—Ah, lightest thou, beyond death, on this same slow-ambling, padded horse of life.

Youth, the circus-rider, fares gaily round the ring, standing with one foot on the bare-backed horse—the Ideal. Presently, at the moment of manhood, Life (exacting ring-master) causes another horse to be brought in who passes under the rider's legs, and ambles on. This is the Real. The young man takes up the reins, places a foot on each animal, and the business now becomes serious.

For it is a differing pace, of these two, the Real and the Ideal.

And yet no man can be said to make the least success in life who does not contrive to make them go well together.

The Age is an Adonis that pursues the boar Wealth: yet shall the rude tusk of trade wound this blue-veined thigh,—if Love come not to the rescue; Adon despises Love.

Sometimes Providence seems to have a bee in his bonnet. Else why should hell, the greatest risk, be the most improvable fact, and himself, the only light, be the most completely undiscoverable? If the angels are good company, why shut us out from them? I look for good boys for my children. Hide not your light under a bushel, is His own command: and yet He is completely obscured under the inexorable quid pro quo of Nature and the hateful measure of Evil.