d rest side by side, to discover
to each other these hidden treasures which lie idle and unused.

Alas! time flies and death steals on, and we reiterate the complaint of
one in Scripture,--"It came to pass, while thy servant was busy hither
and thither, the man was gone."

The bitterest tears shed over graves are for words left unsaid and deeds
left undone. "She never knew how I loved her." "He never knew what he
was to me." "I always meant to make more of our friendship." "I did not
know what he was to me till he was gone." Such words are the poisoned
arrows which cruel Death shoots backward at us from the door of the
sepulchre.

How much more we might make of our family life, of our friendships, if
every secret thought of love blossomed into a deed! We are not now
speaking merely of personal caresses. These may or may not be the best
language of affection. Many are endowed with a delicacy, a
fastidiousness of physical organization, which shrinks away from too
much of these, repelled and overpowered. But there are words and looks
and little observances, thoughtfulnesses, watchful little attentions,
which speak of love, which make it manifest, and there is scarce a
family that might not be richer in heart-wealth for more of them.

It is a mistake to suppose that relations must of course love each other
because they are relations. Love must be cultivated, and can be
increased by judicious culture, as wild fruits may double their bearing
under the hand of a gardener; and love can dwindle and die out by
neglect, as choice flower-seeds planted in poor soil dwindle and grow
single.

Two causes in our Anglo-Saxon nature prevent this easy faculty and flow
of expression which strike one so pleasantly in the Italian or the
French life: the dread of flattery, and a constitutional shyness.

"I perfectly longed to tell So-and-so how I admired her, the other day,"
says Miss X.

"And why in the world didn't you tell her?"

"Oh, it would seem like flattery, you know."

Now what is flattery?

Flattery is _insincere_ praise given from interested motives, not the
sincere utterance to a friend of what we deem good and lovely in him.

And so, for fear of flattering, these dreadfully sincere people go on
side by side with those they love and admire, giving them all the time
the impression of utter indifference. Parents are so afraid of exciting
pride and vanity in their children by the expression of their love and
approbation,