Are we not like that actor of old time, Who wore his mask so long his face took Its likeness? - Letitia Elizabeth Landon

One of the loveliest daughters of that land,
Divinest Greece ! that taught the painter's hand
To give eternity to loveliness ;
One of those dark-eyed maids, to whom belong
The glory and the beauty of each Song
Thy poets breathed, for it was theirs to bless
With life the pencil and the lyre's dreams,
Giving reality to visioned gleams
Of bright divinities.

The poor child, as Charles Lamb so touchingly expresses it, is not brought, but "dragged out," and if the wits are sharpened, so, too, is the soft, round cheek. The crippled limb and broken constitution attest the effects of the over-early struggle with penury; but the child of rich parents suffers, though in another way; there is the heart that is crippled, by the selfishness of indulgence and the habit of relying upon others. It takes years of harsh contact with the realities of life to undo the enervating work of a spoilt and over aided childhood. We cannot too soon learn the strong and useful lessons of exertion and self-dependance.

For human tears are lava-drops,
That scorch and wither as they flow;
Then let them flow for those who live,
And not for those who sleep below.