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WHEREFORE AND WHY!

"On! the world is a happy and beautiful world!" Said a child that I met by the way,

"For hark! how the wild winds rush through the
pines;

And see how the sunlight dances and shines
Where the rippling waters stray.

Oh! the woodlands are filled with wonderful
things,

There the woodpecker taps, and the storm-throstle
sings,

And the squirrels are ever at play;
There the startled water-hen claps her wings,
And the dragon-fly airy summersaults flings;
And the trout breaks the pool into sparkling
rings,

And the bulrush waves in the tangled springs
Where the white lily floats all day."

"Ah! the world is a beautiful world!" I said,
"To a shadowless spirit like thine !"

As from forest and field through the shining
hours,

He heaped up his treasures of eggs and flowers,
And fairy-stones rare and fine.

At times, from coppice and hollow hard by,
Rang out his blithe and exulting cry,

Till the sunlight had ceased to shine.
When the blue vail of twilight covered the sky,
And the spirit-like stars came out on high,
And slumber fell soft on his weary eye;
Still he murmured: "How fast the hours do fly
For a life so happy as mine!"

"Oh! this world is a dark and a wearisome world!"
Said a man that I met by the way;

"I look on my lifetime of fourscore years,
And alas! what a picture of gloom it appears,
Scarce touched by a golden rȧy.
What fearful phantasies fill the brain;
For the past with its visions of sorrow and pain
Still haunts me by night and by day.
What is life, when our pleasures so quickly

wane

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A WATERFALL SIX TIMES THE DEPTH OF NIAGARA. -Did any of your readers ever hear of the Gairsoppa Falls, near Honore? If not, they will probably read a description which has just appeared, with some pleasure. It is curious that a fall six times the depth of Niagara should remain almost unknown. From the village of Gairsoppa, reached by a river of the same name, the writer was carried for twelve miles up the Malimuneh Pass, and reached the Falts Bungalow about three and a half hours after leaving the top of the Pass:

An amphitheater of woods, and a river, about five hundred yards wide, rushing and boiling to a certain point, where it is lost in a perpetual mist and in an unceasing deafening roar, must first be imagined. Leaving the Bungalow on the Madras side of the river, and descending to a position below the river level, you work your way up carefully and tediously over slippery rocks until you reach a point, where a rock about twice the size of a man's body juts over the precipice. Resting flat upon this rock, out of the four principal falls; these two are called and looking over it, you see directly before you two theGreat Fall" and "the Rocket." The one contains a large body of water, the main body of the river, perhaps fifty yards across, which fails massively and apparently sluggishly into the chasm below; and the other contains a smaller body of water, which shoots out in successive sprays over successive points of rock, till it falls into the same chasm. This chasm is at least nine hundred feet in depth, six times the depth of the Niagara Falls, which are about one hundred and fifty feet, and perhaps a quarter to half a mile in width. These are the first two falls to be visited. Then move a little below your first position, and you will observe, first, a turgid boiling body of water of greater volume than the Rocket Fall, running and steaming down into the same chasm-this is the third fall, the "Roarer;" and then carrying your eye a little further down, you will observe another fall, the loveliest, softest, and most graceful of all, being a broad expanse of shallow water falling like transparent silver lace over a smooth surface of polished rock into this same chasm; this is "La Dame Blanche," and the White Lady of Avenel could not have been more grace ful and ethereal. But do not confine yourself to any one place in order to viewing these falls; scramble every where you can, and get as many views as you can of them, and you will be unable to decide upon which is the most beautiful. And do you want to have a faint idea of the depth of the chasm into which these glorious waters fall? Take out your watch and drop as large a piece of rock as you can hold from your viewing place; it will be several seconds before you even lose sight of the piece of rock, and then even it will not have reached the water at the foot of the chasm, it will only have been lost to human sight; or watch the blue pigeons, wheeling and circling in and out the Great Fall within the chasm, and looking like sparrows in size in the depths beneath you. But you have yet only go-seen one, aud that not perhaps the loveliest, and at least not the most comprehensive view of the falls. You must proceed two miles up the river above the falls and cross over at a ferry, where the waters are stil smooth as glass and sluggish as a Hollander, and proceed to the Mysore side of the falls, walking first to a point where you will see them all at a glance, and then descending as near as you can to the foot of these, to be drenched by the spray, deafened by the noise and awestruck by the

When all that we toil for, and hope for, is vain;
And long in the dreary churchyard have lain
The dear friends of youth; and alone I remain ?
Oh! would that I too were away!"

Oh! the world goeth round from sun to sun-
Now moonlight and starlight shine-
Surely wiser we grow; yet the Wherefore and
Why,

That this thing or that thing first should die

Poor man hath no wit to divine.

The gray morn is breaking; the cock may crow,
The wind and the rain may beat and blow,

And the dark sky redden and shine:
But the child so light-hearted some hours ago,
Is mute-ay! and blind-in death lying low;
Whilst the old man wakes up, and rocks to and
fro,

Moaning ever: "Oh! would that I too might
What a wearisome life is mine!"
WESTRY GIBSON.

