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wrote and told Clementine so, and she wept when she received the letter-but she did not believe that he could part with her thus. "He will come again!" said she. And then she began to dream about that meeting, but just as she had made up her mind how it would end, the news came that he had joined his regiment and gone abroad.

Here was a real romance! the loud, merry laugh-the questionable colored hair-even the hearty suppers which he had eaten-were all forgotten and forgiven, and Clementine fancied her lover growing paler and thinner day by day, and wasting away on some foreign shore, or returning to her covered with honors. This dream lasted many years, during which her beauty faded, and she passed into what is somewhat vaguely termed "old maidenism !"

"I do think she loved him," said the busy little sister, who had long since presided over a happy household of her own. But she was wrong. Clementine was incapable of a true attachment. Frank returned after many years, crowned with well deserved laurels, even as she had dreamt-but he brought back with him a wife and children !

Clementine never visited Dreamland so often after that; but liked better to sit on its confines, reading novels. Numerous were the tears which she shed over the fictitious sorrows of their ideal heroines, while even in her own neighbourhood, many a heroine in humble life, and far more worthy of the name, struggled on unsought, and unwept for. But how was

Clementine to recognize them in the meek garb of a poor teacher, or a needlewoman? When she died no one regretted her, for no one had been the better or happier for her life; and we are told that "we must love in order to be loved." She had dreamed away her whole existence !

In a clever little work, recently published, Imagination has been facetiously termed "a most eminent carver and gilder !" But the worst of it is, its workmanship, although often exquisitely beautiful in design and conception, is of very little use in the world. The carving is fanciful, but not true to nature, and the gilding soon rubs off when it comes in contact with material things. Nevertheless it would be a dreary world without imagination! And a few holyday excursions into Dreamland resembles sweet poems bound up in an everyday book of common place events.

The inhabitants of Dreamland are unlike any whom we ever meet with on earth, which often causes a bitter sense of disap

pointment, and even of disgust in the mind of the youthful Dreamer, when she comes to measure her fellow beings by this high standard of imaginary excellence and therein lies the danger of dwelling too long within the precincts of the enchanted city, where,

:

"Beauty in the mind

Leaves the earth cold, and love refined

Ambition, makes the world unkind."

We create a perfection in our dreams, which can never be realized upon earth! We indulge in visions that never come to pass. We imagine situations in which it is ten to one that we are ever placed. And rehearse over and over again all that we mean to do and say, under circumstances, which, in all probability, never occur, and certainly seldom if ever, exactly as we dreamt of them. How many of our best hours are spent in vain wanderings of the spirit into forbidden places. In dreaming, when we should have been up and doing. In thinking, instead of acting. And in idle searchings after that happiness, the materials of which are seldom found very far from home.

We cannot resist quoting an exquisite little allegory, bearing upon the subject, which we met with the other day in a contemporary journal. It is a translation from Jelaleddin, describing how a man of Bagdad was once poor and discontented, and how that, one night, he dreamed a dream, that in a certain house of a certain street in Egypt, he should hear of a treasure. Thither he accordingly went, and, on his arrival, he met the watchman, who informed him in the course of conversation, that he too had likewise dreamed a dream, that in a certain house in a certain street in Bagdad, he too should find a treasure-and lo! it was this very man's own house! And the story goes on to relate how the man of Bagdad returned in joy to his home, having learned that only in a man's own house and life is his treasure to be sought and found.

The moral of the above is obvious and truthful. We were once visiting at a lone house in the country, in which much treasure was said to have been buried at the time of the American warr—although none was ever found. We often used to talk about it of an evening, as we gathered around the cheerful fire, and many a creaking board, and hollow sounding panel, was actually removed in our vain search. Upon one occasion, an old lady who happened to be present, advised us with a smile, to be sure and look round about the hearth, for that in all times, treasure were invariably to be found somewhere in that vicinity.

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"Do you really think so ?" asked the youngest son of our hostess, gazing wistfully as he spoke at the half decayed hearthstone, which had already been taken up; but he did not know that. "Ask your mother what she thinks-and where her treasures are!" replied the old lady, placing her withered hand upon the child's head, while she glanced round the happy family circle. And then we began to understand her meaning. Love and not gold was the treasure to which she alluded; and it is in vain that we seek such treasure away from our native hearth and homestead.

Dreamland, as we have said, is an enchanted region, whose gates stand ever open, and into which a word-a flower-or even a familiar strain of music, can transport us in a moment. But it may be-nay, it frequently happens that while we wander amid its beautiful gardens, and lose ourselves in a labyrinth of such idealities, terrestrial things are forgotten, our families and the poor neglected, until we return at length with a sigh to earth, and find ourselves overwhelmed with a host of pressing and imperative duties, and without spirit or energy to set about their fulfilment. Existence seems a weariness; and we become unthankful and repining, instead of being cheerful, hopeful, and grateful to the Giver of all good.

