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THE CHAUTAUQUAN.

_A MONTHLY MAGAZINE DEVOTED TO THE PROMOTION OF TRUE CULTURE. ORGAN OF
THE CHAUTAUQUA LITERARY AND SCIENTIFIC CIRCLE._

    VOL. IV.      NOVEMBER, 1883.      No. 2.




Chautauqua Literary and Scientific Circle.


_President_—Lewis Miller, Akron, Ohio.

_Superintendent of Instruction_—Rev. J. H. Vincent, D.D., New Haven,
Conn.

_Counselors_—Rev. Lyman Abbott, D.D.; Rev. J. M. Gibson, D.D.; Bishop
H. W. Warren, D.D.; Prof. W. C. Wilkinson, D.D.

_Office Secretary_—Miss Kate F. Kimball, Plainfield, N. J.

_General Secretary_—Albert M. Martin, Pittsburgh, Pa.



[Transcriber's Note: This table of contents of this periodical was
created for the HTML version to aid the reader.]




Contents

  REQUIRED READING
  German History                                               63
  German Literature                                            66
  Physical Science
  II.—The Circulation of Water on the Land                     67
  SUNDAY READINGS
  [Sunday, November 4.]—Moral Distinctions Not Sufficiently
          Regarded in Social Intercourse                       70
  [Sunday, November 11.]                                       71
  [Sunday, November 18.]                                       72
  [Sunday, November 25.]                                       72

  Political Economy
    II. Production, Continued—Capital—Combination and
             Division of Labor                                 73
    III.—Consumption                                           74
  Readings in Art
    II.—Sculpture: Grecian and Roman                           75
  Selections from American Literature                          77
    Benjamin Franklin—Extracts From Poor Richard’s Almanac     77
    George Washington—Account of the Battle of Trenton         78
    Thomas Jefferson—George Washington                         79
    Thoughts from William Ellery Channing                      79

  Autumn Sympathy                                              80
  Republican Prospects in France                               80
  Chautauqua to California                                     81
  To My Books                                                  83
  Earthquakes—Ischia and Java                                  83
  Low Spirits                                                  85
  Vegetable Villains                                           86
  From the Baltic to the Adriatic                              87
  Electricity                                                  89
  Poachers in England                                          90
  Eight Centuries With Walter Scott                            91
  The Great Organ at Fribourg                                  94
  Eccentric Americans                                          95
  Etiquette                                                    99
  Napoleon’s Marshals                                         100
  C. L. S. C. Work                                            102
  C. L. S. C. Stationery                                      103
  New England Branch of the Class of ’86                      103
  C. L. S. C. Testimony                                       103
  C. L. S. C. Reunion                                         104
  Local Circles                                               105
  How to Conduct a Local Circle                               107
  Questions and Answers                                       109
  Outline of C. L. S. C. Studies                              112
  Chautauqua Normal Class                                     112
  Editor’s Outlook                                            115
    Dr. Haygood's Battle for the Negro                        115
    The Political Outlook                                     115
    History of Greece                                         116
    A College Reform                                          116
  Editor’s Note-Book                                          117
  Editor’s Table                                              119
  C. L. S. C. Notes on Required Readings For November         120
  C. L. S. C. Notes on Required Readings in “The Chautaquan”  123
  Tricks of the Conjurors                                     125
  Talk About Books                                            126




REQUIRED READING

FOR THE

_Chautauqua Literary and Scientific Circle for 1883-4_.

NOVEMBER.




GERMAN HISTORY.

By REV. W. G. WILLIAMS, A.M.


II.

From the time of Julius Cæsar to the fall of the Roman Empire, a period
of more than four hundred years, the greater part of the Germans were
subject to Roman rule, a rule maintained only by military force. But
the struggle against Rome never entirely ceased—and as Roman power
gradually declined the Germans seized every opportunity to recover
their liberty and in their turn became conquerors. To trace the
succession of their vicissitudes during this period would be to give
the narrative of a bold, vigorous, war-like people in their rude
barbaric condition. We should discover even in those early times those
race characteristics of strength, bravery and persistence which became
so marked in later centuries; we should recognize in Hermann, the first
German leader, the prophecy of the Great Charles who steps upon the
scene nearly eight centuries later.


HERMANN, THE FIRST LEADER.

He it was (Hermann Arminius) who, with a power to organize equal
to that of William of Orange, bound the German tribes in a secret
confederacy, whose object it was to resist and repel the Roman armies.
While still himself serving as an officer in the Roman army, he managed
to rally the confederated Germans and to attack Varus’s army of forty
thousand men—the best Roman legions—as they were marching through the
Teutoburger Forest, where, aided by violent storms, the Germans threw
the Romans into panic and the fight was changed to a slaughter. When
the news of the great German victory reached Rome the aged Augustus
trembled with fear; he let his hair and beard grow for months as a sign
of trouble, and was often heard to exclaim: “O, Varus, Varus, give me
back my legions.” Though Rome, under the able leadership of Germanicus,
soon after defeated the Germans, yet she had been taught that the
Germans possessed a spirit and a power sufficient to make her tremble
for her future supremacy.

Hermann seems to have devoted himself to the creation of a permanent
union of the tribes he had commanded. We may guess, but can not assert,
that his object was to establish a national organization like that of
Rome, and in doing this he must have come into conflict with laws and
customs which were considered sacred by the people. But his remaining
days were too few for even the beginning of a task which included such
an advance in the civilization of the race. We only know that he was
waylaid and assassinated by members of his own family in the year 21.
He was then 37 years old and had been for thirteen years the leader of
his people.[A]

       *       *       *       *       *

He was undoubtedly the liberator of Germany, having dared to grapple
with the Roman power, not in its beginnings, like other kings and
commanders, but in the maturity of its strength. He was not always
victorious in battle, but in war he was never subdued. He still lives
in the songs of the barbarians, unknown to the annals of the Greeks,
who only admire that which belongs to themselves—nor celebrated as he
deserves by the Romans, who, in praising the olden times, neglect the
events of the later years.[B]


GERMAN NATIONALITIES AT THE CLOSE OF THE THIRD CENTURY.

When we meet the Germans at the close of the third century we are
surprised to find that the tribal names which they bore in the time
of Hermann have nearly all disappeared, and new names of wider
significance have taken their places. Instead of thirty to forty petty
tribes, they are now consolidated into four chief nationalities with
two or three inferior, but independent branches. Their geographical
situation is no longer the same, migrations have taken place, large
tracts of territory have changed hands, and many leading families have
been overthrown and new ones arisen. Nothing but the constant clash of
arms could have wrought such change. As each of these new nationalities
plays a prominent part in the following centuries, a short description
of them is given:

1. _The Alemanni._—The name of this division (_Alle Mannen_, signifying
“all men”) shows that it was composed of fragments of many tribes. The
Alemanni first made their appearance along the Main, and gradually
pushed southward over the Tithe lands, where the military veterans of
Rome had settled, until they occupied the greater part of southwestern
Germany, and eastern Switzerland to the Alps. Their descendants occupy
the same territory to this day.

2. _The Franks._—It is not known whence this name is derived, nor what
is its meaning. The Franks are believed to have been formed out of
the Sicambrians in Westphalia, a portion of the Chatti and the Batavi
in Holland, together with other tribes. We first hear of them on the
Lower Rhine, but they soon extended their territory over a great part
of Belgium and Westphalia. Their chiefs were already called kings, and
their authority was hereditary.

3. _The Saxons._—This was one of the small original tribes settled in
Holstein. The name “Saxon” is derived from their peculiar weapon, a
short sword, called _sahs_. We find them occupying at the close of the
third century nearly all the territory between the Harz Mountains and
the North Sea, from the Elbe westward to the Rhine. There appears to
have been a natural enmity—no doubt bequeathed from the earlier tribes
out of which both grew—between them and the Franks.

4. _The Goths._—Their traditions state that they were settled in Sweden
before they were found by the Greek navigators on the southern shore of
the Baltic in 330 B. C. It is probable that only a portion of the tribe
navigated, and that the present Scandinavian race is descended from the
remainder. They came in contact with the Romans beyond the mouth of the
Danube about the beginning of the third century.[C]


INFLUENCE OF THE ROMANS ON THE GERMANS.

The proximity of the Romans on the Rhine, the Danube, and the Neckar,
had by degrees effected alterations in the manners of the Germans. They
had become acquainted with many new things, both good and bad. By means
of the former they became acquainted with money, and even luxuries.
The Romans had planted the vine on the Rhine, and constructed roads,
cities, manufactories, theaters, fortresses, temples, and altars. Roman
merchants brought their wares to Germany, and fetched thence amber,
feathers, furs, slaves, and the very hair of the Germans; for it became
the fashion to wear light flaxen wigs, instead of natural hair. Of
the cities which the Romans built there are many yet remaining, as
Salzburg, Ratisbonne, Augsburg, Basle, Strasburg, Baden, Spires, Worms,
Metz, Treves, Cologne, Bonn, etc. But in the interior of Germany,
neither the Romans nor their habits and manners had found friends, nor
were cities built there according to the Roman style.[D]


INVASION OF THE HUNS—ATTILA.

