing any large degree of inherent lustre, but emitting a considerable quantity of heat, we recognize in him the fitting ruler of a scheme of subordinate orbs, whose inhabitants would require the heat which he affords to eke out the small supply which they receive directly from the The Saturnian system, again, is no longer mysterious when thus viewed. The strange problem presented by the rings,

sun.

which actually conceal the sun from immense regions of the planet for years together in the very heart of the winter of those regions, is satisfactorily solved when the Saturnian satellites are regarded as the abodes of life, and Saturn himself as the source of a considerable proportion of their heat-supply. We do not say that, in thus exhibiting the Jovian and Saturnian systems in a manner which accords with our ideas respecting the laws of life in the universe, we have given irrefragable testimony in favor of our theory. That theory must stand or fall according to the evidence in its favor or against it. But so long as men believe that there is design in the scheme of the universe, they will be readier to accept conclusions which exhibit at once the major planets and their satellites as occupying an intelligible position in that scheme, than views which leave the satellites unaccounted for, and present the giant planets themselves as very questionable abodes for any known orders of living creatures.

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LONE HOUSE amid the Main, where I abide,
Faces there are around thy walls; and see!
With constant features, fair and faithful-eyed,
In solemn silence these admonish me.
They are the Faces of the strong and free;
Prophets who on the car of Tempest ride;
Martyrs who drift amid the waters wide

On some frail raft, and pray on bended knee.
Stay with me, Faces! make me free and strong!
Ón other walls let flush'd Bacchantes leer;
In quainter rooms of snugger sons of song
Let old fantastic tapestries appear.

Lone House! for comfort, when the nights are long,

Let none but future-seeking eyes be here!

II.

STORM AND CALM.

The lone House shakes, the wild waves leap around;

Their sharp mouths foam, their frantic hands wave high;

I hear around me a sad soul of sound,-
A ceaseless sob,-a melancholy cry.
Above, there is the trouble of the sky.

On either side stretch waters with no bound.
Within, my cheek upon my hand, sit I,
Oft startled by sick faces of the drown'd.

Yet are there golden dawns and glassy days When the vast Sea is smooth and sunk in rest, And in the sea the gentle heaven doth gaze, And, seeing its own beauty, smiles its best; With nights of peace, when, in a virgin haze, God's Moon wades thro' the shallows of the

west.

III.

WITHOUT AND WITHIN.

The sea without, the silent room within,
The mystery above, the void below!

I watch the storms die and the storms begin;
I see the white ships ghost-like come and go;
I wave a signal they may see and know,
As, crowding up on deck with faces thin,
The seamen pass,-some sheltered creek to win,
Or drift to whirling pools of pain and woe.
What prospect, then, on midnights dark and
dead,

When the room rocks and the wild water calls? Only to mark the beacon I have fed,

Whose cold streak glassily on the black sea falls;

Only, while the dim lamp burns overhead,
To watch the glimmering Faces on the walls.

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The Imperial forehead, filleted with gold;
The arrogant chin, the lips of frozen clay.
This is the later Cæsar, whose great day
Was one long sunset in blood-ruby rolled,
Till, on an ocean-island lone and gray,
It sank unblest, forgotten, dead, and cold.

Yea, this is he who swept from plain to plain, Watering the harvest-fields with crimson rain; This is the Eagle who on garbage fed.

Turn to the wall the pitiless eyes. Art, Thought,

Law, Science, owed the monster less than nought;

And Nature breath'd again when he was dead.

V.

ABRAHAM LINCOLN.

Nay here, behold the sad Soul of the West
Passing behind a rainbow bloodily!
Conscience incarnate, steadfast, strong, and
free,

Changeless thro' change, blessing and ever blessed.

Sad storm-cloud with God's Iris on his breast,
Across the troubled ocean traveled he,-
Sad was his passing! gentle be his rest!

God's Bow sails with him on another sea!

