later years there is still a great deal to be learned.

The study is difficult enough in itself; but the difficulty is doubled
by _novels_, which represent a state of things in life and the world,
such as, in fact, does not exist. Youth is credulous, and accepts
these views of life, which then become part and parcel of the mind; so
that, instead of a merely negative condition of ignorance, you have
positive error--a whole tissue of false notions to start with; and at
a later date these actually spoil the schooling of experience, and put
a wrong construction on the lessons it teaches. If, before this,
the youth had no light at all to guide him, he is now misled by a
will-o'-the-wisp; still more often is this the case with a girl.
They have both had a false view of things foisted on them by reading
novels; and expectations have been aroused which can never be
fulfilled. This generally exercises a baneful influence on their whole
life. In this respect those whose youth has allowed them no time or
opportunity for reading novels--those who work with their hands and
the like--are in a position of decided advantage. There are a few
novels to which this reproach cannot be addressed--nay, which have an
effect the contrary of bad. First and foremost, to give an example,
_Gil Blas_, and the other works of Le Sage (or rather their Spanish
originals); further, _The Vicar of Wakefield_, and, to some extent Sir
Walter Scott's novels. _Don Quixote_ may be regarded as a satirical
exhibition of the error to which I am referring.

OF WOMEN.

Schiller's poem in honor of women, _Wuerde der Frauen_, is the
result of much careful thought, and it appeals to the reader by its
antithetic style and its use of contrast; but as an expression of the
true praise which should be accorded to them, it is, I think, inferior
to these few words of Jouy's: _Without women, the beginning of our
life would be helpless; the middle, devoid of pleasure; and the end,
of consolation_. The same thing is more feelingly expressed by Byron
in _Sardanapalus_:

_The very first
Of human life must spring from woman's breast,
Your first small words are taught you from her lips,
Your first tears quench'd by her, and your last sighs
Too often breathed out in a woman's hearing,
When men have shrunk from the ignoble care
Of watching the last hour of him who led them_.

(Act I Scene 2.)

These two p