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that the lesson they teach agrees with the lesson taught by all experience, that life in harmony with reason is the only life safe from laughter; that life in harmony with virtue is the only life safe from contempt.

JOSIAH GILBERT HOLLAND,

THE author of Timothy Titcomb's Letters, whose fame has suddenly become so wide-spread, was born in Belchertown, Massachusetts, July 24, 1819. When he had partially completed his studies preparatory to entering college, his health became enfeebled by too severe application, and he concluded, after a period of relaxation, to study medicine, which he did, in the mean time engaging in teaching as a means of support. In 1845, he took his degree of M.D., at the Berkshire Medical College, Pittsfield, Massachusetts, and removed to Springfield to practise his profession, and shortly afterwards was married to Elizabeth L. Chapin, of that city. But, his practice for the first two years not being adequate to his wants, he accepted the offer of a situation as teacher of a private school at Richmond, Virginia. After being there three months, he received the appointment of Superintendent of Public Schools in Vicksburg, Mississippi, which he accepted. While there, he wrote frequently for the press; but, after discharging the duties of his office to great satisfaction for a year and a half, he received the offer of the editorial department of the "Springfield Republican," which he accepted, and at that post he has remained ever since, discharging its duties with such singular tact and ability, that that journal is without precedent or parallel in our land as a successful country paper.

In 1854, Dr. Holland wrote for the "Republican," in successive numbers, the history of the four western counties of Massachusetts, which was afterwards published in two volumes. In 1857 appeared The Bay Path, a novel founded on the colonial history of his previous work, which was well received here, and warmly commended in the London "Athenæum." But the work which has given Dr. Holland most fame, and which we rejoice to know has put "more money in bis purse," (having gone through nine editions in twelve weeks,) is the volume entitled Timothy Titcomb's Letters to Young People, published in 1858. These Letters first appeared in the "Republican," under the signature of Timothy Titcomb, and attracted universal attention for their beauty of style, purity of English, and sound common sense. The advice contained in them is excellent, entirely practical, sufficiently minute, and eminently judicious,-intended to make, not angels, but useful and happy men and women; and they richly deservo all the popularity they have received. The same year, outside of his laborious editorial duties, he wrote Bitter Sweet, which was published by Scribner. It is a sort of pastoral poem, unique in its structure, and has been well received. The scene of this poem is a New England Thanksgiving, at which the gathered family, after the bountiful repast and the pleasantries of the evening, talk far

into the night upon questions of theology, in connection with their personal experiences of the joys and sorrows of life.1

THE TRUE TRACK.

Go with me, if you please, to the next station-house, and look off upon that line of railroad. It is as straight as an arrow. Out run the iron lines, glittering in the sun,-out, as far as we can see, until, converging almost to a single thread, they pierce the sky. What were those rails laid in that way for? It is a road, is it? Try your cart or your coach there. The axletrees are too narrow, and you go bumping along upon the sleepers. Try a wheelbarrow. You cannot keep it on the rail. But that road was made for something. Now go with me to the locomotiveshop. What is this? We are told it is a locomotive. What is a locomotive? Why, it is a carriage moved by steam. But it is very heavy. The wheels would sink into a common road to the axle. That locomotive can never run on a common road; and the man is a fool who built it. Strange that men will waste time and money in that way! But stop a moment. Why wouldn't those wheels just fit those rails? We measure them, and then we go to the track and measure its gauge. That solves the difficulty. Those rails were intended for the locomotive, and the locomotive for the rails. They are good for nothing apart. The locomotive is not even safe anywhere else. If it should get off, after it is once on, it would run into rocks and stumps, and bury itself in sands or swamps beyond recovery.

Young man, you are a locomotive. You are a thing that goes by a power planted inside of you. You are made to go. In fact, considered as a machine, you are very far superior to a locomotive. The maker of the locomotive is man; your maker is man's Maker. You are as different from a horse, or an ox, or a camel, as a locomotive is different from a wheelbarrow, a cart, or a coach. Now, do you suppose that the being who made youmanufactured your machine, and put into it the motive powerdid not make a special road for you to run upon? My idea of religion is that it is a railroad for a human locomotive, and that just so sure as it undertakes to run upon a road adapted only to animal power, will it bury its wheels in the sand, dash itself among rocks, and come to inevitable wreck. If you don't believe this, try the other thing. Here are forty roads: suppose you choose

1"We mean it as very high praise when we say that Bitter Street is one of the few books that have found the secret of drawing up and assimilating the juices of this New World of ours."-Atlantic Monthly, May, 1859.

one of them, and see where you come out. Here is the dramshop road. Try it. Follow it, and see how long it will be before you come to a stump and a smash-up. Here is the road of

sensual pleasure. You are just as sure to bury your wheels in the dirt as you try it. Your machine is too heavy for that track altogether. Here is the winding, uncertain path of frivolity. There are morasses on each side of it, and, with the headway that you are under, you will be sure, sooner or later, to pitch into one of them. Here is the road of philosophy, but it runs through a country from which the light of Heaven is shut out; and while you may be able to keep your machine right side up, it will only be by feeling your way along in a clumsy, comfortless kind of style, and with no certainty of ever arriving at the heavenly station-house. Here is the road of skepticism. That is covered with fog, and a fence runs across it within ten rods. Don't you see that your machine was never intended to run on those roads? Don't you know that it never was, and don't you know that the only track under heaven upon which it can run safely is the religious track? Don't you know that just as long as you keep your wheels on that track, wreck is impossible? Don't you know that it is the only track on which wreck is not certain? I know it, if you don't; and I tell you that on that track, which God has laid down expressly for your soul to run upon, your soul will find free play for all its wheels, and an unobstructed and happy progress. It is straight and narrow, but it is safe and solid, and furnishes the only direct route to the heavenly city. Now, if God made your soul, and made religion for it, you are a fool if you refuse to place yourself on the track. You cannot prosper anywhere else, and your machine will not run anywhere else.

