FASHIONABLE YOUNG LADIES.

Colonist, Volume II, Issue 102, 12 October 1858, Page 4

FASHIONABLE YOUNG LADIES.

BY THE! LATE DOUGLAS JERROLD. "-Hallo ! Aggy, why you have come out of a rainbow." "-.-• .:. . This sudden salutation was addressed by Basil to his sister, Agatha Pennibacker, who, fine and gauze-like as a dragon-fly, floated into the room, and settled upon a sofa. "I have told you twenty minutes," said, the young .lady* with face severely set, "I will not be called Aggy. It's hideous. " Then why don't you change it ? I say, mother, when are, you going to consign these girls to India? market's full here. Ble6s you, such a glut of wedding-rings, I'm told they hang mackerel on them." And Bagil laughed saucily at Agatha, and Agatha pouted contemptuously.

" My dear Basil, 1 thought I heard your voice; where have you been, you naughty child ! I'm sure your poor sister*—-it was Monica Pennibacker'who spoke as she entered—" your poor sister might as well be without a brother.

" That's .their opinion, jNic," and the youth was about to chuck Monica's chin, when Monica drew Herself up, like a pouter pigeon, above the familiarity. " When you can address your elder sister as you ought, Basil"— "t/ome, if you're.going to act a domestic tragedy I shall leave the house, and not take a check to come back!" said Basil."" What's the matter with you both ? Why; you are as stiff 'as if you slept on sheet iron and boarded on whalebone. What's the matter ? Just.wish you'd some of my troubles. Only yesterday, I lost Scrub, my terrier, a love of

a thing, that would kill rats as- fast as he could see 'em.. Turn out a hundred rats, and in a twinkling he'd make 'em feel as if the eyes of all Europe were on 'em, And that dog^s dead. Yet look at me, 5' and Basil passed his fingers through his hair, and with much fortitude, wiped an -imaginary tear from his eye. "Scrub's departed, yet I consent to breathe!" "Scrub! Bringing terriers before ladies!" said Monica; " don't be so vulgar."

"Indeed, Basil," chirruped young Agatha, " you get so low, your sisters must disown you." " Poor little kittens," cried, Basil, as he dropped astride a chair, and shook his head at the young ladies, and sighed—<' Well, 'pdn my life, I do wish you were out of this world !"

"Basil!" exclaimed the sisters, with a slight hysteric scream. "Basil!" said Mrs. Jericho, in deep, reproving thunder. "You're too good for this earth, you are, indeed,,girls. Take it' in a lump, and see what-part of it's worthy of your, notice. What a little of it is really respectable. If it wasn't unmanly, I_ could weep to think that my superfine sisters' lived' in ,the same wicked, vulgar world, that makes black puddings and sells cats' meat." "My dear Basil!" said-Mrs. Jericho, in a tone of tender remonstrance, "do riot be so extravagant. And you hurt your sisters; you do, indeed. A man"—and Mrs. Jericho took breath for a great utterance — " a man never so beautifully shows his own strength, as when he respects our softness." "]fro, indeed," said the young ladies, speaking and shaking their heads in sympathy--" No!" " live a whole bank of respect in me, ma'am," and Basil spread his fingers over his breast, "but I don't pay a pennyworth of it to forged drafts. Now, softness is one thing; and*—my dear parents lam quite prepared to prove what I say —and gammon is another."

. "If you.allude to, me, sir," said Monica, who had evidently made up her mind for an apothegm, .<• permit •; me once for all to observe, that I don't know what you mean." "That's exactly my feelings on the subject, Monica dear," cried Agatha. . " Now children, I, cannot endure this. \t distresses me. These little' quarrels lacerate me. You know, as I have often said, girls, I gave up everything for my children. Therefore"—here Mrs. Jericho drew forth a pocket-handkerchief; arid both the girls, ; with a precision quite military, imitated ths movement—" therefore kiss one another and be friends."

" With all my heart and all my mouth/ said Basil. " Come along, girls,"—and he folded his arms—" come along, girls—l wont-bite."

