I stand upon the mountain top and shout for freedom, 'mid the grand wild wind that wanders where it will. The air inspires me; my muscles have gathered their life-force by the exertion; my perception of God's goodness is quickened ; and as I feel the warm current of life run through my frame, my thoughts enlarge their sphere, my benevolence expands, and I scorn the contemptible trickery of my profession, and wonder that one can be found so base or so thoughtless as to oppose the instruction of the people in the laws that govern their existence. Be strong, then, in mind and body; be strong; your muscular contraction governed by air and the nerve-power, is the great index of the human temperament. It is printed by the finger of God upon the face of man, as the expression of his power over animate and inanimate nature. It plows the ground; it builds the ship; it hurls back the oppressor. It yields up to the physiognomist the covert purpose of the villain, as its tell-tale lines lurk about the eye. It impresses the countenance of the upright man with his letter of credit and bond of sympathy with his fellows. Its absence, also, is expressive. It speaks to the lover the impression on the heart of his mistress. It tells the mother's new-found life, when she hears the first cry of her infant. It assures us of the Christian's hope when the lines of agony relax into peaceful radiance-as the life-spark is restored to the great undiminished source whence it derived its being.

THE PATHOLOGY OF A LADY OF FASHION.

"But aching head, though on a sofa, may I never feel."

By pathology, we mean the systematized knowledge or science of disease. By a fashionable lady, we mean a woman who has been brought up, and lives in, the habits, practices, and pursuits of that portion of society, whose aim and end is to please and be pleased. If a man and woman were in their right moral and mental condition, to please and be pleased would be the true end of their existence; but as mankind are not in their proper condition, their pleasures may be very injurious.

Health, whether of mind or body, consists in the complete soundness of the organization, and the appropriate performance of the functions. A flaw or defect in the one, or a failure in the other, is disease. As there are laws which, when obeyed, produce health, so there are laws which, when complied with, produce disease. Fashion, which of all things may seem to be capricious and lawless, is subject to, and educes laws, as certainly as any other phase of society.

Every human being is possessed of a triple nature, and each part requires its own culture and employment. The highest part is the spiritual, which gives the feelings or intentions. The next part is the mental, which gives the ideas or knowledge. The third part is the physical, the acting portion of our being. When each of these parts is in order, health and happiness are the result. When one of

them is out of order, and still more, when all of them are, disease and misery are the inevitable results.

The first element of fashionable life is the negative one of abjuring all labor-the abstinence from doing anything for subsistence or use. Thus a fashionable lady would be ashamed to do anything in her kitchen-garden for the purpose of producing food, as planting corn, sowing turnips, hoeing or weeding a vegetable bed, or fruit-trees. She will attend to her flower-beds and blossom-trees, and do as much work as if she were in her kitchen-garden; but it is not accounted labor. There is no necessity to do it. It is optional-fashionable.

She would not for the world be known to do anything in her kitchen, because that would be accounted labor-necessary work; but she would perform twice the quantity of actual work, in the arrangement of her drawing-room or boudoir, because that is entirely optional and conventional. To spend a day in the useful offices of washing and ironing, would be death to her reputation; but to spend one-third of every day in the fatigues of the toilette, would be a mat of course and consequence.

To be seen for a few hours in the occupation of shirt-making, or mending stockings, would be an unspeakable disgrace; while to be engaged for weeks in curious netting, working lace, or embroidering, would be matter of proud satisfaction, and a laudable object of ambition. To paint, to color, or to whitewash any part of her house, would be a degradation never to be recovered; but to paint flowers or scenes, persons or places, would be an art sought after, with the avidity and cupidity of a search for an El Dorado.

Now, in all those employments which they disdain, there is a satisfaction in their performance, which is a source of mental, moral, and physical health to millions; while in the occupations which they adopt, there is an emptiness in their course and a weariness and dissatisfaction at their end,

which are a fruitful source of misery and disease to thousands.

We were consulted some time ago by an elegant lady of fashionable life, on account of two of her beautiful daughters, who were as sylph-like and symmetric as fashion could make them, but who showed too plainly that their forms and constitutions were as frail as debility could mar them, without actually manifesting some specific form of disease. "Oh, what shall I do for my beautiful girls !" exclaimed the mother. "Give them strength," I replied. "And how shall that be done ?" said she. "Let them make their own beds, carry their water up stairs and down, and sweep their own rooms, and perchance the parlor and drawing-room, go to market and bring baskets of provisions home, garden, wash, and iron!" Looking at me with surprise, she said, "What sort of minds would they have, what sort of bodies?" I answered, "They would have as healthy and happy ones as your servants. You now give all the health and happiness to your domestics. Be merciful to your daughters, and let them have a share."

Work, without useful aim or end, is not occupation, nor employment. When the tread-mill was introduced as a mode of punishment, the wretched prisoners felt themselves more degraded by "doing nothing," as they called it, than by their crimes. How many ladies in fashionable life are doomed for years to feel the bitterness of "doing nothing !" What wonder if they are nervous, irritable and diseased. Useful work, or satisfactory employment, is as essential to the health of the mind, as to that of the body.

The first and strongest principle of our nature, is that of rectitude, or what ought to be. Every human being is possessed of this lofty, but awful feeling-the deep sense of rectitude or propriety. A feeling which is never satisfied, is a perpetual source of misery, like hunger unappeased, or appetite uncatered for. Can any woman, surveying her

body, or considering her mind, seriously and conscientiously conclude, that she is not called upon for any useful work, or necessary contribution to society; and that to be adorned and admired is all her duty and her destiny? This would exclude her from the republic of mind and morals, and class her with pet animals and flowers.

The same error which leads her to avoid all the useful occupations, induces her to escape all the useful pursuits. That sort of knowledge, which can be usefully applied, and only usefully displayed, is an undesirable attainment in her estimation; and therefore entirely neglected, or only so far sought as it may subserve the end of her being-display. Science, therefore, or systematized knowledge, is not any part of her desire.

The employment of the intellect, without a satisfactory direction, is one of the most common errors of the day. To obtain some knowledge of languages, without making them available, as means of instruction and improvement; to acquire some skill in music, without intending to employ it as an instrument of emotional purity and elevation; to attain to excellence in the arts of drawing and painting, without aiming to enrich our ideas and thoughts; to cultivate the powers of speech and writing, without using them benevolently and didactically; and to move elegantly and gracefully, without any other end or aim, than that of pleasing and being pleased, are as unsatisfactory mental attainments and professions, as those of conjuring and fortunetelling. None of them affords the mind the slightest satisfaction on reflection.

The mental pursuits, therefore, of a fashionable lady, however pleasant they may be for the passing moments, have no satisfaction at their termination; and although they may delude with the promise of hope, they conclude with the payment of disappointment. Perhaps no pursuit is more vexatious than mere novel-reading. There is rarely