conjurer at fairs in Holland and Belgium. But his most daring exploits have been displayed in forgery. It was for defrauding the Bank of France that he was sent to Toulon. After two years, he escaped with a man called Peau-rouge. They reached Africa, and dwelt with the Arabs for some time. A year ago they came to England, and have given proof of undiminished rascality to many victims. Barbier met a certain Monsieur De Montgris in London, who was going to Beyrout. He passed himself off as an Arab merchant in search of a partner to open out a new path of trade in Syria and Africa. He won the entire confidence of De Montgris, sent him off on a fool's errand to Cairo, and then decamped with all he could lay his hands on. By a forged letter he got possession of these deeds from the notary employed by M. De Montgris, hoping to get a mortgage upon the property they represent. But suspicions were aroused, and he had to hide himself. He has done so in your house; and in his guise of Professor has, I have no doubt, deceived you as completely as he has deceived scores of others.' The poor old Doctor listened to the end like a child to a tale of fascinating horror. When all was told, he leaned his head upon his hands. But he was soon roused by the noise of hurrying footsteps and a convulsive scream. Miss White rushed into the room, looked wildly at me and my companion, then threw herself into her uncle's arms. She was followed by two village policemen, one holding Barbier with an iron grip, and the other the man whose sobriquet was Peaurouge. The French policeman followed. I need not go into the details of the dénouement -how Barbier and his companion were returned to the French authorities, after a series of examinations before the English magistrates. Fortunately, Miss White's small property was not injured by the crafty devices of Barbier. Dr Walters felt the shock so acutely, that for many months he was quite unable to attend to the duties of the school. At his earnest request, I resumed my old position; and during his illness and absence, I acted as Vice-principal of Wimbourne Hall. Three years after the events recorded in this little story, I was inducted proprietor of the school, and made the lifelong guardian of Emily. MIS APPLIED VIRTUES. SHAKSPEARE tells us that 'virtue itself turns vice, being misapplied.' From this text we would draw attention to the often-forgotten fact, that the best and most beautiful points of character may develop into monstrosities, if cultivated without pruning, or in the absence of counterbalancing qualities. A man cannot be too virtuous; but there may be a want of proportion between the good qualities of his mind and heart. How few have well-balanced minds-how few have their feelings under proper control. What is a good temper but a mixture of qualities in due proportion? Where this due proportion is awanting, the temper and disposition become perverted and bad. Almost all vices are the exaggeration of virtues-'virtues misapplied.' As an illustration of this principle, let us take that faculty by which we conceive and long after perfection, and see how even such a beautiful quality as Ideality may, if too exclusively cultivated, drag down rather than elevate its possessor. This divine Ideality, more than anything else, distinguishes man's nature from that of the brute. From it springs the dissatisfaction with present attainments, possessions, and performances, which induces us to strain after higher ones. To make us dissatisfied with the actual, and to spur us on continually after something for ever desirable, yet for ever receding—this is the office of Ideality. But every faculty has its instinctive, wild growth, which, like the spontaneous produce of the earth, is crude and weedy. Revenge, says Bacon, is a sort of wild justice; obstinacy is untutored firmness, and so exactingness is untrained Ideality; and a very great amount of misery, social and domestic, comes not of the faculty, but of its untrained exercise. The faculty which is ever conceiving, and desiring something better and more perfect, must be modified in its action by good sense, patience, and conscience, otherwise it induces a morbid, discontented spirit, which courses through the veins of individual and family life like a subtle poison. An exacting person is one who fusses, fumes, finds fault, and scolds, because everything is not perfect in an imperfect world. Much more happy and good is he whose conceptions and desire of excellence are equally strong, but in whom there is a greater amount of discriminating com mon-sense. himself unhappy because he is unable to fly like a bird or swim like a fish. Common-sense teaches him that these