green fields, bears its wealth visible to all eyes—disregarded for one of these supposed mines of treasure, and centres of hidden fire. It is woman's weakness especially to be caught by the romance of a stern inaccessible nature, accessible to her and to her alone—more particularly if she be of the jealous temper which grudges sharers in its privileges. Reserve gives great occasion for her particular talent of practical physiognomy. If the countenance is impenetrable, then

"Calm pleasures there abide, majestic pains; "

if rigid, she can detect lightning flashes of feeling; if mobile, and subject to transitions and rapid fluctuations of expression, it is like a map of a country of which she alone has the key. What depths of tenderness, humanity, and intellect will she not attribute to eyes that kindle while the tongue is mute, to a brow that contracts under unexpressed thought, and to lips that pass from stern to sweet under restrained impulses! Yet mere sensitiveness-sensitiveness that never gets wholly away from self, never quite loses. itself in others—may be at the bottom of the stimulating exterior. The shyness of pride, the horror of selfbetrayal, the fear of ridicule, or the intense enjoyment and appreciation of being understood, are all very telltale emotions, and can dispense with speech. Where reserve is a strong characteristic, even thoughts of universal kindliness are no habitual occupation of heart or intellect; though the want may be more than atoned for to the favoured few by a warm partiality of prefer

ence, confiding dependence, and depth of personal regard. Where there is this harmony, let the union be as close and as exclusive as it will. Reserve is an element of strength, and has its work to do in the world as a check on babbling sentiment and on the weak effusions of shallow or boisterous natures. We do not care to have everybody diffusively and expansively benevolent. What we resent is the waste that is sometimes observable of an honest regard-a confidence on one side, with efforts to please that are not, and never will be, returned. We find something lowering in some people's humble attendance on tempers of this nature-in their waiting and watching for chance crumbs of sympathy. There is always a time when these unrequited endeavours should cease. Sympathy and confidence should be mutual, or they should tone down to a lower level. A lover was once refused, at the end of fifteen years, on the ground of insufficient acquaintance. It is wise in friend as well as suitor to give up the hope of occupying any large place in the mind which has had ample opportunities of knowing all the good that is in him, and yet has not availed itself of them.

A certain set of strong qualities can hardly be found in man without the counterbalance of contempt and disdain. Being free from a particular class of temptations, people despise those who are subject to them. Above all, the power of silence is one to be proud of, both for the snares and dangers from which it saves, and the prestige which it wins. All reserved people

have mistrust of others. Most of them undervalue the discretion or refinement of those among whom they live. It is almost necessarily a supercilious habit of mind, and this is apparent whenever a man of reserved temper will talk frankly of his reserve. He owns that the mass of mankind are beyond-which means beneath his sympathy. He will confess to being hopeless-which, again, means careless-of their regard. There may, indeed, be the appearance of reserve from opposite causes-from the mere want of a sense of individuality. Some people have no privacy because their own nature never occupies them. They cannot be brought to talk about themselves, or to make confidences, from mere ignorance of the subject. Their fault is an intellectual one, and the less need be said about them because they are essentially dry and uninteresting. Nobody cares much what they may have to say on any topic, and their reserve is what only the more philanthropic would seek to break through.

Shyness and reserve are so often alike in their effects that it is no wonder they are constantly confounded. Shyness, under a composed exterior, looks like reserve; and reserve, where people judge only by manner, often passes for shyness. But the likeness is only superficial. It is easy to distinguish, where there is opportunity for observation, the painful shrinking and recoil which puts Shyness at a distance, from the arm's-length attitude of resistance by which Reserve holds the world at bay. Genuine shyness must be some compound of fear, self-consciousness, and inexperience. It implies

an acute sense of bareness and exposure, which intercourse with the world will certainly modify. What reserve is, we have not arrived at; but it is a quality, when once implanted, which custom and society will rather increase than wear out. It is felt to be a power and a protection, and is cherished as an armour of defence; and so it is, but it is also an admission of weakness and an evidence of defect. With all respect and liking too, for our reserved friends, and for the impressive appearance which a well-guarded reserve makes in the world, we yet submit that the strongest mindsthe most vigorous, comprehensive, prudent, and farseeing, the natures most to be relied upon, most influential, and most thoroughly amiable-are essentially unreserved.

EXPLANATIONS.

THERE are few words that carry a heavier weight of dulness, or are beset with more annoying associations, than "Explanation," and the verb "To Explain," in all its tenses. We do not remember that the poets give them a place in the armoury of Discord; but, in their dull, hypocritical way, none deserve it better, for every so-called explanation induces some element of discordance and separation, and puts the speaker in a sort of opposition of sentiment or inclination to the hearer. The words have, no doubt, an innocent use as applied to things; but when men come to explain a meaning that had previously seemed too clear, or to give an explanation of a questionable course of conduct, or to seek an explanation of a line of action which has displeased them-above all, when, under the privilege of intimacy, there is a mutual unfolding of motives and intentions with the professed design of explaining away some chance coldness or difference it is rare that mischief does not come of it. And as for truth, which