in manner, and rough in person-he only needs development to become worthy of her, in some respects at least. I shall not quarrel with a woman who desires a husband superior to herself, for I know it will be well for her to obtain such an one, if she will be stimulated by contact with a higher mind to a brighter and broader development. At the same time, I must believe that for a man to marry his inferior, is to call upon himself a great misfortune; to deprive himself of one of the most elevating and refining influences which can possibly affect him. I therefore believe it to be the true policy of every young man to aim high in his choice of a companion. I have previously given a reason for this policy, and both that and this conspire to establish the soundness of my counsel.

One thing more: not the least important, but the last in this letter. No woman without piety in her heart is fit to be the companion of any man. You may get, in your wife, beauty, amiability, sprightliness, wit, accomplishments, wealth, and learning, but if that wife have no higher love than herself and yourself, she is a poor creature. She cannot elevate you above mean aims and objects, she cannot educate her children properly, she cannot, in hours of adversity, sustain and comfort you, she cannot bear with patience your petulance induced by the toils and vexations of business, and she will never be safe against the seductive temptations of gaiety and dress.

Then, again, a man who has the prayers of a pious wife, and knows that he has them-upheld by Heaven,

or by a refined sense of obligation and gratitude-can rarely become a very bad man. A daily prayer from the heart of a pure and pious wife, for a husband engrossed in the pursuits of wealth or fame, is a chain of golden words that links his name every day with the name of God. He may snap it three hundred and sixty-five times in a year, for many years, but the chances are that in time he will gather the sundered filaments, and seek to re-unite them in an everlasting bond.

LETTER III.

MANNERS AND DRESS.

"Costly thy habit as thy purse can buy,

But not expressed in fancy; rich not gaudy;

For the apparel oft proclaims the man."-SHAKESPEARE.

T is well for young men to obtain, at the very start of their career, some idea of the value of politeness. Some cannot be otherwise than urbane. They are born so. One can kick them roundly and soundly, and they will not refuse to smile, if it be done good-naturedly. They escape all corners by a necessity of their nature. If their souls had only corporeal volume, we could see them making their way through a crowd, like nice little spaniels, scaring nobody, running between nobody's legs, but winding along shrinkingly and gracefully, seeing a master in every man, and thus flattering every man's vanity into good-nature, but really spoiling their reputation as reliable dogs, by their undiscriminating and universal complaisance. There is a self-forgetfulness which is so deep as to be below

self-respect, and such instances as we occasionally meet with should be treated compassionately.

Puppyism is not really politeness. The genuine article is as necessary to success, and particularly to an enjoyable success, as integrity, or industry, or any other indispensable thing. All machinery ruins itself by friction, without the presence of a lubricating fluid. Politeness, or civility, or urbanity, or whatever we may choose to call it, is the oil which preserves the machinery of society from destruction. We are obliged to bend to one another-to step aside and let another pass, to ignore this and that personal peculiarity, to speak pleasantly when irritated, and to do a great many things to avoid abrasion and collision. In other words, in a world of selfish interests and pursuits, where every man is pursuing his own special good, we must mask our real designs in studied politeness, or mingle them with real kindness, in order to elevate the society of men above the society of wolves. Young men generally would doubtless be thoroughly astonished if they could comprehend at a single glance how greatly their personal happiness, popularity, prosperity, and usefulness, depend on their manners.

I know young men who, in the discharge of their duties, imagine that if they go through them with a literal performance, they are doing all that they undertake to do. You will never see a smile upon their faces, nor hear a genial word of good fellowship from their lips; and from the manner in which their labour is performed you would never learn that they were engaged in intercourse with human beings. They

carry the same manner and the same spirit into the counting-room that they do into the dog-kennel or the stable. Everybody hates such young men as these, and recoils from all contact with them. If they have business with them, they close it as soon as possible, and get out of their presence. A man who, having got his vessel under headway on the voyage of life, takes a straight course, minding nothing for the manof-war that lies in his path, or the sloop that crosses his bow, or the fishing smacks that find game where he seeks nothing but a passage, or interposing rocks or islands, will be very sure to get terribly rubbed before he gets through-and he ought to be.

I despise servility, but true and uniform politeness is the glory of any young man. It should be a politeness full of frankness and good-nature, unobtrusive and constant, and uniform in its exhibition to every class of men. The young man who is overwhelmingly polite to a celebrity or a nabob, and rude to a poor man because he is a poor man, deserves to be despised. That style of manners which combines self-respect with respect for the rights and feelings of others, especially if it be warmed up by the fires of a genial heart, is a thing to be coveted and cultivated, and it is a thing that pays, alike in cash and comfort.

The talk of manners introduces us naturally to dress and personal appearance. I believe that it is the duty of all men-young and old-to make their persons, so far as practicable or possible, agreeable to those with whom they are thrown into association. I mean by this that they shall not offend by singularity, nor by