accomplishments are so utterly unattainable, that they should not be desired. A sensible man does not make There was Most people can see what is faulty in themselves and their surroundings; but while the dreamer frets and wears himself out over the unattainable, the happy, practical man is satisfied with what can be attained. much wisdom in the answer given by the Principal of a large public institution, when complimented on his habitual cheerfulness amid a diversity of cares-'I've made up my mind,' he said, 'to be satisfied, when things are done half as well as I would have them.' Ideality often becomes an insidious mental and moral disease, acting all the more subtly from its alliance with what is noblest in us. Shall we not aspire to be perfect ? Shall we be content with low standards in anything? To these inquiries there seems to be but one answer; yet the individual driven forward in blind, unreasoning aspiration, becomes wearied, bewildered, discontented, restless, fretful, and miserable. being miserable himself, he is almost certain to make others unhappy. This is the secret reason why many pure, good, conscientious persons are only a source of uneasiness to those with whom they come in contact. They are exacting, discontented, unhappy; and spread discontent and And June 17, 1882.] unhappiness around them. These are people who make no allowances either for themselves or others, but are equally angry and resentful towards both, and for this reason, that the great virtue of being dissatisfied with imperfection has turned into a vice, being misapplied." Blind persistence in trifles, which is a deformed shoot from a very good stock, will furnish one other illustration of the misapplication of virtue. Like many others, this fault is the overaction of a necessary and praiseworthy quality. Without firmness, all human plans would be unstable as water. A poor woman being asked how it was that her son, after going on steadily for a considerable time, became at last changed in character, replied: "I suppose because he had not the gift of continuance.' This perseverance of will, or gift of continuance,' is found in greater or less degree in every well-constituted nature. It is seen in the lower animals. The force by which a bulldog holds on to an antagonist, the persistence with which a mule will set himself to resist blows and menaces, are pertinent examples of the animal phase of a property which exists in human beings, and forms the foundation for that perseverance which carries on all the great and noble enterprises of life. But there is a wild, uncultured growth of this faculty, the instinctive action of firmness uncontrolled by reason or conscience, which does much mischief, and causes no inconsiderable amount of misery. Speaking of this fault, Mrs Beecher Stowe imagines the case of two young people in the midst of that happy bustle which attends the formation of a first home. Hero and Leander have written each other a letter every day for two years, beginning with 'My dearest,' and ending with Your own,' &c.; they have sent each other flowers and rings and locks of hair; they have worn each other's portraits; they are convinced that never was there such sympathy of souls, such coincidence of opinion, such a reasonable foundation for mutual esteem. They do sincerely respect and love each other; nevertheless, the first year of their married life will be a continued battle about trifles, if both of them are set on having their way at all times. For example, this morning, Hero and Leander are presiding at the arrangement of the furniture which has just been sent to their pretty cottage. 'Put the piano in the bow-window,' says the lady. No; not in the bow-window,' says the gentle man. Why, my dear, of course it must go in the bow-window. How awkward it would look anywhere else! I have always seen pianos in bowwindows.' 'My love, you would not think of spoiling that beautiful prospect from the bow-window, by blocking it up with a piano. The proper place is just here in the corner of the room.' My dear, it would look dreadful there; and spoil the appearance of the room.' 'Well, for my part, my love, I think the appearance of the room would be spoiled if you filled up the bow-window. Think what a lovely place that would be to sit in !' 'Just as if we couldn't sit there behind the piano, if we wanted to! I insist upon it, it ought to stand in the bow-window.' 