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them for £1000 each. When I pointed
out to Jessie what a road of fortune lay
before our baby, she laughed at him, and
called him Tommy R.A.

"But of course in those days I could not be sure of the line in which my son would excel. My duty was to prepare him to excel in any which he might choose, by developing in him the taste for competition. I looked about for a competitor, and had the good luck to find my little nephew Theodore, who is ten minutes older than Tommy. I borrowed him from his parents, and at once brought

pressed in this manner, it is cordial assent. I relapsed into silence, and filled my glass. Septimus passed his hand over his hair, which is rather long, and still thick, though streaked with many threads of grey, and gazed thoughtfully through the window, which opened on to the lawn. A faint light lingered in the west, and one star shone brilliantly above the black cedar, near which was dimly seen the graceful figure of my friend's wife. At her side was the young man on whom, moved by genuine liking and the emotions natural to a benevolent person who has dined well, I had just pro-the two lads into competition. I well nounced a seemingly inopportune pan- remember my first attempt, and its failure. I had been left in charge of the egyric. We sat at a round table, over which a shaded light was hanging, and children for a short time, and seizing the It opportunity, induced them to race across the claret passed slowly between us. was too old to be hurried. After a si- the room for a lump of sugar." lence of a few minutes, my friend leaned back in his chair, and said

"If it would not bore you, I should like to tell you a few anecdotes of my dear boy's life."

"Pray do," I said. I was in the mood for listening-disposed for silence, and moderately curious. Septimus has a manner gentle as the evening, and a voice which might have grown mellow in his own cellar.

Here I interrupted my friend by asking if the boys were not young for education.

"Not at all," said he; "for let me tell you that in these days, when the idea of individual liberty is in the air we breathe, children rebel against the influence of their parents almost before they are breeched."

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You surprise me," I said, "and well-
nigh make me accept the poet's picture.
You remember the lines?
Didst never hear how the rebellious Egg
Stood up i' the straw, and to his Mother Goose
Cried, Madame, I will not be sat upon."

"It has long seemed to me," he began, "that the rules of conduct which we try to impress on our children are absurdly inconsistent with those by which we expect them to regulate their later life. Septimus smiled in a deprecating manHe continued When they are young they are to be un-ner, somewhat uncertain, I think, whether obtrusive, and to give up to everybody; I were in jest or earnest. "Tommy was a good walker, when they have reached man's estate his story. they are to give way to nobody, but to if you make allowance for the novelty of push their fortunes in the world. As the accomplishment, but lost some time well might we punish the child for going in lateral motion like those of a landsman near the water, and expect the man to on a rolling sea; therefore Theodore, swim; or train the runner for the race who had a perpetual inclination forward, by making him walk backwards. When and went with an involuntary goose-step, Tommy was born, I made up my mind to took the lead at once, and would have In the battle won, had not his head, advancing too avoid the common error. of life he should be taught to win, and quickly for his legs, come suddenly in not to go round, when the fighting was contact with the floor. Now was my over, with a red cross on his arm. When boy's chance; but instead of going by he was a baby he showed a great love of his cousin, who was prostrate and howlcolour, and would lie for hours smiling ing, he sat down on the carpet and belat the sunlight, and making little motions lowed twice as loud for sympathy. Jessie with his hands. It seemed clear to me said that I ought to be ashamed of myin those days that the child would be a self, and divided the lump of sugar begreat painter (you know that I was always tween the competitors. fond of art), and take a high position. There is a great opening in that direction. An active man who cultivates a bold style, and is above niggling over details, can paint ten pictures in the year, and, when he has made a name, can sell

"When the boys were a little older, I again borrowed Theodore, and made a little class of him and Tommy, hoping for healthy rivalry in the acquisition of knowledge. I began with an opening address, in which I pointed out to them

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Here I could not help interrupting my friend Septimus with the remark that there was no better way of helping one's self than appearing as a helper of others, if you knew the right moment at which to leave them; and that some had grown wonderfully rich in this manner.

that the duty of each was to beat the of political economy are false, she said other; and that, as every man in the that she did not care if they were, and grown-up world was trying to get as that she knew that it was better to help much of the luxuries and honours as he another than to help one's self." could, so each boy should try to gain for himself as large a share as possible of the marbles, toffee, and other prizes, which I should from time to time offer. They heard me with great gravity, and our opening day was a decided success. I soon found, however, that my prize system was a failure, since, as the students always played together, they cared not a jot who won the toys, which they enjoyed in common; and as to the toffee, they both suffered so much after the first prize-day, that Jessie put her veto on that form of reward.