At first no larger than a prophet's hand,
Against the dense insufferable blue
Cloud-like he came; and by a fierce wind fanned,
Didst gather into greatness ere we knew,
Then, flash by flash, most desolately grand,
Passed away sadly heavenward, dropping dew!

VI.

WALT WHITMAN.

Friend Whitman! wert thou less serene and kind Surely thou mightest, (like our Bard sublime Scorn'd by a generation deaf and blind,)

Make thine appeal to the avenger, Time; For thou art none of those who upward climb, Gathering roses with a vacant mind." Ne'er have thy hands for jaded triflers twined

Sick flowers of rhetoric and weeds of rhyme. Nay, thine hath been a Prophet's stormier fate. While Lincoln and the martyr'd legions wait

In the yet widening blue of yonder sky, On the great strand below them thou art seen,Blessing, with something Christ-like in thy mien, A sea of turbulent lives that break and die!

VII.

O FACES!

O Faces! that look forward, eyes that spell
The future time for signs, what see ye there?
On what far gleams of portent do ye dwell?
Whither, with lips like quivering leaves and
hair

Back-blowing in the whirlwind, do ye stare
So steadfast and so still? O speak and tell!
Is the soul safe? shall the sick world be well?
Will morning glimmer soon, and all be fair?
O Faces! ye are pale, and somewhat sad,

And in your eyes there swim the fatal tears; But on your brows the dawn gleams cold and hoar.

I, too, gaze forward, and my heart grows glad; I catch the comfort of the golden years; I see the Soul is safe for evermore!

VIII.

ROBERT BROWNING.

Bearded like some strong shipman, with a beam
Of gray orbs glancing upward at the sky,
O friend, thou standest, pondering thy theme,
And watching, while the troublous days blow
by

Their cloudy signs and portents; then thine eye Falleth, and, reading with poetic gleam

The human lineaments that round thee lie,
Peers to the soul, and softens into dream.
O dweller in the winds and waves of life,
Reader of living faces foul and fair,

No nobler mariner may mortal meet!
Steadfast and sure thou movest thro' the strife,
Knowing the signs and symbols of the air,
Yet gentle as the dews about thy feet.

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Dim with the peace that starry twilights weave,
It riseth, and the storm is hush'd and o'er.
Trembling I feed my feeble lamp once more,
Tho' all be placid as a summer eve.
See there it moves where weary waters grieve,-
O mariners! look yonder and adore!
Spirit, grow brighter on my nights and days;
Shine out of heaven; my guide and comfort be:
Pilot the wanderers through the ocean ways:
Keep the stars steadfast, and the waters free:
Lighten thy lonely creature while he prays :
Keep his Soul strong amid the mighty Sea!

Fraser's Magazine. AMERICAN TRAITS.

THAT respect for the will of the majority which is inculcated by democratic institutions, has exercised a decided influence over the social, no less than the political, life of the people of the United States. It has not only had the effect of preventing the development of individuality of character, but it has also consider ably modified that obstinacy of temper which is one of the most strongly-marked characteristics of the so-called Anglo-Sax

on race.

"An Englishman never knows when he is beaten," one often hears it triumphantly said in this country. But this very unwillingness to admit defeat, however admirable a quality on the battlefield, is not quite so desirable a one in social life, when it assumes the form of an utter deafness to reason and argument.

Now, the inhabitants of the American Union are singularly devoid of this dogged tenacity of opinion. Mr. Disraeli said on one occasion in the House of Commons, that a friend of his, who had spent some time in the United States, had declared it to be his conviction that the Americans "were the most tractable people in the world." And in saying this, he did them no more them simple justice.

This phase of the national character finds, indeed, an illustration in one department of American literature. Let the reader take up any collection of anecdotes from the States, and he will, if he looks a little below the surface, almost invariably discover in it evidence of the readiness with which the American, when in the wrong or worsted in argument, admits himself to be so. The evidence in question is all the more reliable from the fact that it is purely incidental. Of the many thousand anecdotes, for instance, to be

found in the pages of Harper's Magazine, there is not one the object of which is to call attention to this national trait. On the contrary, the narrators of the various stories are obviously quite unconscious of its existence; and yet, how frequently does it manifest itself! The individuals, indeed, who figure in the majority of the anecdotes referred to, do not belong to the educated classes, and the language they make use of is, frequently, neither elegant nor grammatical; but their readiness to admit themselves to have been in error is unmistakable, and finds expression in such phrases as, " Well, I own the corn;" "You have me there, and no mistake;" "You may take my hat;" "I'm dead beat, and that's a fact," etc.