'Well, I don't think you ought to insist on an arrangement that really is disagreeable to me.' And now Hero's cheeks flush, and the spirit burns within. But we need not quote all her foolish sayings, or those of Leander, as round and round they go, stating and restating their arguments, both getting more and more nervous and combative, as the animal instinct of self-will grows stronger and stronger. Alas! how light a cause may move when the noble quality of firmness is in this way misapplied. We might mention innumerable instances of the misapplication of virtues. There cannot be a higher quality than Conscientiousness, yet even this may degenerate into censoriousness or hopeless self-condemnation. It was the constant prayer of the great and good Bishop Butler that he might be saved from what he called 'scrupulosity. Veneration may become bigotry; and if a man be blindly reverential, he will probably sink to degrading superstition. Where there is a deficiency in Combativeness, there is little energy and force of character; but the excess of this quality makes a person fault-finding and contentious. In two ways, good qualities become warped from their original purpose. Our faculties are 'like sweet bells jangled out of tune,' when any one faculty is allowed to make its voice heard above that of the rest; or when, not being too loud itself, a discord is created, because the opposite faculty, that should harmonise it, has been silenced. Every faculty may become diseased. Insanity is more or less partial. Firmness requires to be kept in check by Benevolence. Self-esteem gives dignity and independence to the character, but it must be harmonised by Humility. Cautiousness and Prudence, if allowed to become morbid, may almost unfit a man for action. If, then, we are endeavouring to cultivate ourselves and others, we must see that no one faculty, however good in itself, is developed unduly, or without equal care being bestowed on the growth of a counterbalancing faculty. That only is a true system of education which aims at the development, not of some, but of all the powers of man. In a well-balanced pair of scales, a feather on one side is found to turn the scale just as really as if a ton had been put into it. In the same way, if a man be deficient in one element, a fair development of the opposite quality will show an excess. Some men are exceedingly good; but being deficient in force and energy of character, they produce upon society very little influence. They are like lemonade with the lemon left out, altogether too sweet and insipid. Some, again, have a predominance of animal propensity, and their tendency of character is toward animal indulgences. Others have moral power, with too little intelligence to guide it. Others are warped and unbalanced by a predominance of social feeling. If they had enough of something else to balance their social sympathies, while people would admire them as the best fellows in the world,' they would not be obliged to regret in their behalf a course of dissipation and folly. Thus it is that even the most admired virtues become vicious, unless they are directed in their exercise by that 'sweet reasonableness' which 'turns to scorn the falsehood of extremes.' SUDDEN WHITE HAIR. WITH SO many professors of the art of rejuvenation proclaiming their readiness to turn old faces into new ones, smooth out wrinkles, obliterate crow's-feet, and restore the hair to its original abundance and colour, the putting of young heads upon old shoulders should be easy enough; but the proverbial impossibility of putting old heads upon young shoulders still seems to hold, although the feat has sometimes been accomplished by Nature herself. Sorrow, not Time, frosted the bright tresses of Mary Stuart and Marie-Antoinette; and theirs were not the only queenly heads that have been prematurely whitened by care and anxiety. While Hanover was waging an unequal contest with Prussia, a lady in attendance upon the consort of the brave blind king, wrote thus of her royal mistress: 'In the last two months, her hair has grown quite gray, I may say white. Four months since, one could scarcely discern a gray hair; now I can hardly see a dark one.' A similar change has often taken place in the course of a single night. One of the witnesses in the Tichborne case deposed that the night after hearing of his father's death, he dreamed he saw him killed before his eyes, and found on awaking that his hair had turned quite white. An old man with snow-white hair said to Dr Moreau: 'My hair was as white as you see it now, long before I had grown old. Grief and despair at the loss of a tenderly-loved wife whitened my locks in a single night when I was not thirty years of age. Judge, then, of the force of my sufferings.' His white hairs brought no such recompense with them, as happened in the instance of the gay gallant who had the hardihood to hold a love-tryst in the palace grounds of the king of Spain. Betrayed by the barking of an unsympathetic