But it may be argued, that there are some lonely hearts in the world, who have in truth nothing left but the memory of the past and from whom the strong chain of domestic affection which once bound them to earth, has been torn away link by link. It is only natural that the yearning thoughts of such, should wander after the beloved. It is not, however, in Dreamland that they will find them again. They must soar into a higher and a purer region-up-up-past the pearly gates of that visionary land-straight to the HOLY CITY! Taking faith for their guide, and being careful to travel by the only WAY in which it can be approached, as set forth in the Book which was written for the comfort and guidance of earthly pilgrims in their journey to the better country. We know that where the treasure is there will the heart be also. And we likewise know that the treasures of Dreamland are like the mirage in the desert, bright and beautiful, it may be, but delusive and unreal! The frequenters of Dreamland are too apt to

"Look before and after

And pine for what is not."

Instead of making the most of what is, which constitutes the

true philosophy of human life. Just in the same way that they anticipate joys which never come to pass, do they go forward, and even step out of the way on purpose to encounter a host of imaginary evils which had else found no existence. Unavailing regrets, and a causeless sadness overshadow the youthful dreamer like a cloud-a cloud of their own creating-but powerful enough nevertheless, in too many instances to darken the sunshine of actual life.

The folly and extravagance of some of our day dreams, with their improbable sources of grief, may be laughingly illustrated by the following extract from an old fairy chronicle.

A certain man who had a very foolish wife, and was in search of some one even more foolish than her whom he had quitted, happened one day to pass by a lonely cottage, from whence proceeded sounds of weeping and lamentation. Stepping in to enquite the cause, he found a poor woman sitting by the fire with an infant in her lap, over whom she was crying bitterly.

"Is anything the matter with the child ?" asked he.

"No, it is not that," replied the woman, still sobbing at intervals" But I was thinking, suppose when the child is grown up and has a child, and should be sitting nursing it by the fire, just as I am now: how shocking it would be if the bacon were suddenly to fall down the chimney, and knock my child's child upon the head! And perhaps kill it !" Upon which fatal termination to her imaginary terrors, the woman redoubled her cries and lamentations, so that her visitor was fain to escape as quickly as he could, as well to be out of hearing of the noise she made, as to hide his own uncontrolable laughter.

The above episode is an exaggerated illustration of the folly of all day dreams. "Surely," exclaims the gentle reader, "there never was any one really so foolish as that poor woman!" No, it is only a fairy tale, but it has a moral nevertheless. How often do we sit over the fire and weep and dream. "Oh, if he should be false !" is the lament of one separated perhaps from her lover. What sad visions follow in the train of such a doubt, and all for want of that trusting faith which seems to us inseparable from love. Want of faith both in God and one another is the cause of all our saddest visions. Let us hope, and wait, and trust, and all will be well-nay, all will be for the best, because He orders it.

There are some whose regular profession it is to make occasional journeys into the land of dreams, of which they take notes, and afterwards publish to the world. These reminis

cences are generally entitled poems! Thousands recognize with delight many a familiar locality, many a fugitive and passing beauty, and it seems like the embodied echo of their own wild imaginings. The author of such is called a poet! There are others again who only linger on the confines of Dreamland long enough to gather a few gems of thought-a few flowers of fancy, with which they return to gladden and adorn their earthly homes; their brief sojourn giving a brilliancy and variety to their conversation which is inexpressibly charming. While to many, like the changelings of whom we read in the fairy love of childhood, sit among us in form only, pale, listless, and abstracted, and with the spirit far away. The quiet unostentatious discharge of domestic duties, the unwavering, unassuming affections of daily life, have no charms for such wanderers in Dreamland, and it is such whom we would seek to win back again to home and usefulness.

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How many there are in the world who dreaming of greatness, overlook her gentle sister goodness. The one is calculated to excite our admiration, but the other wins our love. Meditating on opportunities to make manifest the one," writes a late authoress, "we overlook the innumerable opportunities in our daily life to prove the other. The one lives but in excitement, the other at home; and modern women must be content to exchange the one for the other or their lives must be unhappy; for in these matters-of fact, prosaic days, where shall we find adventures to make us feel and act as heroines."

There are some who assert that in their isolated position they have influence on none, and have no power to do good; we would say, it is because they seek it not and beseech them to arouse their dormant energies in that search which can alone bring happiness.

"Oh! would'st thou listen to its gentle teaching,

All thy restless yearnings it would still;
Leaf, and flower, and laden bee are preaching,

Thine own sphere, though humble, first to fill."

What encouragement there is for us to act and not to dream, in the words of the good and pious Newton-" If I can only take a grain from the heap of human misery, I shall have done something." And so if we can cast but a mite into the treasury of human happiness, let us do it willingly and cheerfully. There is no fear about our finding opportunities if we once become seekers, and not dreamers, and set about it in right good

NO. VIII.

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VOL. I.

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