The following paragraphs, which we have met in the course of our reading, contain a great deal of truth worthy the consideration of our readers.

Extravagance in living.—"One cannot wonder that the times occasionally get hard," said a venerable citizen the other day, "when one sees the way in which people live and ladies dress." We thought there was a great deal of truth in what the old gentleman said. Houses at from five hundred to a thousand dollars rent, brocades at three dollars a yard, bonnets at twenty, and shawls, and cloaks, &c., from fifty dollars up, are enough to embarrass any community that indulges in such extravagances as Americans do. For it is not only the families of realized wealth, who could afford it, that spend money in this way, but those who are yet laboring to make a fortune, and who, by the chances of trade, may fail of this desirable result. Everybody wishes to live, now-a-days, as if already rich. The wives and daughters of men, not worth two thousand a-year, dress as rich nearly as those of men worth ten or twenty thousand. The young, too, begin where their parents left off. Extravagance, in a word, is piled on extravagance, till

"Alps o'er Alps arise."

The folly of this is apparent. The sums thus lavished go for mere show, and neither refine the mind nor improve the heart. They gratify vanity, that is all. By the practice of a wise economy, most families might, in time, entitle themselves to such luxuries; and then indulgence in them would not be so reprehensible. If there are two men, each making a clear two thousand a-year, and one lays by a thousand at interest, while the other spends his entire income, the first will have acquired a fortune in sixteen years, sufficient to yield him an income equal to his accustomed expenses, while the other will be as poor as when he started in life. And so of larger sums. In fine, any man, by living on half of what he annually makes, be it more or less, can, before he is forty, acquire enough, and have it invested in good securities, to live for the rest of his life in the style in which he has been living all along. Yet how few do it! But what prevents? Extravagance! extravagance! and again extravagance!

Wives and carpets.—In the selection of a carpet, you should always prefer one with small figures, for the two webs, of which the fabric consists, are always more closely interwoven than in carpeting where large figures are wrought. "There is a good deal of true philosophy in this," says one, "that will apply to matters widely different from the selection of carpets. A man commits a sad mistake when he selects a wife that cuts too large a figure on the green carpet of life—in other words, makes much display. The attractions fade out—the web of life becomes weak—and all the gay figures, that seemed so charming at first, disappear like summer flowers in autumn. This is what makes the bachelors, or some of them. The wives of the present day wish to cut too large a figure in the carpet of life."

Selected.