than to communicate pleasure to others. Simplicity is the charm of conversation.

Bad grammar is very common. It is not easy to learn to talk grammatically from books. Your parents, my young friends, for the most part, had not the advantages of school-education that you have, and you very early and naturally imbibe their incorrect phraseology. You can only reform this by a strict attention to the instructions of your teachers, to the rules of your books, and to the modes of speaking observed in the best societies which you frequent.

Pronunciation is another grace in conversation, to which you would do well to attend by consulting the best standards. But more important than this, is a clear and distinct articulation. This is a must-have. Without it, if you were to utter all the apophthegms of the seven wise men, the half of them would fall unheeded from your lips.

There is no grace in which education is more apparent than in the modulation of the voice. It is remarked by foreigners, who are the best judges of such a national characteristic, that the voices of our females are pitched too high; that they are shrill and disagreeable. "A soft voice, an excellent thing in woman," says Shakspeare-'excellent in woman,' because indicative of gentleness and modesty.

After having triumphed over the sins, follies, and frivolities that beset conversation, do not

X

fall into the affectations-affectations of voice, pronunciation, intonation, and manner.

I

And now, my dear young friends, hoping that may have excited you to think a little more of the use and abuses of the tongue than you have thought before, I leave the subject, with the earnest wish that, in the striking language of Scripture, "the tongue may be a tree of life" to you, and that "keeping that, you may keep your own souls."

231

CHAPTER XVIII.

BOOKS.

WHAT is a book, my young friends? Is it not a cabinet which contains the most interesting creation of God, the mind of a human being, a portion of the Divine mind. From this mind you may have been separated by intervening ages; oceans may have divided you. But here it has come to your home, to dwell with you, to impart to you its best thoughts, to communicate to you its observations and experience; and to share with you the treasures of knowledge acquired by days, nights, and years of laborious study.

Time was when books could only be obtained at great pains and expense, when they were the rarest luxuries; now they come to the humblest of your homes. The historian recounts to you the history of past ages, and makes you acquainted with all the nations of the world. The traveller opens to you the farthest East, guides

you through the heart of Africa, and familiarises you with the manners, sciences, and arts of the polished nations of Europe. The biographer tells you the story of the great and good. The man of science makes you acquainted with the stars, and discloses to you the secret treasures hidden in the bosom of the earth. The poet throws a veil of enchantment over the realities of life, and the writer of fiction stirs up your heart through the medium of your imagination. One book does more than all these. It tells of Him who was before the world was you made; it instructs you in your duty and destiny. Do not such friends deserve respect, honour, and all observance ?

Think of your favourite author, whoever he may be. You would have esteemed it an honour and an inexpressible pleasure to have been in his society for half an hour. You would have listened for every word that dropped from his lips, and have remembered and repeated it. And here, in his book, the treasures of his mind are given to you; you have not merely a glimpse of them, they abide with you. They wait your leisure and convenience. If you are, by any misfortune, cut off from occupation and society, there they are to instruct and cheer you.

Think, my dear young friends, of the difference that is made in the character of a human being, simply by reading. Compare an Irish girl who comes to this country at fifteen or sixteen, who has never been taught to read, with one of your

own countrywomen, in the humblest condition, of the same age, who "loves to read," and who has read the books within her reach! Books are the best property of the rich; think what they are to the poor who really love them. Compare the pampered boy who cares for nothing so much as the indulgence of his sensual appetites, fretting over a table spread luxuriously, to a little fellow who, coming from the district school with his empty luncheon basket, snatches his Robinson Crusoe from the shelf, and while his half-frozen toes are warming, devours it, forgetful of every evil in life.

It was but yesterday that I was at the humble home of a revolutionary soldier, a pensioner. I found his wife reading. Her eight children are dispersed south and west, and the old pair are left alone. They live far away from the village, and hardly put their heads out of doors from November till March. I involuntarily expressed my sympathy in their solitary condition, "Oh !" replied the old lady, most cheerily, "I have company-books, the best of company."

Think over your acquaintance, my young friends; I am sure you will find among them some old person, some invalid, some one cut off from social pleasures, to whom life would be a tedious burden, if it were not for books. If there is a real love of books, there is hardly a limit to be set to the knowledge that may be acquired from them without the aid of instructors, schools, or colleges.