The fourth century of our era and the first half of the fifth were
characterized by the spirit of migration among all the peoples beyond
the Rhine. Representatives of every German village and district went
to Rome, and each brought back stories of the wealth and luxury
that existed there. They had the keen perception and the strength
to recognize the increasing weakness of the government, and also to
despise the enervation and corruption of its citizens. The German was
ambitious and restless as daily he regarded Rome more and more as his
prey. The Romans themselves saw the danger of the Empire and lived in
apprehension of overwhelming incursions long before they came. In the
latter part of the fourth century the great impulse was given to the
people of northern and eastern Europe by successive invasions from
Asia; and a vast and general movement began among them which resulted
in the disintegration of the Roman Empire, and the transfer of the
principal arena of history from the shores of the Mediterranean Sea
to the countries in which the great powers of modern Europe afterward
grew up. The first impulse to this series of events was given by
disturbances and migrations in central Asia, of whose cause hardly
anything is known. Long before the Christian era there was a powerful
race of Huns in northeastern Asia who became so dangerous to the
Chinese that the great wall of China was built as a defense against
them (finished B. C. 244).[E]

       *       *       *       *       *

These Huns, a Mongol race, had migrated from the center of Asia
westward three-quarters of a century previously (A. D. 375), carrying
death and devastation on their path. They had nothing in common with
the peoples of the West, either in facial features or habits of life.
Contemporary historians describe them as surpassing by their savagery
all that can be imagined. They were of low stature, with broad
shoulders, thick-set limbs, flat noses, high cheek-bones, small eyes
deeply sunk in the sockets, and yellow complexion. Ammianus Marcellinus
compares them, in their monstrous ugliness, to beasts walking on two
legs, or the grinning heads clumsily carved on the posts of bridges.
They had no beard, because from infancy their faces were hideously
scarred by being slashed all over, in order to hinder its growth.
Accustomed to lead a wandering life in their native country, these wild
hordes traversed the Steppes, or boundless plains which lie between
Russia and China, in huge chariots, or on small hardy horses, changing
their stations as often as fresh pasture was required for their cattle.
Except constrained by necessity, they never entered any kind of house,
holding them in horror as so many tombs. They were accustomed from
infancy to endure cold, hunger, and thirst. As the great boots they
wore deprived them of all facility in marching, they never fought on
foot; but the skill with which they managed their horses and threw
the javelin, made them more formidable to the Germans than even the
disciplined, but less ferocious, legions of Rome.

This was the rude race which, bursting into Europe in the second half
of the fourth century, shook the whole barbarian world to its center,
and precipitated it upon the Roman Empire. The Goths fled before them,
when they passed the Danube, the Vandals when they crossed the Rhine.
After a halt of half a century in the center of Europe, the Huns put
themselves again in motion.

Attila, the king of this people, constrained all the tribes wandering
between the Rhine and the Oural to follow him. For some time he
hesitated upon which of the two empires he should carry the wrath of
heaven. Deciding upon the West, he passed the Rhine, the Moselle, and
the Seine, and marched upon Orleans. The populations fled before him in
indescribable terror, for the _Scourge of God_, as he was called, left
not one stone upon another wheresoever he passed. Metz and twenty other
cities had been destroyed. Troyes alone had been saved by its bishop,
Saint Loup. He wished to seize upon Orleans, the key of the southern
provinces; and his innumerable army surrounded the city. Its bishop,
St. Aignan, sustained the courage of the inhabitants by promising them
a powerful succor. Ætius, in fact, arrived with all the barbarian
nations encamped in Gaul, at the expense of which the new invasion was
made. Attila for the first time fell back; but in order to choose a
battle-field favorable for his cavalry, he halted in the Catalaunian
plains near Méry-sur-Seine. There the terrible shock of battle took
place. In the first onset the Franks, who formed the vanguard of Ætius,
fought with such animosity that 15,000 Huns strewed the plain. But
next day, when the great masses on both sides encountered, the bodies
of 165,000 combatants were left on that field of carnage. Attila was
conquered. The allies, however, not daring to drive the wild Huns to
despair, suffered Attila to retreat into Germany (451). In the year
following he made amends for his defeat by an invasion of northern
Italy, ravaging Aquileia, Milan, and other cities in a frightful
manner, but died of an apoplectic stroke (453), soon after his return,
and his empire fell with him, but not the terrible remembrance of his
name and of his cruelties. The Visigoths, whose king had perished in
the fight, and the Franks of Meroveus, had had, with Ætius, the chief
honor of that memorable day in the Catalaunian plains. For it had
become a question whether Europe should be German or Mongolian, whether
the fierce Huns or the Germans should found an empire on the ruins of
that which was then crumbling.[F]


FALL OF THE WESTERN EMPIRE—MANNERS AND MORALS OF THE GERMANS IN THIS
AGE.

The Western Empire had now but a short time to live. The dastardly
emperor Valentinian III., suspicious of the independent position of
Ætius, recalled the conqueror of Attila from Gaul, and slew him with
his own hand (A. D. 454). He was himself murdered soon after, and his
widow, Eudoxia, though forced to marry the assassin, determined to
avenge her husband. She invited the Vandals, for this purpose, from
Africa across the sea to Rome. This German tribe, still ruled by the
aged Genseric, was the only one which possessed a fleet; and by this
means the Vandals had already made themselves masters of the great
islands of the Mediterranean, of Sicily, Sardinia, and Corsica. The
“sea-king” eagerly obeyed the summons (A. D. 455), and now “golden
Rome” was given up for fourteen days to his soldiers, and was sacked
with such horrors that the name of Vandal has ever since been a proverb
for barbarity and destruction. Yet the mediation of Leo the Great, then
Bishop of Rome, saved the city from utter ruin. From this time onward
the emperors, who followed one another in quick succession, were mere
tools of the German generals, and symbols of power before the common
people; for the whole imperial army now consisted of the remnants of
various German nations, who had sought service for pay. These too, at
last, like their kindred in the provinces, demanded lands in Italy, and
would have no less than one-third of the soil. When this was refused,
Odoacer, at the head of his soldiers—Heruli, Sciri, Turcilingi, and
Rugii, who forced their way thither from the Danube—put an end to the
very name of the Roman Empire, stripping the boy Romulus Augustulus,
the last emperor, of the purple, and ruling alone in Italy, as German
general and king. Thus the Western Empire fell by German hands, after
they had already wrested from it all its provinces, Africa, Spain, Gaul
and Britain. This occurred in the year 476. Ancient history ends with
this event; but in the history of the Germans it is merely an episode.

At the time of the great migrations, the German tribes were barbarians,
in that they were destitute alike of humanity toward enemies and
inferiors, and of scientific culture. Neither the pursuit of learning
nor the practice of mercy to the vanquished could seem to them other
than unmanly weakness. Their ferocity spread misery and ruin through
the whole arena of history, and made the fifth and sixth centuries of
our era the crowning epoch in the annals of human suffering; while
their active, passionate contempt for learning destroyed the existing
monuments of intelligence and habits of inquiry and thought, almost
as completely as they swept away the wealth, prosperity, and social
organization of the Roman world. Their ablest kings despised clerical
accomplishments. Even Theodoric the Great could not write, and his
signature was made by a black smear over a form or mould in which his
name was cut. Nevertheless these nations were not what we mean by
savages. Their originally beautiful and resonant language was already
cultivated in poetical forms, in heroic songs. There was intercourse
and trade among the several nations. Minstrels, especially, passed
from one royal court to another, and the same song which was sung to
Theodoric in Ravenna could be heard and understood by the Vandals
in Carthage, by Clovis in Paris, and by the Thuringians in their
fastnesses. A common language was a strong bond of union among these
nations. Messengers, embassies, and letters were sent to and fro
between their courts; gifts were exchanged, and marriages and alliances
entered into. Thus the nations were informed concerning one another,
and recognized their mutual relationship. It was this international
intercourse that gave rise to the heroic minstrelsy—a faithful relation
of the great deeds of German heroes during the migrations; but the
minstrel boldly transforms the order of events, and brings together
things which in reality took place at intervals of whole generations.
Thus they sing of Hermanric, of Theodoric the Great (Dietrich the
Strong, of Berne), and of his faithful knight Hildebrand; then of
the fall of the Burgundian kings, of the far-ruling Attila, and of
Sigurd, or Siegfried, who was originally a Northern god of spring, but
here appears as a youthful hero, faithful and child-like, simple and
unsuspicious, yet the mightiest of all—the complete image of the German
character.

These wild times of warfare and wandering could not, of course,
favorably affect morals and character. They did much to root out of
the minds and lives of the people their ancient heathen faith and
practices. Their old gods were associated with places, scenes, features
of the country and the climate; and, with these out of sight, the gods
themselves were easily forgotten. Moreover, the local deities of other
places and nations were brought into notice. The people’s religious
habits were broken up, their minds confused, and thus they were better
prepared than before to embrace the new and universal doctrines of
Christianity. But the wanderings had a bad effect on morality in all
forms. The upright German was still distinguished by his self-respect
from the false, faithless, and cowardly “Welshman,” whose nature had
become deformed through years of servitude. But Germans, too, were
now often guilty of faithlessness and cruelty; and some tribes grew
effeminate and corrupt, especially the Vandals in luxurious Africa.
They imitated the style of the conquered in dress, arms, and manner
of life; and some adopted their language also. For instance, even
Theodoric the Great corresponded in Latin with foreign monarchs; and as
early as the sixth and seventh centuries, the Germans recorded their
own laws in Latin, the West Goths and Burgundians introducing the
practice, which was followed by the Franks, Alemanni, Bavarians, and
Langobards. These laws, and the prohibitions they contain, are the best
sources of information upon the manners of the time, and especially
upon the condition of the lower orders, the peasants, and the slaves.
The most frequent cases provided are of bodily injuries, murder,
wounds, and mutilations, showing that the warlike disposition had
degenerated into cruelty and coarseness. For all these injuries, the
weregeld, or ransom, was still a satisfaction. The life of a nobleman,
that of a freeman, of a slave, and the members of the body—the eye,
ear, nose, and hand—were assessed each at a fixed money valuation,
to be paid by the aggressor, if he would not expose himself to the
vengeance of the wronged man or his family. But crimes committed by
peasants and slaves were punished by death, sometimes at the stake,
where freemen might escape by paying a fine. The oaths of parties and
witnesses were heard; and they were sustained by the oaths of others,
their friends, relations, or partisans, who swore that they were to
be believed. If an accused party swore that he was innocent, it was
only necessary for him to obtain a sufficient number of compurgators,
or jurors, of his own rank to swear that they believed him, in order
to secure acquittal. But the number required was much larger for men
of low rank than for the nobles; and the freedmen and slaves had no
rights of the kind, but were tortured at will to compel them to confess
or testify. The slaves were often tried by an ordeal, and were held
guilty of any accusation if they could not put their hands into boiling
water without harm. For freemen, if no other evidence were accessible,
a trial by battle was adopted, as an appeal to God’s judgment. The
heathen tribes in Germany proper—the Frisi, Saxons, Thuringians, and
Alemanni—lived on in their old ways; yet they too failed to maintain
the spotless character assigned them by Tacitus. It was a time of
general ferment. The new elements of civilization had brought with them
new vices, and the simplicity of earlier days could not survive.[G]

    [To be continued.]

