and bring them to a
stand-still at pleasure. See him, therefore, boldly careering through the
air at the rate of any number of miles the wind pleases. At a single bound
he spans yonder broad river, and then goes bowling over the plantation
beyond, just stirring the leaves as he passes; trees, water, houses, men,
and animals gliding away beneath his feet like a dream. Now he stoops
toward the earth, just to make the people send up their voices that there
may be some sound in the desert air. Now he swings up again; now he leaps
over that little green hill; now he--Hold! hold, little boy! that will do:
enough, for a time, of a Child's Toy.

"RISING GENERATION"-ISM.

"Grave and reverend seniors" aver, that among the innumerable _isms_ and
_pathies_ which inundate this strange nineteenth century, not the least
curious, dangerous, and comical, are those phases of character, opinion,
and aspiration embodied in the title of our sketch. Each day, week, or
month, we receive an accession to the list of those speculations and
practices, which, embracing every department of philosophy and art, seek
to overturn hitherto accepted axioms, and erect in their stead--what? Some
"baseless fabric of a vision," which came we know not whence, and tends we
know not very well whither? Or has the microscopic eye and telescopic mind
of modern European civilization discovered other distorting flaws in the
mirror in which we view truth--other idols in the den of treasured
belief--faults which it is urgently necessary to remedy--vices which it were
well speedily to extirpate? The answer of most men will be sometimes the
latter, oftener the former.

What, then, is that fraternity whose members are now denominated in a
peculiar sense "the rising generation," albeit no existing dictionary
conveys it? How came they to assume or receive that cognomen? "What are
their doings--what their ends?" And, finally (for this is _par excellence_
the practical, if not the golden English era), how much are all these
worth? In one shape or another, we suspect that the class embraces a great
mass of our youth, we will almost say, of _both_ sexes.

Various definitions may be given of a member of the "rising generation."
The lowest, commonest, and most readily apprehensible to the general
reader, is that of a "fast young man," such as "Punch" has for some time
spitted weekly as a laughing-stock for half of the population. A little,
lean, lathy, sickly-lookin