life, a man can in a great degree become the master of his moods,
so that, as a preacher, or a singer, or a lecturer, he can do his
best every time quite as regularly as a writer can do his best
every time. Mr. Benedict somewhat inelegantly remarked, when in
this country, that the reason of Jenny Lind's success was, that
she "made a conscience of her art." If we had asked Mr. Benedict
to explain himself, he probably would have said that she
conscientiously did her best every time, in every place. This was
true of Jenny Lind. She never failed. She sang just as well in the
old church where the country people had flocked to greet her, as
in the halls of the metropolis. Yet Jenny Lind was decidedly a
woman of moods, and indulged in them when she could afford it.

The power of the will over moods of the mind is very noticeable in
children. Children often rise in the morning in any thing but an
amiable frame of mind. Petulant, impatient, quarrelsome, they
cannot be spoken to or touched without producing an explosion of
ill-nature. Sleep seems to have been a bath of vinegar to them,
and one would think the fluid had invaded their mouth and nose,
and eyes and ears, and had been absorbed by every pore of their
sensitive skins. In a condition like this, I have seen them bent
over the parental knee, and their persons subjected to blows from
the parental palm; and they have emerged from the infliction with
the vinegar all expelled, and their faces shining like the
morning--the transition complete and satisfactory to all the
parties. Three-quarters of the moods that men and women find
themselves in, are just as much under the control of the will as
this. The man who rises in the morning, with his feelings all
bristling like the quills of a hedge-hog, simply needs to be
knocked down. Like a solution of certain salts, he requires a rap