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The sweet old smile, that ever seemed to grow
Half sadly-'twas so tender-from the depths
Of her dear eyes, so brought back the old time
And all that had been, that I kept away,
Lest all the love-springs lying in my heart
Should, welling up, o'erwhelm it once again.

She was my first, my last, my only love.

Thought is a good thing, and I appeal to common experience to declare if an excess of a good thing is Nature's rule? On the contrary, it is so decidedly her exception that a proverb, of that defiant tone which is usual in proverbs which apply to exceptions, has been made on purpose to include

She sleeps now in her grave; and when at the accident when it does happen to happen.

night

I see the moonbeams gliding on my bed,
And hear the night-wind sighing in the yew,
I think, so glide the beams, so sighs the wind
Above her tomb in that green quiet spot
Where I shall lie beside her when, in peace,
God shall release me from this mortal coil
I neither love nor hate, but bear content

Yet there is such a prejudice against the Nerves that even the Muscles have been preferred to them, and that, too, in a connection the most unlikely.

No human being has yet pretended to think with his Muscles, or feel with his muscles. Who ever heard of the aspiration

While 'tis His pleasure. May His will be of a biceps? And yet we have been told

done!

MARGUERITE A. POWER.

of Muscular Christians, never of Nervous Christians. It is true the phrase Muscular Christianity has been repudiated by Mr. Kingsley, and very properly; but not, as I conceive, on sufficiently broad grounds. A Christian must, like other people, have musFrom the Argosy.cles, macerate him as you will; nor is it

AN APOLOGY FOR THE NERVES. CONSIDERED as white threads, efferent or afferent, belonging either to the cerebrospinal or sympathetic system, the Nerves require, so far as I am aware, no apology. An apology for the Glands, or the Tendons, or the Medulla Oblongata would be just as much to the purpose. We know that between Dogmatism and Final Causes men fall to the ground; and that Paley has, in his Natural Theology, felt it polite to offer something like an apology for cork-trees, for which he could find no ginger-beer bottles. But if the reader expects any of the crudities of physiology in this paper he will be disappointed: pretty certainly he does not expect any, but he must be a very small reader if his experience has not taught him that he must constantly submit to be informed of unnecessary things. It is part of the established economy of the essay to exclude, with flourishes of phrase, what no human being would ever suppose was going to be taken in.

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The Nerves, then, for our present purpose, are as one should say," the Nerves! If as scientific men assure us, there is, without Nerve, no Thought (this deviation from the rule just laid down is more apparent than real, and if it were real, is only the felicitous exception which illuminates the rule), we can hardly have too much of the Nerves, unless we of Thought can have too much. Perhaps it may maliciously be said that we can, and that something depends upon the quality. No doubt; but we can also have too little. Taken absolutely,

easy to conceive him without bones. But I appeal to physiologists whether the Sympathetic Nervous System is not reckoned a great channel of emotion? (this is another felicitous and illuminating exception, admitted because a solitary exception is always held in suspicion). The philosophic physiologist is welcome to suggest that the real final synthesis of nature defeats all such distinctions we can some of us see where that drives him to-but, in the meantime, a nervous Christian is a far more natural combination than a muscular one.

The truth, however, is, that the Nerves are the objects of systematic enmity and depreciation among mankind at large. Fat, however it may excite complaint in the fat person, is not, I believe, an object of enmity, except in an omnibus or in some position where it occupies an unusual portion of the planetary space. Prophetic denunciations against such as be fat in Zion are on record; none against such as be nervous. Yet the fat man is tolerated, loved, at worst laughed at while the nervous man is not only laughed at, he is disliked. But is it Fat that has been the chief benefactor of the human race? Was it a fat man that invented printing? Was it a fat man that discovered the circulation of the blood? Was George Stephenson fat? Were the martyrs fat men? Heliogabalus was, but was Antoninus? Julius Cæsar, though for his own selfish ends he preferred fat men about his person, was he fat himself? Was Hampden a fat man? Was Milton? Was Cromwell? Was William III.? No; it was George IV. who was the fat man: and

