JUNE.



THE month of June is the poet's inspiration, the artist's despair. Nature has her hour of triumph when she is inimitable and unapproachable, and any attempt to portray 'the delicious sweetness of June must fall far short of the reality. "Then, if ever, come perfect days," and there are tones, qualities, and atmospheric effects that cannot be reproduced in pictures or in poems. Green grass, blue skies, gay birds and bright flowers weave their hues and harmonies together, and on this bit of magic carpet we are borne away into realms of ideal beauty. A sense of delicious languor steals over us. At every breath we inhale intoxicating sweets. The atmosphere is laden with fragrance that acts as an opiate upon the senses.

We visit the old familiar haunts, and are greeted by the same old faces old, yet ever new in whose companionship we forget the trials and vexations of the work. A-day world. Every flower has a voice of its own, and every blade of grass is an apostle of eloquence. Look at yon field of grain! It is a rippling sea of melody, moving in graceful undulations at the touch of the breeze's baton. Floral gems' are everywhere: in the grass, along the roadside, swinging from trees and vines, and surprising us by appearing in unexpected places. The rocks adorn themselves, and from many a crevice display the emerald plumes that mark the progress of the mighty host. The smile of nature broadens and deepens, until the whole earth seems shaken with musical laughter. 

It is frolic time. Joy is at its zenith. The cup of pleasure is full; there is scarce room for another rose-leaf.

June is the glad fruition of the year, the fulfillment of the promises. She sits as a queen upon her throne, and leaves us grieving at the shortness of her reign. 

The poet throws his pen aside after a vain effort to portray her beauty in a sonnet; and the artist, having exhausted all the colors on his palette, finds himself at a loss at the wonderful tints, the ineffable glory, are still in the possession of June, the Summer Queen.




 Floral Cabinet.




HENRY CLAY.


WHILE young, Henry Clay resolved to make an orator of himself. Being poor, and having to work very hard, his education was much neglected. For some years, in early life, he was in the habit of reading a portion of history or some book upon science, and of then going out into a cornfield, or into a barn, and delivering the substance of what he had read, as a speech. 

Many a fine speech he delivered to an audience of oxen, horses, and pigs.

"It is," said he once, when addressing a class of law-students, "to this early practice of the art of all arts, that I am indebted for the impulses that molded my entire destiny."



BE honorable and honest in all you do.