.
We live but once. We die before the shears
Of Atropos the thread have clipped. True life
Is when with ardent youth's and passion's strife
We suffer and we feel. 'Tis when wild tears
Can flow and hearts can break, or 'neath the gaze
Of loved eyes beat. 'Tis when on eager wing
Of Hope we soar, and Past and Future bring
Within the Present's grasp. Ay, we live then,
But when that cup is quaffed what doth remain?
The dregs of days that follow upon days!

JULIA KAVANAGH.

MEDIUMS AND MYSTERIES.

BY NARISSA ROSAVO.

So long as the world lasts, no doubt a large portion of its inhabitants
will run after that which the Scotch expressively term "uncanny." The
absence of accurate knowledge and the impossibility of thorough
scientific investigation, of separating the chaff from the wheat, the
true from the counterfeit, becomes at one and the same time the charm
and the counterblast to diligent searchers.

For the most part, these are persons of inferior mental calibre, of
somewhat unrefined instincts; but, on the other hand, I have known
mighty intellects lose themselves in this maze, where no firm clue can
be seized by which to go forward safely, to advance at all, while the
return journey must be made with _certain_ loss. Persistent endeavour
brings weakened faith in God, in place of that certainty spiritualists
talk of when they say their arts are beneficial, proving a hereafter--a
spiritual world.

It is not thus we get on firm footing. We but advance into sloughs of
despond, led by wills of the wisp; and the girl mediums, the so-called
clairvoyantes, invariably lose mental health and physical strength. It
is but a matter of time, and they become hysteria patients or
inhabitants of lunatic asylums. I have known a clever clergyman of the
Church of England determine to find out the truth, if any, on this path.
He made use of his own daughter in the search. The coil of delusion led
him on until it became a choice of death or madness for the tender
instrument with which he felt his way into the unseen world.

There is _something_ along this road, call it odic force, or what you
will. Science has not, perhaps cannot, ever get firm footing here; but
the result of long and careful observation as yet only enables us to
strike a sort of average. Experiments pursued for years with
table-turning, planchettes, mediums, clairvoyantes, come to this. You do
get answers, strange mess