The Joyless American Face

What is to be dono to prevent this acrid look of misery trom becoming au organic charactcristic of tho people ? " Mako thein play more," says one philosophy. Ko doubt they need to"play more ;" but, when 0110 looks at tlic average exprosBion of a Fourth of July erowd, one doubts if ever so much multiplication of that kind of holiday would mond the matter. Xo doubt we work far too many days in tho yoar, and play far top few ; but, after all, it is tho heartand tho spirit, and the expression that we bring to our work, and not these that we bring to our play, by whieh our rc;il vitality must bo tested, and by whieh our faces wil! bo stsmped. If wc do not work healthfully, reasonably, moderately, thankfully, joyously, vo shall havo neither moderatiou nor gratitude, nor joy in our play. And here is the hopelessnes?, here is tho root of the trouble, of the joylcss American faco. The worst of all demons, the demon of unrest and overwork, broods in the veiy sky of this land. Blue, ttud olear, and cvisp, apd sparkling as our atmosphere is, it cannot or does not exorcise tho spell. Any nld man can count on the fingers of ono hand tho persons he bas known who led lives of serene, unhurried content, made for themselvcs ocoupations and not tasks, and diud at last what might bo callod natural dcatlis. tio long as the American is resolved to do in one day the work of two, to make in one year the fortuno of liis whole lifo and his children'a to carn befóte he is forty tho reputation which bulongs to three score and ten, so long he wiü go about the streets wearing bis piesen t abject, pitiable, ovcrwrought, joyless look. But, even without i change of hoart or a reform of habits, he migbt botter his countenance a little, if he would. Even if he does not feel like smiling, he might smilc, if he tried ; and that would be something. The musoles are all there ; tliey oount tho sanio in the American as in the Prench or the Irish face ; they relax easily in youth; the trick can be leaned. And even a trick of it is bettcr than none of it. Laughing masters might he as woll paid as danciTig-iivtïtors to help on society. - Front. Sits of Talk by 11. II. Iowa is no place for bachelors. Maidens makc love to young men uut there, and invite them to marry 'cm, and if they modestly decliue, shoot the uiiluviug brute.