" What a creature you are!." cried Monica, wiping her eyes, as her mother moved her towards Basil.

"I dare say," said young Agatha, lifting herself upon her toes to Basil, " I dare say now you don't kiss Bessy Carraways in that manner." "Bessy Carraways!" said Basil, and the blood ran all over his face, his mother silently smiling, at the emotion—-" Bessy Carraways!vis Va^a-r1," Basil stammered, then laughed—" a flower." "No doubt,;;deaf Basil," said Monica;. "So are all young ladies of Bessy's age; all flowers." ■■■■'■■ }

"But I mean," said Basil, "the natural thing. You see, my beloved sisters, there are two sorts of flowers.' Now Bessy isn't too fine or too good for this world. No; she's a flesh' and blood flower, growing upon the earth, and not thinking it too dirty, for her, a flower that gives out the sweetness of. her natural self, and doesn't think it too '-. good for other people; and why ? Because, she thinks no more about it than a rose, or a lily, or any other blossom that's delicious and does not know it." ."■ .■ ■ ■■■■■•■■ ■

"Upon my word, Basil," cried Mrs. Jericho with joyous emphasis, "you're quite a poet." ~ "Should be very sorry, ma'am, for the respectability of the family," said Basil." " Oh, quite a bard," exclaimed Monica, with a sarcasm so very fine it was unfelt by its object. " Now you have given us one sort of female flower, what, dear boy, what is the other ?" • , " Certainly, Nic," and Basil took his sister's hand between his own. " The other flower does not root in this world at all; earth's too vulgar for it, dearest maid. It's a flower so fine, it's grown out of silk or velvet, and stands upon a wire stalk. Whatever scent it has, it isn't its own ; it doesn't come out of itself, .sweet girl, but of fashion. Very fine flowers, sown-in-silk, cultivated ,by the scissors, and perched upon stiffness. Not at all the sort of flower for my button-hole, I can assure you." "Dear no! of course not," cried the wicked Agatha, clapping her . hands. "Bessy is, of course; your heart's kease." "My dear little puss," said Basil, "I like Bessy, as I said, because she doesn't think herself too good for other people; for all that, I'm not good enough for her. No, my little tortoise-shell, I always study humanity, it's safest—shall always think myself not good enough-for any wpman.in the world., When I die, this is the epitaph 1 shall have grown over me:— lie was so humble in spirit he never lifted his thoughts to marriage. Reader, go and do likewise.*' "My dear, strange Basil!" said Mrs. Jericho, with an incredulous laugh. " Shall endeavour to leave five pounds a year, to have that epitaph grown over,me in mustard and cress. Five pounds a year, ma'am, to the sexton, to keep my memory green." • " I won,der what Miss Carraways would say if she heard you? But I know better," said -Monica. " I think, Agatha, we had better bespeak our posts as bridesmaids."

" Wouldn't suffer it, my darling girls," said Basil. "If ever I was to marry—not that I ever shall—no, nor-I shall walk

through the world with the mustard and cress steadily in my eye—you should not come near my wife. No, no; you're too good, too fine, too embroidered for the plain work of ■matrimony. Bless your little filigree hearts, before you marry you ought to perform quarantine in cotton, and serve seven years in pies and puddings." The young ladies fainted.

MYSTERIES OF ANIMATED NATURE. Little indeed do we understand the senses of the great living crowd of the dumb ones around us. Has the vulture, a*nd all''that class of birds who bolt everything, an organ of taste ? When, the owl swallows a mouse whole, does he taste him in the stomach ? Is it the same with the pigeon and his peas ? What sort of hearing has the shark, if any ? The organ of smell in the shark, who discovers through the great volume of water and through the dense timbers, that something is dead or dying in the cabin, is wonderful. But we know nothing about this beyond the fact. The same creature, whether shark or cat, that has a wonderful sense of smell for some things, seems to have no nose at all for many others. No one ever saw a monkey smell a flower; if he did so, it would be only to enquire if it were edible, or poisonous. Then, as to the sense of touch, what a fine work goes on in the language of the antennse of insects; and yet it is impossible that the majority of them can possess sensations like ours. A wasp, flies in at the window, alights *on the breakfast-table, runs up the side of the large white sugar-basin, and displays his grim face in a brazen mask with iron spectacles, just above the rim ; the next moment he darts upon the sugar. But an armed hand advances a pair of scissors, and suddenly snips off his head. The body staggers, and perhaps flies off, while the jaws of the brazen mask with the iron spectacles, continue for some seconds to work away at the sugar, as though no such sad event had occurred.

