Once Upon A Time.

" Once upon a time . Yes ; these Avords strike a chord on one s sympathetic memory , ivhich vibrates through one ' s " inner harmonies , " whatever these are , through and through , and take one away in the spirit from all that constitutes the " burden " of the flesh to-day , with a vigour and rapidity and lucidity with are themselves all highl y refreshing and beneficial for us all . I will try by a feiv familiar pictures to illustrate what I mean , what I wish to what I want to convey .

say , " Once upon a time "—takes us away from cold , stern , often cruel realities , to the romance and the bright day-dream of youth . We , too , once were young . Life for us then had a brilliant outcome apparently . All was fair and kind , ancl pleasant and propitious . We knew no evil , and we recked of no dangers . All Avas happil y before us . Hope told us its most flattering taleand we invested with the " painted bubbles "

, of viA'id imagination all that we had to confront , all that we expected to meet on the ivay , all that we trusted to receive , to gain , and to find . To-day , alas , experience has caused the film to drop from our eyes , the haze to open from before our vision , and things are not what they once seemed to be ; realization is , indeed , a very , very different thing to expectation ; we have reached a

" Promised Land perhaps only to find the " Dead Sea fruits . Alas for us ! And so to-day we often grieve over fond fancies faded and vanished , kind A'oices hashed , and fair dreams sped away . The gift has turned out to be our bane . The prize we sought and won has become a very curse to us , and on all on earth in its fairest form and brightest aspects there seems to fall a blighting power , whispering ever of failure and decay , of deceitof frailtand of death .

, y , To many of us no longer young , " once upon a time " onl y recalls , with a sigh of memory , pained and weary , the voices , the forms , the reveries , the wild follies , the idle longings , the frivolity and feebleness of other days ; those who are no longer with us to cheer us on our way ; homes which we never more shall see . We hear once again tbe gay laughter of childhood , and watch once more the wreathed smiles of youth ; we are transported to almost fairy bowers

, redolent Avith the grace and beauty and flowers of perpetual spring , and we look around our experience once upon a time , and like a spell , as in the fairy tale , " Castle Gracious" has faded from our sight , and we have before us nothing but a desolate hill , nothing but a barren moorland . But I must not become too serious or too sentimental .

" Once upon a time " is very often a message of some moment to the poor married man . The wife of his bosom is not all he once fondl y trusted she ivould be to him , and "that , " as he says to himself or his old chum John Jones—though he ought not to say it , in my opinion , " crocodile that she isshe once promised me to be . " " You remember her , " he says , " Johnnie , when she was only Annie

Walker , before she became Mrs . Walter Carew , what a most insinuating , accommodating , peaceful , charitable little woman she then was . And now , old fellow , " he adds , with a heartfelt si gh , " what a trimmer she has become . She ' s never punctual , she ' s always combative , she won't sew one on a button , she won't look after one ' s creature comforts ; but she ' s always scolding me and the servants , and she ' s always pitching into any woman I think well of .

What a- change ! ' Once upon a time . ' Ah ! I often think of some one else ; I know she is not happy , ancl she often looks at me reproachfully ; and ivhen I remember what I hai r e lost , I am not consoled b y what I possess . Don't you think we might get an Act of Parliament to relieve us poor victims P You say it ' s incompatibilit y of temper , Johnnie ; I say it ' s the inherent artfulness of the female . She does not care what she says or doesif only she takes you

, in . Not that she minds really , as Mr . Weller judiciously puts it to Mr . Pickwick , ' What is the consequence of her maneuver . '" But is there is no reverse to this picture , kind reader , . no other side to the common coin of the realm ? I fancy there is , I troAv there is .