Alas! that noble thoughts so oft Are born to live but for an hour, Then sleep in slumber of the soul As droops at night the passion flower, Their morn is like a summer sun With splendor dawning on the day-- Their eve beholds that glory gone, And light with splendor fled away. J. W. L. True indeed. The difference between the great mind and the small is after all that the former can _retain_ its 'noble thoughts,' while with the latter they are evanescent. And it is the glory of Art that it revives such feelings, and keeps early impressions alive. * * * * * FROM THE GERMAN OF HEINE. My love, in our light boat riding, We sat at the close of day; And still through the night went gliding, Afar on our watery way. The Spirit Isle, soft glowing, Lay dimmering 'neath moon and star; There music was softly flowing, And cloud dances waved afar: And ever more sweetly pealing, And waving more winningly; But past it our boat went stealing, All sad on the wide, wide sea. * * * * * Here is an ADVENTURE WITH A GRIZZLY BEAR, from a Philadelphia correspondent: 'We had gone out one morning, while camping upon the river San Joaquin, to indulge in the sport of fowling. There were three of us, and we possessed two skiffs, but an accident had reduced our sculls to a single pair, which my companion used to propel one of the boats down the stream, after securing the other, with me as its occupant, in the midst of a thicket of tule, where I awaited in ambush the flying flocks. As geese and ducks abounded, and nearly all of my shots told, in a few hours I had killed plenty of game; but becoming weary, as the intervals lengthened between the flights of the birds, I sat down, and had already begun to nod dozingly, when a startling splash, near the river bank, instantly aroused me. Grasping my gun and springing upright, I looked in the direction whence the sound had come; but, owing to the intervening mass of tule, could not see what kind of animal--for such I at once conjectured it must be--had occasioned my sudden surprise. Having hitherto seen no domestic stock hereabouts, I therefore felt fully satisfied that it could not belong to a tame species. Judging from the noise of its still continued movements, it was of no small bulk; and, if its ferocity were correspondent with its apparent size, this was indeed a beast to be dreaded.