"After this I determined to substitute pennies, and for a time thought that I had effected my purpose. Tommy grew wonderfully industrious, and in spite of my strict impartiality accumulated a vast store of copper. Week after week he drew on me with papers of marks, which were duly honoured, until I saw myself in days to be the aged father of the first of gentile financiers. He should direct the application of his neighbours' fortunes, speculate in a gigantic war, become Baron Tommy at a foreign court, perhaps Sir Thomas at his own. My dream was rudely dispelled. One day my small nephew came to me in great glee. 'Uncle Septimus,' said he, do you know that it is my birthday?' 'Yes,' I replied, and Tommy's birthday too, although you certainly gained an advantage over him, for which no activity on his part can ever compensate.' And please, Uncle Septimus,' continued Theodore, do look at the present which Tommy has given me ;' and he held up a highly decorated whip and scarlet reins. It was but too clear that the fortune which my son had accumulated by his industry, had been expended in a present for the defeated candidate; and when questioned on the subject, the young prodigal at once allowed that this had been the sole motive of his extraordinary devotion to study. While I was trying to impress upon him that if the triumph of the successful resulted in the gain of the unsuccessful competitor, emulation was impossible, his mother came in with a rush and hugged him. Jessie is apt to act from impulse, as almost all women are. When I pointed out to her, on one occasion, that unless everybody is always trying to get as much of everything for himself as he can, the most valuable laws

Septimus seemed to think my remark irrelevant, for he took no notice of it, but continued his story.

"You may suppose," he said, "that in choosing a school for my boy I should be greatly influenced by size; for if competition be a good, the wider the field of competition the better. I sent him off to Eton with a copy of Mr. Smiles's stimulating work on 'Self-Help,' and a manual of political economy, to which his mother added a large hamper and a Bible. His school career was fairly successful, and would have been brilliant but for that moral obliquity, of which, alas! there was no longer room to doubt. There was no limit to his generosity, which was constantly developed by an ever-growing popularity. There never was so popular a boy. The masters could hardly find fault with him, and his school-fellows made a hero of him, as was natural, indeed, for he could refuse them nothing. His gaiety, which never flagged, grew riotous when he was conferring a favour. He was the author of more Latin verses than have been left to us by the poets of Rome, and never dashed off his own copy until he had wooed the Muses to the side of Tomkins, Brabazon, Jones, Montgomery, and a host of others. Again and again I told him, both verbally and by letters, that popularity is the reward of those who are the gulls of society; that there is no current coin of so little value; and that the only real proof of a man's success is the jealousy which he excites. He now not only neglected my advice, but even respectfully contradicted me; and it must be confessed that his answers had a great look of brilliancy, for he was an unusually clever lad, and might now be anywhere if he chose. I ought to add that he never grew angry in argument. He has his mother's sweet temper, which is a very good thing in a woman.

Perhaps you think that I have given undue importance to trifles; and indeed I made light of them myself until my son, in a great crisis of his career, behaved in a

manner which I could not misinterpret, scholarly composition, and had breathed though I am thankful to say that I could a sigh for the lost slang of my early days, pardon it. He was now eighteen years it occurred to me that I had a chance of old, when he and his greatest friend, a praising my young friend for a virtue boy of the name of Dart, entered to- which even a parent could not deny him. gether for scholarships at one of the Ox- And calling to mind an old tale of our ford Colleges. I will not linger over the university life, at which Sep and I were story; indeed, if you will excuse me for wont to smile when we were careless una moment, will fetch my son's letter, dergraduates, I laughed, and said from which you will learn the catastrophe "You should be thankful for so honest a at a glance, while I shall be spared the son, who did not keep it dark,' as he pain of recital." might have done. He seems as anxious to avoid all misunderstanding as was Toby O'Connor when he carefully engraved his name upon the stone which he afterwards flung through the dean's plate-glass window."

Septimus, who had risen slowly while he was speaking, crossed the passage to his study, and came back with the following note, which he placed in my hands:

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"MY DEAR FATHER,-I hope that you won't be awfully sick at what I have done; but I am afraid that you won't like it. I thought of you a great deal before I made up my mind, but I don't

know what else I could have done.

or

This anecdote had never before failed

to raise a smile; but my friend was evidently in no mood for laughter. After a simper of acknowledgment, he carefully folded up the letter, and smoothing it with his hand, continued his story.