hound, the telling of the old, old story was interrupted by the appearance of the king's guard. The scared damsel was allowed to depart unchallenged; but her lover was held captive, to answer his offence. Love-making under the shadow of the royal palace was a capital crime; and so overwhelmed with horror at the idea of losing his head for following the promptings of his heart was the rash wooer, that before the sun rose, his hair had turned quite gray. This being told King Ferdinand, he pardoned the offender, thinking he was sufficiently punished. When the Emperor Leopold was about to make his grand entry into Vienna, the old sexton of St Joseph's Cathedral was much troubled in his mind. Upon such occasions it had been his custom to take his stand on the pinnacle of the tower and wave a flag as the imperial pageant passed by; but he felt that age had so weakened his nerve that he dared not again attempt the perilous performance. After thinking the matter over, he came to the conclusion that he must find a substitute; and knowing his pretty daughter had plenty of stalwart suitors, the old fellow publicly announced that the man who could take his place successfully should be his son-in-law. To his intense disgust, the offer was at once accepted by Gabriel Petersheim, his special aversion, and the special favourite of the girl, who saw not with her father's eyes. On the appointed day, Vienna opened its gates to the new-made Emperor; but it was evening, or near upon evening, when the young flag-bearer welcomed the procession from St Joseph's Tower. His task performed, Gabriel would have descended Two wretches had done the treacherous sexton's from the airy height, but found his way barred. bidding, and closed the trap-door of the upper stairway, leaving the brave youth to choose between precipitating himself on the pavement below, or clinging the cold night through to the slender spire, with but ten inches of foothold. He chose possible life to certain death; but when rescue came with the morning, his eyes were sunken and dim, his cheeks yellow and wrinkled, his curly locks as white as snow. Gabriel Petersheim had won his bride at a fearful cost. Believing a fortune might be easily won in the oil-country, a young Bostonian went there to enrich himself. One stormy night, a glare in the sky told him that an oil-tank was on fire a few miles off; and knowing that after a time, the oil would boil up and flow over the side of the tank, he made for a hill to witness the spectacle. 'She's coming!' a man shouted. There was a rumbling sound, and then the burning oil shot up from the tank, boiled over its sides, and floated down the creek, destroying everything in its way, and setting fire to a second tank. Curiosity getting the better of discretion, he ran to the ground in the rear of the tanks, to get a better view, and in trying to avoid a pool of burning oil, fell into a mudhole, and stuck fast therein. Struggling till he could struggle no longer, he lay back exhausted, watching the billows of smoke surging upwards and floating away into space. Suddenly his ears were startled by the sound of cannon-firing; a column of flame and smoke shot up from one of the tanks, and he was stricken almost senseless with the knowledge that the 'pipe-line men' were cannonading the first tank, to draw off the oil, and so prevent another overflow. He tried to shout, but the words would not come. A little stream of burning oil ran slowly but surely towards him. He watched it creeping on until it was almost upon him; then in å moment all was dark. When he came back to consciousness, he found himself in his own room, surrounded by the boys,' who had seen him just in time to save him. It was a weary while before he was himself again, and then he was inclined to doubt if he was himself, for his once dark hair was perfectly white. Instances have not been wanting of the hair being deprived of its colour in a few minutes. The home-coming of the king of Naples after the Congress of Laybach was celebrated with much public rejoicing. To do the occasion honour, the manager of the San Carlo Theatre produced a grand mythological pageant, in which an afterwards well-known opera-singer made his debut in the character of Jupiter. The stage-thunder rolled, the stage-lightning flashed, as the Olympian monarch descended on his cloud-supported throne. Suddenly, screams of horror rang through chiefly responsible.' So many may-bes' from such an authority prove that the mystery of the sudden whitening of the hair is yet unsolved. It is likely to remain unsolved, since the Doctormore modest than many of his brethren-owns that the mysteries of vital chemistry are un the house; the