“spiritual body”! think of a perfectly pure and happy soul!  I thought of this, on a beautiful evening of this summer, walking with a much valued friend through a certain grand ducal domain.  In front of a noble sepulchre, where is laid up much aristocratic dust, there are sculptured, by some great artist, three colossal faces, which are meant to represent Life, Death, and Immortality.  It was easy to represent Death:  the face was one of solemn rest, with closed eyes; and the sculptor’s skill was mainly shown in distinguishing Life from Immortality.  And he had done it well. There was Life:  a care-worn, anxious, weary face, that seemed to look at you earnestly, and with a vague inquiry for something,—­the something that is lacking in all things here.  And there was Immortality:  life-like, but, oh, how different from mortal Life! There was the beautiful face, calm, satisfied, self-possessed, sublime, and with eyes looking far away.  I see it yet, the crimson sunset warming the gray stone,—­and a great hawthorn-tree, covered with blossoms, standing by.  Yes, there was Immortality; and you felt, as you looked at it,—­that it was MORE MADE OF LIFE!

* * * * *

MY FRIEND’S LIBRARY.

That exquisite writer, Horae Subsecivae Brown, quotes, (without comment,) as a motto to one of his volumes, an anecdote from Pierce Egan, which I reproduce here:—­

“A lady, resident in Devonshire, going into one of her parlors, discovered a young ass, who had found its way into the room, and carefully closed the door upon himself.  He had evidently not been long in this situation before he had nibbled a part of Cicero’s Orations, and eaten nearly all the index of a folio edition of Seneca in Latin, a large part of a volume of La Bruyere’s ‘Maxims’ in French, and several pages of ‘Cecilia.’  He had done no other mischief whatever.”

Spare your wit, Sir, or Madam!  Why should you laugh, and apply the sting in Mr. Egan’s story to the case of “Yours Truly”?

* * * * *

I scarcely know a greater pleasure than to be allowed for a whole day to spend the hours unmolested in my friend’s library.  So much privilege abounds there, I call it Urbanity Hall.  It is a plain, modestly appointed apartment, overlooking a broad sheet of water; and I can see, from where I like to sit and read, the sail-boats go tilting by, and glancing across the bay.  Sometimes, when a rainy day sets in, I run down to my friend’s house, and ask leave to browse about the library,—­not so much for the sake of reading, as for the intense enjoyment I have in turning over the books that have a personal history as it were.  Many of them once belonged to authors whose libraries have been dispersed.  My friend has enriched her editions with autographic notes of those fine spirits who wrote the books which illumine her shelves, so that one is constantly coming upon some fresh treasure in the way of a literary curiosity.  I am apt to discover something new every time I take down a folio or a miniature volume.  As I ramble on from shelf to shelf,