sun, he finds suddenly that his feet are on the edge of the gulf, and he knows that there will be no more to-morrows. I am not entering a plea for hard, petrifying work. If a man is a hand-worker or brain-worker, his fate is inevitable if he regards work as the only end of life. The loss of which I speak is that incurred by engaging in pursuits which do not give mental strength or resource or bodily health. The hard-worked business-man who gallops twenty miles after hounds before he settles to his long stretch of toil is not losing his day; the empty young dandy whose life for five months in the year is given up to galloping across grass country or lounging around stables is decidedly a spendthrift so far as time is concerned. I wish--if it be not impious so to wish--that every young man could have one glimpse into the future. Supposing some good genius could say, "If you proceed as you are now doing, your position in your fortieth year will be this!" what a horror would strike through many among us, and how desperately each would strive to take advantage of that kindly "If." But there is no uplifting of the veil; and we must all be guided by the experience of the past and not by knowledge of the future. I observe that those who score the greatest number of lost days on the world's calendar always do so under the impression that they are enjoying pleasure. An acute observer whose soul is not vitiated by cynicism may find a kind of melancholy pastime in observing the hopeless attempts of these poor son's to persuade themselves that they are making the best of existence. I would not for worlds seem for a moment to disparage pleasure, because I hold that a human being who lives without joy must either become bad, mad, or wretched. But I speak of those who cheat themselves into thinking that every hour which passes swiftly to eternity is wisely spent. Observe the parties of young men who play at cards even in the railway-train morning after morning and evening after evening. The time of the journey might be spent in useful and happy thought; it is passed in rapid and feverish speculation. There is no question of reviving the brain; it is not recreation that is gained, but distraction, and the brain, instead of being ready to concentrate its power upon work, is enfeebled and rendered vague and flighty. Supposing a youth spends but one hour per day in handling pieces of pasteboard and trying to win his neighbour's money, then in four weeks he has wasted twenty-four hours, and in one year he wastes thirteen days. Is there any gain--mental, muscular, or nervous--from this unhappy pursuit? Not one jot or tittle. Supposing that a weary man of science leaves his laboratory in the evening, and wends his way homeward, the very thought of the game of whist which awaits him is a kind of recuperative agency. Whist is the true recreation of the man of science; and the astronomer or mathematician or biologist goes calmly to rest with his mind at ease