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is coming up to London to eat his term-rance, that brought one man to a lieutenancy dinners in the Temple; and, faute de mieux, in a marching regiment, another to a desk Jenkins of Magdalene, whose chief notion in Downing Street, and a third to a counabout law is that lawyers wear wigs and try curacy and the irritating occupation of that the successful ones are admirably paid, attending night schools. Even if the lieucomes up to London too to accompany his tenant becomes a general, the clerk a perfellow-oarsman, eats his five o'clock dinner, manent under-secretary, and the curate an and calls himself a barrister. The fatal archbishop, it really is at best only an inmove is attended with lifelong consequences. stance of a lucky hit. Somebody always Possibly the bar turns out to be the very must be a bishop. A score or so of comvocation for which Jenkins was designed by fortable houses, with private chapels, greennature, and he becomes, in turn and with houses, and a large income annexed to much satisfaction to himself, a drudge, a them, have to be disposed of, and, as a bully, and a celebrity. But it is equally natural consequence, a score or so of parprobable that the noble profession of the sons must always be provided for; but if bar is not the thing for Jenkins. His soul bishops and archbishops would but speak, is incapable of stooping to hard work in they could only explain the reason why dingy chambers; he misses the little pro- they took orders while the man who lived fessional chances which only fall to the lot next door went into the army, upon the unof those humbler persons who lie in wait by impeachable theory of the mysterious disday and night for them; leading cases pall pensations of Providence. It might have on him, points of practice puzzle him; the been just the other way. For Archbishop success of still more incompetent noodles Robinson knows in his heart that at the than himself, who are fortunate enough to critical moment he rushed at his turningpossess cousins in the attorney line, aggra- point just as carelessly as Colonel Brown. vates and exasperates him; and he becomes, The turn of the tide took him at a time accordingly, morbid, idle, briefless, and when he was full, as young men who have hopeless, and divides his inglorious life be- just left college often are, of a generous tween London drawing-rooms and his club. disposition to sacrifice himself to work and For all this he has to thank the one lazy to duty. He was swept away on the top of instinct which brought him up to London the wave of some such transient and temtwenty years ago, to eat law dinners, be- porary impulse, almost before he knew cause some one else was coming up to eat where he was or whither he was going; them too. The punishment seems a severe and in a month or two of pious emotion one; and, in the eyes of an impartial judge, committed himself for life to a career from destiny appears to have hit Jenkins rather which there was no return. It is true that hard, simply for rushing at one unhappy he has become an archbishop; but he might, turning-point. The only thing to be said but for a rare accident, have remained an in favour of Fortune is that she distributes obscure and not very rich country clergysimiliar opportunities of blundering with man, passing his life in worry and routine, absolute impartiality. What happens to preaching dull sermons to dull tradesmen, the future barrister is only the counterpart grappling indefatigably with Dissenters, of what has happened to soldiers, school- and occasionally going up to vote on the masters, merchants, government clerks, lit- wrong side at a University election. For erary persons, and clergymen. All of us, one Englishman that chooses his profession with few exceptions, at the same stage in aright, twenty doubtless choose it badly. our pilgrimage, have made the same ugly Elder sons alone are preserved by nature rush at our turning-point. Surveying our from the distressing danger. Having no respective professions or occupations with profession at all to choose, that happy class that freedom from prejudice and from pre- is protected against its own native imbecilipossession in their favour which familiarity ty, and its members are spared the reflecwith their details soon begets, most of us tion in after life that a moment's carelessmay candidly ask ourselves the ingenuous ness or impetuosity has made them, of all question, "Que diable allais-je faire dans things, the one thing they care least to be. cette galère?" It is no use putting off the blame upon youthful ambition, or early expectations which have since been disappointed owing to circumstances over which we have no control.

