The hearthstone; or, Life at home

In reading history, it is well to pause now and then, and reflect upon the different course it must have taken if this or that event had 134 THE hearthstone; or, life at home. not happened. If Hannibal had besieged and taken Rome after the battle of Cannse : if Harold instead of William of Normandy had won at Hastings ; if the Prussians under Blucher had not arrived at Waterloo ; if King James and all his Parliament had been blown to pieces, and the Gunpowder Plot had not been discovered by that mysterious letter; if Queen Victoria had been shot like Presidents Lincoln and Garfield ; these and a hundred similar questions will occur as we read, and give exercise as well as pleasure to the imagination and reasoning powers. In reading biography it is well to reflect upon the different kinds of greatness and success, the various qualities, and the several paths of human enterprise. , Samuel Rogers, the poet and banker of London, said he would have given half he was worth to have been the author of that exquisite farewell to life, by Mrs. Barbauld, which ends with — " Say not Good-night, but in some brighter clime Bid me Good-morning; " and General Wolfe, as he was approaching his heroic death upon the Heights of Abraham, declared that he would rather have been the author of Gray's Elegy than have taken Quebec. There are diversities of gifts, as we have been told, and one star differs from another star in glory. In reading, as in life, it is good for us to have some special line and inclination. Our general reading and the gradual insight we gain of our own mind and character will help us to choose aright both our work in life and our particular studies. But whatever our destined path may be, the lives of great men in all callings will be helpful to us. Such a life as that of Thomas Edwards, the Scottish naturalist, is a monument of final perseverance and triumph over adverse circumstances, such as should nerve and brace every earnest reader of it to do with all his might whatever he finds to do. As a last piece of advice, let the young reader avail himself reverently and earnestly of the results arrived at by others. You have neither time nor learning to pick out groups of words out of the dictionary, and trace their history and meaning for yourself. But you have time to study Trench on " The Study of Words," a Httle book, but brimful of useful knowledge and suggestive thoughts. You cannot search out and apply the proverbs of different countries, or even of your own English-speaking race, for yourself, but you can take the hand of the same great teacher as he leads you through " The Lessons Contained in Proverbs," a book which you can carry about you in your pocket like that on " Words." Wilmot's " Pleasures of Literature " and " Summer in the Country " are little books equally portable, but each contains a treasury of guidance in reading and illustration from nature, and its best interpreters. Read and cherish the little books as you would a photograph of a wondrous panorama, or the miniature of a dear friend. Help's " Companions of my Solitude," Boyd's "Recreations of a Country Parson," Emerson's " Society and Solitude," Thackeray's " Roundabout Papers," and Washington Irving's charming "Alhambra " are all good for family and fireside reading.