THE DUKE D'AUMALE, we understand, has purchased the whole of the magnificent library of the late M. Cigongne, amounting in number to 4000 volumes, and abounding in biblographical treasures. The sum given for it, as we have heard it named, is £15,000.

grandeur of the scene and by the visible presence ! of the Creator of it, in the perpetual rainbow of many and brilliant hues which spans the foot of the cbasm.-Times Calcutta Correspondent.

THE EMPRESS'S APARTMENTS AT THE TUILERIES. -A correspondent of the Independence Belge writes: I bad the good fortune to visit, the other day, the private apartments of the Empress at the Tuileries. Workman had been engaged on them for two years, during the absence of their majesties. These suites of rooms, which run in a parallel line with the reception-rooms on the drawing-room floor, consist of ante-chamber, a waiting-room for the ladies of honor, a saloon of audience, a private room for her Majesty that is to say, the most retired and private rooms of the suite. The Emperor, whose preference for the style of Louis XVI. is well known, has desired for apartments in question to be entirely

HOW TO BE HANDSOME.-It is perfectly natural for all women to be beautiful. If they are not so, the fault lies in their birth, or training, or in both. We would therefore respectfully remind mothers that in Poland a period of childhood is recognized. There girls do not jump from infancy to young ladyhood. They are not sent from the cradle directly to the drawing-room to dress, sit still, and look pretty. During childhood, which extends through loosely dressed, and allowed to run, romp, and play a period of several years, they are plainly and in the open air. They take in sunshine as does the flower. They are not loaded down, girded about, and oppressed every way with countless frills and superabundant flounces, so as to be admired for their much clothing. Plain simple food, free and various exercise, abundant sunshine, and good moral culture during the whole period of childhood, are the secrets of beauty in after life.

Bоoks. In the last year of which the accounts have been made up-the great over-trading year land to the United States was £133,247. At least 1857-the total value of books imported from Engone quarter of this sum was made up by special importation orders from public libraries, colleges, etc., and old books, which compete with nothing now manufactured, leaving about $500,000 as the amount that supplies the entire demand for English

decorated after the fashion and taste of Marie Antoinette. M. Lefuel received orders to renew the elegant ornamentation of Trianon in this Parisian palace. Art and industry have done marvels under his superintendence, so that we see again the graceful arabesques, the rounded tapering volutes, the exquisite garlands, and the fine carriage of the latter part of the eighteenth century. All the models are unique, and executed with admirable nicety, from the door-handles to the chimney-pieces, the panels and squares of glass; and the whole furniture, from the time-piece to the tongs in the fire-editions in this country. Last year the importations place, is in harmony with this style of decoration. The first saloon, of a pale green, is adorned with arabesques of a deeper tint. Medalions glisten in the panels, and within them are birds, painted by M. Appert. The prevailing color of the second saloon is a rosy white; the arabesques are rosecolored. Then comes the private saloon of the Empress, the ground of which is likewise of a very light green, and the paneling of which contain the portraits of her ladies of honor, painted by M. Dubuffe; then her first withdrawing-room lined with green stuff, on which are hung valuable pictures; the doors of this cabinet and the next are of amaranth and palisander, set off by bronzes, gilt aud admirably chased.

DR. VELPEAU has just laid before the Academy des Sciences a strange discovery, superseding chloroform as an anesthetic, without any of the danger or risk of the latter process. It appears that if a bright object is held at some short distance between the eyes, and the patient is directed to squint with both orbits at this brilliant point, catalepsy supervenes, and perfect insensibility of some duration, allowing all surgical operations to be performed.

A METHOD of administering chloroform is now used in France, which is said to combine safety with convenience. The principle is that of a regular admission of air along with the chloroform; and the apparatus which secures this simultaneous action also prevents the excessive inhalation of the power ful agent employed.

THE Duke of Wellington giving orders during the Peninsular campaign for a battalion to attempt a rather dangerous enterprise-the storming of one of the enemy's batteries of St. Sebastian-complimented the officer by saying that his regiment was the first in this world. "Yes," replied the officer, leading on his men, "and before your lordship's orders are finally executed, it will probably the first in the next."

were probably less, and during the present one they are most likely about the same as in 1857; and the small effect they can have on the trade, is shown by the fact that at least three publishing houses each sell, during the year, of their own publication, more than double the whole value of books imported from England.

THE Charivari publishes a caricature representing the Sultan up to his neck in troubled waters, and, to all appearance, in danger of drowning from losing the support on which his feet rested, and which is marked "finances." In his agony, he calls out for help, and a European on the bank seems inclined to stretch to him a long pole, but which is marked "reforms." The Sultan, however, seems to have no choice but to seize it, unless he makes up his mind to perish.

THREE manuscript volumes of observations of the solar spots, made by the late M. Pastorff, originally presented by the author to Sir John Herschel, are now transferred to the Astronomical Society, on the understanding that they shall be considered as belonging to Sir John Herschel during his lifetime, but after his decease shall become the property of the Society.

ALFRED TENNYSON has been paid £10 a line for a poem, which appeared in the January number of Macmillan's Magazine. It is entitled: Sea Dreams-an Idyll.

A CHURCH is about to be erected by the Russian Government near Inkermann, the funds for which are supplied by the sale of the cannon-balls which have been picked up at Inkermann and Sebastopol

Mr. LAYARD, who has just returned from Italy, is preparing for the press a pamphlet on the Italian question.

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