The same may be said of visits. We drift
from the time conventionally prescribed, into the
dark region beyond, whence we can only retrace
our steps by performing the penance of an
apology. This is a region with rapidly widening
circles of darkness, and corresponding
intensity of penance. If once we pass a certain
boundary, we are lost for ever; but though we
know this, we go on and on till finally we come to
that boundary, and then we cannot, if we would,
turn back. Hitherto we might, with shame to
guide and goad us; now not even shame will do;
and no penance and no apology will open the
gates closed rigorously against us.

More friendships have been lost for want of
these small observances of letter-writing, return-
calls, and the like, than for even graver faults.
These neglects are to friendship what weevils
are to ship's biscuit, what white ants are to your
table-legs, what dry-rot is to your house beams,
what rust is on your bright steel—the very
essence and power of ruin; and no one who has
as much intellect as would guide him safely
across a common, if set in the right way, would
ever run the risk of losing the best thing life
can give us—affection—for such petty offences
as these.

Another minor morality, or rather a whole
group of them, refers to self-culture and one's
own condition. Of these cleanliness is one,
though, indeed, I almost question the propriety
of classing cleanliness as a minor at all, and not
setting it side by side with the majors. Also
is it a minor morality to dress one's self with
such an amount of beauty and attention as one
can compass. Careless dressing, untidy habits,
ugly clothes, are all minor immoralities, and show
either an obtuseness of perception or an
indifference to the feelings of others equally
reprehensible, whichever it may be.

Also is it a minor morality to entertain your
friends in the best way possible to your
means, if so be you are minded to entertain
them at all. No mock Gunterisms! no
bad Cape wine labelled with high-class names,
no pretences of French cookery, which are
simply English meat made uneatable. Every
attempt at things beyond your means is an
immorality, just as the best that you can do is
your bounden duty. And if you do not do this,
give no more entertainments, let me beseech
you, for they are but sorry shadows of
entertainment to your friends and to yourself—
merely marts wherein you buy their discomfort
by your own loss of self-respect.

Lastly, we ought all to take something to
society—our quota, which we feel it a moral
obligation to pay. Your silent, reserved, perhaps
discontented guests, who mope in a corner and
bring nothing to the general fund, are
profoundly immoral persons, judged by the rules of
the Social Exchange, and fail in one of the
implied conditions of their presence. We go to
amuse as well as to be amused. In fact, all
these minor moralities rest upon broad and
important foundations; and we may be very sure
that the more earnest we are in the fulfilment
of the larger duties, the more scrupulous we
shall also be to be without blame as towards
the smaller.

METAPHYSICS AND THEOLOGY.

AT the end of every road there stands a wall,
    Not built by hands—impenetrable—bare.
Behind it lies an unknown land. And all
    The paths men plod, tend to it, and end there.

Each man, according to his humour, paints
     On that bare wall strange landscapes: dark or bright,
Peopled with forms of fiends, or forms of saints:
     Hells of Despair, or Edens of Delight.

Then, to his fellows "Tremble!" or "Rejoice!"
     The limner cries, "for lo, the Land beyond!"
And ever, acquiescent to his voice
     Faint echoes from that painted wall respond.

But, now and then, with sacrilegious hand,
    Some one wipes off those painted landscapes all,
Muttering, "O fools, and slow to understand,
     Behold your bourne—the impenetrable wall!"

Whereas, an eager, anger'd crowd exclaims,
    "Better than yon dead wall—tho' pale and faint—
Our faded Edens! Better fiends and flames,
     By Fancy painted in her coarsest paint

"On the blind, bald, unquestionable face
     Of that obstruction, than its cold, unclad,
And callous emptiness, without a trace
     Of any prospect either good or bad."

And straightway, the old work begins again
     Of picture painting. And men shout, and call
For response to their pleasure or their pain,
     Getting back echoes from that painted wall.

ON THE PUNJAB FRONTIER.

A MAIL from India now and then brings news
of the capture, assassination, or death in action,
of British officers employed on the Punjab
frontier. As this kind of news has not been
heard for the last time, a little insight into the
work of those whose duty it is to risk their
lives in the raids and skirmishes constantly taking
place on that frontier, may be worth giving
to their countrymen at home.

The long strip of country bounded on the
west by the Suliman Mountains, and on the
east by the river Indus, stretching from Peshawur
to Rajenpore on the Indus, about four
hundred and fifty miles, is guarded by an army
of twelve thousand men.

This army, rather famous in India, but little
heard of at home, is called the Punjab Frontier
Force. Its duties are to guard the frontier. On
that long, and for the most part barren, strip of
country, separated from the rest of India by roadless
deserts and the grand flood of the Indus, it
abides continually, unless great occasions, like
the Indian mutiny, call for its aid elsewhere.
The force, for the most part, is distributed
among five garrison towns, each about a hundred
miles apart, namely, counting from the north,
Kohat, Bunnoo, Dera Ismael Khan (or as it is