queen fainted, and all was up- Staff-surgeon Parry, while serving in India Some years ago, a young lady who was anxiously awaiting the coming of her husband-elect, received a letter conveying the sad tidings of his shipwreck and death. She instantly fell to the ground insensible, and so remained for five hours. On the following morning, her sister saw that her hair, which had been previously of a rich brown colour, had become as white as a cambric handkerchief, her eyebrows and eyelashes retaining their natural colour. After a while the whitened hair fell off, and was succeeded by a new growth of gray. This case coming under the observation of Dr Erasmus Wilson, shattered his unbelief in the possibility of the sudden conversion of the hair from a dark colour to snow-white. No man knows more about the hair than Dr Wilson; but he is at a loss to explain the phenomenon quite to his own satisfaction. If,' says he, 'it be established that the hair is susceptible of permeation by fluids derived from the blood-a transmission of fluids from the bloodvessels of the skin into the substance of the hair really occurs, the quantity and nature being modified by the peculiarity of constitution or state of health of the individual-it follows that such fluids, being altered in their chemical qualities, may possess the power of impressing new conditions on the structure into which they enter. Thus, if they contain an excess of salts of lime, they may deposit salts of lime in the tissue of the hair, and so produce a change in its appearance from dark to gray.' Then he tells us: The phenomena may be the result of electrical action; it may be the consequence of a chemical alteration wrought in the very blood itself, or it may be a conversion for which the tissue of the hair is The whitening of the hair wrought by mental disturbance is sometimes only of a partial nature. Vexation of spirit gave Henry of Navarre a partycoloured moustache. An old writer tells of an Irish captain going to deliver himself up to Lord Broghill, the commander of the English forces, who, being met on his way by a party of English soldiers, was made prisoner, and was so apprehensive of being put to death before Lord Broghill could interfere in his behalf, that the anxiety of his mind turned some of his locks quite white, while the others remained of their original reddish hue. Perhaps the curious change was less annoying to its victim than that which befell an American girl, whose first intimation of her lover's falsity was the reading an account of his marriage in a newspaper. After a night's brooding over the traitor's perfidy, her looking-glass showed her that one side of her head was still adorned with tresses of golden brown; but the other, alas! was decked with locks more befitting a grandam than a maiden still in her teens; though even this was not so bad as was the case of a French girl, who, frightened by the floor of her room giving way beneath her, shed her hair so quickly that in three days' time she was -to use the expressive comparison of a chronicler of the event'as bald as a bell-handle.' THE OLDEST INHABITANT. A VILLAGE SKETCH. 'NEIGHBOUR FROST' was the oldest inhabitant of Wenlow. There was no doubt about it. The parish register attested the fact, and the whole village recognised its truth, and respected her accordingly. A woman who was capable of attaining the patriarchal age of ninety-eight, had displayed energy and powers of endurance worthy of the veneration of the neighbourhood. She was petted by the parson and his wife; triumphantly quoted by the doctor as an incontestable proof of the salubrity of the locality and the prevailing longevity of its inhabitants; proudly exhibited to admiring visitors as one of the curiosities of the place; and much cherished by her relatives, as a valuable help from a pecuniary point of view, besides conferring distinction upon the family. Many a shilling and half-crown were dropped into her withered palm, as a token of admiration of her brave defiance of the King of Terrors.' Although her brown face was puckered into as many wrinkles as a withered apple, her small, dark eyes had a shrewd twinkle; and her little, bent form had not utterly lost all trace of the sturdy vigour which had helped her through so many years of toil and privation. Her memory, too, still served to recall many quaint, old-world histories, and perhaps a few forgotten scandals concerning folks who had long since 'gone over to the majority' in the quiet churchyard. Altogether, she was, as her fellow-villagers said, 'a wonder.' She led a life of luxurious ease, in a comfortably-padded easy-chair, in the warmest corner of the fireside of her eldest grandson; made