One result of the absence of marked individuality of character in the United States is the circumstance that, in social life, people-to use a colloquialism-" get on" together better than they do here, where a man's idiosyncrasies are very apt to clash with those of his neighbor.

When, in fact, Benjamin Franklin said, "No house is large enough to hold two families," he uttered an aphorism suggested by the experience of many years' residence in England, or, if warranted as regards his own land, warranted simply by the fact that the influence of her new institutions had not yet had time to make itself generally felt. For there is no country-not even France-where various families can and do live in such harmony under the same roof as in the United States. In the larger cities especially, where houserents are exceedingly high, it is frequently the case that the married sons and daughters of a family will live in the same house with their parents, for years in succession, in peace and quietness.

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A mother-in-law, again, is far from being the bête noire in the States that she is in this country, where there seems to exist a species of chronic antagonism between most married men and their wives' mothers. Strange infatuation of the human intellect!" says Thackeray, "there is, not unfrequently, a period in a man's life, before marriage, when, so far from regarding his future mother-in-law with dislike, he positively feels a certain degree of affection for her." Was it not Douglas Jerrold, too, who said, that on " the day of a woman's marriage her mother should sacrifice herself at the altar as a propitiatory offering to secure her son-in-law's future happiness?" Indeed, English literature is full of references to the incompatibility supposed to exist between the members of a family standing in the above relations to each other.

This state of feeling certainly does not prevail to any appreciable extent in America, as will be seen from the following slight anecdote, which pretty fairly illustrates the difference of national sentiment on the subject.

In the clever two-act comedy entitled The Little Treasure, part of the plot hinges on the fact that a husband has quarreled with his wife on account of the interference of her mother (who resides with them) in their domestic affairs. In one scene a friend is explaining to the daughter of this couple how the differences between them arose, and he premises his statement by saying that "it is a lawthough an unwritten one-that no man shall live in peace and quietness in the same house with his mother-in-law."

Now the writer has seen the piece in question, more than once, in both NewYork and London. Here the sentence quoted never fails to elicit from the audience some tokens of approval; there it is heard in absolute silence, the Americans having no sympathy with the sentiments expressed, and therefore failing to appreciate the jest.

The relations, too, existing between parents and children in America are of the most satisfactory character, notwithstanding, or rather, perhaps, in consequence of, the indulgence with which the latter are treated. "I never saw," says the author of Vanity Fair, "people on better terms with each other, more frank, affectionate, and cordial than the parents and the

grown-up young folks in the United States. And why? Because they are spoilt, to be sure! I say to you, get the confidence of yours-before the day comes of revolt and independence, after which love returneth not."

Unquestionably, the law of primogeniture has influenced, in some measure, the relations existing between father and son in this country. The younger members of a family can, indeed, scarcely fail to feel, and tacitly, at least, resent, the invidious distinction made, both by law and custom, in favor of the first-born. It is not simply that in the case of entailed estates the bulk of the property goes to the one son, but only too frequently all the father's love, pride, and aspirations for the future of the family seem centered in the heir, to the exclusion of his other children, who, as near to him in blood, should be equally so in affection. To aggrandize his future successor, that he may be enabled to sustain handsomely the family name and position, the interests of his younger brethren are not unseldom sacrificed. Of this feeling we recently had an illustration; when a nobleman, whose rent-roll has been estimated at over four hundred thousand pounds per annum, left nearly the whole of this vast property, comprising several unentailed estates, to his eldest son; bequeathing the comparative pittance of two thousand a year to the second.

