reached the chalk, and could not penetrate
it; and that they had declined in strength
for want of proper nourishment.  I had a
pit dug, about three feet deep, all along the
front where the roses grew; and I filled it
up with new soil, manure, and rotted leaves,
in which they have since thriven remarkably
well.  A healthy and luxuriant honeysuckle
growing amid these roses, which clambers
over my cottage porch, was at the same
time laid bare to the roots.  I found that the
honeysuckle had been wiser than the roses,
and, instead of pushing its roots vertically
downward to the barren chalk, had
extended them horizontally through the thin
layer of earth, immediately under the sod,
to the distance of no less than eight feet
from the stem.  Was this instinct or
intelligence?  Or was it blind mechanical
force?  My opinion is, that it was intelligence,
and the adaptation of means to ends
by a will that might have acted otherwise.
Every plant growing in a darkened room,
bends itself to the chance light that may
happen to penetrate through a hole or a
chink; every such plant overshadowed by
trees of larger growth, endeavours to stretch
itself beyond their influence. Is this instinct,
intelligence, or mechanical force?  I
confess my inability to decide; I doubt the
ability of any one else to settle the question;
and, taking refuge in the idea that every
manifestation of God's power and love is
illimitable, and may be infinitely small as well
as infinitely great, I come to the conclusion
that there is no life upon this globe, however
humble, which is so wholly unintelligent
as to be helpless for its own sustenance
and preservation; or unendowed
with the capacity of joy or sorrow.

TO-DAY IN PARIS.

I AM slowly recovering from an illness
which very nearly conducted me to the
retirement of the grave; and every morning
I am awakened by an impatient shaking,
and a shrill peremptory voice which pipes:
"M'sieu, v'la v't cafe."  On opening my
eyes, I see, through the light tipsifying
Parisian air, a dumpty serving damsel,
aged some one thousand Sundays: I
reckon her life by Sundays, as Sunday is
the only day on which the small creature,
in this phase of the world's history, can
have ever lived her own life.

She thinks no evil in shaking a slumbering
"M'sieu" in bed.  She is a resolute,
but not an impudent, little person. She
has opinions, belonging to her newspaper,
which incline, I think, to the doctrine of
St. Simon; but she does not practise them
obtrusively, and her name is Celestine.  In
England she would, or might be, called
Molly.  But it would never answer the
purpose of a peaceable man to call this
French girl Molly.  An admirer of long
standing, and high in her good graces,
might, in moments of pathetic appeal to
her higher feelings, venture upon " Celestine:"
or, after a formal betrothal, he might,
in hours of familiar social intercourse, while
conducting her on a summer afternoon to
partake of refreshments at the " barriere,"
go so far as " Tinette.  " But all other
persons of prudence and experience say
" mademoiselle," if they want their coffee
hot; and they take their hats off when they
meet her on the stairs with her besom.

There seems an inborn sense of personal
dignity in French people, whatever their
calling or degree; or it may date from the
terrible days when France inscribed on her
banner that she had risen against Tyrants,
for this sense could hardly have existed
among a Nation of Serfs. Among the
inhabitants of other nations, and especially
among the English, there are trades and
occupations which appear to obliterate the
morality and self-respect of those who
follow them.  They become identified with
vice and squalor in its lowest forms. In
France, the souls of the humblest are filled
with vast and grandiose conceptions of their
part in the world's business. Each individual
feels himself or herself necessary to
the progress and completeness of the age
and country. Every man honestly
believes, with all his might and main, that
the eyes of mankind are fixed upon his
behaviour and pursuits.  A domestic servant,
taken lately to the watch-house for being
noisy and aggressive, said to the policeman,
"I protest in the face of Europe."
The policeman, himself an important
personage, with a sword and cocked hat,
thinks this mode of protest simple and
natural.  A commercial traveller refused to
acknowledge that he was sea-sick in crossing
the Atlantic, because, as he observed
afterwards: " II fallait sauver l'honneur de la
Patrie." A French tradesman is not simply
a baker or a candlestick-maker.  He
says and thinks that  "he consecrates himself
to the art of perfecting the alimentary
productions of nature," or that he " devotes
an intelligent study to the discovery of some
mechanism by which light may be best diffused."
He says these things to his own