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Brooklyn, Anniversary Week.

FRIEND CARRY: -- The last six months I have drummed a piano at the rate of seven hours per day. And now, when I see how little I have acquired that is really useful, I am ready to exclaim with Mrs. Hopkins' cook, "Oh! what an inglorious way of spending one's time!" Music is indeed a science of difficult attainment, and in order to excel, even the most gifted must commence it in early life. For however well one may understand the theory, manual skill is wanting.*****

The British bard was not far from right when he said "in life there is no present;" for certainly a moment is no sooner here, than it is gone, and we find ourselves either drawing from the past, or robbing an imagined future. Remind you, dear, of mornings in the old seminary, when your room-mate, Helen, returned from a recitation, and in girlish glee tossed her books upon the table, and perchance shook you until the tasteful braids of your hair tumbled down, and then, to make all well, kissed your lips, and promised never to do the like again. Carry, as I loved you then, I love you now. Care has left some traces upon my brow, but really the order of my feelings is but little changed. Perhaps I am wrong, but I always allow myself to think the fault is in the place instead of my eyes, and persuade myself I should see well enough if the blinds were only thrown open, or the lights brought in. But it is not so; the windows of my soul are surely darkened, and no light is there, save the un-borrowed lustre of its own jewels, and the mingled rays of those spirit stars, love and hope, which never set. Cheered by their light, Milton wove his celestial strains, Gough pursued his botany, culled his flowers, and arranged his plants; the Swiss Huber tended his bees, Buret chiselled marble, and Giovanni Gonelli moulded clay into forms that to their gentle touch seemed warming into life.

I wonder if St. Paul was blind. I believe Hannah More in her beautiful essay upon him, thinks he was. If so, he must have managed to write better than I do, or there was no need of his explaining to the Corinthians, that he had saluted them with his own hand.

Mr. Crittenden has removed from Albany, and presides in the Brooklyn Female Academy Yesterday I attended his anniversary examination. I thought the recitations more systematic and thorough than any I have ever heard from classes composed only of ladies. Besides, I like Mr. C.'s mode of examining; he only names the subject, without any assisting interrogatories. The pupil is then required to follow closely the reasonings of the author, giving his ideas in her own words.

The recitations were mostly heard in the library, and during the interim of classes Miss Emily gave me its etceteras. In the middle of the floor is a large case of birds, gracefully perched, but voiceless as they are lifeless. The books are new, and mostly from modern and select authors. The cabinets are quite large, but the chemical and philosophical apparatus is yet in its infancy, though they say it is growing fast. The picture gallery is an upper room, lighted from the sky. The walls are covered with pencillings and paintings of the young ladies. It is customary for each to leave there a piece of her work. There is something in this idea exceedingly pleasing to me. There stood their easels with half-finished paintings on them; "ekes of men and women,'' as Kirke White says; and half-drawn rivers, and outlined ruins of cities and castles. Last evening we heard Strakosch again, the celebrated pianist to the Emperor Nicholas. I wish you could once hear his fingers dance through the mazes of sound, almost up to the highest note in all nature, which Professor Whitlock says is the noise the musquito makes when he beats the air with his wings; then down to the low flutter of the miller, and the far-off droppings of falling water. His style is so fascinating, dear me! if all the Emperor's subjects are like him, I envy him his reign. Why it would be like sitting upon the summit of delight, with harping fairies at one's feet. Have you read Mr. Jacob Abbot's "Crowned Heads of Europe?'' Not long since I passed a day in his school Being near the close of the term, the young ladies were exchanging parting gifts. One received a Chinese work-box, and gave in return a beautiful guitar, and a volume of Jenny Lind's songs, -- paintings, books, boxes, card-cases, bracelets, rings, daguerreotypes, &c., were among their tokens of school-day love. About the whole establishment there seemed an air of wealth and refinement. Mr. Abbot was exceedingly affable; he spoke very freely of his travels, books, &c. When some reference was had to the great excellence of his productions, he very modestly replied, "I only wish they were better." Carry, I purposed writing you only a little note, but really I have made quite a letter of it, if indeed the stringing together of disjointed sentences can in any case make a letter.

FRIEND PHIN: -- Not more welcome could be the appearance of an Inn to a weary traveller, than was your kind letter to me. It came when it so happened that most of our seeing people were absent, and with it in hand, I ran many times from first to third story, dodging in at every door, in pursuit of a pair of eyes. At length an old servant, by aid of his glasses; spelled out the name upon the margin, and my curiosity thus much relieved, I went on with my practising. We have no such thing here as music with raised notes. We are all taught orally, and play from memory, the same as I would have learned music elsewhere, only perhaps more scientifically. I find the blind folks here a singular sort of people indeed. Their habits, manners, and ideas of things are so unlike the world, that "I am to them all a foreigner," as the Paddy said of the French. * * * * Now Phin, you are not far from right when you call this Institution a nunnery, for it is certainly a place where ladies retire from the world, and never more see the face of man. Some are here for life; others for a specified time. We have nine pianos in the Institution, and some eighty who practise upon them, which affords only one hour each per day. We have also two organs, besides violins, flutes, and a large brass band. All these going; I quite forget I am inclosed with iron doors, and granite walls, and seem the inhabitant of a spirit land, where harmony reigns, anthems are ever new, and "ever throbs with melody the air."