TONE OF JOY. (See Tone Drill No. 128.) [The tone of Joy manifests brightness and happiness. It has less abandon than Gayety, being sweeter and richer.] The Enjoyments of Spring. T. DUNCAN. Wherever we This is truly the glad season of the year. turn our eyes, Nature wears a smile of joy, as if, freed from the storms and the cold of winter, she revelled in the well enhanced luxury of spring. The lengthening day, the increasing warmth of the air, and the gradually deepening green of the awakened earth, excite in every breast a lively sense of gratitude, and pleasingly affect the imagination. A walk among the woods or fields, in a calm spring day, when the trees are bursting forth into beauty, and all the land is echoing with song, may well soothe the stormiest passions, and inspire that 'vernal delight,' which is able to drive away all sadness but despair.' The mind sympathizes with the joy of inanimate Nature, and rejoices to behold the reviving beauty of the earth, as if itself had escaped from a period of gloom, to bask in the sunshine of hope and enjoyment. There is something in the flowery sweetness and genial warmth of spring that kindles in the rudest bosom feelings of gratitude and pleasure. The contrast to the cold and desolation of winter is so striking and agreeable, that every heart, unless it be hardened by the direst ignorance and crime, is melted to love and pious emotion; and breathings of deepfelt adoration escape from the most untutored lips. The carols of the ploughman, as he traverses the field, the livelong day, and turns up the fresh soil, seem to bespeak a lightsome heart, and evince the joyousness of labor. The shepherd, as he sits upon the hill-side and surveys his quiet flock with its sportive companies of lambs,-those sweetest emblems of innocent mirth,-feels a joy and calm satisfaction, that is heightened by the recollection of the vanished snowstorms of recent winter, and of all the anxieties and toils attending his peculiar charge. Even the hard-working mechanic of the village or town, shares the general gladness of the season. As he strolls in sweet relaxation into the glittering fields, or along the blossoming hedgerows and lanes, haply supporting with his hand the tottering footsteps of his child, or carrying the tender infant in his arms, he breathes the freshning air, treads the reviving turf beneath his feet, and inhales the first faint perfumes, and listens to the first melodies of the year, with an enjoyment that his untaught powers of expression cannot describe. Voice of Spring. FELICIA HEMANS. I come, I come! ye have called me long, I come o'er the mountains with light and song; I have passed o'er the hills of the stormy north, And the reindeer bounds through the pasture free; And the moss looks bright where my step has been. I have sent through the wood-paths a gentle sigh, In the groves of the soft Hesperian clime, To the swan's wild note by the Iceland lakes, From the streams and founts I have loosed the chain; They are flashing down from the mountain brows, Come forth, O ye children of gladness, come! TONE OF GLOOM. (See Tone Drill No. 136.) [The tone of Gloom proclaims the dismal. It is tinged with melancholy, and sometimes there is a mild resentment.] No dawn-no dusk-no proper time of day No sky-no earthly view No distance looking blue No road-no street-no "t'other side the way"- No indications where the Crescents go No warmth, no cheerfulness, no healthful ease, No shade, no shine, no butterflies, no bees, TONE OF ASPIRATION. (See Tone Drill No. 84.) [As a rule the tone of aspiration suggests noble desire. It is allied to Ambition, Admiration, and is almost synonymous with Emulation.] American Aspiration. K. M. HUNTER. I can conceive of nothing of which it is possible for Human effort to obtain, greater than the destiny which we may reasonably hope to fulfill. If war has its dreams, dazzling in splendid pageantry, peace also has its visions of a more enduring form, of a higher and purer beauty. To solve by practical demonstration the grand problem of increasing social power consistent with personal freedom-to increase the efficiency of the human agent by enlarging individual liberty—to triumph over, not only the physical, but more difficult still, the moral difficulties which lie in the path of a man's progress, and to adorn that path with all that is rare and useful in art, and whatever is highest in civilization, are, in my opinion, the noblest achievements of which a nation is capable These are the ends to which our ambition should be directed. If we reverse the old idea of the Deity who presides over our boundaries, let us see so far as we are concerned, that his movements are consistent with the peace of the world. The sword may be the occasional, but it is not the familiar weapon of our god Terminus. The axe and the hoe are his more appropriate emblems. Let him turn aside from the habitations of civilized man, his path is toward the wilderness, through whose silent solitudes, for more than two centuries, he has been rapidly and triumphantly advancing. Let him plunge still deeper into the forest, as the natural gravitation of the tide of population impels him onward. His progress in that direction is one of unmixed beneficence to the human The earth smiles beneath his feet, and a new creation arises as if by enchantment at his touch. race. Household fires illuminate his line of march, and newborn lights, strange visitants to the night of primeval solitude, kindle on domestic altars erected to all the peaceful virtues and kindly affections which consecrate a hearth and endear a home. Victorious industry sacks the forest and mines the quarry, for materials for its stately cities, or spans the streams and saps the mountain to open the way for the advance of civilization still deeper into the pathless forest and neglected wild. The light of human thought pours in winged streams from sea to sea, and the lingering 'nomad may have but a moment's pause, to behold the flying car which comes to invade the haunts so long secured to savage life. These are the aspirations worthy of our name and race, and it is for the American people to decide whether a taste for peace or the habits of war are most consistent with such hopes. I trust that they may be guided by wisdom in their choice. |