"Can you imagine my feelings when There is a fellow up here called Mills, I read this missive?" he said. I could who is just going to take his degree, and not speak; so I threw it across the is very thick with the dons. He was at breakfast-table to Jessie, and went away my tutor's when I first went to Eton, and to my study. For a full half-hour there Then I heard the door was very keen that I should get one of was no sound. the scholarships here. Somehow of the dining-room open, and my wife's other he found out from one of his don step in the passage. I called to her. friends (which, of course, he had no busi- When she came in, I saw that her eyes ness to do), before the last day of the exwere full of tears. I took her in my amination, that a Clifton fellow was pret- arms, and begged her not to fret about ty safe for the first scholarship, and that it, saying that it was a terrible disapthe other was a very near thing between pointment, and that we must bear it toDart and me. Now you know that old gether. I was quite choky, and she did Dart could not have come up to Oxford not appear to hear me. O Septimus,' at all if he had not got a scholarship, and she said, after a few minutes, 'what have it did not make any difference to me, be- we done that God should have given us cause you always let me do what I want. such a noble son?' and she burst out So the fact is, that I did not do quite my sobbing. I have long ceased to feel surbest in the last papers. I am as good as prised at the behaviour of women. Every sure that it did not make the least differ-man marries a Sphinx. The power which ence in the world; for the dear old man is a perfect needler at a critical paper (Greek particles and scholarship tips, &c., you know), and was bound to lick me any way. Only I did not like to keep it dark from you, though of course he must never know anything about it; and you never saw any fellow so happy as he is; and so you must not be vexed, or at least must have got over it before you see your affectionate son,

TOMMY.

"P.S. Of course you will tell the mother, and she will make you forgive me, I know. I am awfully well and happy ; and the fellows here are tremendously kind and jolly."

that boy, with his frank manner, cheery laughter, and honest heart, (for I admit his charm, as who does not?) had got over his mother, who is no fool, I can tell you, is inexplicable. If he had robbed the bank to buy sweetmeats for the urchins of Little Britain, I believe that his mother would have cried for joy and gone to say her prayers. There is a peculiar beauty about a woman's character; but as to expecting rational conduct or logical argument, you might as well make a salad of roses or walk in high

heeled boots."

Septimus had now finished the anecdotes of his son. Leaning his head upon his hand, and looking across the table,

When I had finished reading this he asked, "What is my boy t. be?"

in turn.

"What does he wish to be?" I asked | never heard, and who have certainly achieved no position. But though he is "That is just what I asked him the without ambition, he is so far from idleother day,” said my friend, with a half-ness, that his industry is almost a vice. smile; "and the young wretch suggested He not only pursues every study which that he should follow my profession." cannot possibly lead to fortune or place, "Your profession!" cried I, in amaze- but he occupies his spare time with other ment. I had known Septimus all my people's business. Some days ago my life, and was well aware that he had labourer (I had but one) abruptly left the never followed an occupation for more place, and on inquiry I found that than six days at a time. The routine of Tommy, anxious to diminish the surplus work which he planned on Monday morn-agricultural population, had helped him ing, never could survive the intervention to emigrate. He is on the point of delivof the following Sunday. ering a series of lectures to our peaceful My friend looked at me rather comical-rustics, who have heretofore been perly and said, “I am afraid he was laughing at me. You know that I went in for all sorts of things when I was a young man. I was wild about art at one time; and once I seriously thought of making a fortune on the Stock Exchange. You remember my devotion to literature; and how I studied architecture that year when we travelled together. I might have made something of them, if I had not been so often anticipated by Mr. Matthew Arnold, Mr. Ruskin, and others. It was not until I was engaged to Jessie that I took up political economy, and found that I had been an unproductive consumer. It is a wonderful science, and makes humanity so simple, showing you that all men are very much alike, if you look at them in the right way, and don't confuse yourself by the analysis of people's characters."

"Well, Septimus," I said, "you can't be surprised that your son should be as idle a young dog as you were in your youth. Perhaps he may some day catch this science, as you did, for it is certainly in the air."

"But," said Septimus, "the curious thing is that he is not idle at all. On the contrary, he works very steadily, but hates to get anything for it. I have shown him bishops in their aprons, and judges in their gowns, but without the slightest effect. When I took him into the House of Commons he expressed an opinion that all the members should wear wigs like the Speaker's, maintaining that no man could be revolutionary in a wig. He added that, but for the head-gear of the lawyers, codification would be inevitable. When I introduced him to the peer of my acquaintance, he cross-questioned the noble lord about his tenants' cottages. I should suppose him to be entirely without reverence, if he did not sometimes burst into enthusiasm over people of whom, for the most part, I have

fectly satisfied with my penny readings, and by these means he will probably depopulate the village. He talks of a visit of inspection to the Valley of the Mississippi. In short, I begin to fear that I am the father of an agitator. A strange lad, of whom the only thing which you can safely predict is that he will do what he likes, and that his mother will abet him. Will you have any more wine?"

"One moment," I said. "I only want to ask, What has become of the borrowed Theodore?"

