waste itself on trifles, and concentration of feeling on a specific object will tend to facilitate its attainment.

Character is often as strongly marked in childhood as at any subsequent period; and to a discerning eye, the qualities which discriminate children from each other, are as perceptible as the qualities that discriminate persons of mature age.

To gain a correct acquaintance with human nature, it is not necessary to move in a public or extensive sphere. A more limited circle of observation conduces to greater minuteness and accuracy. A public mode of life is favourable to a knowledge of manners; a private, to a knowledge of character.

They who pride themselves on the discernment of faults and imperfections in character, frequently overshoot the mark in their calculations of conduct. They appear to consider man only as a selfish being, and forget that he is also the subject of imagination, caprice, affection, and various complex principles and feelings, which have all a material influence on his actions,

Persons of impetuous and apparently unbending character, often possess a latent fund of affection and exquisite sensibility.

The influence of physical causes, in the formation of intellectual and moral character, has never been sufficiently regarded in any system of education.

The principal difference between a wise and a foolish man seems to consist not so much in the general superiority of the thoughts of the former as in the selection of those which he discioses. Perhaps as many trivial and impertinent ideas pass through the mind of a wise as of a foolish man, but the one conceals while the other divulges them.

There is little uniformity in the characters of men, so that few general assertions can be hazarded respecting them; as, that a wise man will never act in this or that manner. Wise men are not always wise.

Solitude is adapted to give a knowledge of character; mixing with the world, to draw out or to modify character.

The ruling passion of any one relates to those objects, as to which he can least bear to learn the success of others, if he himself is unsuccessful.

One criterion of character is the prevalent train of thought in seasons of relaxation from customary pursuits.

The feelings of some, though once open to a variety of impulses, are now buried so deep in the heart, that few of the vicissitudes of life can move them; as, in the profound parts of the ocean, the fluctuations on its surface, the sunshine, cloud-shadows, breeze, and tempest, are equally unknown.

The features of character are like those of a landscape, which imperceptibly vary with the progress of day, and as lights or shadows are reflected on the scene. Perhaps there is no moment in which a person's qualities are exactly the same as at any other period.

How many interesting traits of mind and disposition, exhibited by childhood, are entirely lost, for want of enlightened discrimination on the part of observers! In general, parents are sufficiently quick-sighted in noticing particulars respecting their children, but commonly overlook the most characteristic circumstances, or class them with those of an ordinary description.

It is not unfrequent for certain peculiarities of mind or character to be transmitted by descent; yet this must arise from the transmission of certain physical properties. Souls are not propagated; but by the materials and composition of the body, the qualities and operations of the

intellect are undoubtedly affected. This consideration may in some measure account for the differences which seem to prevail in the mental and moral attributes of the sexes.

A considerable portion of self-confidence has a tendency to draw out a person's qualities, whatever may be their nature.

The kind of character often found the most agreeable in life, is that of the social, sprightly, good-natured man; but this, of all descriptions, commonly leaves the faintest remembrance after death. To secure a lasting place in the memory, some of the sterner or more elevated qualities seem necessary. The man of mirth and pleasantry is soon forgotten; the philosopher, or even the cynic, lives, in spite of us, in our minds.

For the most part, the French may be considered as superior to the English in discrimination of character, whether as to the whole or its nicer shades. In general also women appear to be more acute observers of character than men.

PART II.

ON MIND, STUDIES, AND INTELLECTUAL

HABITS.

It is not with the mind as with cabinets of art, which are of limited dimensions, and can admit only a certain number of objects. In proportion to the multiplicity of ideas is the capacity for still farther augmentation. The more truths the mind acquires, the easier is their retention; for as memory depends on association, an increase of ideas supplies so many additional links of connexion; so that mental acquisitions are susceptible of indefinite enlargement. It will generally be found that paucity of ideas is combined with feebleness of memory, and that they who possess the least knowledge, have the worst retention.

A person whose mind is replenished with facts, or the principles of science, has a palpable kind of intellectual wealth, perhaps also the most available. But a man may be rich in the stores of imagination and feeling, while he appears to the generality almost destitute of mental treasure.