unexpected way. But, with common prudence in investments, it is not so
now. In fact, there is nothing earthly that lasts so well, on the whole,
as money. A man's learning dies with him; even his virtues fade out of
remembrance, but the dividends on the stocks he bequeaths to his children
live and keep his memory green.

I do not think there is much courage or originality in giving utterance
to truths that everybody knows, but which get overlaid by conventional
trumpery. The only distinction which it is necessary to point out to
feeble-minded folk is this: that, in asserting the breadth and depth of
that significance which gives to fashion and fortune their tremendous
power, we do not indorse the extravagances which often disgrace the one,
nor the meanness which often degrades the other.

A remark which seems to contradict a universally current opinion is not
generally to be taken "neat," but watered with the ideas of common-sense
and commonplace people. So, if any of my young friends should be tempted
to waste their substance on white kids and "all-rounds," or to insist on
becoming millionaires at once, by anything I have said, I will give them
references to some of the class referred to, well known to the public as
providers of literary diluents, who will weaken any truth so that there
is not an old woman in the land who cannot take it with perfect impunity.

I am afraid some of the blessed saints in diamonds will think I mean to
flatter them. I hope not;--if I do, set it down as a weakness. But there
is so much foolish talk about wealth and fashion, (which, of course, draw
a good many heartless and essentially vulgar people into the glare of
their candelabra, but which have a real respectability and meaning, if we
will only look at them stereoscopically, with both eyes instead of one,)
that I thought it a duty to speak a few words for them. Why can't
somebody give us a list of things that everybody thinks and nobody says,
and another list of things that everybody says and nobody thinks?

Lest my parish should suppose we have forgotten graver matters in
these lesser topics, I beg them to drop these trifles and read the
following lesson for the day.

THE TWO STREAMS.

Behold the rocky wall
That down its sloping sides
Pours the swift rain-drops, blending, as they fall,
In rushing river-tides!

Yon stream, whose sources run
Turned by a pebble's edge,
Is Athabas