Nothing of the kind. It was not youthful ambition, but accident, hurry, and igno

Marriage, the next most important turning-point in life, is, however, one which eldest sons cannot escape any more than the rest of their species. And, like the rest of their species, they dash at it, as if it were a fence in the hunting-field, without diligently considering the nature of the land

ing on the opposite side. Women, as a rule, children when born may force him to abanapproach this turning-point in their destiny don an arduous and difficult profession for with more solemnity and care. First of all, an easy and rich shelf. To feed and clothe their life, with the exception of the matri- them he retires, possibly, into the obscurity monial break, winds away in one unbroken of some remote parsonage from which he line for ever, only interrupted by the calam- never will emerge, or accepts a consulship ities to which flesh is heir; and, having on the Gold Coast, a mastership at some few turning-points, they make the most of this public school, or a chief justiceship in Newone. Imprudent attachments on the feminine foundland. In himself he may be capable side are not so very common as poets and of things fifty times as splendid, and may be novelists would wish us to understand. Be- incapable of filling properly the inferior fore a young lady bestows her affections, berth. He hates villagers, or a hot climate, her mother and sisters have usually sat or boys, or routine, as the case may be; and down and counted up the cost of it, and in here he is condemned to them as his only the privacy of her closet the heroine has alternative, for no earthly fault of his own, sat down and counted the cost of it herself. except that of being hasty over his turningFrom her earliest youth, marriage has been points. If he took stock of all these chances represented to her -- and truly represented beforehand, not a word could be said. But as the mission and end of womanhood. what man in five hundred does take stock She has been looking out for her turning- of them? What each generally looks to see point, and when it comes in sight, is pre- is whether the particular lady is an angel, pared for its approach. By the time an and whether his immediate income will sufEnglish girl marries, she is often, in spite of fice to keep an angel happy and contented, the theories of Belgravia, really attached to without letting the dust of life settle upon her future husband, but very few English her wings. Some feeble sort of calculation, girls are deeply in love before they are en- it is true, is usually made even by those peogaged. This may be the result of native ple who rush at their turning-points. But English virtue, or superior training, or what- they generally make it after, and not beever other cause may be assigned; but, as a fore, they have been smitten with enthufact, proposals are hastily made, but delibe- siasm; and at a time, accordingly, when rately accepted. Man proposes, woman dis- they are no longer clear-sighted and coolposes; and the irreparable pledge is given headed. They say to themselves that, if often, no doubt, on a miscalculation of what anything goes wrong hereafter, they will married life will turn out to be, but seldom always find a pride and pleasure in sacrifiupon no calculation at all. A woman, when cing ambition and friends and social success she marries, knows what her future lot is to the angel. It is astonishing how the pride likely to prove; or, at all events, she ought and pleasure of such a sacrifice palls upon to be able to know with a little trouble. A the enthusiast after marriage. A good husman knows nothing of the kind. He cannot band will make it cheerfully for any woman foretell how marriage may hamper him in who has given herself to him; but the queshis career, keep him from rising in the world, tion is whether, if he were to sit down again and change the whole current of his for- and count the cost, he whould not add up tunes. As far as the lady is concerned, the the figures differently. The only sober and match may be unobjectionable under every sensible way of treating such a turningaspect. The conjugal lovers may live a life point as marriage would be to consider it, of uninterrupted domestic felicity, and be while one was yet afar off, unenchanted and as happy as two turtle-doves. For all that, untrammeled by fancy and desire, and able marriage, from a wordly point of view, may to retrace one's steps from it without pain. for the man have been a serious turning- One may get so near one's turning-point as point. He has acquired a new circle of to be incapable of stopping short; and in connections and of friends, who may either fact it is with marriage as with most others be an injury or an advantage to him. Hemen drift into it and through it carelessly, has, in fact, moored himself to one spot in from the want of a clear plan and map of . the ocean, and must take his chance of what- life with which to start. ever incidents come with it. Perhaps his wife has a bad temper, or is awkward and devoid of social talent. His own feelings for her are stable and unshaken, but his career is shaken, and the castles which his ambition has been building in the air materially impaired. He may have children, and the

