GOOD READING THE GREATEST ACCOMPLISH

THER

MENT.

`HERE is one accomplishment, in particular, which I would earnestly recommend to you. Cultivate assiduously the ability to read well. I stop to particularize this, because it is so very much neglected, and because it is such an elegant and charming accomplishment. Where one person is really interested by music, twenty are pleased by good reading. Where one person is capable of becoming a skilful musician, twenty may become good readers. Where there is one occasion suitable for the exercise of musical talent, there are twenty for that of good reading.

The culture of the voice necessary for reading well, gives a delightful charm to the same voice in conversation. Good reading is the natural exponent and vehicle of all good things. It is the most effective of all commentaries upon the works of genius. It seems to bring dead authors to life again, and makes us sit down familiarly with the great and good of all ages.

Did you ever notice what life and power the Holy Scriptures have when well read? Have you ever heard of the wonderful effects produced by Elizabeth Fry on the criminals of Newgate, by simply reading to them the parable of the Prodigal Son? Princes and peers of the realm, it is said, counted it a privilege to stand in the dismal corridors, among felons and murderers, merely to share with them the privilege of witnessing the marvellous pathos which genius, taste, and culture could infuse into that simple story.

What a fascination there is in really good reading!

What a power it gives one! In the hospital, in the chamber of the invalid, in the nursery, in the domestic and in the social circle, among chosen friends and companions, how it enables you to minister to the amusement, the comfort, the pleasure of dear ones, as no other art or accomplishment can. No instrument of man's devising can reach the heart as does that most wonderful instrument - the human voice. It is God's special gift and endowment to his chosen creatures. Fold it not away in a napkin.

If you would double the value of all your other acquisitions, if you would add immeasurably to your own enjoyment and to your power of promoting the enjoyment of others, cultivate, with incessant care, this divine gift. No music below the skies is equal to that of pure, silvery speech from the lips of a man or woman of high culture. -John S. Hart.

MOTHER AND POET.

EAD! one of them shot by the sea in the east,

Dead! both my boys! when you sit at the feast,
And are wanting a great song for Italy free,
Let none look at me!

Yet I was a poetess only last year,

And good at my art, for a woman, men said;
But this woman, this, who is agonized here,

The east sea and west sea rhyme on in her head
Forever, instead!

What's art for a woman? To hold on her knees

Both darlings! to feel all their arms round her throat Cling, strangle a little! to sew by degrees,

And 'broider the long clothes and neat little coat; To dream and to dote.

To teach them-It stings there!

indeed,

I made them,

Speak plain the word "country," I taught them,

no doubt,

That a country's a thing men should die for at need. I prated of liberty, rights, and about

The tyrant cast out.

And when their eyes flashed! O my beautiful eyes! I exulted! Nay, let them go forth at the wheels Of the guns, and denied not. But then the surprise When one sits quite alone!

one kneels!

Then one weeps, then

God! how the house feels!

At first happy news came, in gay letters moiled
With my kisses, of camp life and glory, and how
They both loved me, and soon, coming home to be
spoiled,

In return would fan off every fly from my brow
With their green laurel-bough.

Then was triumph at Turin: "Ancona was free!"
And some one came out of the cheers in the street,
With a face pale as stone, to say something to me.
My Guido was dead! - I fell down at his feet

While they cheered in the street.

I bore it! friends soothed me; my grief looked sublime

As the ransom of Italy. One boy remained

To be leant on, and walked with, recalling the time When the first grew immortal, while both of us strained

To the height he had gained.

And letters still came, shorter, sadder, more strong,
Writ now but in one hand: "I was not to faint.
One loved me for two; would be with me erelong!
And 'Viva l' Italia!' he died for, our saint,
Who forbids our complaint."

My Nanni would add he " was safe, and aware

Of a presence that turned off the balls, was imprest It was Guido himself who knew what I could bear, And how 't was impossible, quite dispossessed, To live on for the rest."

On which, without pause, up the telegraph line Swept smoothly the next news from Gaeta: "Shot. Tell his mother." Ah! ah! "his," "their" mother; not "mine."

No voice says "my mother" again to me.

You think Guido forgot?

What!

Are souls straight so happy that, dizzy with heaven,
They drop earth's affections, conceive not of woe?
I think not. Themselves were too lately forgiven
Through THAT Love and that Sorrow which recon-
cile so

The Above and Below.

O Christ of the seven wounds, who look'dst through

the dark

To the face of Thy mother! consider, I pray, How we common mothers stand desolate; mark Whose sons, not being Christs, die with eyes turned away,

And no last word to say!

Both boys dead! but that's out of nature. We all Have been patriots, yet each house must always keep

one;

'T were imbecile hewing out roads to a wall.

And, when Italy's made, for what end is it done, If we have not a son?

Ah! ah! ah! when Gaeta's taken, what then?
When the fair wicked queen sits no more at her sport
Of the fire-balls of death crashing souls out of men?
When the guns of Cavalli, with final retort,
Have cut the game short?

When Venice and Rome keep their new jubilee, When your flag takes all heaven for its white, green, and red,

When you have your country, from mountain to sea, When King Victor has Italy's crown on his head, (And I have my dead)

What then? Do not mock me. Ah, ring your bells low
And burn your lights faintly! My country is there,
Above the star pricked by the last peak of snow;
My Italy's THERE,- with my brave civic Pair,
To disfranchise despair!