seductions of intemperance, shall all have been annihilated by the spread of intelligence, while the mirth at the minutest jokes--the proud plucking of nosegays--the little neighbourly gifts, (less amusing hereafter, perhaps, in their taste)--the festal observances--the disinterested and refined acts of self-sacrifice and love, will remain as long as the human heart has mirth in it, or a humane complacency and self-respect,--as long as its essence is what it has ever been, “but a little lower than the angels.” * * * * * How is it possible to give an idea of what the gradual disclosure of the fates of individuals is to us? In reading chronicles, and the lighter kinds of history, we have all found ourselves eagerly watching the course of love and domestic life, and pausing over the winding up, at death, of the lot of personages whose mere names were all the interest we began with. To us, in the monotony of our lives, it seems as if other people’s lives slipped away with the rapidity with which we read a book, while the interest we feel is that of personal knowledge. It is as if Time himself were present unseen, whispering to us of a new kindled love,--of marriage, with all its details of “pomp and circumstance;” and then comes the deeper social interest,--the opening of a glimpse into the vista of new generations, while all around the other interests of life are transacting, and the children we knew at their parents’ knees are abroad in the world, acting for themselves, and putting a hand to the destinies of society.