Unfortunately, a man who starts in life with a definite and fixed plan is obliged to rely upon judgments formed by him at an age when all his judgments are necessarily immature. It is not always the man who has been brought up for the Church who is fittest to go into it, or the destined lawyer

of the family who is certain to do best at discovered that a philosopher can be made the law. Young men want at every turn- to lose his temper, he will rarely be allowed ing-point some faithful Mentor who can to rest in the quiet possession of it. “Ho, paint for them the black side of the pros- ho! my master," cried Panurge to Dingpect beyond, and induce them to realize dong, "vous vous eschauffez en vostre harnois,” what failure in life means. It does not and thereupon immediately got the better merely mean having a less splendid house, of him. With a mixed and crowded audifewer dinner-parties and servants, and not ence- - or, to speak shortly, when a man is so much money to spend in luxuries or con- called upon to address a mob-more lativeniences. It means the pain and distress tude is allowable, and a burst of indignaof seeing inferior people pass you in the tion is often well received provided it does race, and look back on you, when they have not run absolutely counter to the prejudices passed you, with a smile of patronage and of the multitude; but it must be indignacontempt. It involves a life-long necessity tion, and not vexation, and should always of having to submit to stand lower in the be held in subjection to the purpose in world than your deserts, and to undergo hand. In general, a man must do with the incessant mortifications and humiliations the mob as he would do with his horse, inflicted on you by prosperous donkeys, and establish a system of give and take, with the full consent and approbation of society. Hurrying over the turning-points of life brings persons to this; and a very admirable rule for the young to take to heart early is the rule that in life, as in the London streets, it is well to drive gently round the corners.

CONTROL OF TEMPER.

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but to very few in a generation is there granted the peculiar power which is able to receive " vague instincts like vapour, and send them forth as dew." There are people who sustain a hail-storm of chaff as if they were composed of heated iron, and there are others who stand under it as though they were roofed with slate or clad in mackintosh and sea-birds' feathers. During the elections last year it happened that one of the young candidates, while addressing his constituents, tried hard, but tried in vain, From the Saturday Review. to remember and repeat the speech which lay written out in his hat. "Get it out of your hat, governor," roared some one. you, gentlemen, so I will," the orator replied, and proceeded to pick it out and read it, not without applause, which was certainly the reward, not of ability, but of good humour. In an argument, especially when conducted with any degree of publicity, a man may as well lose his tongue as his temper. Mr. Helps has remarked that it is often worth while to persuade fools to think as you do, and there are people who are not to be convinced by reason, but are quite vulnerable to the charm of manner. To win your opponent is occasionally a more important result than to win your argument.

ABSOLUTE control of temper has often been set forth in books as if it were the one quality of exceptional value which enables him who po-sesses it to govern the world, and win to his side friends and foes alike. Now, the first statement requires to be taken in a very modified sense, and the last is more frequently falsified by experience than not. In Parliament undoubtedly, perhaps more than in any other place, selfcontrol is appreciated and rewarded, and the want of it resented and punished. A man in an ill-humor can rarely take a hint even of the broadest kind, and when temper obscures tact, and hints are found to be ineffectual, ignominious defeat is not far off. Self-command, there, is simply an incalculable advantage, which often compensates for very considerable defects; without it the most honest or the most brilliant member is at the mercy of every clever opponent who can lodge an arrow between the joints of his armour. Unquestionably an irritable disposition is an infirmity which often besets very noble natures, and the more exalted the position of the man, the greater the pleasure of making him the object of a successful attack. If it be once

So far as to the undoubted general wisdom of early acquiring complete control of temper; but influence of a very powerful and indestructible kind is often obtained and held by an entirely opposite process, and a habit of measured reserve and wary self-command hardly ever pertains to the natures which are the most successful in arousing affection, or the most prodigal in bestowing it. In intimate society, a man of naturally hasty temper practising a secret and violent self-restraint sometimes quarrels with himself for the exasperating dis

