What is true of childhood is true of manhood also. What a shame it is that even Kingsley should fall into the cant of deploring maturity as a misfortune, and declaring that our freshest pleasures come "before the age of fourteen"! Health is perpetual youth,--that is, a state of positive health. Merely negative health, the mere keeping out of the hospital for a series of years, is not health. Health is to feel the body a luxury, as every vigorous child does,--as the bird does when it shoots and quivers through the air, not flying for the sake of the goal, but for the sake of the flight,--as the dog does when he scours madly across the meadow, or plunges into the muddy blissfulness of the stream. But neither dog nor bird nor child enjoys his cup of physical happiness--let the dull or the worldly say what they will--with a felicity so cordial as the educated palate of conscious manhood. To "feel one's life in every limb," this is the secret bliss of which all forms of athletic exercise are merely varying disguises; and it is absurd to say that we cannot possess this when character is mature, but only when it is half-developed. As the flower is better than the bud, so should the fruit be better than the flower. We need more examples of a mode of living which shall not alone be a success in view of some ulterior object, but which shall be, in its nobleness and healthfulness, successful every moment as it passes on. Navigating a wholly new temperament through history, this American race must of course form its own methods and take nothing at second-hand; but the same triumphant combination of bodily and mental training which made human life beautiful in Greece, strong in Rome, simple and joyous in Germany, truthful and brave in England, must yet be moulded to a higher quality amid this varying climate and on these low shores. The regions of the world most garlanded with glory and romance, Attica, Provence, Scotland, were originally more barren than Massachusetts; and there is yet possible for us such an harmonious mingling of refinement and vigor, that we may more than fulfil the world's expectation, and may become classic to ourselves. * * * * * LAND-LOCKED. Black lie the hills, swiftly doth daylight flee, And, catching gleams of sunset's dying smile, Through the dusk land for many a changing mile The river runneth softly to the sea. O happy river, could I follow thee! O yearning heart, that never can be still! O wistful eyes, that watch the steadfast hill, Longing for level line of solemn sea! Have patience; here are flowers and songs of birds, Beauty and fragrance, wealth of sound and sight, All summer's glory thine from morn till night, And life too full of joy for uttered words. Neither am I ungrateful. But I dream Deliciously, how twilight falls to-night Over the glimmering water, how the light Dies blissfully away, until I seem