and as holy as that of any young couple who ever went to the
altar. And through all the country round, if ever man or woman were in
distress and fighting against hard times, they had only to go up to the
villa to receive help, and that sympathy which is more precious than
help. So when at last John and Mary fell asleep in their ripe old age,
within a few hours of each other, they had all the poor and the needy
and the friendless of the parish among their mourners, and in talking
over the troubles which these two had faced so bravely, they learned
that their own miseries also were but passing things, and that faith and
truth can never miscarry, either in this existence or the next.

CYPRIAN OVERBECK WELLS--A LITERARY MOSAIC.

From my boyhood I have had an intense and overwhelming conviction that
my real vocation lay in the direction of literature. I have, however,
had a most unaccountable difficulty in getting any responsible person
to share my views. It is true that private friends have sometimes, after
listening to my effusions, gone the length of remarking, "Really, Smith,
that's not half bad!" or, "You take my advice, old boy, and send that
to some magazine!" but I have never on these occasions had the moral
courage to inform my adviser that the article in question had been sent
to well-nigh every publisher in London, and had come back again with a
rapidity and precision which spoke well for the efficiency of our postal
arrangements.

Had my manuscripts been paper boomerangs they could not have returned
with greater accuracy to their unhappy dispatcher. Oh, the vileness
and utter degradation of the moment when the stale little cylinder of
closely written pages, which seemed so fresh and full of promise a
few days ago, is handed in by a remorseless postman! And what moral
depravity shines through the editor's ridiculous plea of "want of
space!" But the subject is a painful one, and a digression from the
plain statement of facts which I originally contemplated.

From the age of seventeen to that of three-and-twenty I was a literary
volcano in a constant state of eruption. Poems and tales, articles and
reviews, nothing came amiss to my pen. From the great sea-serpent to the
nebular hypothesis, I was ready to write on anything or everything, and
I can safely say that I seldom handled a subject without throwing new
lights upon it. Poetry and romance, however, had always the greatest
attractions for me. How I have