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comfort which he inflicts on his whole na- be quite repressed. Suddenly to relinquish ture, sometimes with those who compel or even a vice has been known to entail the persuade him to do it. Often the result is worst of consequences. The tourniquet not by any means to increase his happiness. staunches the wound; but it is a great reIf he has fewer enemies, it is almost certain lief to bleed freely, only it is better to let that he will have fewer friends. People blood from a vein than from an artery. To will care for him, and he will care for them, have your say, however, and to speak your a good deal less than he did when he was mind, are, though often confused in common incessantly claiming their sympathy, or parlance, two very different things. The passionately demanding their forgiveness. one is an affair of the heart, the other There are dispositions at once vindic- of the head. The first is done in haste and tive and placable vindictive if they are provocation, as when David spake; the obliged to let an affront go unavenged other is done deliberately, and with inor unexplained; placable as children if tention. Discharging the conscience is they are suffered to ventilate their wrongs, too often relieving spite, and is rarely, if and quite unable to maintain coldness under ever, intended to be profitable to the the warmth of a frank and kindly overture. hearer. An insult or an impertinence To fix an amiable expression on the lip and comes from an enemy, but those disaeye, and at any price to keep it, or a spec- greeable things which are frequently uttre of it, there, is such a natural resource tered in the operation of speaking the with these persons that, wherever we ob- mind are almost always barbed shafts serve features stamped by a somewhat from the bow of one who calls himself a forced but very sweet smile, it is tolerably friend. Now, even if disagreeable things certain that we there see the owner of a are true, that alone is not the slightest quick and irascible temper. Now there are reason for saying them. A friend should offences which must be corrected, and yet be a conductor for all that is pleasant, a cannot well be corrected in cold blood. non-conductor for all that is the reverse. Here a hot and hasty humour is an actual Speaking of a man now gone to his rest, advantage. Most of us can, indeed, remem- who was in his time remarkable for the ber several times in our lives when we ex- strength and fixity of his friendships, his hibited an amount of wrath quite dispropor- biographer says, "There flowed from him an tionate to the cause of offence, and have unceasing flattery of those he liked (and had just and prolonged reason to regret it; he never kept company with any else), but but to some few among us there comes a it was the kindly commendation of a lover, distinct and more bitter sense of suffering not the adulation of a sycophant." from the consciousnesss that there have As regards the exhibition of natural wrath, been moments when, if we felt, we at any there is one distinction which should always rate did not show, the anger which we be observed. Something may occasionally ought to have shown; and about this there be gained by being angry with men, but with is something humiliating and shameful, inas- an inanimate thing never. He who fails much as it implies a clear remissness, or to control his temper, or who even finds even a deficiency of courage, which is, of all much effort necessary to do it, with reimputations, the hardest to bear. We can gard to accomplished facts and matters forgive ourselves for having been too bold; which, once transferred into the realm we can scarcely forgive ourselves for hav- of the past, are utterly beyond his control, ing been too meek. This may be sad, but has an intractability of intellect or nature it is true to nature nevertheless; for which on which advice would be spent in vain. reason this sort of men and women had bet- With respect to the control of one's temper ter give way to their feelings and yield to towards women, it is impossible to be too their impulses than keep silence and brew magnanimous and generous in theory with bad blood. It is related of two old Scotch what custom persists in terming the weaker ministers, that the one asked the other if he sex; but it is in practice a losing game, and were not sorely tempted at times to go fish- one not often played, though not perhaps ing on the Saturday afternoon. "Oh, for that reason. Excessive control of temmon!" replied his fellow labourer, "I'm per in a man is then felt to argue a want of never tempted lang, I just gang." Have capacity for wrath. Now the feminine mind your say out then. It is better to quarrel prefers the Oriental conception of a God in words than in the heart, and a good a deity who is jealous, who hates and stand-up fight has often sealed a life-long repents, who listens or closes his ears, who friendship; but there is wisdom in striving is to be propitiated and can be provokedto obtain guidance of that which may not to a Buddha sitting motionless and watching