much of by her numerous descendants, amongst whom she was familiarly known as 'the owd crittur,' to distinguish her from another grandmother who had only attained the trifling age of seventy-seven. Although there was a fair sprinkling of old people in Wenlow and the adjacent villages, there were but two or three tottering on the verge of ninety, and none beyond that; therefore, to Neighbour Frost' belonged the proud privilege of having passed all in the race with Time, and nearly wrested a century from his niggardly grasp. It was a grand pre-eminence, and much gloried in by the ancient dame herself. It was her spécialité, the crown which no one could take away from her. In respect of age she was unrivalled in the neighbourhood. Her name might be handed down to posterity, and obtain honourable mention with Methuselah and Old Parr, or with the evergreen Countess of Desmond. Suddenly, however, this blissful dream was rudely and cruelly disturbed. A great-grandson rushed home from school one morning with the appalling news that a 'very owd woman, owder than Grannie, wor just come to Wenlow.-You can see her, Grannie, if you look out. She's Master Simpson's mother; and they're a-lifting of her out o' the cart agin his house. They say she's close on a hunderd.' 'What!' shrieked poor old Mrs Frost; 'John Simpson's mother come here! I thowt she'd been dead years agone. What did they bring the owd crone here for? I niver liked her.' 'Well,' observed the boy's mother, who had just come in from a gossip, 'she's been living with a daughter who's just dead; and as she was born here, Simpson's people thowt the owd gal might as well end her days here.' 'And a rare article she looks!' disdainfully snorted old Mrs Frost, who had been watching her rival's laborious descent from the cart to the ground. Dame Simpson certainly was not in such good preservation as our venerable friend. She looked painfully old, with the fardel of her years overprest,' withered and fleshless-a mere little bundle of bones; with lack-lustre eyes, which seemed to look dimly at you through the haze of vanished years; and with a feeble, piping voice, that seemed to have been long ago left behind also. However, she was old, very old, and a genuine production of the parish. On looking into its records, it was discovered that she was just a year older than 'Neighbour Frost.' Having left her native place early in life, her existence had been forgotten by all but her immediate relatives; but now every one seemed anxious to make amends for previous negligence; and many a mortification did the Frost family endure in seeing the fickle public lavishing its attention upon the new-comer as the greatest curiosity. The presents of tea, eggs, dainty little puddings, or 'a few broth,' which used to be old Mrs Frost's peculiar perquisites, and the visits from the gentry,' were now divided with the interloper. Worst of all,' said Mrs Frost, 'Miss Alice, the parson's daughter, went and drawed a pictur of the poor, toothless, owd crittur; and the parson, he went to talk to her; but she wor wholly waffled, and could only tell him she wor tired out, and longed to be laid to rest; and then Nurse Simpson says in her carnying, fawning way, "Tis only the beautiful soup and wine and sich as you kindly send, sir, as keeps her from sinkin'; but I trust we shan't lose the pore old dear yet; she seems to bring a blessing on the house. She's a gracious soul!"' 'A pretty penny she and John are making just now, warrant,' was the indignant comment of Mrs Frost's grand-daughter. This sad state of heart-burning and rivalry did not last long, however; for, four months after her arrival, the poor, harmless cause of it retired from the contest, glad to leave this bustling world. From that time forth, Neighbour Frost's' face wore an expression of unruffled serenity. Her prestige was restored; and when, some two years later, she was lying at the point of death, and her irrepressible grandson burst into the room with the intelligence that people had made up their minds when Grannie died, to have a grand berryin', and put up a stone to her in the churchyard,' her cup of joy was full-'Tell 'em,' she feebly faltered, to put on the stone, I wor over a hunderd, and the owdest in the parish, living or dead. Sally Simpson wor only ninety-nine.' With this 'Nunc Dimittis' she quietly closed her eyes. Her warfare was accomplished, her life 'rounded and complete.' Although the day be never so long, A THOUGHT IN SUMMER. On sleeping infant brows. Two swallows flew A tremulous skylark hung. On every side A. K. Printed and Published by W. & R. CHAMBERS, 47 Paternoster Row, LONDON, and 339 High Street, EDINBURGH. All Rights Reserved. |