       *       *       *       *       *

RIGHT well I know that improvement is a duty, and as we see man strives
ever after a higher point, at least he seeks some novelty. But beware!
for with these feelings Nature has given us also a desire to continue
in the old ways, and to take pleasure in that to which we have been
accustomed. Every condition of man is good which is natural and in
accordance with reason. Man’s desires are boundless, but his wants are
few. For his days are short, and his fate bounded by a narrow span. I
find no fault with the man who, ever active and restless, crosses every
sea and braves the rude extremes of every clime, daring and diligent in
pursuit of gain, rejoicing his heart and house by wealth.—_Goethe._

FOOTNOTES:

[A] Bayard Taylor.

[B] Tacitus.

[C] Bayard Taylor.

[D] Sime.

[E] Lewis.

[F] Sime.

[G] Lewis.




GERMAN LITERATURE.


Among the Germans, as among all other nations, the earliest literature
is poetical. Little is preserved of their ancient poetry, but Tacitus
tells us that the Germans of his time had ancient songs relating to
Tuisco and Mannus, and to the hero Arminius. It is the opinion of many
critics that the stories of “Reynard, the Fox,” and “Isengrim, the
Wolf,” may be traced back to these remote times. The legends of the
“Nibelungenlied” have many marks of antiquity which would place them in
this pre-historic age. The first definite period, however, is:

I. THE EARLY MIDDLE AGE.—When the German tribes accepted Christianity,
the clergy strove to replace the native poetry by the stories of the
gospel. In the fourth century Bishop Ulfilas prepared a clear, faithful
and simple translation of the Scriptures, which has since been of value
in the study of the Teutonic languages. Charles the Great overpowered
the effort the priests had made to check poetry by issuing orders to
collect the old German ballads. But few of these treasures of Old High
and Low German literature have come down to us. Later the Church still
further counteracted the influences of pagan literature by a religious
poetry in which the life of Christ was sung in verse. Scholastic
learning was also zealously cultivated in the monasteries and schools.

II. THE AGE OF CHIVALRY.—Under the Hohenstaufen dynasty during the
period of Middle High German the country passed through one of the
greatest epochs of its literature. The most characteristic outcome
of this active era is a series of poetical romances produced in the
twelfth and thirteenth centuries. In these romances the subject of
whatever epoch it might be, was treated wholly in the spirit of
chivalry, the supreme aim was to furnish an idealized picture of the
virtues of knighthood. Wolfram von Eschenbach was one of the most
brilliant of these writers; “Parzival,” his chief poem, is purely
imaginative. The hero is made to pass from a life of dreams to one of
adventure, finally to become lord of the palace of the Holy Grail.
Its object is to show the restless spirit of the Middle Ages, which,
continually discontent with life, sought a nobler place.

Gottfried, of Strasburg, was a complete contrast to Wolfram and his
greatest contemporary. Tristam and Iseult is his theme. Mediæval
romance bore its richest fruit in these two poets, and most of their
successors imitated either one or the other. To this age belongs the
famous epic, the “Nibelungenlied,” in which many ancient ballads have
been collected and arranged. “Gudrun” is another epic in which a poet
of this period has given form to several old legends. But lyrics as
well as romances and epics mark the age of chivalry. The poets of this
class were known as _minnesänger_ because their favorite theme was
_minne_ or love. Of all the _minnesänger_ the first place belongs to
Walther von der Vogelweide. He wrote poems of patriotism as well as on
the usual subjects of lyric verse.

To this epoch belong the beginnings of prose in German literature.
Latin was the speech of scholars, and prose works were almost uniformly
in that language. The “Sachenspiegel” and “Schwabenspiegel,” two
collections of local laws, aroused interest among Germans in their
language. The preachers, however, were the chief founders of prose
style. Dissatisfied with the abuses and mere forms under which genuine
spiritual life was crushed, they strove to awaken new and truer ideas
of religion. A Franciscan monk, Berthold, and Eckhart are the two to
whom most is due.

III. THE LATER MIDDLE AGE.—After the fall of the Hohenstaufen dynasty,
chivalry died out in Germany, and with it the incentive to poetry.
During the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, attempts were made to
produce poetry by rule. As every trade has its guild, so there was
formed a guild of poetry, in which the members made their verses by the
“_tabulatur_,” and were obliged to pass through successive stages up
to the “_meistersänger_.” More important were the efforts at dramatic
composition. They were crude representations of scriptural subjects,
with which the clergy sought to replace the pagan festivals. Out of
these representations grew the “mysteries,” or “miracle plays,” in
which there was an endeavor to dramatize sacred subjects. “Shrove
Tuesday plays” were dialogues, setting forth some scene of noisy fun,
and were the first attempts at comedy.

During the latter part of the fifteenth century there was in Germany,
as in other European countries, a great revival of intellectual life.
It was due to two things—the re-discovery of Greek literature and the
invention of printing. In the universities a broader culture took the
place of scholastic studies. Many books found their way to the people,
but these were mainly on social questions. The tyranny of princes and
abuses of the clergy were the topics for the times, and multitudes of
books were written ridiculing princes, priests, nobles, and even the
Pope. The greatest of these satires was “Reineke Vos,” by Barkhusen,
a printer of Rostock. During this stirring period Maximilian I. was
emperor, and attempted to revive the mediæval romance. His success was
not great, and in no sense affected popular taste.

IV. THE CENTURY OF THE REFORMATION.—While the Renaissance brought
about a great literary movement in England and France, and an artistic
movement in Italy, in Germany the Reformation agitated the nation.
Luther was the commanding spirit of the age in literature, as in
religion. His greatest achievement was his translation of the Bible.
For the first time a literary language was given to the nation. Luther
gave to the men of all the countries of Germany a common speech, so
that it is to him that the Germans owe the most essential of all the
conditions of a national life and literature. Next to Luther stands
Ulrich Von Hutten, an accomplished defender of the new culture and of
the Reformation. Hans Sachs, the meistersänger of Nuremburg, is now
acknowledged to be the chief German poet of the sixteenth century. He
wrote more than six thousand poems. His hymn, “Warum betrübst du dich,
mein Herz,” was soon translated into eight languages. The religious
lyrics of this age were of superior worth. Indeed, next to the
translation of the Bible, nothing did so much to unite the Protestants.
During this century the drama made considerable progress.

V. THE PERIOD OF DECAY.—This period is in many respects the most
dismal in German history. During the seventeenth century little poetry
of worth was produced. No progress was made in the formation of the
drama, and few prose works were written that are now tolerated. The one
brilliant thinker of the age was Leibnitz.

VI. THE PERIOD OF REVIVAL.—With the accession of Frederick the Great,
a stronger national life sprung up in Germany, and literature shared
the growth. Several causes contributed to the advance of literature;
the revival of classical learning, and a knowledge of English
literature were chief. Several literary schools grew up. Important
as were many of the writers in them, they exercised slight influence
on the national mind compared with founders of the German classical
literature—Klopstock, Wieland, and Lessing. Klopstock’s fame mainly
rests on the “Messiah,” a work now little read, and if defective, yet
full of striking and beautiful images. Klopstock’s odes are superior to
his dramas, the latter showing knowledge neither of the stage nor of
life. His influence upon intellectual life in Germany was very marked.

Wieland was one of the most prolific of writers. “Oberon” is the most
pleasing of his poems to modern readers, and by far most famous.
“Agathon” is his best prose romance. Although at first a strong
pietist, Wieland eventually became a pronounced epicurean. Lessing,
the third of these great poets, is the only writer before Goethe that
Germans now read sympathetically. As an imaginative writer he was
chiefly distinguished in the drama, and his most important dramatic
work is “Minna Von Barnhelm.” Superior to his imaginative works were
his labors as a thinker. His style ranks with the greatest European
writers, and his criticisms are of great value.

