Strange! that a tear-drop should o'erfill the eye Of loveliness that looks on all it loves! Yet are there moods, when the soul's wells are high With crystal waters which a strange fear moves, To doubt if what it joys in, be a joy; Fear not, thou fond and gentle one! though life Be but a checkered scene, where wrong and right, Struggle forever; there is not a strife Can reach thy bower: the future, purely bright, Is round about thee, like a summer sky. And there are those, brave hearts and true, to guard Thy walks forever; and to make each hour Of coming time, by fond and faithful ward, Happy as happiest known within thy bridal bower. [Illustration: J. W. Wright J. Addison CONTEMPLATION Engraved expressly for Graham's Magazine] REVIEW OF NEW BOOKS. _Practical Physiology: for the use of Schools and Families. By Edward Jarvis. Philadelphia: Thomas, Cowperthwaite & Co._ The popular and practical study of physiology is too much neglected in this country, and we rejoice to see this effort to commend its important truths to public attention. Perhaps no people existing are in greater need of a heedful regard to the lessons of this work than the over-fed, over-worked, and over-anxious people of the United States. The pursuit of wealth, honor, and power, the absorbing and health-sacrificing devotion to advancement, impels our people from the moment they first enter the school-house until they are snatched from the scene of their over-wrought strugglings. At the school, the child is treated as a man. The fresh air, the blue sky, the bright and happy hilarity of boyhood are too often proscribed indulgences. And this is called, not murder, but education. Those who survive it, having been taught that an American youth should never be satisfied with the present, that _excelsior_ should be the only motto, and that all pleasure should be denied, health sacrificed, and time unremittingly devoted to win the eminence struggled for, rush into the business of life before their time. They win wrinkles before they attain manhood, and graves before the wild ambition thus kindled and inflamed can receive its first chaplet. All our literature teaches this unquiet and discontented spirit as to the present, and this rash and impatient determination to achieve immediate success. Now, this is a peculiarity of our country, the land of all others which should cherish a disposition to be gratefully contented with the unequaled blessings with which it is endowed. There is no necessity for this forcing system to expand properly and in due time the real energies of our people. The truly great in every walk of science and literature have been generally patient students, and have lived, in tranquillity, to a good old age. The impatient ambition which scourges our people on to the farthest stretch of their energies in any adopted pursuit, is inconsistent with the permanent and healthful character of a race. It