he built the fat pavilion at Brighton. Thus, the nervous suffer in popular estiCharles James Fox was fat; but he gam- mation because they are confounded with bled. Falstaff was fat; but he was not a the dyspeptic, and, it may be added, with respectable character. Hamlet, again, was the hysterical. There is a complaint, or fat; but he believed in ghosts and was a manifestation, or something, which in the very undecided young man. The fattest days of Pamela and Joseph Andrews was man of modern times is a distinguished un- known as the megrims, or the doldrums, or dertaker he may make good coffins, but the vapours; it was a fine madam's common I am not a judge of coffins. On the other excuse for not being seen, or for neglecting hand, is Mr. Tennyson fat? Is Mr. John a duty, and it was supposed to be cured by Stuart Mill fat? Is Mr. Browning fat?" Hungary water," for which the modern Is Mr. Gladstone fat? No; the nation succedaneum is red lavender. I found all would not trust its income with a fat man; the symptoms of the "megrims" described it knows better. The only fat financier I in Dr. Trotter's book as symptoms of the ever heard of was Mr. Hudson the railway nervous temperament. In the name of all king. Thus, it is with nervous men that we the nervous I indignantly repel the slantrust our money, and it is from nervous der; that is just the way of the world - it men that we expect all that makes money never will discriminate. Let hysterics worth having. Or if this statement should speak for themselves, we, the real honest be too wide, let it be met by contradiction "nervous" ladies and gentlemen, do not there are plenty of contradictory people have "a difficulty in swallowing," and, most in the world' and the other side have too distinctly, do not have "St. Vitus's dance," long had it all their own way - have too which is described by the infamous Trotter long been permitted to treat the Nervous as part of the ordinary diagnosis of our temas not only miserable in themselves but the perament! I speak both in sorrow and in causes of misery in others. anger, but without surprise; for have not many of us, comrades in nervousness, been asked, "What makes you so nervous? You should take tonics!" when we were no more "nervous" in that sense than the jubilant shrimp at sunset, or the lark in the happy agitation of his matin song.

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Part of this results from sheer error in classification. It was with extreme indignation that I once read "Dr. Trotter (of Bath) on the Nervous Temperament" book lent to me by a friend, who supposed me to be, as a nervous man, both wretched and a cause of wretchedness. In Dr. Trotter I found an elaborate discussion of- Indigestion! His idea of a nervous person was, I found, a person who had "the wind; who had a poor appetite; who had ignominious symptoms not to be particularized; who suffered from "borborrigmi." And his prescriptions were such beggarly elements as calcined magnesia: gentian exercise: occupation; and "the warm gums." I returned the book with disgust, assuring my friend that, however nervous I might be, I never had "the wind;" knew nothing of “borborrigmi;” ate like a trooper; walked ten miles a day; and had ample "occupation." To this hour I find people who "understand"— ah, how people do "understand" things! that I am" nervous," suppose that what they call "nervousness" is a sort of disease. They recommend rhubarb, or peppermint drops, or more exercise, or pale ale. The fact is they do not understand vivacity of sensation. They think it is a complaint, they localize it in the regions under or below the waistband; and prescribe to the "nervous" just as a penguin or a porpoise might prescribe to a darting swallow or a leaping salmon.

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The truth is, the vulgar phlegmatic do not love to see others lively and brisk. A creature with only a few sides say two, an inside and an outside is naturally jealous of another with a hundred facets, or is at least puzzled by it. So, a crocodile, which takes fifteen minutes to turn round, might fancy a kitten chasing its own tail mad or diseased. True, as we all know, or as the attendants at many places of public entertainment will tell us if we ask, the phlegmatic vulgar are particularly fond of watching machinery in motion, anything that "goes of itself" is a passion with them. But then there is here no room for comparison or jealousy. The phlegmatic man knows that he might stop a steambobbin; that, in any case, he can do things the bobbin cannot do, and that somebody could make another bobbin. But he cannot repress the disturbing mobility of the nervous man; he may impute borborrigmi, and recommend potass or cardamoms, or even "the warm gums; " but he could not have given Elizabeth Barrett Browning in charge for reminding him of a fire-fly, or stopped Douglas Jerrold like a steam-bobbin. Thank heavens, we have yet our Mag

