AMBROSE MACLANDRETH.

CHAPTER I.

"With instinct is the human soul endowed
Which nature knoweth not: that instinct liking,
That makes the tender and adventurous bird,
To gain some other food in distant lands,
Traverse in one bold flight the ocean's waves.
What do they go to ask of brighter climes?
Have they not 'neath our roofs their moss and nest-
Their fields of food all ripened by the sun,
And grains that fall to feed their young?"

ALPHONSE DE LAMARTINE.

LIFE generally takes its complexion from the society in which we move, as certain insects are known to take the colour of the tree upon whose bark they subsist. Man, viewed in this light, is, in a great measure, a creature of circumstances, since his inward being is chiefly made up of ideas and sentiments produced by surrounding objects. His mind in childhood is like a fountain on the mountain top, which may easily be turned to this or that side of it, and thus forced into quite a different course from what it would otherwise have taken.

B