From Ideality To Nature.

FROM IDEALITY TO NATURE .

. BY SAVAKICUS . READER , —hast thou ever felt what it is to have an exquisite imagination , ancl a seeming acquaintance with chimerical people , who are the mere mental creatures of thine own creating , mystical , ideal , beautiful ? This uncontrollable , ephemeral , and ethereal imagination , often presents ideal gardens

full of floAvers ancl fountains , ancl peopled by beautiful beings . Then Ave may seem to have ideal ships sailing on ideal seas to ideal countries , or even to ideal worlds . This ideality appears as a mental luxury , or brain food , giving both Avarmth and force to the imagination ; but , as often as not , leading to nothing but vanishing visions . Yet with all its fallaciousness ancl flimsy flattery , and its Avell-known nothingness , Ideality has a great charm . For all ideal things are pure . Hence they have a soul-enthralling effect . The features and form , the grace and goodness , of an ideal Beauty are perfect . Who

can gamsay them 1 The Houris of a Mahometan ' s paradise are true types of ideal beauty . The songs sung to Loveliness , the lines penned , the sonnets Avritten , the poems printed , the love fancies of youth , the imagined husband , or wife , the glorious ancl happy future , often , very often , prove to be the outcomings of ideality— the offspring of the fertile brain . When men and women arrive at maturity the ideal in a great measure vanishes ; sometimes leaving a large amount of self-made disappointment ,

if not of despair , behind . But what careth the mass of mankind , as far as outward appearances are concerned "—Nothing ! The day cometh ancl Avaneth ; "to-morrow " is as far off as ever it Avas ; ancl thus weeks , months , aud years pass by . So much for the surface . But Avho knows all the amount of misery , heart-burning and yearning that is contained beneath the ever-rippling Avaves of human life . Notable ambition , secret longingsindividual envyjust and unjust reproachespromises not fulfilled

, , , , sudden failures , riches elboAving poverty into the gutter , virtue standing in the cold , vice basking in Avarmth , honour shielding reprobates , and the sacred name of Religion invoked to cover all . Charity having to endure all things . Hope , anchor abandoned . Faith , wandering about , having no resting-place ; and the Love of God ignored , if not despised !

Let us step aside from the busy world of humanity and ideality , ancl just take a glance at Nature , where Ave can ahvays behold something fresh aud sweet and beautiful , and where the prospect of the earth is always lovely and peaceful . Whether it be by mountain , rill , or rivulet , or larger river pleasantly Avinding out of sight , through wood ancl forest glade , clown to the ever-moving sea—grand in its rest , mighty in its depth , terrific in its tempestuous raging , and Avithal sublime ; made glorious by the vast expanse

of cloud and sky . Even now , although the year is young , Avild floAvers are blooming , and birds Avith their tiny throats and shrill voices are joyously heralding the fast approaching spring . How Avelcome to the earth is the vivifying rain and sunshine , and hoAV invigorating is the Aviud 1 The rain softens all dormant seeds , and the SAvelling germs gain Avarmth ancl active life . The sunshine gives fresh Efe to all latent existence ; and the Avind , Avith its shrill voice , aAvakeus plant and shrub , and tree , —breathing

gentle zephyrs t