m to amend. I never wish to hear you speak again so harshly of the
person to whom I refer; but I very earnestly desire that you should
begin in season to check habits which, if suffered to go on, will render
you just as far from a favourite with your friends as she, poor orphan
girl, is with hers. She had no one to point out to her her faults and
her dangers; therefore the condemnation will be nothing to compare with
yours, if you forget that the spirit of the golden rule, which is the
true spirit of Christianity, requires attention just as close and
constant to all the little hardly noticed habits of heart and life as to
those of the more marked and noticeable:--

''Tis in these little things we all can do and say,
Love showeth best its gentle charity.'"

Boldness and impudence are the twin features in the inquisitive talker.
Were these counterbalanced by education in the ordinary civilities of
life, he would be more worthy a place in the company of those whom now
he annoys with his rude and impertinent interrogatories. Few men care to
have the secrets of their minds discovered by the probing questions of
an intruder. The prudent man has many things, it may be, in his mind, in
his family, in his business, which are sacred to him, and to attempt an
acquaintance with them by stealth is what no one will do but he who is
devoid of good manners, or, if he ever had any, has shamefully forgotten
them. There are proper times and places in conversation for questions;
but even then they should be put with discretion and frankness. A man
should have common sense and civility enough to teach him when and what
questions to ask, and how far to go in his questions, so that he may not
seem to meddle with matters which do not concern him.

XVI.

THE PEDANT.

"Pedantry, in the common acceptation of the word, means an absurd
ostentation of learning, and stiffness of phraseology, proceeding
from a misguided knowledge of books, and a total ignorance of
men."--MACKENZIE.

The Pedant is a talker who makes an ostentatious display of his
knowledge. His endeavour is to show those within his hearing that he is
a man of study and wisdom. He generally aims higher than he can reach,
and makes louder pretensions than his acquirements will justify. He may
have gone as far as the articles in English Grammar, and attempts to
observe in his speech every rule of syntax, of which he is utterly
ignorant; or he may h