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    FACTS AND SCRAPS. 405

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  • Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.

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    Mks. Cojststantia Grierson.* In Essex St...

    Meanwhile the boy , her brother , does nothing but throw stones a _£ it ; of tliat he seerns never "wearied . Tlie beach is a perfect armory

    to him , and he pelts the graceful waves remorselessly . " What is their grace to him ? Sotoo , in an inland scene , a garden ,

    , or a lawn , we have often noticed wkat exquisite pleasure a little girl will feel as she watches a sparrow alight near her on the

    . ground , in search of crumbs or other food . Her little frame quite thrills as this other little piece of life comes hopping and pecking

    about her . She loads it , but with suppressed voice , with all the endearing- epithets her vocabulary supplies . She- is evidently

    embarrassed that they are so few , she makes up by their frequent repetition . Slie absolutely loves the little creature , with all whose

    movements she seems to liave the purest sympathy . Her brother , the boyhe has nothing for it but his unfailing stone , or he flings

    , his hat at it . Unfailing fortunately his stone is not , for if his skill as a marksman responded to his destructive zeal , tliere is nothing

    that a stone would kill that would be left alive , or that a stone would break that would be left whole . A mere blind animal

    activity seems at that very interesting age to distinguish the : future lord of creation .

    " At an after period of life , when thought has educated the youth Into feelingthe picture is often entirely reversed . Then , unless the man

    , be bred up a mere pleasure-hunter , seeking what he calls amusement in town and country , the superior education he has received makes

    him the more feeling , the more imaginative , because the more reflective of the two . That brother , who once shocked his little sister

    by his cruel and stupid amusements , now looks with something like -contempt at tlie frivolous tastes and occupations—at the system of

    poor artificial enjoyments—to which that sister has betaken herself . _SsTow , if they are at the seaside together , it is he who finds

    _conipanion-; ship in the waves , who _fmcLs thought grow more expanded , freer and bolder in the presence of the boundless ocean . She , too , dotes upon

    the sea , and sits down beside it to read her novel . Now , if they ride or walk through the country together , it is his eye that sees the

    bird upon . the bough ; hers is on the dust some distant equipage is making .

    " But matters are mending , and will continue to mend . There are so many women of richly-cultivated minds who have distinguished

    themselves in letters , or in society , and made it highly . feminine to be intelligent as well as good , and to have elevated as well as

    amiable feelings , that by and by the whole sex must adopt a new . standard of education . It must , we presume , be by leaders of their

    own , starting out of their own body , that the rest of the soft and timid flock must be led . "

    This extract is so complete in itself , that I will merely add the - opinion which I heard expressed by a lady who keeps a fashionable

    school for girls ., She has observed a marked superiority in the

    intelligence of those pupils who at home are in the habit of reading-

    Facts And Scraps. 405

    FACTS AND SCRAPS . 405

• Citation
  • English Woman’s Journal (1858-1864), Feb. 1, 1862, page 405, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/ewj/issues/ewj_01021862/page/45/