VII. THE CLASSICAL PERIOD.—About 1770 there began in German literary
life a curious movement called “_Sturm und Drang_” (storm and
pressure). Almost all young writers were under its influence. Its most
prominent quality was discontent with the existing world. The critical
guide of the movement was Herder. To him is due the impulse which
led to a collection of the songs and ballads of the people. His most
important prose work was “Ideas Toward the Philosophy of the History
of Humanity.” To Herder belongs the honor of stimulating the genius
of Goethe, who holds in German literature the place of Shakspere in
English. His extraordinary range of activity is his most wonderful
characteristic. Goethe’s first published work placed him among the
writers of the “_Sturm und Drang_” school, as was true of the earlier
works of Schiller. The lyrics of Goethe have perhaps the most subtle
charm of all his writings, but “Hermann und Dorothea,” “Wilhelm
Meister,” “Faust,” etc., are his great productions. Schiller, Goethe’s
great rival, divided with him the public attention and interest.
Schiller’s literary career began when he was only twenty-two. “The
Robbers” and “Don Carlos” are his principal early works. It was in 1794
that Goethe and Schiller began that acquaintance which ripened into
one of the most beautiful friendships in the history of literature.
They wrote in common on Schiller’s journal “Die Horen,” and many of
Schiller’s works were influenced by the larger life of his friend. This
is particularly true of his dramas, “Wallenstein,” “Die Jungfrau von
Orleans,” “Maria Stuart,” and “Wilhelm Tell.”

In 1781 one of the most important works of German literature was
published—Kant’s “Kritik der Reinen Vernunft.” The philosophical
systems of Fichte, Schelling and Hegel followed, and excited even
greater interest than the writings of the imaginative writers.

Each of the leading writers of the classical period had numerous
followers, but the most important band was that which at first grew up
around Goethe—the romantic school. The aim of the school was to revive
mediævalism—to link daily life to poetry. The writer known as the
prophet of the school was Frederick von Hardenburg, generally called
Novalis. The critical leaders were Wilhelm and Friedrich von Schlegel.
Tieck, Nackenroder, Fouquè, and Schleiermacher were the chief writers.

VIII. THE LATEST PERIOD.—In 1832, with the death of Goethe, a new
era began in German literature. In philosophy the school of Hegel,
who wrote during the lifetime of Goethe, has had many enthusiastic
adherents; among these were Strauss, Ruge and Feuerbach. Schopenhauer,
although he wrote his chief book during the time of Goethe at present
stirs deeper interest than any other thinker.

In imaginative literature the greatest writer of the latest period is
Heinrich Heine, whose lyrics have attracted general attention. The
novel has acquired the same important place in Germany as in England.
Among the chief novelists are Freytag, the Countess Ida Hahn-Hahn, Paul
Heyse, Spielhagen and Reuter.

       *       *       *       *       *

EVERYTHING that regards statesmanship and the interest of the world
is in all outward respects of the greatest importance; it creates
and destroys in a moment the happiness, even the very existence, of
thousands, but when the wave of the moment has rushed past, and the
storm has abated, its influence is lost, and even frequently disappears
without leaving a trace behind. Many other things that are noiselessly
influencing the thoughts and feelings often make far deeper and more
lasting impressions on us. Man can for the most part keep himself very
independent of all that does not trench on his private life—a very wise
arrangement of Providence, since it gives a much greater security to
human happiness.—_William von Humboldt._




PHYSICAL SCIENCE.


II.—THE CIRCULATION OF WATER ON THE LAND.

Although air is continually evaporating water from the surface of the
earth, and continually restoring it again by condensation, yet, on the
whole and in the course of years, there seems to be no sensible gain or
loss of water in our seas, lakes, and rivers; so that the two processes
of evaporation and condensation balance each other.

It is evident, however, that the moisture precipitated at any moment
from the air is not at once evaporated again. The disappearance of the
water is due in part to evaporation, but only in part. A great deal of
it goes out of sight in other ways.

The rain which falls upon the sea is the largest part of the whole
rainfall of the globe, because the surface of the sea is about three
times greater than that of the land. All this rain gradually mingles
with the salt water, and can then be no longer recognized. It thus
helps to make up for the loss which the sea is always suffering by
evaporation. For the sea is the great evaporating surface whence most
of the vapor of the atmosphere is derived.

On the other hand, the total amount of rain which falls upon the land
of the globe must be enormous. It has been estimated, for example,
that about sixty-eight cubic miles of water annually descend as rain
even upon the surface of the British Isles, and there are many much
more rainy regions. If you inquire about this rain which falls upon
the land, you will find that it does not at once disappear, but begins
another kind of circulation. Watch what happens during a shower of
rain. If the shower is heavy, you will notice little runs of muddy
water coursing down the streets or roads, or flowing out of the ridges
of the fields. Follow one of the runs. It leads into some drain or
brook, that into some larger stream, the stream into a river; and the
river, if you follow it far enough, will bring you to the sea. Now
think of all the brooks and rivers of the world, where this kind of
transport of water is going on, and you will at once see how vast must
be the part of the rain which flows off the land into the ocean.

But does the whole of the rain flow off at once into the sea in this
way? A good deal of the rain which falls upon the land must sink
underground and gather there. You may think that surely the water which
disappears in that way must be finally withdrawn from the general
circulation which we have been tracing. When it sinks below the
surface, how can it ever get up to the surface again?

Yet, if you consider for a little, you will be convinced that whatever
becomes of it underneath, it can not be lost. If all the rain which
sinks into the ground be forever removed from the surface circulation,
you will at once see that the quantity of water upon the earth’s
surface must be constantly and visibly diminishing. But no such
changes, so far as can be seen, are really taking place. In spite of
the rain which disappears into the ground, the circulation of water
between the air, the land, and the sea continues without perceptible
diminution.

You are driven to conclude, therefore, that there must be some means
whereby the water underground is brought back to the surface. This
is done by springs, which gush out of the earth, and bring up water
to feed the brooks and rivers, whereby it is borne into the sea.
Here, then, are two distinct courses which the rainfall takes—one
below ground, and one above. It will be most convenient to follow the
underground portion first.

A little attention to the soils and rocks which form the surface of a
country is enough to show that they differ greatly from each other in
hardness, and in texture or grain. Some are quite loose and porous,
others are tough and close-grained. They consequently differ much
in the quantity of water they allow to pass through them. A bed of
sand, for example, is pervious; that is, will let water sink through
it freely, because the little grains of sand lie loosely together,
touching each other only at some points, so as to leave empty spaces
between. The water readily finds its way among these empty spaces. In
fact, the sand-bed may become a kind of sponge, quite saturated with
the water which has filtered down from the surface. A bed of clay, on
the other hand, is impervious; it is made up of very small particles
fitting closely to each other, and therefore offering resistance to
the passage of water. Wherever such a bed occurs, it hinders the free
passage of the water, which, unable to sink through it from above on
the way down, or from below on the way up to the surface again, is kept
in by the clay, and forced to find another line of escape.

Sandy soils are dry because the rain at once sinks through them; clay
soils are wet because they retain the water, and prevent it from freely
descending into the earth.

Now the rocks beneath us, besides being in many cases porous in their
texture, such as sandstone, are all more or less traversed with
cracks—sometimes mere lines, like those of a cracked window-pane, but
sometimes wide and open clefts and tunnels. These numerous channels
serve as passages for the underground water. Hence, although a rock
may be so hard and close-grained that water does not soak through it
at all, yet if that rock is plentifully supplied with these cracks, it
may allow a large quantity of water to pass through. Limestone, for
example, is a very hard rock, through the grains of which water can
make but little way; yet it is so full of cracks or “joints,” as they
are called, and these joints are often so wide, that they give passage
to a great deal of water.

In hilly districts, where the surface of the ground has not been
brought under the plow, you will notice that many places are marshy
and wet, even when the weather has long been dry. The soil everywhere
around has perhaps been baked quite hard by the sun; but these places
remain still wet, in spite of the heat. Whence do they get their
water? Plainly not directly from the air, for in that case the rest of
the ground would also be damp. They get it not from above, but from
below. It is oozing out of the ground; and it is this constant outcome
of water from below which keeps the ground wet and marshy. In other
places you will observe that the water does not merely soak through the
ground, but gives rise to a little run of clear water. If you follow
such a run up to its source, you will see that it comes gushing out of
the ground as a spring.

Springs are the natural outlets for the underground water. But, you
ask, why should this water have any outlets, and what makes it rise to
the surface?

Let us suppose that a flat layer of some impervious rock, like clay,
underlies another layer of a porous material, like sand. The rain which
falls on the surface of the ground, and sinks through the upper bed,
will be arrested by the lower one, and made either to gather there, or
find its escape along the surface of that lower bed. If a hollow or
valley should have its bottom below the level of the line along which
the water flows, springs will gush out along the sides of the valley.
The line of escape may be either the junction between two different
kinds of rock, or some of the numerous joints already referred to.
Whatever it be, the water can not help flowing onward and downward, as
long as there is any passage along which it can find its way; and the
rocks underneath are so full of cracks, that it has no difficulty in
doing so.

But it must happen that a great deal of the underground water descends
far below the level of the valleys, and even below the level of the
sea. And yet, though it should descend for several miles, it comes at
last to the surface again. To realize clearly how this takes place,
let us follow a particular drop of water from the time when it sinks
into the earth as rain, to the time when, after a long journey up and
down in the bowels of the earth, it once more reaches the surface.
It soaks through the soil together with other drops, and joins some
feeble trickle, or some more ample flow of water, which works its way
through crevices and tunnels of the rocks. It sinks in this way to
perhaps a depth of several thousand feet, until it reaches some rock
through which it can not readily make further way. Unable to work its
way downward, the pent-up water must try to find escape in some other
direction. By the pressure from above it is driven through other cracks
and passages, winding up and down until at last it comes to the surface
again. It breaks out there as a gushing spring.