"He is a very fair player at Polo,” replied my host. "You won't have any more wine. Then let us join Jessie and my boy on the lawn."

From Temple Bar. THE VICE OF READING.

THERE are three bad habits which, if not altogether peculiar to the present generation of men, are supposed, and we imagine with truth, to have acquired in its course great extension and intensity. They are dram-drinking, teadrinking, and tobacco-smoking. Teadinking it is difficult to assail, save by public letters and leading articles; and we very much doubt whether mortal nerves would have been able to bear the strain put upon them by modern civilization, had it not been that the East had enriched the West with this non-inebriating beverage. Few persons, however, entertain any doubt that the consump tion of spirituous liquors amongst us has already reached a point at which serious injury is being inflicted on the physical strength and mental balance of the community, and that the use of tobacco promises to attain proportions which will eventually cause analogous deterioration of the species.

In all seriousness, we believe that the race is threatened with another danger just as real, just as imminent, and, we fear, yet more deadly, since far more insidious. We have nakedly entitled this paper "The Vice of Reading;" for we are unable to dispel the conviction that Reading, so long a virtue, a grace, an education, and, in its effects, an accomplishment, has become a downright vice, -a vulgar, detrimental habit, like dramdrinking; an excuse for idleness; not only not an education in itself, but a stumbling-block in the way of education; a cloak thrown over ignorance; a softening, demoralizing, relaxing practice, which, if persisted in, will end by enfeebling the minds of men and women, making flabby the fibre of their bodies, and undermining the vigour of nations.

But, far from having been composed with a desire to write a more or less exhaustive monograph on the subject of which they profess to treat, they are for the most part put together with the deliberate intention of making them palatable to the "general public." Thus they teach, not what ought to be taught, but what the writer thinks the reader will consent to be taught. With this aim in view, Histories are made "diverting," Biogra phies scandalous, Travels sensational 1; and the author who refuses to spice his dish for the ja led palate of the multitude has usually the satisfaction of finding that it remains untasted. If we turn to what are called Religion, Philosophy, and Science, we find a very Babel of pens, amidst which one set of readers grow hopelessly confused, another arrive at the Why should people read, and what is conclusion that there are matters beyond the real solid value of printed matter? their understanding and their concern, There are three good reasons for read- whilst a third set fancy that they must ing, and we can think of no others. They know all about subjects respecting which are, to be made wiser, to be made nobler, so much has been written, whereas, in and to be innocently recreated. Books reality, they know just nothing at all. In which neither confer information which fact, it is rather by thinking than by readis worth having, nor lift the spiritual parting that any opinion deserving of considof us up to loftier regions, nor, by eration is to be had upon such weighty judicious diversion, refreshen the mind matters; and, as we shall see, Reading, for further serious efforts, are bad books, as at present conducted, is rapidly deand the reading of such is invariably idle- stroying all thinking and all powers of ness, and not unoften the most danger- thought. ous kind of idleness. Reading is not, as so many people nowadays seem to suppose, good in itself, as so many things are which are by no means as highly thought of. All energy that is not injurious, wasteful, or subtracted from some other effort incumbent upon him who puts it forth, is good as walking, riding, boating, and the rest. But the reading of which we speak cannot, under the most favourable construction, be regarded as energy. On the contrary, it is the very laziest form of laziness. People fly to it when they think they have nothing else to do, and they flatter themselves that by reading they are really doing something; and thus, nine times out of ten, they exon erate themselves from the obligation of performing some duty which is distasteful to them.

Of how many books which are published can it be said that they will add to the knowledge of any human being, or even that they have been written with the object of producing such a result? A certain number of volumes, doubtless, are issued every year which profess to be "serious reading," but all that is really meant by this is that they are not novels.

But if so little profit is to be reaped from the books which pretend in a mock manner to instruct, what shall we say of those whose natural duty it would be to elevate? We entertain the profoundest veneration for works of the imagination, and we hope we should be the last to under-estimate their value. But we venerate and value them on one condition: that they raise man not only from the slough of despond, but from the mire of selfish aims, of ignoble desires, cynical beliefs, and purely material views of existence. Works of imagination must operate as a perpetual sursum corda, an invitation to us to lift up our hearts, in the midst of so much that is painfully calculated to depress them and induce them to grovel. The immortal words of Schiller best define our meaning, imaginative as they are: "Man has lost his dignity, but Art has saved it. Truth still lives in Fiction, and from the copy the original will be restored." The imagination is the true refuge against experience; its medicine, its corrective, which restores to it tone, health, and energy. Life is disenchanting, no doubt. Then be enchanted again, by surrendering yourself

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