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THE LISTENER.

GOOD HUMOUR.

For birds are like men in their contests together,
And in questions of right can dispute for a feather.

ANON.

And trust me, dear, good-humour can prevail,
When cries, and flights, and screams, and scolding, fail.

РОРЕ.

Ir was one of those splendid days before midsummer, when every thing seems to have reached the perfection of beauty, and to luxuriate in the fulness of enjoyment. The leaf had blown full, but it had not faded, neither had the dust or the drought spoiled its brightness. Of the field, the hedge, the woodland, the flowers had blown; but as yet they had not died-there seemed scarcely space enough in nature for the revel of their beauty. All creation teemed with increase of life, without the feeling that sometimes assimilates it with increase of suffering: a feeling of life's disproportionate supply. The character of this hour was abundance-prodigal abundance. The seed was in the grass, the berry was in the blossom, the wheat was in the blade; and the barrenness of winter was forgotten. It was evening, but there was no cold to shrink the limbs, no dews to chill the blood. Beneath the thick foliage of the underwood, over grass and flowers, where the mower had never whet his scythe, I walked as dry as if on the artificial carpet of the drawing-room. We have

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not in England many such days: in the few we have, there is a concentration of delight; of luxurious ecstasy, in our sensations, that, if we had them always, we could scarcely feel; but this belongs not to my tale.

I was walking in such a place, at such a moment, when I observed a group of young people, busy, with no common earnestness, in making a bouquet of flowers from the wood. And much was the difficulty, and many were the dangers, they seemed disposed to encounter, to effect their purpose. If a Honeysuckle, of fairer promise than those below, hung high upon the branches, long and patient were the contrivances to reach it, and great the destruction of muslin and riband that ensued. If a Rosebud of deeper red than usual was caught sight of, many were the scratches endured to ravish the guarded treasure from its bed of thorns. And presently they were on their knees in the herbage, in spite of sting-nettles and thistles, to steal some more hidden treasure: it might be the sweet Violet, or the pretty Myosotis. From the eagerness with which these beauties were collected, and the taste with which they were chosen, I supposed the bouquet was forming for some favourite purpose.

Casting my eyes at that moment on the ground, I saw, under my feet, a bed of small white flowers. They too had looked down upon it, and several times their feet had trodden over it—but they had not stooped to gather any. I picked a piece—the tiny stars that formed each separate flower, of the purest and most brilliant white, arranging themselves into a head, formed a group as rich as it was delicate. The thread-like stems that supported them, the circles round it of slender leaves, minutely cut and fringed, gave such elegance and lightness to the

whole, it seemed fitted to be the flower of fairyland. But a still greater charm was the exquisite perfume of the many blossoms-too delicate, like its beauty, to be perceived at a distance, but exquisite when approached. Perhaps because I was enamoured of its charms, perhaps because others had neglected, and despised it, I left the rose among its thorns, and the woodbine on its heights, and gathered myself a bouquet of this small flower, contemplating its beauty, and feasting on its perfume, during the remainder of my walk. My flowers died. The pure white took the hue of decay, and the perfume of the blossoms passed. With still lingering attachment, I placed the withered branches in my work-box; as they dried there, they acquired the most delightful and refreshing scent, and became themselves a treasure-one carefully collected, I have been told, by ladies in other countries, to perfume their drawers: and for weeks and months that it remained there, I found no diminution of its sweetness.

Many a time since, as I have walked the paths of society, circumstances have called back to memory my sweet Woodroffe. Fenced with no thorns, armed with no stings, planted on no heights inaccessible; attainable without cost, and yet passed by, its beauty and its sweetness unperceived. And there is one thing in particular to which I have compared it. It is so despised a thing, that I scarcely know by what name I should call it, or if there is a name by which what I mean will be exactly understood. I would call it good-nature, but, in the received language of society, a good-natured person means a fool-or, at best, a character that, having no prominence of feature, good or bad, that can be seized upon, is dismissed with a sentence of harmless uselessness, under the appellation of good-nature. Good-temper is

not the thing I mean. I have seen most decidedly good tempers with a great deficiency of this quality; and I have seen it subsist where the temper, when put to trial, has proved by no means a good one. I have seen so much virtue, so much excellence, so much benevolence, subsist without it, and I have seen it pre-eminently exhibited among so much vice, that I am satisfied it is a virtue and a beauty of itself, independently of every other; and one too much neglected, and too much despised. For want of a better name, I will call it Good-humour. In the commonest acceptation of words, when we say a person is good-humoured I do not think it expresses what I mean; but when we say any one is in good humour, I think it does exactly. So let it be understood that, by good-humoured, I mean always in a good humour.

This plant, alas! is not, like my sweet Woodroffe, indigenous in England. Whether by something in our physical formation, or by the influence of our skies, I fear it is an exotic with us, and must be cultivated with some diligence ere it will flourish. But that it will grow in England, I am sure: and that in every bosom swayed by Christian principles it ought to be implanted, if it is not indigenous, I am doubly sure. I have known too little of foreign society, to give it as my own observation; but from all that may be learned otherwise than by personal intercourse, I do not understand that there is any other country where people get out of humour gratuitously, and for nothing, as we do in England; and I am sure, if that is the case, it is no small inducement to seek the influence of fairer skies; for what with our own ill-humour, and other people's illhumour, half the pleasure of existence is destroyed; and what is worse, virtue, and piety, and truth,

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