Rain is water nearly in a state of purity. After journeying up and
down underground it comes out again in springs, always more or less
mingled with other materials, which it gets from the rocks through
which it travels. They are not visible to the eye, for they are held
in what is called chemical solution. When you put a few grains of salt
or sugar upon a plate, and pour water over them, they are dissolved in
the water and disappear. They enter into union with the water. You can
not see them, but you can still recognize their presence by the taste
which they give to the water which holds them in solution. So water,
sinking from the soil downward, dissolves a little of the substance
of the subterranean rocks, and carries this dissolved material up to
the surface of the ground. One of the important ingredients in the air
is carbonic acid gas, and this substance is both abstracted from and
supplied to the air by plants and animals. In descending through the
atmosphere rain absorbs a little air. As ingredients of the air, a
little carbonic acid gas, particles of dust and soot, noxious vapors,
minute organisms, and other substances floating in the air, are caught
up by the descending rain, which in this way washes the air, and tends
to keep it much more wholesome than it would otherwise be.

But rain not merely picks up impurities from the air, it gets a large
addition when it reaches the soil.

Armed with the carbonic acid which it gets from the air, and with the
larger quantity which it abstracts from the soil, rainwater is prepared
to attack rocks, and to eat into them in a way which pure water could
not do.

Water containing carbonic acid has a remarkable effect on many rocks,
even on some of the very hardest. It dissolves more or less of their
substance, and removes it. When it falls, for instance, on chalk or
limestone, it almost entirely dissolves and carries away the rock
in solution, though still remaining clear and limpid. In countries
where chalk or limestone is an abundant rock, this action of water
is sometimes singularly shown in the way in which the surface of the
ground is worn into hollows. In such districts, too, the springs are
always hard; that is, they contain much mineral matter in solution,
whereas rainwater and springs which contain little impurity are termed
soft.

When a stone building has stood for a few hundred years, the
smoothly-dressed face which its walls received from the mason is
usually gone. Again, in the burying-ground surrounding a venerable
church you see the tombstones more and more mouldered the older they
are. This crumbling away of hard stone with the lapse of time is a
common familiar fact to you. But have you ever wondered why it should
be so? What makes the stone decay, and what purpose is served by the
process?

If it seem strange to you to be told that the surface of the earth is
crumbling away, you should take every opportunity of verifying the
statement. Examine your own district. You will find proofs that, in
spite of their apparent steadfastness, even the hardest stones are
really crumbling down. In short, wherever rocks are exposed to the air
they are liable to decay. Now let us see how this change is brought
about.

First of all we must return for a moment to the action of carbonic
acid, which has been already described. You remember that rainwater
abstracts a little carbonic acid from the air, and that, when it sinks
under the earth, it is enabled by means of the acid to eat away some
parts of the rocks beneath. The same action takes place with the rain,
which rests upon or flows over the surface of the ground. The rainwater
dissolves out little by little such portions of the rocks as it can
remove. In the case of some rocks, such as limestone, the whole, or
almost the whole, of the substance of the rock is carried away in
solution. In other kinds, the portion dissolved is the cementing
material whereby the mass of the rock was bound together; so that when
it is taken away, the rock crumbles into mere earth or sand, which
is readily washed away by the rain. Hence one of the causes of the
mouldering of stone is the action of the carbonic acid taken up by the
rain.

In the second place, the oxygen of the portion of air contained in
rainwater helps to decompose rocks. When a piece of iron has been
exposed for a time to the weather, in a damp climate, it rusts. This
rust is a compound substance, formed by the union of oxygen with iron.
What happens to an iron railing or a steel knife, happens also, though
not so quickly nor so strongly, to many rocks. They, too, rust by
absorbing oxygen. A crust of corroded rock forms on their surface, and,
when it is knocked off by the rain, a fresh layer of rock is reached by
the ever-present and active oxygen.

In the third place, the surface of many parts of the world is made to
crumble down by means of frost. Sometimes during winter, when the cold
gets very keen, pipes full of water burst, and jugs filled with water
crack from top to bottom. The reason of this lies in the fact that
water expands in freezing. Ice requires more space than the water would
if it remained fluid. When ice forms within a confined space, it exerts
a great pressure on the sides of the vessel, or cavity, which contains
it. If these sides are not strong enough to bear the strain to which
they are put, they must yield, and therefore they crack.

You have learned how easily rain finds its way through soil. Even the
hardest rocks are more or less porous, and take in some water. Hence,
when winter comes the ground is full of moisture; not in the soil
merely, but in the rocks. And so, as frost sets in, this pervading
moisture freezes. Now, precisely the same kind of action takes place
with each particle of water, as in the case of the water in the burst
water-pipe or the cracked jar. It does not matter whether the water is
collected into some hole or crevice, or is diffused between the grains
of the rocks and the soil. When it freezes it expands, and in so doing
tries to push asunder the walls between which it is confined.

Water freezes not only between the component grains, but in the
numerous crevices or joints, as they are called, by which rocks are
traversed. You have, perhaps, noticed that on the face of a cliff, or
in a quarry, the rock is cut through by lines running more or less in
an upright direction, and that by means of these lines the rock is
split up by nature, and can be divided by the quarrymen into large
four-sided blocks or pillars. These lines, or joints, have been already
referred to as passages for water in descending from the surface. You
can understand that only a very little water may be admitted at a time
into a joint. But by degrees the joint widens a little, and allows more
water to enter. Every time the water freezes it tries hard to push
asunder the two sides of the joint. After many winters, it is at last
able to separate them a little; then more water enters, and more force
is exerted in freezing, until at last the block of rock traversed by
the joint is completely split up. When this takes place along the face
of a cliff, one of the loosened parts may fall and actually roll down
to the bottom of the precipice.

In addition to carbonic acid, oxygen, and frost, there are still
other influences at work by which the surface of the earth is made to
crumble. For example, when, during the day, rocks are highly heated by
strong sunshine, and then during night are rapidly cooled by radiation,
the alternate expansion and contraction caused by the extremes of
temperature loosen the particles of the stone, causing them to crumble
away, or even making successive crusts of the stone fall off.

Again, rocks which are at one time well soaked with rain, and at
another time are liable to be dried by the sun’s rays and by wind,
are apt to crumble away. If then it be true, as it is, that a general
wasting of the surface of the land goes on, you may naturally ask why
this should be. Out of the crumbled stones all soil is made, and on the
formation and renewal of the soil we depend for our daily food.

Take up a handful of soil from any field or garden, and look at it
attentively. What is it made of? You see little pieces of crumbling
stone, particles of sand and clay, perhaps a few vegetable fibers; and
the whole soil has a dark color from the decayed remains of plants
and animals diffused through it. Now let us try to learn how these
different materials have been brought together.

Every drop of rain which falls upon the land helps to alter the
surface. You have followed the chemical action of rain when it
dissolves parts of rocks. It is by the constant repetition of the
process, drop after drop, and shower after shower, for years together,
that the rocks become so wasted and worn. But the rain has also a
mechanical action.

Watch what happens when the first pattering drops of a shower begin
to fall upon a smooth surface of sand, such as that of a beach. Each
drop makes a little dint or impression. It thus forces aside the grains
of sand. On sloping ground, where the drops can run together and flow
downward, they are able to push or carry the particles of sand or clay
along. This is called a mechanical action; while the actual solution
of the particles, as you would dissolve sugar or salt, is a chemical
action. Each drop of rain may act in either or both of these ways.

Now you will readily see how it is that rain does so much in the
destruction of rocks. It not only dissolves out some parts of them, and
leaves a crumbling crust on the surface, but it washes away this crust,
and thereby exposes a fresh surface to decay. There is in this way a
continual pushing along of powdered stone over the earth’s surface.
Part of this material accumulates in hollows, and on sloping or level
ground; part is swept into the rivers, and carried away into the sea.
As the mouldering of the surface of the land is always going on, there
is a constant formation of soil. Indeed, if this were not the case,
if after a layer of soil had been formed upon the ground, it were to
remain there unmoved and unrenewed, the plants would by degrees take
out of it all the earthy materials they could, and leave it in a barren
or exhausted state. But some of it is being slowly carried away by
rain, fresh particles from mouldering rocks are being washed over it by
the same agent, while the rock or sub-soil underneath is all the while
decaying into soil. The loose stones, too, are continually crumbling
down and making new earth. And thus, day by day, the soil is slowly
renewed.

Plants, also, help to form and renew the soil. They send their roots
among the grains and joints of the stones, and loosen them. Their
decaying fibers supply most of the carbonic acid by which these stones
are attacked, and furnish also most of the organic matter in the soil.
Even the common worms, which you see when you dig up a spadeful of
earth, are of great service in mixing the soil and bringing what lies
underneath up to the surface.

One part of the rain sinks under the ground, and you have traced its
progress there until it comes to the surface again. You have now to
trace, in a similar way, the other portion of the rainfall which flows
along the surface in brooks and rivers.

You can not readily meet with a better illustration of this subject
than that which is furnished by a gently sloping road during a heavy
shower of rain. Let us suppose that you know such a road, and that
just as the rain is beginning you take up your station at some part
where the road has a well-marked descent. At first you notice that each
of the large heavy drops of rain makes in the dust, or sand, one of
the little dints or rain-prints already described. As the shower gets
heavier these rain-prints are effaced, and the road soon streams with
water. Now mark in what manner the water moves.

Looking at the road more narrowly, you remark that it is full of little
roughnesses—at one place a long rut, at another a projecting stone,
with many more inequalities which your eye could not easily detect
when the road was dry, but which the water at once discloses. Every
little dimple and projection affects the flow of the water. You see
how the raindrops gather together into slender streamlets of running
water which course along the hollows, and how the jutting stones and
pieces of earth seem to turn these streamlets now to one side and now
to another.

Toward the top of the slope only feeble runnels of water are to be
seen. But further down they become fewer in number, and at the same
time larger in size. They unite as they descend; and the larger and
swifter streamlets at the foot of the descent are thus made up of a
great many smaller ones from the higher parts of the slope.

