its
beneficent bosom. We see, both combatants, how strong is the commerce of
the East to supply, like a diligent handmaiden, the wants of every
section; how bountiful are the plantations of the South and the
granaries of the West to keep the world united to us in the strong bonds
of commercial and friendly intercourse; how absolutely necessary to the
prosperity of both are the deep and wide-flowing rivers which run, like
silver bands of peace, through the length and breadth of a land whose
vast privileges we have been too blind to appreciate, and in that
blindness would destroy. Above all, we are _beginning_ to see that like
two mighty champions fighting for the belt of superiority, we can
neither of us achieve that individual advantage which can utterly and
forever place the other beyond the ability of again accepting the
gauntlet of defiance, and that our true and lasting glory can alone
proceed from a determination to shake hands in peace, and, as united
champions, defying no longer each other, defy the world. Nor would the
South in consenting to a reunion _now_ find humiliation or dishonor. She
has proved herself a noble foe--quick in expedient, firm in
determination, valorous in war. We know each other the better for the
contest; we shall, when peace returns, respect each other the more; and
although the cost of that peace, whenever it comes, will be the
sacrifice of many local prejudices and sectional privileges, what, oh,
what are such sacrifices to the inestimable blessings of national
salvation?

THE COMPLAINING BORE.

About the most disagreeable people one meets with in life are those who
make a business of complaining. They ask for sympathy when they merit
censure. There is no excuse for man or woman making known their private
griefs except to intimate friends or those who stand in the nearest
relation to them. I have no patience with the man who wishes to catch
the public ear with the sound of his repining. Be it that he complain of
the world generally, or specify the particular occasion of his
dumpishness, he is in either aspect equally contemptible. What a
serio-comic spectacle a man presents who imagines that everybody is in a
leagued conspiracy against him to disappoint his hopes and thwart his
plans for success! He thinks he is kept from rising by some untoward
fate that is bent on crushing him into the ground, feels that he is the
victim of persecution, the sport of angry gods. Not having th