CULTURE THE RESULT OF LABOR.-WM. WIRT.
The education, moral and intellectual, of every individual must be chiefly his own work. How else could it happen that young men, who have had precisely the same opportunities, should be continually presenting us with such different results, and rushing to such opposite destinies? Difference of talent will not solve it, because that difference is very often in favor of the disappointed candidate.
You will see issuing from the walls of the same college-nay, sometimes from the bosom of the same family,-two young men, of whom the one shall be admitted to be a genius of high order, the other scarcely above the point of mediocrity; yet you shall see the genius sinking and perishing in pov erty, obscurity, and wretchedness; while, on the other hand, you shall observe the mediocre plodding his slow but sure way up the hill of life, gaining steadfast footing at every step, and mounting, at length, to eminence and distinction, -an ornament to his family, a blessing to his country.
Now whose work is this? Manifestly their own. Men are the architects of their respective fortunes. It is the fiat of fate from which no power of genius can absolve you. Genius, unexerted, is like the poor moth that flutters around a candle till it scorches itself to death. If genius be desirable at all, it is only of that great and magnanimous kind which, like the condor of South America, pitches from the summit of Chimborazo, above the clouds, and sustains itself at pleasure in that empyreal region, with an energy rather invigorated than weakened by the effort.
It is this capacity for high and long-continued exertion, this vigorous power of profound and searching investigation, this careering and wide-spreading comprehension of mind, and those long reaches of thought, that
"Pluck bright honor from the pale-faced moon,
Or dive into the bottom of the deep,
Where fathom-line could never touch the ground,
And drag up drowned honor by the locks."
This is the prowess, and these the hardy achievements, which are to enroll your names among the great men of the earth.
A CHINESE STORY.-C. P. CRANCHI.
None are so wise as they who make pretense
To know what fate conceals from mortal sense.
This moral from a tale of Ho-hang-ho
Might have been drawn a thousand years ago,
When men were left to their unaided senses,
Long ere the days of spectacles and lenses.
Two young, short-sighted fellows, Chang and Ching,
Over their chopsticks idly chattering,
Fell to disputing which could see the best;
At last they agreed to put it to the test.
Said Chang, "A marble tablet, so I hear,
Is placed upon the Bo-hee temple near,
With an inscription on it. Let us go
And read it (since you boast your opties so),
Standing together at a certain place
In front, where we the letters just may trace;
Then he who quickest reads the inscription there,
The palm for keenest eyes henceforth shall bear.”
Agreed," said Ching, "but let us try it soon:
Suppose we say to-morrow afternoon."
Nay, not so soon," said Chang: "I'm bound to go
To-morrow a day's ride from Ho-hang-ho,
And shan't be ready till the following day:
At ten a. m. on Thursday, let us say.”
So 'twas arranged; but Ching was wide awake:
Time by the forelock he resolved to take;
And to the temple went at once and read
Upon the tablet: "To the illustrious dead,
The chief of mandarins, the great Goh-Bang."
Searce had he gone when stealthily came Chang,
Who read the same; but peering closer, he
Spied in a corner what Ching failed to see-
The words, "This tablet is erected here
By those to whom the great Goh-Bang was dear."
So on the appointed day--both innocent
As babes, of course-these honest fellows went,
And took their distant station; and Ching said,
"I can read plainly, To the illustrious dead,
The chief of mandarins, the great Goh-Bang."
And is that all that you can spell?" said Chang,
"I see what you have read, but furthermore,
In smaller letters, toward the temple door,
Quite plain, 'This tablet is erected here
By those to whom the great Goh-Bang was dear.'"
"My sharp-eyed friend, there are no such words!” said Ching. "They're there," said Chang, "if I see anything,
As clear as daylight." "Patent eyes, indeed,
You have!" cried Ching; “do you think I cannot read?”
"Not at this distance as I can," Chang said,
"If what you say you saw is all you read."
In fine, they quarreled, and their wrath increased,
Till Chang said, "Let us leave it to the priest;
Lo! here he comes to meet us." "It is well,"
Said honest Ching; no falsehood he will tell."
The good man heard their artless story through,
And said, "I think, dear sirs, there must be few
Blest with such wondrous eyes as those you wear:
There's no such tablet or inscription there!
There was one, it is true; 'twas moved away
And placed within the temple yesterday."