Why does the water run down the sloping road? why do rivers flow? and
why should they always move constantly in the same direction? They do
so for the same reason that a stone falls to the ground when it drops
out of your hand; because they are under the sway of that attraction
toward the center of the earth, to which, as you know, the name of
gravity is given. Every drop of rain falls to the earth because it is
drawn downward by the force of this attraction. When it reaches the
ground it is still, as much as ever, under the same influence; and it
flows downward in the readiest channel it can find. Its fall from the
clouds to the earth is direct and rapid; its descent from the mountains
to the sea, as part of a stream, is often long and slow; but the cause
of the movement is the same in either case. The winding to and fro of
streams, the rush of rapids, the roar of cataracts, the noiseless flow
of the deep sullen currents, are all proofs how paramount is the sway
of the law of gravity over the waters of the globe.

Drawn down in this way by the action of gravity, all that portion of
the rain which does not sink into the earth must at once begin to move
downward along the nearest slopes, and continue flowing until it can
get no further. On the surface of the land there are hollows called
lakes, which arrest part of the flowing water, just as there are
hollows on the road which serve to collect some of the rain. But in
most cases they let the water run out at the lower end as fast as it
runs in at the upper, and therefore do not serve as permanent resting
places for the water. The streams which escape from lakes go on as
before, working their way to the seashore. So that the course of all
streams is a downward one; and the sea is the great reservoir into
which the water of the land is continually pouring.

The brooks and rivers of a country are thus the natural drains, by
which the surplus rainfall, not required by the soil or by springs,
is led back again into the sea. When we consider the great amount of
rain, and the enormous number of brooks in the higher parts of the
country, it seems, at first, hardly possible for all these streams to
reach the sea without overflowing the lower grounds. But this does not
take place; for when two streams unite into one, they do not require a
channel twice as broad as either of their single water-courses. On the
contrary, such an union gives rise to a stream which is not so broad
as either of the two from which it flows. But it becomes swifter and
deeper.

Let us return to the illustration of the roadway in rain. Starting from
the foot of the slope, you found the streamlets of rain getting smaller
and smaller, and when you came to the top there were none at all. If,
however, you were to descend the road on the other side of the ridge,
you would probably meet with other streamlets coursing down-hill in
the opposite direction. At the summit the rain seems to divide, part
flowing off to one side, and part to the other.

In the same way, were you to ascend some river from the sea, you would
watch it becoming narrower as you traced it inland, and branching more
and more into tributary streams, and these again subdividing into
almost endless little brooks. But take any of the branches which unite
to form the main stream, and trace it upward. You come, in the end,
to the first beginnings of a little brook, and going a little further
you reach the summit, down the other side of which all the streams are
flowing to the opposite quarter. The line which separates two sets of
streams in this way is called the water-shed. In England, for example,
one series of rivers flows into the Atlantic, another into the North
Sea. If you trace upon a map a line separating all the upper streams
of the one side from those of the other, that line will mark the
water-shed of the country.

But there is one important point where the illustration of the road
in rain quite fails. It is only when rain is falling, or immediately
after a heavy shower, that the rills are seen upon the road. When the
rain ceases the water begins to dry up, till in a short time the road
becomes once more firm and dusty. But the brooks and rivers do not
cease to flow when the rain ceases to fall. In the heat of summer, when
perhaps there has been no rain for many days together, the rivers still
roll on, smaller usually than they were in winter, but still with ample
flow. What keeps them full? If you remember what you have already been
told about underground water, you will answer that rivers are fed by
springs as well as by rain.

Though the weather may be rainless, the springs continue to give out
their supplies of water, and these keep the rivers going. But if
great drought comes, many of the springs, particularly the shallow
ones, cease to flow, and the rivers fed by them shrink up or get dry
altogether. The great rivers of the globe, such as the Mississippi,
drain such vast territories, that any mere local rain or drought makes
no sensible difference in their mass of water.

In some parts of the world, however, the rivers are larger in summer
and autumn than they are in winter and spring. The Rhine, for instance,
begins to rise as the heat of summer increases, and to fall as the cold
of winter comes on. This happens because the river has its source among
snowy mountains. Snow melts rapidly in summer, and the water which
streams from it finds its way into the brooks and rivers, which are
thereby greatly swollen. In winter, on the other hand, the snow remains
unmelted; the moisture which falls from the air upon the mountains
is chiefly snow; and the cold is such as to freeze the brooks. Hence
the supplies of water at the sources of these rivers are, in winter,
greatly diminished, and the rivers themselves become proportionately
smaller.

    [To be continued.]




SUNDAY READINGS.

Selected by REV. J. H. VINCENT, D.D.


[_Sunday, November 4._]

MORAL DISTINCTIONS NOT SUFFICIENTLY REGARDED IN SOCIAL INTERCOURSE.

    “He that walketh with wise men shall be wise; but a
    companion of fools shall be destroyed.”—_Proverbs
    xiii:20._

That “a man may be known by the company he keeps,” has passed into a
proverb among all nations, thus attesting what has been the universal
experience. The fact would seem to be that a man’s associates either
find him, or make him like themselves. An acute but severe critic of
manners, who was too often led by his disposition and circumstances
to sink the philosopher in the satirist, has said: “Nothing is so
contagious as example. Never was there any considerable good or ill
action, that hath not produced its like. We imitate good ones through
emulation; and bad ones through that malignity in our nature, which
shame conceals, and example sets at liberty.”

This being the case, or anything like it, all, I think, must agree
that moral distinctions are not sufficiently cared for in social
intercourse. In forming our intimacies we are sometimes determined by
the mere accident of being thrown together; sometimes by a view to
connections and social position; sometimes by the fascination of what
are called companionable qualities; seldom, I fear, by thoughtful and
serious regard to the influence they are likely to have on character.
We forget that other attractions, of whatsoever nature, instead of
compensating for moral unfitness in a companion, only have the effect
to make such unfitness the more to be dreaded.

Let me introduce what I have to say on the importance of paying more
regard to moral distinctions in the choice of friends, by a few remarks
on what are called, by way of distinction, companionable qualities, and
on the early manifestation of a free, sociable, confiding turn of mind.
Most parents hail the latter, I believe, as the best of prognostics;
and in some respects it is. It certainly makes the child more
interesting as a child, and more easily governed; it often passes for
precocity of talent; at any rate, men are willing to construe it into
evidence of the facility with which he will make his way in the world.
The father is proud of such a son; the mother idolizes him. If from
any cause he is brought into comparison with a reserved, awkward, and
unyielding boy in the neighborhood, they are ready enough to felicitate
themselves, and others are ready enough to congratulate them, on the
difference. And yet I believe I keep within bounds, when I say that, of
the two, there is more than an even chance that the reserved, awkward,
and unyielding boy will give his parents less occasion for anxiety
and mortification, and become in the end the wiser and better man.
The reason is, that if a child from natural facility of disposition
is easily won over to good courses, he is also, from the same cause,
liable at any time to be seduced from these good courses into bad
ones. On the contrary, where a child, from rigor or stubbornness of
temper, is peculiarly hard to subdue or manage, there is this hope for
a compensation: if by early training, or the experience of life, or a
wise foresight of consequences, he is once set right, he is almost sure
to keep so.

It is not enough considered, that, in the present constitution of
society, men are not in so much danger from want of good dispositions,
as from want of firmness and steadiness of purpose. Hence it is that
gentle and affectionate minds, more perhaps than any others, stand
in need of solid principle and fixed habits of virtue and piety,
as a safeguard against the lures and fascinations of the world. A
man of a cold, hard, and ungenial nature is comparatively safe so
far as the temptations of society go: partly because of this very
impracticableness of his nature, and partly because his companionship
is not likely to be desired or sought even by the bad: he will be
left to himself. The corrupters of innocence in social intercourse
single out for their prey men of companionable qualities. Through
his companionable qualities the victim is approached, and by his
companionable qualities he is betrayed.

Let me not be misunderstood. Companionable qualities are not objected
to _as such_. When they spring from genuine goodness of heart, and
are the ornament of an upright life, they are as respectable as they
are amiable; and it would be well if Christians and all good men
cultivated them more than they do. If we would make virtue and religion
to be loved, we must make _ourselves_ to be loved _for_ our virtue
and religion; which would be done if we were faithful to carry the
gentleness and charity of the gospel into our manners as well as into
our morals. Nevertheless, we insist that companionable qualities, when
they have no better source than a sociable disposition, or, worse
still, an easy temper and loose principles, are full of danger to their
possessor, and full of danger to the community; especially where, from
any cause, but little regard is paid to moral distinctions in social
intercourse. We also say, that in such a state of society the danger
will be most imminent to those whom we should naturally be most anxious
to save—I mean, persons of a loving and yielding turn of mind.


[_Sunday, November 11._]

And this brings me back again to the position taken in the beginning
of this discourse. The reason why companionable qualities are attended
with so much danger is, that society itself is attended with so much
danger; and the reason why society is attended with so much danger
is, that social intercourse is not more under the control of moral
principles, moral rules, and moral sanctions.

My argument does not make it necessary to exaggerate the evils and
dangers of modern society. I am willing to suppose that there have
been times when society was much less pure than it is now; and again,
that there are places where it is much less pure than it is here; but
it does not follow that there are no evils or dangers now and here.
On the contrary, it is easy to see that there may be stages in the
progressive improvement of society, where the improvement itself will
have the effect, not to lessen, but to increase the danger, _so far
as good men are concerned_. In a community where vice abounds, where
the public manners are notoriously and grossly corrupt, good men are
put on their guard. They will not be injured by such society, for they
will have nothing to do with it. A broad line of demarcation is drawn
between what is expected from good men, and what is expected from bad
men; so that the example of the latter has no effect on the former
except to admonish and to warn. But let the work of refinement and
reform go on in general society until vice is constrained to wear a
decent exterior, until an air of decorum and respectability is thrown
over all public meetings and amusements, and one consequence will be
that the distinction between Christians and the world will not be so
clearly seen, or so carefully observed, as before. The standard of the
world, from the very fact that it is brought nearer to the standard of
the gospel, will be more frequently confounded with it; Christians will
feel at liberty to do whatever the world does, and the danger is, that
they will come at length to do it from the same principles.

