for individuality. So we neither love symmetry and perfection in men, according to any recognized standard, nor the appearance of them. We demand not only that men shall have individuality, but that they shall express it in their language and their lives. In society we demand variety; and in order to have it, men must act out themselves. The harmony and sweetness of social life consist in the adjustment of the strong points of some to the weak points of others.

With these facts so very evident as they must be to all thoughtful minds, it is strange that such an effort is made to bring all men to a certain standard and style of life. I do not believe there is a country on the face of the earth where public opinion and fashion and conventional and individual notions, exercise so despotic a sway as they do in America. There is, in this "free country," no play to individuality tolerated. No room is made for the peculiarities of a man-no freedom is given to his mode of manifestation. A man who has peculiar manners, and whose style of individuality is marked, has no room allowed to him at all. He is very likely to be called a fool, and laughed at by his inferiors. We take no pains to look through the outside to find the heart and soul, and refuse to see excellence behind manifestations that offend our notions or our tastes. We go to hear a preacher, and if he do not happen to have the externals, and the style of

delivery which we most admire, we condemn him at once. We make no room for his individuality, and allow to it no freedom of manifestation. Room and freedom-that which the ocean has, that which the rivers have, that which the forest has, and that from which all of them derive their beauty and their glory -room and freedom are denied to men by men who need both, quite as much as their fellows.

The choicest food of the gossips is the personal peculiarities of their acquaintances. The grand staple of ridicule is this same individuality, whose importance I have endeavored to illustrate. All the small wits of society busy themselves upon the eccentricities of those around them. Church and creed, party and platform, fashion and custom, all direct themselves against the development of individuality. Sensitive natures shrink before such an array of influences, and retire into themselves, drawing back and keeping in check all their out-reaching individuality. Many a man, indeed, who would face a cannon's mouth without trembling, flinches when beset by ridicule. It is not the fault of society that the whole race of mankind are not reduced to a dead level of character, and a tasteless uniformity of life. Were it not that God does His work so strongly, it would have been undone long ago. As it is, we always have a few men and women who are true enough to God and themselves to keep the world from stagna

tion, and give zest to life. They sometimes shock Miss Nancy, but as they do not happen to care what Miss Nancy thinks of them, they manage to live and do something to keep Miss Nancy's friends from settling into chronic inanity.

LESSON XXII.

THE POETIC TEST.

"I walked on, musing with myself
On life and art, and whether, after all,
A larger metaphysics might not help
Our physics-a completer poetry
Adjust our daily life and vulgar wants
More fully than the special outside plans,
Phalansteries, material institutes,

The civil conscriptions and lay monasteries,
Preferred by modern thinkers."

MRS. BROWNING.

HE highest poetry is the purest truth. To learn

TH

whether any thing is as it ought to be, we have only to learn whether it is truly poetical. It is a popular fallacy to suppose that poetical things are necessarily fanciful, or imaginative, or sentimental— in other words, that poetry resides in that which is both baseless and valueless. In the popular thought, poetry is shut out of the realm of truth and reality.

The reason, I suppose, is, that poetry demands more of truth and harmony and beauty than is commonly found in the actualities of human life.

Let us suppose that in a country journey we arrive at the summit of a hill, at whose foot lies a charming village imbosomed in trees from the midst of which rises the white spire of the village church. If we are in a poetical mood, we say: "How beautiful is this retirement! This quiet retreat, away from the world's distractions and great temptations, must be the abode of domestic and social virtue-the home of contentment, of peace, and of an unquestioning Christian faith. Fortunate are they whose lot it is to be born and to pass their days here, and to be buried at last in the little graveyard behind the church." As we see the children playing upon the grass, and the tidy matrons sitting in their doorways, and the farmers at work in the fields, and the quiet inn, with its brooding piazzas like wings waiting for the shelter of its guests, the scene fills us with a rare poetic delight. In the midst of our little rapture, however, a communicative villager comes along, and we question him. We are shocked to learn that the inn is a very bad place, with a drunken landlord, that there is a quarrel in the church which is about to drive the old pastor away, that there is not a man in the village who would not leave it if he could sell his property, that the women give a free rein to