and the creeping clouds, the hang of a curl, nervousness with the megrims, or the dolthe delay of a minute, the suspicion that drums, or any other complaint. Do not some one is in pain, a knock at the door, confound it with cowardice or ill-temper. a cat on the tiles, a mere film or phantasm And, when you come into practical relaof a smile or a frown, can make him uncom- tions with it in daily life, put it upon its fortable? - Ah, says Nerves, you know all defence as seldom as you can. It never that, do you? But you do not know forgets — and if it is a decent sort of nerenough. This hyperapprehensiveness of vousness it will reward you some day for mine is far greater than you fancy. You not driving it into anything more than would shrink into nothing, collapse, zusam- general and remote apologies like the presmenfabren if you knew it all. You think I ent. MATTHEW BROWNE. am irritable sometimes? In the scientific sense always, but in the base sense not so

often

What's done you partly may compute,

But never what's resisted;

and if I were to let you see how much I discern of cause for irritation, you would discern how much I forbear. But life would be impossible to us both if I were to make disclosures. My friend, I not only know that I am surrounded by Things and Persons as you do; I have in addition an incessant sixth sense of Things and Persons, of what is past, present, and to come. You live in the world, No-Nerves. I live in the world, and in a refracting atmosphere of the world as well. Which is the better man of the two? I don't know. Which is the happier? I don't care.

For this style of answer may be quoted at least the authority of Confucius. Some one asked him how many stars there were in the sky? "I don't know," said he, "I mind things near me." The questioner resumed, "Then how many hairs are there in the cat's back?" "I don't care," said the philosopher. This is the quip-heroicomitted by Touchstone in his well-known enumeration. But, to deal more civilly with the matter. An elderly lady once asked how I thought a person would feel who was sure of going to heaven. In a long and very eloquent speech, I told her my views. To my surprise, she was not comforted; on the contrary, she began to ery, saying, "Ah, then, I shall never go to heaven, for I never felt a bit like that!" But in five minutes I had convinced her that she did feel like that. I simply altered the phraseology of my description, and she cognized the picture at once- she had just what I described. The moral is

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Let no person who happens to thing here written of the joys of less go a-crying and say, "I never that!" a little explanation might rights. Very likely you have been rose all your life without knowing I say is, do not let us have any the Nerves. Do not confound

From the Argosy.

THE NATURAL HISTORY OF SCOTCHMEN. ARE all Scotchmen alike? Is it enough to say of a man that he is a Scotchman to convey a full and accurate idea respecting him? On the contrary there is perhaps a greater diversity of character in Scotland than in any other country. Let a classification of Scotchmen be, with equal fairness, brevity, and modesty, attempted by one who thinks that though national peculiarities cannot be artificially maintained, yet that their decay is ever to be lamented, and that cosmopolitanism is infinitely detestable.

The Canny Scot is so well known as scarcely to require description. He carries caution, cunning, and selfishness to excess. Deceitful when a purpose is to be accomplished, he is not habitually deceitful. One thing he never loses sight of his own interest. But of his own interest he is not the most enlightened judge. His sycophancy disgusts, and he forgets that a cowardly reserve may war with a comprehensive prudence. As a general rule, address accomplishes more than tact, tact more than talent, talent more than genius. It is to address, to adroitness, to astuteness, that the Canny Scot trusts. For the most part the Canny Scot is a native of the north-eastern part of Scotland. The weakness of the Canny Scot is, that he is glad - not from hypocrisy, but from vanity to get credit for virtues that he does not possess. So far from being the normal Scotchman, the Canny Scot is nowhere so warmly hated as in Scotland itself.