Besides, are we sure that we have not formed too favorable an opinion
of the moral condition of general society—of that general society in
the midst of which we are now living, and to the influence of which we
are daily and hourly exposed? We should remember that in pronouncing
on the character of public opinion and public sentiment, we are very
likely to be affected and determined ourselves, not a little, by the
fact that we share in that very public opinion and public sentiment
which we are called upon to judge. I have no doubt that virtue, in
general, is esteemed by the world, or that, _other things being equal_,
a man of integrity will be preferred on account of his integrity. But
this is not enough. It shows that the multitude see, and are willing
to acknowledge, the dignity and worth of an upright course; but it
does not prove them to have that _abhorrence for sin_, which it is
the purpose and the tendency of the gospel to plant in all minds. If
they had this settled and rooted abhorrence for sin, which marks the
Christian, and without which a man can not be a Christian, they would
not prefer virtue to vice, “other things being equal,” but they would
do so whether other things were equal or not; they would knowingly keep
no terms with vice, however recommended or glossed over by interest or
worldly favor, or refined and elegant manners.

Now, I ask whether general society, even as it exists amongst us,
will bear this test? Is it not incontestable that very unscrupulous
and very dangerous men, if they happen to be men of talents, or men
of fashion, or men of peculiarly engaging manners, find but little
difficulty in insinuating themselves into what is called good society;
nay, are often among those who are most courted and caressed? Some
vices, I know, are understood to put one under the social ban; but it
is because they offend, not merely against morality and religion, but
against taste, against good-breeding, against certain conventions of
the world. To be convinced of this it is only necessary to observe that
the same, or even a much larger amount of acknowledged criminality,
manifested under other forms, is not found to be attended with the
same result. The mischiefs of this state of things are felt by all;
but especially by those who are growing up in what are generally
accounted the most favored walks of life. On entering into society
they see men of known profligacy mingling in the best circles, and
with the best people, if not indeed on terms of entire sympathy and
confidence, at least on those of the utmost possible respect and
courtesy. They see all this, and they see it every day; and it is by
such flagrant inconsistencies in those they look up to for guidance,
more perhaps than by any other one cause, that their own principles and
their own faith are undermined. And besides, being thus encouraged and
countenanced in associating with dissipated and profligate men in what
is called good society, they will be apt to construe it into liberty
to associate with them _anywhere_. At any rate the intimacy is begun.
As society is constituted at present, corrupting intimacies are not
infrequently begun amidst all the decencies of life, and, it may be,
in the presence and under the countenance and sanction of parents and
virtuous friends, which are afterward renewed and consummated, and this
too by an easy, natural, and almost necessary gradation, amidst scenes
of excess—perhaps in the haunts of ignominy and crime.


[_Sunday, November 18._]

If one should propose a reform in this respect, I am aware of the
difficulties and objections that would stand in his way.

Some would affirm it to be impracticable in the nature of things.
They would reason thus: “The circle in which a man visits and moves
is made for him, and not by him: at any rate, it is not, and can not
be, determined by moral considerations alone. Something depends on
education; something on family connections or mere vicinity; something
on similarity in tastes and pursuits; something also on equality or
approximation in wealth and standing. A poor man, or a man having a
bare competency, if he is as virtuous and industrious, is just as
_respectable_ as a rich man; but it is plain that he can not pitch his
style of living, or his style of hospitality, on the same scale of
expense. It is better for both, therefore, that they should visit in
different circles.” Perhaps it is; but what then? I am not recommending
an amalgamation of the different classes in society. I suppose that
such an amalgamation would neither be practicable nor desirable in
the existing state of things. All I contend for is, that in every
class, open and gross immorality of any kind should exclude a man from
reputable company. Will any one say that this is impracticable? Let
a man, through untoward events, but not by any fault or neglect of
his own, be reduced in his circumstances,—let a man become generally
odious, not in consequence of any immorality, but because, perhaps,
he has embraced the unpopular side in politics or religion—let a man
omit some trifling formality which is construed into a vulgarity, or
a personal affront, and people do not appear to find much difficulty
in dropping the acquaintance. If, then, it is so easy a thing to drop
a man’s acquaintance for other reasons, and for no reason,—from mere
prejudice, from mere caprice,—will it still be pretended that it can
not be done at the command of duty and religion?

Again, it may be objected that, if you banish a man from general
society for his immoralities, you will drive him to despair, and so
destroy the only remaining hope of his reformation. What! are you going
_to keep society corrupt_ in the vain expectation that a corrupt state
of society will help to reform its corrupt members? Besides, I grant
that we should have compassion on the guilty; but I also hold that we
should have compassion on the innocent too. Would you, therefore, allow
a bad man to continue in good society, when the chances are a thousand
to one that he will make others as bad as himself, and not more than
one to a thousand that he himself will be reclaimed? Moreover, this
reasoning is fallacious throughout. By expelling a dissipated and
profligate man from good society, instead of destroying all hope of
his recovery, you do in fact resort to the only remaining means of
reforming one over whom a fear of God, and a sense of character, and
the upbraidings of conscience have lost their power. What cares he for
principle, or God, or an hereafter? Nothing, therefore, is so likely to
encourage and embolden him to go on in his guilty course, as the belief
that he will be allowed to do so without the forfeiture of the only
thing he does care for, his reputable standing in the world. On the
other hand, nothing is so likely to arrest him in these courses, and
bring him to serious reflection, as the stern and determined threat of
absolute exclusion from good society, if he persists.

Another objection will also be made which has stronger claims on our
sympathy and respect. We shall be told that the innocent as well as
the guilty will suffer—the guilty man’s friends and connections,
who will probably feel the indignity more than he does himself. God
forbid that we should needlessly add to the pain of those who are thus
connected! But we must remember that the highest form of friendship
does not consist in blindly falling in with the feelings of those whom
we would serve, but in consulting what will be for their real and
permanent good. If, therefore, the course here recommended has been
shown to be not only indispensable to public morals, but more likely
than any other to reclaim the offender, it is clearly not more a
dictate of justice to the community, than of Christian charity to the
parties more immediately concerned. Consider, also, how much is asked,
when a good man is called upon to open his doors to persons without
virtue and without principle. Unless the social circle is presided
over by a spirit which will rebuke and frown away immorality, whatever
fashionable names and disguises it may wear,—unless your sons and
daughters can meet together without being in danger of having their
faith disturbed by the jeers of the infidel, or their purity sullied
by the breath of the libertine, neither they nor you are safe in the
most innocent enjoyments and recreations. Parents at least should take
a deep interest in this subject, if they do not wish to see the virtue,
which they have reared under the best domestic discipline, blighted and
corrupted before their eyes by the temptations to which their children
are almost necessarily exposed in general society—a society which they
can not escape except by going out of the world, and which they can not
partake of without endangering the loss of what is of more value than a
thousand worlds.


[_Sunday, November 25._]

I have failed altogether in my purpose in this discourse if I have
not done something to increase your distrust of mere companionable
qualities, when not under the control of moral and religious principle;
and also of the moral character and moral influence of general society,
as at present constituted. Still you may ask, “If I associate with
persons worse than myself, how can it be made out to be more probable
that they will drag me down to their level, than that I shall lift
them up to mine?” The answer to this question, I hardly need say,
depends, in no small measure, on the reason or motive which induces the
association. If you mix with the world, not for purposes of pleasure or
self-advantage—if you resort to society, not for society as an end, but
as a means to a higher end, _the improvement of society itself_—you do
but take up the heavenly mission which Christ began. For not being able
to make the distinction, through the hollowness and corruption of their
hearts, the Pharisees thought it to be a just ground of accusation
against our Lord, that he was willing to be accounted the friend of
publicans and sinners. Let the same mind be in you that was also in
Christ Jesus, and we can not doubt that the spirit which inspires you
will preserve you wherever you may go. It is of such persons that our
Lord has said: “Behold, I give unto you power to tread on serpents and
scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy; and nothing shall by
any means harm you.” Very far am I, therefore, from denying that we may
do good in society, as well as incur danger and evil. Even in common
friendships frequent occasions will present themselves for mutual
service, for mutual counsel and admonition. Let me impress upon you
this duty. Perhaps there is not one among you all, who has not at this
moment companions on whom he can confer an infinite blessing. If there
is a weak place in their characters, if to your knowledge they are
contemplating a guilty purpose, if they are on the brink of entering
into dangerous connections, by a timely, affectionate, and earnest
remonstrance you may save them from ruin. _Remember, we shall all be
held responsible, not only for the evil which we do ourselves, but for
the evil which we might prevent others from doing; it is not enough
that we stand; we must endeavor to hold up our friends._

Very different from this, however, is the ordinary commerce of society;
and hence its danger. If we mix with the world for the pleasure it
affords, we shall be likely to be among the first to be reconciled to
the freedom and laxity it allows. The world is not brought up to us,
but we sink down to the world; the drop becomes of the consistence
and color of the ocean into which it falls; the ocean remains itself
unchanged. In the words of an old writer: “Though the well-disposed
will remain some good space without corruption, yet time, I know not
how, worketh a wound in him, which weakness of ours considered, and
easiness of nature, apt to be deceived, looked into, they do best
provide for themselves that separate themselves as far as they can
from the bad, and draw as nigh to the good, as by any possibility they
can attain to.” “He that walketh with wise men shall be wise; but a
companion of fools shall be destroyed.”




