wall in our existence. Nor is the malevolent or angry feeling always bad, even when exercised against our fellow-creatures, Ben. Maudlin benevolence is the very dotage of weak and fatuous humanity. Some people have such mere milksop hearts that they can not bear to punish. But punishment, Ben, is simply moral surgery, and the rod is as necessary as the knife-not the knife of the butcher nor the rod of the tyrant, but each used with all the tenderness of a kind and loving hand. To cuddle and caress the criminal, lad, is to behave as if we were in love with criminality; but to treat a criminal as he should be treated is to inflict upon him some bodily penance that will have the effect of developing the natural remorse and contrition of his heart-to do this with no revengeful spirit, but with the merciful regard of chastening rather than chastising him; but still, never to forget that penance is necessary for penitence, and that penitence alone can turn and soften the heart. Hence, I say, as little punishment as possible, but still penance sufficient to awaken penitence, and, depend upon it, we are the criminal's best friend after all."

The subject was exhausted, and the uncle came and stood by the boy at the table, watching the progress of his sketch; and when he had put in a few touches for the lad, and shown him how to whisk out the high lights with the corner of his handkerchief, he began striding the room again as he resumed the thread of his theme.

"The next unselfish emotion that we have to treat of, lad," he went on talking and walking, "is that of emulation, or the pleasure we derive from excelling or surpassing others. Ambition, I have before told you, is the love of power, or rather the love of the deference and court that is paid to power-tyranny being the mere love of the pow

er itself. But emulation or rivalry is simply the love of racing upon the great human race-course of life; and there are social jockeys who find intense delight in being 'up in the stirrup,' as it is called, and in whipping and spurring the beast they are mounted upon, in the hot struggle to win some paltry prize by a neck. Now jockeys, lad, are proverbial for their love of jockeying, and a fierce spirit of rivalry is not the temper that prompts the soul to acts of the purest honesty or the brightest generosity. Moreover, there is always this bitter drawback, even to the greatest good luck, when one man gambles against another-that the winner makes a beggar of his antagonist; and even so the delight of distancing others is but sorry child's play, and leads to a whole host of heartburnings and feuds among those who are left behind, and that only for the glory of the one greedy and overreaching nature that wins. It is this petty racing spirit that sets every one struggling nowadays to get out of their own sphere and class. The servant longs to leave off her caps, and go up and sit in the parlor like her mistress; and the mistress longs, in her turn, to be out riding in her carriage like 'my lady.' There is no such thing as contentment; all is scramble, struggle, greed, and rivalry. And yet, exalt the servant into the mistress, and the mistress into my lady,' and see how the parvenue is laughed at and despised; for the bird which has escaped from its cage is almost sure to be pecked to death by the old wild ones. However, lad, when the love of excelling is limited to the love of excellence, it is one of the grandest pleasures of which our nature is susceptible; and this, when combined with the power to excel, is simply human genius; for this love of excellence is not the desire to distance men, but merely to

surpass certain works-to transcend certain beauties. There is none of the chafing of vulgar, worldly competition in it, but it is merely a craving to approximate perfection. Indeed, in its highest and purest form, it has no sense of mankind-no sense of opposing interest, nor desire to trip others up by the heels, but only a sense of the work itself, and to make it better than what has been done before. It is this feeling which is the cause of all human improvement, as well as of all human excellence itself.

"There is now but one other feeling to be described," added the old man, "and then we shall have exhausted this division of the unselfish emotions of man."

"What is that, uncle ?" the boy inquired.

"The love of conquering others," was the answer; "though I have before spoken of this so fully, while treating of the love of success and the love of power, that only a few words need be said farther upon the matter. The love of conquering is really the love of humbling the proud, for there is little pleasure in depressing those who are already depressed. The higher the enemy we vanquish, the greater the delight of the victory. Now it was this love of humbling that made the warriors of old find such pleasure in enslaving the conquered; and ready as the world always has been to worship the conqueror, still the worship has been that of awe rather than veneration-the sacrifice paid to the bloodstained pagan idol in the hope of appeasing his love of slaughter. Hence you see, lad, the delight of triumphing over our fellows consists of the composite charm of enslaving others and elevating ourselves-of putting our heel on the neck of one who was once as proud as we, and feeling ourselves a few inches higher because we are lifted up on the poor ped

estal of another's carcass. This is but petty posture-master work at best, Ben, and there is too little real elevation and too much human debasement about it, too many victims and only one victor, to please me. Nevertheless, when the same passion is applied to the conquest of the great host of circumstances with which we have always to battle -to the beating down of difficulties, and to the enslaving of the giant forces of the world in which we live, and making them work for the benefit of mankind, I know no ovation that can be too grand for such a bloodless and yet glorious victory."

THE UNSELFISH EMOTIONS

Which arise when others are affected in a particular manner, but not by ourselves.

"Let me see," said little Ben, "what have you got to do now? We have done the unselfish emotions which-are-which-how did you express it, uncle ?"

"The unselfish emotions that spring up in the bosom when we ourselves affect others in a particular manner," the old man prompted the boy, "and now we have to do those which arise when others are affected in a particular manner, but not by ourselves."

"Oh yes," repeated Ben, "when others are af fected by ourselves, and when others are affected, but not by ourselves. I think, uncle, you said sympathy belonged to the latter class."

The elder Benjamin returned no direct answer to the question, but merely said, "Why do we turn sick at the sight of blood, Ben ?"

The boy stared as if he wondered what that could have to do with the subject, and replied, "I'm sure I can't say, uncle."

"Well, lad, in itself," went on the old man,

"there is nothing particularly repulsive about the vital fluid; indeed, the color is so intense, the crimson so fine, that naturally it should be a pleasing object to look upon. An infant would dabble in it with delight; and yet the sight of it often makes stout-hearted men swoon."

The boy still stared with wonder at what it all

meant.

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Why, Ben, as the blaze of that old smith's forge is winsome, with the snow lying thick upon the ground, because of the imaginary sense of warmth it gives us amid all the cold, so blood is sickening to us because the imagination has a sense of the wound which caused it to flow, and of the suffering and danger connected with the spilling of it. It is this working of the imagination that lies at the very bottom of our feeling of sympathy."

"Oh, I see," young Benjamin murmured out.

"Had we been made as unsympathetic and unimaginative as leeches, the sight of the vital fluid. would have delighted us as much as them," the teacher proceeded; "and it is because some people have more or less imagination than others that they have more or less pity for the afflicted. This is the reason why spectacles of human agony, that stir some to their heart's core, can be witnessed by others without even a qualm, and why surgeons cease after a time to be unmanned, as it is called, during their operations, because, after considerable practice, the surgical mind becomes too intent upon the cure to think any longer of the suffering; so that, you see, the feeling of sympa thy has no more selfishness about it than there is selfishness in being pleased with the sight of a clean white garment in summer, and which is pleasing to us simply because it revives in our mind a sense of the coolness of snow."