on very well with oil lamps, stage-coaches,
Margate hoys, and the semaphore? without
gas, railways, steam-ships, and the electric
telegraph?

After all, the whirligig of fashion and
prejudice has its revenge as well as the
whirligig of Time.  If the male half of
the world do such injustice to itself as
to sacrifice fifty per cent of its working
power, the female half of the world takes
up the co-equal limb that has been scorned,
and makes it a beauty and a joy for ever.
On the fourth finger of the hand, which is
not so greatly in danger of collision with
the hard facts and hard implements of toil
as the hand that does the daily work of the
world, the bridegroom places the symbol of
marriage, the plain gold ring, which it is
the glory of a true woman to be privileged
to wear; happiest of all the happy she, if
conjugal love on her part and that of her
husband be as unalloyed with falsehood
and change as the pure gold is with dross;
and if the circle of their mutual confidence
and affection be as complete, and without
a break in its continuity, as the little circle
which on the bridal morn her spouse placed
upon her finger.  It is a variety of the
same old medical superstition, which has
so largely helped to bring the left hand
into disuse among mankind, that has
helped the better and fairer half of mankind
to make amends for the injustice
done it.  "The wedding ring," says an
ancient author, "is worn on the fourth
finger of the left hand, because it was
formerly believed that a small artery ran
from this finger to the heart.  This," he
adds, "is contradicted by experience; but
several eminent authors, as well
Gentiles as Christians, as well physicians as
divines, were formerly of this opinion;
and, therefore, they thought this finger the
most proper to bear this pledge of love, that
from thence it might be conveyed, as it were,
to the heart. Levinus Lemnius, speaking
of the ring finger, says that a small branch
of the artery, and not of the nerve, as
Gellius thought, is stretched forth from the
heart to this finger, the motion whereof,
you may perceive, evidently in all this
affects the heart in woman by the touch of
your fore-finger.  I used to raise such as
were fallen in a swoon by pinching this
joint, and by rubbing the ring of gold
with a little saffron, for by this a restoring
force passeth to the heart, and refresheth
the fountain of life with which the finger
is joined. Wherefore antiquity thought
fit to compass it about with gold."

In our day, the rubbing of the gold ring
with a new dress, or with a set of
diamonds, might possibly be more effective
than the rubbing with saffron.  But let
that pass.  The right hand may be given
in marriage; but, as far as the ladies are
concerned, it is the left hand that confirms
and seals the bargain.

THE IGNIS FATUUS AND THE FIRE.
WHEN first in foolish early days
I youth and beauty saw,
And felt within my spirit stir
True to our Nature's law;

And yet again when other charms
Once more did strongly move
And shake my heart, I both times said
I think this must be love.

But when at last I met you, dear,
And got to know your heart,
And found your beauty was not all,
But quite the smallest part

Of such a noble whole as still
With knowledge nobler grew,
My heart spoke plainly out, and then
That this was love I knew.

MISTAKEN IDENTITY.

WHETHER I am I, is a question which
most of us can answer with tolerable
confidence; and yet it has puzzled physicians
and metaphysicians very considerably.  We
are told that all the material particles, all
the carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, and so forth
composing the human body, change in the
course of a certain number of years; they
enter into new combinations.  Materially or
corporeally speaking, I am not the same
man that I was ten years ago.  My bodily
weight is made up of wholly different
particles, and I am not I; the I of 1870, is
not the same as the I of 1860; I am another
man altogether.  As to the metaphysicians,
they have so mystified the world with the
synthesis of the I with the non I, the Ich
with the non Ich, the ego with the non
ego, that nobody can make anything of
the matter.  There was a very good plan
adopted, according to lyrical authority, by
the little old woman who fell asleep on the
king's highway.  Being bewildered with a
trick which had been played by a pedlar,
named Stout, she resolved to make use of
her little dog as a test-proof of her personal
identity, an honest witness to show whether
she was really herself or not.  She stated
the case thus:

If I be I,
As I do hope I be,
I have a little dog at home,
And he knows me.