of reason, and, in a world full of balances and
compensations, its very inferiority has its
compensation in the fact that, unlike reason,
instinct can never go wrong. If animals cannot
understand our language unless in very few
instances of ordinary occurrence and when
accompanied by sign, gesture, and the expression
of the eye, neither can we understand their
language, except it have the same mute
accompaniments. Though Emerson may says, "that
we are wiser than we know," it is barely as
possible, with all our undoubted superiority,
and all our pride of intellect, that we are not
exactly so wise as we think.

TYRANNY.

THEY who bear the weight of tyranny
   Must bear it as they may;
But since I've laid my burthen down,
   I have a thing to say:

My trouble is past trouble now;
   It has long lain with the dead:
My life is in its inner soul
   No more disquieted.

I own a lovely garden-ground:
  The plants it grows are rare;
And yet sometimes I almost wish
  The flowers were not so fair.

Were they thistles by the wayside blown,
   I might pluck them and be glad;
But, gazing on these tender things,
   Their beauty makes me sad.

Though free as fair in others' sight,
   To me they bring the hour
When in my dearth I was denied
   The gathering of a flower.

The dearth of love, the dearth of hope—
   Life's sweet and common bread,
When the gracious sun seem'd shrunk and lost
   In the darkness overhead.

I hear the cruel mandate now;
   It shivers through the air,
A blight upon the living flowers
   I would were not so fair.

I stretch my hand—yet touch them not;
   I cannot well define
How the force of old repression works:
   I do not feel them mine.

The breeze may sway, the sun may kiss,
   The wind-flower by the wall;
I stand and watch it wistfully
   To see it fade and fall.

I lift it then, my own at last,
   And hide it in my breast,
And there one dead-born blessing more
   Is buried with the rest.

But I forget, in musing thus
   On that old distant day,
The word of counsel I would speak,
   The "thing I had to say."

It is but this: Oh! ne'er deny
   The gifts which Mercy gave,
Lest a voice that is not loud but deep
   Should curse you in your grave.

For I believe, as here I breathe,
    With every flower downtrod,
The sin and sorrow of that time
    Are crying up to God.

HOLIDAY ROMANCE.
BY CHARLES DICKENS.
IN FOUR PARTS.
PART I.

INTRODUCTORY ROMANCE. FROM THE PEN OF
WILLIAM TINKLING ESQUIRE.*
*Aged Eight.

THIS beginning-part is not made out of
anybody's head you know. It's real. You must
believe this beginning-part more than what
comes after, else you won't understand how
what comes after came to be written. You
must believe it all, but you must believe this
most, please. I am the Editor of it. Bob
Redforth (he's my cousin, and shaking the table
on purpose) wanted to be the Editor of it, but
I said he shouldn't because he couldn't. He
has no idea of being an Editor.

Nettie Ashford is my Bride. We were married
in the right-hand closet in the corner of
the dancing-school where first we met, with a
ring (a green one) from Wilkingwater's toy-
shop. I owed for it out of my pocket-money.
When the rapturous ceremony was over, we all
four went up the lane and let off a cannon
(brought loaded in Bob Redforth's waistcoat-
pocket) to announce our Nuptials. It flew
right up when it went off, and turned over.
Next day, Lieutenant-Colonel Robin Redforth
was united, with similar ceremonies, to Alice
Rainbird. This time, the cannon bust with a
most terrific explosion, and made a puppy bark.

My peerless Bride was, at the period of
which we now treat, in captivity at Miss Grimmer's.
Drowvey and Grimmer is the partnership,
and opinion is divided which the greatest.
Beast. The lovely Bride of the Colonel was
also immured in the Dungeons of the same
establishment. A vow was entered into between
the Colonel and myself that we would cut them
out on the following Wednesday, when walking
two and two.

Under the desperate circumstances of the
case, the active brain of the Colonel, combining
with his lawless pursuit (he is a Pirate),
suggested an attack with fireworks. This however,
from motives of humanity, was abandoned as
too expensive.

Lightly armed with a paper-knife buttoned
up under his jacket, and waving the dreaded
black flag at the end of a cane, the Colonel took
command of me at 2 P.M. on the eventful and
appointed day. He had drawn out the plan of
attack on a piece of paper which was rolled up
round a hoop-stick. He showed it to me. My
position and my full-length portrait (but my
real ears don't stick out horizontal) was behind
a corner-lamp-post, with written orders to
remain there till I should see Miss Drowvey
fall. The Drowvey who was to fall was the