Here is art attuned to the simplest forms of pleasure, yet as lasting as the pyramids,--a whispered charm borne down the current of years to soothe our fretted souls. But the tranquil enjoyment of what is given us to enjoy has become a subtle reproach in these days of restless disquiet, of morbid and conscious self-scrutiny, when we have forfeited Our sympathy with the beliefs, the aspirations, and the “sweet content” that linked the centuries together. We are suffering at present from a glut of precepts, a surfeit of preceptors, and have grown sadly wise, and very much cast down in consequence. We lack, as Amiel says, the courage to be happy, and glorify our discontent into an intellectual barrier, pluming ourselves on a seriousness that may not be diverted. But if we will only consent to calm our fears, to quiet our scruples, to humble our pride, and to take one glad look into the world of art, we shall see it bathed in the golden sunlight of pleasure; and we shall know very well that didacticism, whether masquerading as a psychological drama or a socialistic forecast, as a Sunday-school story or a deistical novel, is no guide to that enchanted land. ESOTERIC ECONOMY. It is one of the most delightful things about Miss Edgeworth’s immortal tales for children that the incidents they relate have a knack of remaining indelibly fixed in our memories, long after we have succeeded in forgetting the more severely acquired information of our schooldays. Why, for instance, do I vex my temper and break my finger-nails in a vain effort to untie the knotted cord of every bundle that comes to the house, save that I have still before me the salutary example of that prudent little Ben, who so conscientiously and cheerfully devoted himself to unfastening his uncle’s package? “You may keep the string for your pains,” says Mr. Gresham, with pleasing liberality. “Thank you, sir,” replies Ben, with more effusion than I think he feels. “What an excellent whipcord it is!” And so, pocketing his fee, it wins for him, as we all know, the prize at Lady Diana Sweepstake’s great archery contest, while poor Hal forfeits his shot, and loses his hat, and gets covered with mud and disgrace, and sprains his little cousin Patty’s ankle, and all because he has been rash enough to cut his piece of cord. Never was moral more sternly pointed, not even in the case of Miss Jane Taylor’s heedless little Emily, who will not stoop to pick up a pin, and is punished by the loss of a whole day’s pleasure, because, owing to some unexplained intricacy of her toilet,-- “She could not stir, For just a pin to finish her.”