dose, that was enough. I had to take to my bed, and re

When I felt a little better,
I was desperate, and willing

main there for two entire days. more things were recommended. to take any thing. Plain gin was recommended, then gin and molasses, then gin and onions. I took all three. I detected no particular result, however, except that I had acquired a Samsonian breath, and had to change my boarding place.

I had never refused a remedy yet, and it seemed poor policy to commence then; therefore I determined to take a sheet-bath, though I had no idea what sort of an arrangement it was. It was administered at midnight, and the weather was very frosty. My back and breast were stripped; and a sheet (there appeared to be about a thousand yards of it) soaked in ice-water was wound around me until I resembled a swab for a columbiad. It is a cruel expedient. When the chilly rag touches one's warm flesh, it makes him start with a sudden violence, and gasp for breath, just as men do in the death agony. It froze the marrow in my bones, and stopped the beating of my heart. I thought my time had come.

When I recovered from this, a friend ordered the application of a mustard-plaster to my breast. I believe that would have cured me effectually, if it had not been for young Clemens. When I went to bed, I put the mustard-plaster where I could reach it when I should be ready for it; but young Clemens got hungry in the night, and ate it up. I never saw any child have such an appetite. I am confident that he would have eaten me if I had been healthy.

MISCELLANEOUS.

CCIX.-USE PLAIN LANGUAGE.

66

WHAT do you say? What? I really do not understand you. Be so good as to explain yourself again. Upon my word, I do not! Oh! now I know: you mean to tell me it is a cold day. Why did you not say at once, “It is a cold day?" If you wish to inform me that it rains or snows, pray say "It rains," It snows;" or, if you think I look well, and choose to compliment me, say, "I think you look well." But you answer, "That is so common and so plain, and what every body can say." Well, and what if every body can? Is it so great a misfortune to be understood when one speaks, and to speak like the rest of the world? I will tell you what, my friend, you do not suspect it, and I shall astonish you, but you and those like you want common sense! Nay, this is not all; it is not only in the direction of your wants that you are in fault, but of your superfluities; you have too much conceit; you possess an opinion that you have more sense than others. That is the source of all your pompous nothings, your cloudy sentences, and your big words without a meaning. Before you accost a person, or enter a room, let me pull you by the sleeve and whisper in your ear: "Do not try to show off your sense; have none at all; that is your cue. Use plain language if you can, just such as you find others use, who, in your opinion, have no understanding; and then you, perhaps, will get credit for having some."

;

CCX.-MORAL COURAGE.

HAVE the courage to face a difficulty, let it kick you harder than you bargained for. Difficulties, like thieves, often disappear at a glance. Have the courage to leave a convivial party at the proper hour for doing so, however great the sacrifice; and to stay away from one upon the slightest grounds for objection, however great the temptations to go. Have the courage to do without that which you do not need, however much you may admire it. Have the courage to speak your mind when it is necessary that you should do so, and hold your tongue when it is better you should be silent. Have the courage to speak to a poor friend in a seedy coat, even in the street, and when a rich one is nigh. The effort is less than many people take it to be, and the act is worthy of a king. Have the courage to admit that you have been in the wrong, and you will remove the fact from the minds of others, putting a desirable impression in the place of an unfavorable one. Have the courage to adhere to the first resolution when you can not change it for the better, and to abandon it at the eleventh hour upon conviction. Have the courage to cut the most agreeable acquaintance you possess, when he convinces you that he lacks principle. "A friend should bear with a friend's infirmities"-not vices.

KIND WORDS.

As the breath of the dew to the tender plant, they gently fall upon the drooping heart, refreshing its withered tendrils, and smoothing its burning woes. Bright oases they are, in life's great desert. Who can estimate the pangs they have alleviated, or the good works they have accomplished?

Long after they are uttered, they reverberate in the soul's inner chamber, and low, sweet, liquid strains, that quell all the raging storms that may have before existed. And, oh! when the heart is sad, and like a broken harp,

the sweetest chords of pleasure cease to vibrate, who can tell the power of one kind word? One little word of tenderness, gushing in upon the soul, will sweep the long neglected chords, and awaken the most pleasant strains.

When borne down with the trials and troubles of life, we are ready to sink faintly by the way, how like the cheering rays of sunshine, do kind words come! They disperse the clouds, dispel the gloom, and drive sorrow far

away.

Kind words are like jewels in the heart, never to be forgotten, but, perhaps, to cheer, by their memory, a long, sad life; while words of cruelty are like darts in the bosom, wounding, and leaving scars that will be borne to the grave by their victim.

Why is it, then, that we do not always seek, by kind words, to scatter sunbeams along the pathway of others?

CCXI.-SHORT SELECTIONS.

ADVERSITY.

SWEET are the uses of adversity;

Which, like the toad, ugly and venomous,

Wears yet a precious jewel in his head;

And this, our life, exempt from public haunt,

Finds tongues in trees, books in the running brooks,
Sermons in stones, and good in every thing.

REVENGE.

-Shakespeare.

MUST I despise thee too, as well as hate thee?
Complain of grief! Complain thou art a man.
Priam from fortune's lofty summit fell;
Great Alexander, 'mid his conquests, mourned;
Heroes and demi-gods have known their sorrows;
Cæsars have wept-and I have had my blow!
But 't is revenged; and now, my work is done!
Yet, ere I fall, be it one part of vengeance
To make even thee confess that I am just.

Thou seest a prince, whose father thou hast slain,
Whose native country thou hast lain in blood,
Whose sacred person-oh! thou has profaned,
Whose reign extinguished! What was left to me,
So highly born? No kingdom, but revenge!
No treasure, but thy tortures and thy groans!
If cold, white mortals censure this great deed,
Warn them they judge not of superior beings,
Souls made of fire, and children of the sun,
With whom revenge is virtue!

NOTHING is a misery,

MISFORTUNE.

Unless our weakness apprehend it so;
We can not be more faithful to ourselves
In any thing that's manly, than to make
Ill fortune as contemptible to us

As it makes us to others.

-Young.

-Beaumont and Fletcher.

CCXII.

PUTTING UP STOVES.

THE first step a person takes toward putting up a stove is to put on a very old and ragged coat, under the impression that, when he gets his mouth full of plaster, it will keep his shirt-bosom clean. Next, he gets his hands inside the place where the pipe ought to go, and blacks his fingers, and then he carefully makes a black mark down the side of his nose. It is impossible to make any headway in doing this work until this mark is made.

Having got his face properly marked, the victim is ready to begin the ceremony. The head of the family, who is the big goose of the sacrifice, grasps one side of the bottom of the stove, and his wife and the hired girl take hold of the other side. In this way the load is started from the woodshed toward the parlor. Going through the door, the head of the family will carefully swing his side of the stove around and jam his thumb-nail against the door-post. This part of the ceremony is never omitted.