It would be more easy to demonstrate that the Uncanny Scot is the normal Scotchman. The Uncanny Scot has many noble qualities: -he is romantic, chivalrous, generous; an idealist, but wil 1 reckless. From vice he is altoget every step that he tal most every word that cretion; and he is n for his indiscretions an

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path, he called it the triumph of mind over matter. Such is the triumph of the nervous element over the phlegmatic element in human affairs. And, if it sometimes gets the worst of it, what then? "You young rascal," said the old gentleman to the rash little boy in the street, "if that cab had run over you where would you have been then?" and the boy answered," Up behind, a-takin' of his number!" Just so; when vulgar brute force runs over Nerve, where is Nerve immediately? Why," Up behind, a-takin' of his number!" It is a glorious mission.

see "blues and reds" which others do not
see; that the difference between moderate
nerve and much nerve is the difference
between the apprehensiveness of a babe
and the apprehensiveness of a grown per-
son is as certain as that twice three are six.
In reality the old schoolboy story of "Eyes
and No-Eyes" ought to be called Nerves
and No-Nerves; although an image bor-
rowed from the sense of sight may help us
to apprehend the difference between an
organization like that of the stout trades-
man next door, and De Quincey or Hartley
Coleridge. I have often wondered how
short-sighted men are affected by female
beauty. How do they feel in a ball-room
for instance? Necessarily short sight must
miss seeing loveliness at the farther end of
the room; while ordinary sight might have
the whole current of his life changed by it.
How ridiculous, one might here say, is our
moral criticism of each other, unless we re-
gard it as give-and-take, tit-for-tat -
that my wrongness is lessened by your
wrongness, you know, or that moral dis-
tinctions are obliterated, but that in what
may be called the courtesies of ethics, the
mote must remember the beam.

-not

All men despise, or think they despise, or pretend to despise, cowards. And this is another misrepresentation with cowards the nervous are perpetually confounded. Now let us waive all distinctions —which, indeed, can never be made final -between moral and physical courage, and it will certainly not be found that the bravest men are the least nervous. The greatest of the Napiers was an exquisitely nervous man. The late Rev. F. W. Robertson of Brighton may be said to have died of a fine nervous system - but he had all the instincts and characteristics of a soldier, and sacrificed himself to his father's wish in I do not at all know whether human conentering the church instead of the army. ditions are equally balanced, nor even The list of illustrative instances might be whether they are "pretty equally" balanced much extended; but it is unnecessary. or not. It is often asserted, but nobody Without pushing beyond the truth, and knows anything about it. But in mere looking candidly round the whole subject, quantity of sensation, the nervous people we must all of us see that it is absurd to would probably claim to have the best of suppose the highest forms of any fine quality it. What, in the pleasures of sense? Yes, exhibited by the lower organizations. The very essence of being "nervous is apprehensiveness, or being quick to apprehend things. This may minister to fearfulness, but it is not fear. The hawk is not afraid of his prey because he sees it afar off, nor the savage of his enemy because he hears the tramp of his advance miles away in the desert. But a nervous writer, using similes like these on a simple subject, in a playful vein, is afraid of making the subject absurd, and stops short!

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certainly, says our nervous friend, a fig for
your pleasures of sense! What is "sense?"
Do you mean to tell me that the man who
could "die of a rose in aromatic pain" does
not get more delight out of " sense than a
horn-handed clown? more even at given
hours, to say nothing of memory and hope;
the echo, the refraction, the resonance, the
reduplications of joy?

Let spirit star the dome
Of flesh, that flesh may miss no peak!

It may be taken for granted by phleg matic people that the apprehensiveness of Do you mean to tell me that if Nerves sees the high nervous temperament is far great- the sun before he rises and after he sets, as er than it appears, or than it can be intel- well as all the time he is above the horizon, ligibly represented to be. We all know he does not get more pleasure out of the the famous Turner anecdote. "Mr. Tur- sun? Yes, says No-Nerves, I do mean to ner, I never saw blues and reds like yours say that; he has discounted his pleasure, in the sky!" No, ma'am; but don't you and his memory is regret. And, ah, how I wish you could?" Now, in reality, no hu- can plague him! I can bang doors, and man being need wish to change places with stump about over his head till he maddens! another it may be my mistake, but I do I can spoil all his pleasures by slipping in not believe any human being ever does, or little sly drops-one drop to a cup is did, or will wish to relinquish his identity: enough! of poison that others would not no, not on the rack. But that the "nerves And I know that the shifting winds,

