or refinement of perception, but rather a looseness and flippancy of mind and temper, which prevents the individual from connecting any two ideas steadily or consistently together.  It is owing to a natural crudity and precipitateness of the imagination, which assimilates nothing properly to itself.  People who are always laughing, at length laugh on the wrong side of their faces; for they cannot get others to laugh with them.  In like manner, an affectation of wit by degrees hardens the heart, and spoils good company and good manners.  A perpetual succession of good things puts an end to common conversation.  There is no answer to a jest, but another; and even where the ball can be kept up in this way without ceasing, it tires the patience of the bystanders, and runs the speakers out of breath.  Wit is the salt of conversation, not the food.

LOVE IN WINTER
[Sidenote:  Austin Dobson]

  Between the berried holly-bush
  The blackbird whistled to the thrush: 
  “Which way did bright-eyed Bella go? 
  Look, Speckle-breast, across the snow,—­
  Are those her dainty tracks I see,
  That wind beside the shrubbery?”

  The throstle pecked the berries still. 
  “No need for looking, Yellowbill;
  Young Frank was there an hour ago,
  Half frozen, waiting in the snow;
  His callow beard was white with rime,—­
  ’Tchuck,—­’tis a merry pairing-time!”

  “What would you?” twittered in the wren;
  “These are the reckless ways of men. 
  I watched them bill and coo as though
  They thought the sign of spring was snow;
  If men but timed their loves as we,
  ’Twould save this inconsistency.”

  “Nay, gossip,” chirped the robin, “nay;
  I like their unreflective way. 
  Besides, I heard enough to show
  Their love is proof against the snow:—­
  ‘Why wait,’ he said, ’why wait for May,
  When love can warm a winter’s day?’”

MENTAL PHOTOGRAPHS
[Sidenote:  Mark Twain]

I have received from the publishers, New York, a neatly-printed page of questions, with blanks for answers, and am requested to fill those blanks.  These questions are so arranged as to ferret out the most secret points of a man’s nature without his ever noticing what the idea is until it is all done, and his “character” gone for ever.  A number of these sheets are bound together and called a Mental Photograph Album.  Nothing could induce me to fill those blanks but the asseveration of my pastor, that it will benefit my race by enabling young people to see what I am, and giving them an opportunity to become like somebody else.  This overcomes my scruples.  I have but little character, but what I have I am willing to part with for the public good.  I do not boast of this character, further than that I built it up by myself, at odd hours, during the last thirty years, and without other educational aid than I was able to pick up in the ordinary schools and colleges.  I have filled the blanks as follows: