puddings! The Americans, stirred by necessity,
have done much in the way of domestic
machinery, finding metal more tractable than
human nature, and a machine a more useful
creation than a help. But they have not come
out strong this time, and show nothing for the
saving of Betty's hands or John's heels in all
their court of nakedness. They have a few
agricultural machines, and a few sewing
machines, and some abominable petroleum oil,
and a grand piano or two; but no new conceit
or dainty device; in fact, they have gone behind
even us, who are not nationally inventive. This
is a pity; not now to be amended.

IMPERISHABLE.
THE pure, the bright, the beautiful
   That stirred our hearts in youth,
The impulse to a wordless prayer,
   The dreams of love and truth.
The longings after something lost,
   The spirits' yearning cry;
The strivings after better hopes,
   These things can never die.

The timid hand stretched forth to aid
   A brother in his need,
The kindly word in grief's dark hour
   That proves the friend indeed.
The plea for mercy softly breath'd
   When justice threatens nigh;
The sorrow of a contrite heart,
   These things shall never die.

The memory of a clasping hand,
   The pressure of a kiss,
And all the trifles sweet and frail
   That make up love's first bliss.
If with a firm, unchanging faith,
   And holy trust and high,
Those hands have clasp'd, those lips have met,
   These things shall never die.

The cruel and the bitter word
   That wounded as it fell,
The chilling want of sympathy
   We feel, but never tell.
The hard repulse that chills the heart,
   Whose hopes were bounding high,
In an unfading record kept,
   These things shall never die.

Let nothing pass, for every hand
   Must find some work to do;
Lose not a chance to waken love,
   Be firm and just and true.
So shall a light that cannot fade
   Beam on thee from on high,
And angel voices say to thee,
   These things shall never die.

THE NORFOLK DELUGE.

"He who despises small things," says the
Apocrypha, "shall fall by little and little;" and
the words are true with regard to all sorts of
matters: as well the unimportant as those of
greater moment. Those miserable persons, for
instance, whose poverty compels them to have
their stockings darned will tell you that the
inevitable fracture in the heel may be made
good with only a stitch or two when it first
appears, while a short neglect will render the
damage irreparable. The holes in our constitutions,
again, which are as common as those
in our stockings—the first small indications of
a loose screw m our health—these may quickly
be set right by meeting the threatening evil
vigorously; but if the plague-spot be allowed
to spread, be neglected, or dealt feebly with, the
remedies at last applied come too late.

Small things! A sand-crack in a horse's hoof,
hardly visible to the eye, will not be long in
rendering the animal wholly useless; a pin-hole
in a gas-pipe may cause an explosion; a touch
with a lancet in your arm may save you from
death by small-pox.

Not far from Cirencester, in Gloucestershire,
there is a little trickling streamlet which you
may hop over; it does but trickle on a few
miles, and at London-bridge it floats a fleet of
merchantmen, and at Greenwich a three-decker.

Such were some few of the reflections which
passed through my mind as I found myself
standing on the bank of the river Ouse, with a
great broken mass of brick, stone, and iron, split
and rent to pieces, lying partly in and partly out
of a raging muddy torrent and roaring waste of
waters. Those waters had been sapping and
mining away at that huge structure which I saw
in ruins, for a prodigious length of time, and
having, in a frantic insurrection, broken down
the restraints which kept them in, rushed now
triumphantly over their defeated master.

A few days before, the water, powerful as it
was, had been kept back by a sluice which looked
strong enough to hold in Niagara. Its massive
brick and stone and iron were considered
impregnable; it was thought a triumph of
engineering, and it looked like a fortress that
would stand against any siege. True, somebody
noticed that by the side of one of the floodgates
there was a little leak through which a few
drops of water were oozing—what was that?
Not worth a moment's thought. It was as well to
stop it up though. So it was stopped up. Some
birds of ill-omen ventured, perhaps, to say that
they were not quite satisfied with the look of
things even then. Bah! Don't listen to the
birds of ill-omen. Away with such croakers.

There is no siege which man can lay, that can
compare with nature's attacks. The elements
are patient, they are secret, they persist, they
are in no hurry—a year or two more or less is of
no consequence to them, only they never give
up. They go on, an inch, an eighth of an inch,
per month. And then in a moment the crash
comes. The last nail, the last stick, the last
grain of mortar, gives, and the enemy rushes in
and lays the country waste.

So it was in this case of the Norfolk Fens.
How long and how patiently the waters had
worked outside the gates of that enormous
sluice which kept the mouth of the Whittelsea
Mere Drain! At last the reward of their
labours came, and the strong tidal river tore the
controlling fortress to pieces and whirled along
upon its way.

The banks of the drain bore that tremendous
strain for eight long days. Every one knew that