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and the creeping clouds, the hang of a curl, | nervousness with the megrims, or the dolthe delay of a minute, the suspicion that drums, or any other complaint. Do not some one is in pain, a knock at the door, confound it with cowardice or ill-temper. a cat on the tiles, a mere film or phantasm And, when you come into practical relaof a smile or a frown, can make him uncom- tions with it in daily life, put it upon its fortable? Ah, says Nerves, you know all defence as seldom as you can. It never that, do you ? But you do not know forgets - and if it is a decent sort of nerenough. This hyperapprehensiveness of vousness it will reward you some day for mine is far greater than you fancy. You not driving it into anything more than would shrink into nothing, collapse, zusam- general and remote apologies like the presmenfabren if you knew it all. You think I am irritable sometimes? In the scientific sense always, but in the base sense not so

olten

What's done you partly may compute,
But never what's resisted;

and if I were to let you see how much I discern of cause for irritation, you would discern how much I forbear. But life would be impossible to us both if I were to make disclosures. My friend, I not only know that I am surrounded by Things and Persons as you do; I have in addition an incessant sixth sense of Things and Persons, of what is past, present, and to come. You live in the world, No-Nerves. I live in the world, and in a refracting atmosphere of the world as well. Which is the better man of the two? I don't know. Which is the happier? I don't care.

For this style of answer may be quoted at least the authority of Confucius. Some one asked him how many stars there were in the sky? "I don't know," said he, “I mind things near me.' The questioner resumed, "Then how many hairs are there in the cat's back?" "I don't care," said the philosopher. This is the quip-heroic omitted by Touchstone in his well-known enumeration. But, to deal more civilly with the matter. An elderly lady once asked how I thought a person would feel who was sure of going to heaven. In a long and very eloquent speech, I told her my views. To my surprise, she was not comforted; on the contrary, she began to cry, saying, "Ah, then, I shall never go to heaven, for I never felt a bit like that!" But in five minutes I had convinced her that she did feel like that. I simply altered the phraseology of my description, and she recognized the picture at once- she had felt just what I described. The moral is obvious. Let no person who happens to read anything here written of the joys of nervousness go a-crying and say, "I never felt like that!". - a little explanation might set all to rights. Very likely you have been talking prose all your life without knowing it. All I say is, do not let us have any abuse of the Nerves. Do not confound

-

ent.

MATTHEW BROWNE.

From the Argosy.

THE NATURAL HISTORY OF SCOTCHMEN. ARE all Scotchmen alike? Is it enough to say of a man that he is a Scotchman to convey a full and accurate idea respecting him? On the contrary there is perhaps a greater diversity of character in Scotland than in any other country. Let a classification of Scotchmen be, with equal fairness, brevity, and modesty, attempted by one who thinks that though national peculiarities cannot be artificially maintained, yet that their decay is ever to be lamented, and that cosmopolitanism is infinitely detestable.

The Canny Scot is so well known as scarcely to require description. He carries caution, cunning, and selfishness to excess. Deceitful when a purpose is to be accomplished, he is not habitually deceitful. One thing he never loses sight of his own interest. But of his own interest he is not the most enlightened judge. His sycophancy disgusts, and he forgets that a cowardly reserve may war with a comprehensive prudence. As a general rule, address accomplishes more than tact, tact more than talent, talent more than genius. It is to address, to adroitness, to astuteness, that the Canny Scot trusts. For the most part the Canny Scot is a native of the north-eastern part of Scotland. The weakness of the Canny Scot is, that he is glad - not from hypocrisy, but from vanity to get credit for virtues that he does not possess. So far from being the normal Scotchman, the Canny Scot is nowhere so warmly hated as in Scotland itself.

It would be more easy to demonstrate that the Uncanny Scot is the normal Scotchman. The Uncanny Scot has many noble qualities: -he is romantic, chivalrous, generous; an idealist, but wild and reckless. From vice he is altogether free, but almost every step that he takes is a folly, and almost every word that he utters is an indiscretion; and he is more terribly pu } for his indiscretions and his follies than oth

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