ke 'the poor work-house
boy,' served up as one dish, but he becomes an ingredient in many 'a
dainty dish' fit to 'to set before a king.' But I am not, like 'Miss
Ophelia' in 'Uncle Tom's Cabin,' going to explore the good dame's
kitchen,--will rather eat what is set before me, asking no questions;
which last, what _man_ ever did, if he could help it?

For an insignificant man, originally but a cipher, who owes it to his
wife that he is even the fraction that he is, to talk about 'woman
knowing her place--he's head,' etc.! If he had given her the place that
belonged to her, their value, not as individual figures, but as one
number, would have been increased a thousand fold. I have made a
calculation, and this is literally true, or rather, you will say,
_figuratively_ true. Well, this kind of figures can not lie.

'The rose,' the Burmese say, 'imparts fragrance to the leaf in which it
is folded.' Many a man has had a sweetness imparted to his character by
the woman he has sheltered in his bosom--though some characters 'not all
the perfume of Arabia could sweeten;' and, strange as it seem, most
women would rather be folded in a _tobacco_ leaf than 'waste their
sweetness on desert air.' Though it is a long time since I have been a
man _lover_, I am not a man _hater_. I can not hate anything that has
been so hallowed by woman's love,--_its_ magnetism gives a sort of
attractive power to him.

Notwithstanding all that has been said about woman's weakness, it is
acknowledged that she has a pretty strong will of her own. Well, we need
a strong will,--it is the great _centrifugal force_ that God has given
to all. Only it must be subordinate to the _centripetal force_ of the
universe--the Divine will.

It is said that the centripetal force of our solar system is the Pleiad
Alcyon. I know not whether the other stars of that cluster feel this
attraction; if they do, what a centrifugal force the lost Pleiad must
have had, to break away from 'the sweet influences' which, through so
immense a distance, draw the sun with all his train. This is not without
a parallel--when 'the morning stars sang together' over the new-born
earth, one 'star of the morning' was not there to join in the chorus.

But Old Sol will probably never so strongly assert _his_ centrifugality
as to set such an example of _secession_ to his planets and comets.

Pardon this astronomical digression. I have just returned from hearing
an itinerant lecturer, and it w