USEFULNESS-HEALTH-HAPPINESS.

There is no better relief to study than the regular performance of special duties in the house. To feel that one is really doing something every day, that the house is the tidier for one's efforts, and the comfort of the family enhanced, is the surest warrant of content and cheerfulness. There is something about this habit of daily work-this regular performance of duty-which tends to regulate the passions, to give calmness and vigor to the mind, to impart a healthy tone to the body, and to diminish the desire for life in the street and for resort to gossiping companions.

Were I as rich as Croesus, my girls should have something to do regularly, just as soon as they should become old enough to do any thing. They should, in the first place, make their own bed and take care of their own room. They should dress each other. They should sweep a portion of the house. They should learn,

above all things, to help themselves, and thus to be independent in all circumstances. A woman, helpless from any other cause than sickness, is essentially a nuisance. There is nothing womanly and ladylike in helplessness. My policy would be, as girls grow up, to assign to them special duties, first in one part of the house, then in another, until they should become acquainted with all housewifely offices; and I should have an object in this beyond the simple acquisition of a knowledge of housewifery. It should be for the acquisition of habits of physical industry,-of habits that conduce to the health of body and mind,-of habits that give them an insight into the nature of labor, and inspire within them a genuine sympathy with those whose lot it is to labor.

All young mind is uneasy if it be good for any thing. There is not the genuine human stuff in a girl who is habitually and by nature passive, placid, and inactive. The body and the mind must both be in motion. If this tendency to activity be left to run loose, undirected into channels of usefulness,-a spoiled child is the result. A girl growing up to womanhood is, when unemployed, habitually uneasy. The mind aches and chafes because it wants action, for a motive. Now, a mind in this condition is not benefited by the command to stay at home, or the withdrawal from companions. It must be set to work. This vital energy that is struggling to find relief in demonstration should be so directed that habits may be formed,―habits of industry that obviate the wish for change and unnecessary play, and form a regular drain upon it. Otherwise, the mind becomes dissipated, the will irresolute, and confinement irksome. Girls will never be happy, except in the company of their playmates, unless home becomes to them a scene of regular duty and personal usefulness.

There is another obvious advantage to be derived from the habit of engaging daily upon special household duties. The imagination of girls is apt to become active to an unhealthy degree when no corrective is employed. False views of life are engendered, and labor is regarded as menial. Ease comes to be looked upon as a supremely desirable thing; so that when the real, inevitable cares of life come, there is no preparation for them, and weak complainings or ill-natured discontent are the result.

And here I am naturally introduced to another subject. Young women, the glory of your life is to do something and to be something. You very possibly may have formed the idea that ease and personal enjoyment are the ends of your life. This is a terrible mistake. Development in the broadest sense and in the highest direction is the end of your life. You may possibly find ease with it, and a great deal of precious personal enjoyment, or

your life may be one long experience of self-denial. If you wish to be something more than the pet and plaything of a man, if you would rise above the position of a pretty toy or the ornamental fixture of an establishment, you have got a work to do. You have got a position to maintain in society; you have got the poor and the sick to visit; you may possibly have a family to rear and train; you have got to take a load of care upon your shoulders and bear it through life. You have got a character to sustain ; and I hope that you will have the heart of a husband to cheer and strengthen. Ease is not for you. Selfish enjoyment is not for you. The world is to be made better by you. You have got to suffer and to work; and if there be a spark of the true fire in you, your hearts will respond to these words.

ALICE CARY.

ALICE CARY, descended from Huguenot and Puritan ancestry, was born in Hamilton County, Ohio, in April, 1820. Her ancestors, soon after the Revolutionary war, emigrated from Connecticut to the Northwestern Territory, locating in the "Clovernook," which she has characterized with great beauty and originality. Here she passed all the years of her life up to 1850. When about eighteen years old, she gave to the press, at Cincinnati, a small volume of her poems, which were warmly commended, not only for what they were, but for what they promised.

At the suggestion of many friends, she left her Western home for New York City in 1850, and was soon followed by her sister Phoebe, who is a few years younger, where they both have since dwelt. In 1850, the first volume of the poems of Alice and Phoebe Cary was issued in Philadelphia, which was well received; and from this time the sisters became prominent contributors to some of the leading magazines and journals of the country. In 1851, Alice published the first series of her "Clovernook" papers,' which gave her at once a position as a prose-writer. In 1852 appeared Hagar, a Story of To Day; in 1853, a second series of "Clovernook" papers; and in the same year, Lyra, and other Poems. In 1854, Ticknor & Co., of Boston, brought out Clovernook Children, a juvenile, which was warmly received, and at once became the favorite of the young folks. In 1855, Miss Cary prepared a complete edition of her poems for the press, which was issued in the fall of that year. It contained The Maiden of Tlascala, a poem of a more elaborate if not of a more ambitious character than any she had heretofore given to the public, and added not a little to her already high reputation. In 1856 appeared her Married, not Mated, which embodies many of the

1 Entitled Clovernook, or Recollections of our Neighborhood in the West, pub. lished by Redfield, New York.

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