GIVE ME THE HAND.-GOODMAN BARNABY.
Give me the hand that is kind, warm, and ready;
Give me the clasp that is calm, true, and steady;
Give me the hand that will never deceive me;
Give me its grasp that I aye may believe thee.
Soft is the palm of the delicate woman;
Hard is the hand of the rough, sturdy yeoman;
Soft palm or hard hand, it matters not-never!
Give me the grasp that is friendly forever.
Give me the hand that is true as a brother;
Give me the hand that has harmed not another;
Give me the hand that has never forsworn it;
Give me the grasp that I aye may adore it!
Lovely the palm of the fair blue-veined maiden;
Horny the hand of the workman o'erladen;
Lovely or ugly, it matters not-never!
Give ine the grasp that is friendly forever.
Give me the grasp that is honest and hearty,
Free as the breeze and unshackled by party:
Let friendship give me the grasp that becomes her,
Close as the twine of the vines of the summer,—
Give me the hand that is true as a brother;
Give me the hand that has wronged not another;
Soft palm or hard hand, it matters not-never!
Give me the grasp that is friendly forever.
A mighty king on his couch reclined,
With a haughty thought in his lonely mind:
"Has not God prospered me more than all?
A nation would rise at my single call,
And its fairest maid would be proud to wear
A crown by the side of my crowned gray hair;
I'll rear him a house for my greatness' sake,
And nobody's aid will I claim or take;
From the gilded spire to the great crypt stone
It shall be my offering, and mine alone."
Then the site was chosen, the builders wrought
To find a shape for the monarch's thought;
Soon the abbey rose 'gainst the calm blue sky,
And they built it broad, and they built it high;
But if any offered with spade or hod,
To give his labor for naught to God,
Then the poor man's mite by the king was spurned,
And he paid him for every stone he turned.
Till at last, on a gorgeous autumn day,
All the solemn priests in their white array,
With prayers, and anthems, and censers came,
And opened the abbey in God's great name.
Now there lay in the chancel a great white stone,
With the king's name on it, and his alone;
And the king stood near it with haughty brow,
And pondered, "The future will know me now
By the glorious temple I have made,
Unsullied by any plebeian aid."
And far away where the melody came
But softly, there lingered an agéd dame;
Her garment was worn, and her hair was thin,
And she looked like the last of all her kin,--
Who had none to love, who had none to blame,
Who would start at the sound of her Christian name.
Yet she said, as the music o'er her passed,
"Thank God that His house is complete at last!"
The monarch, that night, on his couch reclined,
With a proud content in his lonely mind;
But when he slept, he strangely dreamed;-
In the abbey chancel alone he seemed,
And he sought his own royal name to read,
But lo! another was there instead;
'Twas a woman's name he never had heard,
And his heart with wonder and wrath was stirred.
And when he awoke, throughout his land
By mouth of heralds he sent command
If a woman bearing a certain name,
Within a month to his presence came,
She should have a cup with a jeweled rim,—
Besides the honor of seeing him.
On the second day, as he sat alone,
The courtiers who stood about his throne
Informed him the woman was at the gate;
And they thought, of course, she would have to wait (For even so did the royal kin.)
For the kingly pleasure to let her in;
But he stamped his foot with a stern "Begone!
And straightway bring her, and leave us alone."
So a great lord brought her, and that lord swore
That the king awaited her at the door!
Then, slowly and trembling, in there came,
In her poor best weeds, a poor old dame,
And the king himself (there were none to stare,)
Kindly led her up to a velvet chair;
And when she grew used to the splendid place,
And found she could gaze on a royal face,
He begged, if she could, she would make it known
Why he dreamed her name on the chancel stone.
"For what work have you done?" the monarch said;
"I've built all the abbey, and asked no aid."
And the old dame lifted her streaming eyes,
And held up her hands in her great surprise.
"My liege," she answered, "how much could I do
At a great, good work that was meet for you?
'If the king had asked us,' I often thought,
'I could not have given, for I have naught;'
But in works for God, how it seems his plan,
There's something to do that any one can.
So when the builders were ready to sink,
I carried some water and gave them to drink."
The king said nothing.
Ere morning shone
His name was gone from the chancel stone;
And with looks of wonder the courtiers read
The name of the woman writ there instead.
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