In America, not only is there no law in favor of primogeniture, but there is incorporated in the code of every State in the Union a more or less stringent one against it; any clauses inserted in a will, with a view to entailing or attempting to entail an estate, being absolutely null and void. When Daniel Webster, who enjoyed, and justly, the reputation of being one of the most eminent jurists in the United States, made his will, he exercised all his ingenuity in endeavoring so to word the instrument as to enable him to keep "Marshfield," his homestead, in the family of his eldest son; or, in other words, he sought to create a species of entail. But the attempt was unsuccessful. The will was disputed by those members of the family whose interests were injuriously affected by it, and the Massachusetts judges were unanimous in their decision that the provision in question was contra bonos mores, and in direct contravention of the laws of the State.

I may observe here, en passant, that it is rather a curious commentary upon the inconsistencies of human nature, that Webster-the "great expounder of the constitution," the champion of law, par excellence -should, in one of the most important acts of his life, have made a deliberate attempt to evade the operation of the laws of his country. He was, however, quite exceptional in his desire to entail his estate. As a rule the feeling, created and fostered here by law and usage in favor of the eldest son, is, practically, non-existent in the United States, where a man in making a disposition of his property rarely evinces a preference for one child over another.

In the State of New-York, and, I be lieve, in nearly every one of the Northern and Eastern States, the law is, that when a married man dies intestate, his widow shall enjoy a life interest in one third of his real and personal estate, and that the remaining two thirds shall be equally divided among his children. So eminently just is felt to be this law, and so entirely is it in harmony with the sentiments of the community, that very many persons never deem it necessary to make a will at all, being perfectly content with the machinery the State has provided for the distribution of their property. And as there is, or rather was-for I speak of the period before the imposition of the "war taxes"neither legacy, succession, nor probate duty in America, no loss accrues to a man's family from the circumstance of his not having made a testamentary disposition of his estate.

In fact, so far is the feeling carried in the United States that all a man's children should be equal sharers in whatever property he leaves behind him, that, in those instances where a will has been made leaving more to one son or daughter than the others, and it has been contested on the ground of "undue influence," the courts of law have generally, in their decisions, leant to the opinion that the very fact of the apportionment being unequal was primâ facie evidence of undue influence having been exercised over the testator; to be rebutted only by proof that some substantial reason, and not mere caprice, had dictated the apparently unfair preference for one child over another.

The correctness of Thackeray's remarks on the character of the relations existing

between parents and children in the United States finds, incidentally, confirmation in the literature of that country. In the works of no American author are to be found the scenes of domestic dissension and unhappiness portrayed in those of English writers; and for the simple reason, that such phases of human life have not come under the observation of the former. The great passions, indeed, love, hate, revenge, play their part in the writings of American novelists, as they do in the literature of every nation. But such scenes of domestic discord as those painted so graphically in the Newcombs and the Adventures of Philip could by no possibility occur in the state of society which exists in the United States; for, in nearly every instance, these dissensions arise from the circumstance that the elder members of the family neither recognize the individuality nor respect the rights of the youngerand in America they do both.

It is not my purpose, in this paper, to enter into an elaborate disquisition upon the character of the people of the United States, my object being simply to touch briefly upon some of their more prominent national traits; but there is one accusation brought against them which must not pass unnoticed-that of being a thoroughly ill-mannered nation-an accusation so persistently reiterated, that it has obtained almost universal credence in this country.

Nearly every English traveler has some tale to tell of the rudeness and incivility he has met with from the lower classes in America; and, primâ facie, it would appear that complaints so general must be well founded. But it is not so. The annoyances to which these gentlemen have been subjected have arisen, almost invariably, from their failing to properly appreciate the difference existing between the social system of the Americans and that of their own people.

In this country the separation of the various grades of society has had a marked effect upon the morale of what are termed the "lower classes." The man in fustian can not understand why he should render even the most trifling civility to the man in broadcloth without being paid for it. If you only so much as inquire your way of a man having the appearance of a mechanic, and he goes a few steps out of his path to show it to you, he will-five times out

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