Witlr the general character, temper; faculties, and habits of the inferior creatures, naturalists are of course far more intimately acquainted than the world at large; but the naturalists-are only ail exceptional -class, comprising a few individuals; but amongst the highest of them, even, how little can ,they fathom ; of the mind, or what is insensibly going on within those many-shaped! grotesque heads of leasts, and birds, and insects. The greyhound runs by sight only; this we observe as a fact. The carrier-pigeon flies two hundred and fifty miles homeward by eyesight—namely, from point 'to: point, of objects which he has marked. The fierce dragon-fly, with twelve thousand lenses in his eyes, darts from angle to angle with the rapidity of a flashing sword, and as rapidly darts back—not turning, but with a clash reversing the action of his four wings—the only known creature that possesses this faculty. His sight, then, both, forwards and backwards, must be proportionately rapid with his wings, and instantaneously calculating the distance of objects, or he would dash himself to pieces. But; in what strange conformation of the eye ftoes this faculty consist ? No one can answer. A cloud of ten thousand gnats dances up and down in the sun, the gnats being so close-.together that you can scarce see the minutest interval between them; yet no one knocks another headlong upon the grass, or breaks .a leg or wjng, long and delicate as they are. Suddenly, amidst your admiration of the matchless dance, a peculiarly high shouldered vicious gnat, with long, pale, pendant nose, darts out of the rising and falling cloud, and settling on your cheek, inserts a poisonous^ sting. What possessed the little wretch to do this ? Did he smell your blood in the mazy dance ? No one knows. A four-horse coach comes suddenly upon a flock of geese on a narrow road, and drives straight through the middle of them. A goose was never yet fairly run over, nor a duck. They are under the very wheels and hoofs, and yet, somehow, they contrive to flap and waddle safely off. Habitually stupid, heavy, and indolent, they are nevertheless equal to any emergency. Why does the lonely woodpecker, when he descends his tree and goes to drink, stop several times on his way, listen and look round,-before he takes his draught? No one knows.

, How/'.is it that the5 species of ant, which is- taken in battle by other ants, ;to be made slaves* should be the black, or negro-ant ? No one knows.'; ,

Wokds are but the history of a by-gone thought—music -is, its- presence. All ,our profbundest feelings are in their nature lyrical. Whatever most deeply affects us, we in some way "link to tune, or they are by tune awakened". , The feelings sing of themselves, and make an orchestra of the brain. Persons incapable of putting the' simplest combination ,of sounds musically together, will make -melody in their hearts of the reminiscences that strongly' move, them. And these will commonly be sad, as is all that is connected with the past — sad, however, with various degrees of intensity,—some but calm regrets, others dirges and requiums. Therefore it is that the most affecting melodies belong to' the past—to the past in the life qf man —to the past in the life of a nation.' Such melodies come; not from prosperity or power. They come from ' those who have missedl a .history, or, whose history is over. Such melodies are ' voices of sadness —the yearnings1 over what might have been but was not—the regret for what has been but never will be again. And thus, too, it is with the most affecting eloquence. That which agitates the breast with force resistless is the world which is fraught with the passions of its sorrow. Life in power is action—life in memory is elegy or eloquence. A nation, like a man,' dreams its life again—and until life is gone'orchanged it soliloquizes or sings its dreams. The music of memory lives in every man's - experience; and the excellence of it !is, [that it binds itself only to our better, feelings. It is the excellence of our nature/