the world go round. Moreover, that endur- women, a somewhat abstruse principle in ing and perpetual patience which, as appar- virtue of which worldly policy would forbid ent in women, has an almost pathetic side, the striving to acquire or exercise, under seems to be, in a man, something not only the inevitable trials of a close and intimate unnatural, but often distinctly exasperating. intercourse, an imperturbable composure, or It is dangerous to say, or even silently to a too conspicuous perfection of temper. To endeavour to convey an intimation, to some smother your resentment, to postpone the people, that there is one thing which they consideration of your injuries, to give sweet cannot do; for if that one thing be to put words for bitter and wise for foolish, to be you out of temper, an unholy ambition will blind to faults and deaf to provocations, immediately arise in them to accomplish it only in the end to see all others treated at any cost and by any means. Never to with more indulgence and thoughtfulness show either pleasure or annoyance is an ap- than you are, because your patience is prov proach to monotony; only to testify pleasure en and your long-suffering is renowned, is is a weak and one-sided proceeding; and, often the reward, and it may be the just on the whole, we are disposed to hold that a reward, of your own conduct. We are, of natural and healthy explosion of even im- course, assuming that this sweetness of temperfectly justifiable wrath is often attended per is not natural, but the ultimate result of by the happiest results. The ebullition, long and difficult effort. In such case, this however, ought to be of a premeditated and line of conduct is apt to beget two thingsgovernable kind; not that a man should one, a not unreasonable though somewhat arrange to get into a rage, and have a do- exasperating sense of self-complacency; the mestic storm, on such and such a day, but other, a habit of hoarding a resentful conrather that he should agree with himself that tempt for others. It is better to blaze and the next time a certain circumstance occurs, be quenched than to smoulder and be chokor a particular sentiment is expressed, he ed, better to give your friend a little handle will do well to be angry, and, being so, to against you than to overwhelm him with a show it within limits laid down beforehand. consciousness of your perfections. Better Sometimes, indeed, he will find it necessary to let him sometimes have to pardon your to lash and work himself up into the re- outbreaks, than to have him feel that his quired paroxysm, as when Jean Paul makes stand, in silent array, a very millstone Siebenkas Leibgeber, "when he had re- round the neck of love; better that he should solved to carry out a certain purpose, to love you than that you should have given wit the pawning of a striped calico gown," him the most excellent reasons why he ought "foresee that he would have to grow un- to do so. Given them, too, perhaps, in vain! usually warm," and therefore, when Lenette What avails it to have many who care for began to weep and wail over hard fate, which you when there are none for whom you care? left her nothing, not even her dress, he re- and it is quite possible to be so true, so to be plied, "Heavenly, good, gentle devil, come depended on, so patient and self-denying and break my neck! Now, may God be and self-controlled, that you gain not only merciful to such a woman." There is, the respect but the love of all your friends, again, as regards friendship among men, merely to find that they have worn out your and more particularly between men and own.

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THE press on the Continent is undergoing a period of great tribulation. The Espanol, of Madrid, states that the Captain General, exercising the powers conferred on him by the exceptional state of the country, has suspended the publication of the Correspondencia for a week, and condemned the director to two hundred crowns fine for publishing false news.' In Russia, the same thing is going on; for, according to the Northern Post, of St Petersburg, the journal called the Viest (News) has received

a second warning for having, when alluding to the nomination of a Governor-General, made some remarks on the qualities of his predecessor, and by so doing having set an example "which might lead other journals to publish articles not in accord with sentiments of propriety, with the dignity of the service of the State, or with the obligations incumbent on the periodical press." As long as they can plead the example of France, Spain and Russia may be excused.

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