The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1853-07-19 00:00:00

ancient bite

fact-'

—his rank, his fortune—his position, in

' Of all of which we know nothing," broke in_Papa

" But of which you may know everything," said I ;
" for here, at the postscript, is an invitation to us all to
pass some weeks at the Schloss, in the Black Forest, his
ancestral seat." _

" Or, as he styles it," broke in James, impertinently,
" the very old castle, where for numerous centuries his
high-blooded and on-lofty-eminence-standing ancestors
did sit,' and where now • his with-years-bestricken but
not- t he-less-on-that-account- sharp- with-intelligence- be-
gifted parent Father do reside.' "
" Read that again, James," said Papa.
" Pray allow, Sir," said I, taking the letter. " The
invitation is a most hospitable request that we should go
and pass some time at his chAteau, and name the earliest
day our convenience will permit for the visit."
•' He spoke of capital shooting there ! " cried James.
" He told me that the Auer-Hahn, a kind of black cock,
abounds in that country."
" And I remember, too, that he mentioned some
wonderful Steinherger—a cabinet wine, full two hundred
years in wood ! " chimed in Papa.
I wished, dearest Kitty, that they could have enter-
tained the subject-matter of the letter without these
" contingent remainders," and not mixed up my future
fate with either wine or wild fowl ; but they really were
so carried away by the pleasures so peculiarly adapted to
their own feelings, that they at once said, and in a
breath, too, " Write him word ' Yes,' by all means ! "

A YOUNG LADY'S OPINION OF MARRIAGE

" Now, first of all, Mary Anne," said he, " do you
love this Baron Wolfensehafer ?"

Who ever could answer such a question in one word,
Kitty ? How seldom does it occur in life that all the
circumstances of any man's position respond to the
ambitious imaginings of a girl's heart ! He may be
handsome and yet poor; he may be rich, and vet low
born ; intellectual, and yet his great gifts may be alloyed
with infirmities of temper; he may be coldly.natured,
secret, self-contained, uncommunicative a hundred
things that one does not like—and yet, with all these
drawbacks, what the world calls an " excellent match."
I believe very few people marry the person they wish to
marry. I fancy that such instances are the rarest things
imaginable. It is a question of compensation throughout
—you accept this, notwithstanding that—you put up with
that, for the sake of this! Of course, dearest, lam re-
jecting here all belief in the " greatest happiness princi-
ple " as a stupid fallecy, that only imposes upon elderly
gentlemen when they marry their househeeper. I speak
of the considerations which weigh with a young girl who
has moved in society, who knows its requirements, and
can estimate all that contributes to what is called a
" position."

THE IRISH EXODUS IN A NEW LIGHT.

Ay, Tom, all is changing around us. The Gentry are
going, the Middle Classes are going, and the peasant is
going ; some, of their free will ; more, from hard neces-
sity. I know that the general opinion is favourable to
all this—in England at least. The cry is ever, " Ireland
is improving—Ireland will be better." But my notion
is, that by Ireland we should understand not alone the
soil, the rocks, and the rivers, but the people—the heart,
and soul, and life-blood that made the island the gene-
rous, warm-hearted, social spot we once knew it.
Take away these, and I no longer recognise it as my
country. What matters it to me if the Scotchman or the
Norfolk farmer is to prosper where we only could exist ?
My sympathies are not with him. You might as well try
and console me for the death of my child by showing me
how comfortably some other man's boy could sleep in his
bed. I want to see Ireland prosper with Irishmen ; and
I wish it, because I know in my heart the thing is possible
and practicable.