tensify sensation, and thus to aggravate the mischief.
And our sympathy is due to one who by one of those strange
contradictions in human nature finds herself, a highly nervous creature,
the victim of an affection for one of the coarser organizations to which
I have alluded. I say victim, for such attachments seldom result
happily. The effect produced, in the first instance, by the magnetism of
a strong over a weak nature gradually dies away. With it die the
brilliant colors in which the beloved has been invested by the belover,
and life is thenceforward only lit up by the lamps that heaven sets in
the eyes of the little children that sometimes cheer the darkness of
these ill-assorted unions.

* * * * *

--'SIR WE ARE TOO POOR TO BE ECONOMICAL.' These were the words
which I once heard a woman use to a rich relative of her husband, who
had followed up his refusal of assistance by allusions to many little
short-comings which he had noted in the domestic details of the family.
The phrase seems to involve a contradiction; but a little consideration
will show even the most superficial thinker that it expresses a truth.
Great is the power of ready money. Ready money can save by wholesale
purchases. Ready money can save by choice of place of purchase. Ready
money can save by choice of proper time for purchase. Ready money can
save by discount obtained under threat of discontinuance of trade; a
threat futile in the mouths of the poor. Ready money can save in
furniture and wearing apparel, by being able to provide the best in
fabric and construction, and therefore the most lasting. But it is
needless to extend the catalogue of ready money's powers. None know them
better than those who seldom are able to obtain their aid.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 3: Quevedo has broadly satirized his faith in 'Childhood's
happy hour'. In his _Visions of Hell_, where Satan, wearied by the
continual grumbling of the condemned, requests them to leave, go back to
life, be born again, and live it all over. On due reflection, they
conclude that rather than suffer the whippings, schoolings, and
scoldings incident to boy and girlhood, they--would prefer to stay where
they were.--NOTE BY EDITOR.]

SKETCHES OF THE ORIENT.

The world is undergoing a wonderful change. Even within the memory of
some twenty-five years, what events have occurred to verify the remark.
Civilization changes all the preconceived perfecti