POLITICAL ECONOMY.

By G. M. STEELE, D.D.


II.

PRODUCTION, CONTINUED—CAPITAL—COMBINATION AND DIVISION OF LABOR.

5. We have already seen that an essential to any considerable
production is _capital_. We have seen the nature of capital and how
it comes to exist. We have also learned that though capital implies
saving, mere saving is not the sole condition of capital; indeed, a
narrow penuriousness prevents the rapid accumulation of capital. The
man who is accustomed to bring his water from a spring a quarter of
a mile from his house instead of digging a well at the cost of a few
dollars, or a few days’ work, acts uneconomically. In the long run
the bringing of the water from the spring costs him much more than
the digging of the well. The man who has extensive grain-fields, and
who, for the sake of saving the expense of a reaper, or even a cradle,
continues to use the sickle, will find that his saving results in a
loss instead of a gain.

A man does not need to be rich in order to be a capitalist. When the
savage has invented a bow and arrows he has the rudiments of capital.
The laborer who has reserved out of his earnings enough to buy him a
set of tools, or a few acres of land, is as really a capitalist as
the owner of factories or railroads. Whatever property is used for
production is capital.

Capital exists in many forms. It has been generally divided into
_fixed_ and _circulating_, though the limits of these divisions are
not very precisely defined. The main difference consists in this, that
while certain kinds of capital are used only once in the fulfillment of
their purposes, other kinds are used repeatedly. Fuel can be burned but
once. An axe may serve for years. Circulating capital is of two kinds:

(1) There are the stock and commodities which are to be consumed in
reproduction; (_a_) the material out of which the new product is to be
made, as lumber for cabinet ware, leather for shoes, etc.; (_b_) food
and other provisions for the sustenance of the laborers.

(2) There is the stock of completed commodities on hand and ready
for the market. The chairs that are finished and ready for sale in
the chair factory are of this character. It is to be observed that
the same article may be at one time circulating and at another fixed
capital. Thus the chairs just spoken of, while they are in the hands
of the manufacturer, or passing through those of the dealers, are
circulating capital. It is only when they become _fixed in use_ that
their character changes.

Fixed capital consists (1) of all tools, implements, and machinery,
used in the trades. Here, too, belong all structures of every sort
for productive purposes; (2) all beasts of burden and draft; (3)
all improvements of land implied in clearing, fencing, draining,
fertilizing, terracing, etc.; (4) all mental acquisitions gained by
labor and which give man power for productive results.

Obviously capital, by whomsoever owned, is an advantage to the laborer.
But such capital is useless to the owner unless he can unite it with
labor. So, too, the ability to labor is of no benefit to the laborer
unless he can employ it in connection with capital. Generally the more
capital there is in a community, other things being equal, the better
it is for the laborer; and the more laborers there are, other things
being equal, the better it is for the capitalist. When a factory burns
down it may destroy only a small part of the wealth of the owners, and
they may not palpably suffer; but it is very likely to deprive the
laborers, who are connected with it, of the means of securing their
daily sustenance.

There is no natural antagonism of interests between capital and labor,
but rather the utmost concord and interdependence. Whatever conflicts
arise between the laborers and the capitalists come from the unnatural
selfishness and jealousy of the parties concerned.

6. As has been intimated, it is only by application of principles
underlying political economy that we come to the conditions of the
highest production, or, in other words, find how to satisfy the largest
range of desires to the greatest extent at the smallest cost of labor.
One of the chief means of effecting this is by _the combination and
division of labor_. Recalling what was said concerning association and
individuality, we shall see what principles are involved here, and
how naturally they came into operation. As there was seen to be no
antagonism between the two latter conceptions when carefully analyzed,
so there is none, but rather the opposite, between combination
and division of labor. It is true that there are instances where
combination may take place without division, as when men unite to
effect purposes which one could not accomplish except in much more than
the proportionate time; as also in some cases to affect purposes which
the individual could not effect in any length of time, such as the
moving and placing of heavy timbers and stones, the management of ships
and railway trains, etc. But for the most part men divide their labor
in the process in order that they may combine the result. This is done
in two ways:

(1) Men divide up the work of supplying human wants into different
trades and occupations, according to their several tastes and
aptitudes. Each man needs nearly the same that every other needs.
But while each provides for only one kind of want, he provides more
than enough to satisfy his own desire in that particular respect,
and contributes the overplus to meet that same want in others. As
all others do the same, each is contributing to meet the desires
of one and all to each. The shoemaker, the tailor, the carpenter,
the cabinet-maker, the blacksmith, the weaver, the paper-maker, the
tin-man, the miner, the smelter, the painter, the glazier, etc., are
all contributing to supply the farmer’s needs, and the farmer is
contributing to all their needs. The wants of all are many times more
fully met in this way than if each one should undertake to supply all
his own wants.

(2) In some complicated trades the work is divided into a number of
processes. There are men who could do every one of these parts; but
such men are few, and their labor very costly, because some of the
parts require rare skill and talent. What is needed is to organize
several grades of laborers, so that the physically strong, the
intelligent and skillful may have the work that only they can do; the
less strong and skillful may find employment in the lighter and easier
parts, and so all grades of ability down to the delicate woman or the
little child, and up to the most powerful muscle and most advanced
intelligence, can find their place. It is almost incredible how great
is the increase of productiveness from the mere economical arrangement
of workers. It is said that in so simple a matter as the making of
pins, where the work is divided into ten processes and properly
distributed, that the production will be _two hundred and forty times_
as much as if each man did the whole work on each pin.

This connects itself with another important condition of large
production. I mean the diversification of employment in a community.
It is only in such a varied industry that all the varied tastes,
aptitudes and abilities of society can find scope and adaptation; and
without this, production must fall far short of its possibilities.
This, too, is required to develop those differences which constitute
individuality, and on which association depends.

There are other conditions of enlarged production, such as are implied
in freedom, good government, and the moral character of the community,
the influence of each of which will easily suggest itself to thoughtful
minds.


III.—CONSUMPTION.

1. Consumption is the destruction of values. Production implies
consumption. In general, all material is destroyed in entering into
new forms of wealth. Thus, leather must be destroyed in order to the
production of shoes. Flour must disappear in the manufacture of bread,
and wheat in the making of flour. Every kind of implement, or machine
or structure is consumed by use. This consumption is immediate, or
by a single use; or it is gradual. The food that we eat and the fuel
that we burn are examples of the former; tools, bridges, buildings
and aqueducts are examples of the latter. It is accomplished in a few
months or years; or is protracted through centuries.

2. Consumption is either _voluntary_ or _involuntary_. Of the latter
kind we have instances in the _natural decay_ of objects, as in wood
and vegetables; the rusting of iron, the mildew and the moth-eating of
cotton and woolen fabrics, and the wearing away by attrition of gold,
silver, and other metals; also the destruction caused by vermin. Much
of this may be prevented by the prudent foresight which sound economy
enjoins; yet much loss will inevitably take place. A great deal of
consumption is _accidental_. Great destruction is caused by fires,
steam-boiler explosions, floods and tornadoes, earthquakes and volcanic
eruptions.

3. Voluntary consumption is either _productive_ or _unproductive_.
The former is when the material appears in new form and with a higher
value, as cloth made into garments and iron into hardware and cutlery.
Unproductive consumption occurs, both in the cases before mentioned of
natural and accidental consumption, and in cases where gratification
of desire is the sole object sought and achieved, as when one eats and
drinks simply for the enjoyment, and without reference to the waste of
nature or the nourishment of the system.

It is not altogether easy to discriminate between these two kinds of
consumption. We readily see the difference between a man’s drinking a
quantity of whiskey, not because it will help him in the performance
of any duty, but because he likes it, and the scattering of a quantity
of seed over the ground in spring. There is no doubt that one act is
productive and the other unproductive. But there are cases where the
distinction is less clear.

It is not necessarily a case of unproductive consumption when one
destroys value for the sake of gratifying some desire. Probably a
majority of men eat and drink simply because they desire food and
drink, having no thought of any ulterior object. Yet this eating and
drinking is absolutely essential to productive labor. The wealth
consumed in this way reappears, to a large extent, in the products of
human industry.

Still there is much really unproductive consumption; a destruction of
value, in the place of which no other value ever appears. There are,
for instance, men and women—

    *     *     *       “who creep
    Into this world to eat and sleep,
    And know no reason why they’re born,
    But simply to consume the corn.”

Vast quantities of wealth are consumed in riotous living, in greedy
and vulgar extravagance, and unmeaning magnificence. There is also
much consumption designed to be productive, but failing of its
end through misdirection. Large amounts of property are sometimes
invested in enterprises which prove failures. This occurs partly from
miscalculation or negligence, and partly from a disposition to trust
to chances—the gambler’s calculation. In these ways much wealth is
consumed with no consequent product.

4. It is not easy to draw the line between the ordinary conveniences of
life and its luxuries; nor can it be stated to what extent the latter
in any sense of the term are economically allowable. What to one class
of persons may be a luxury to another class may be almost a necessity.
So what might in one age have been a rare and expensive indulgence,
is in a more advanced period among the cheaper and more ordinary
commodities. I call special attention to three kinds of consumption:

(1) There is the consumption necessary to life and the performance of
productive labor. The word _necessary_ here is used in its liberal
rather than its restricted sense. The absolute necessities of human
life are very few. It does not even require much to keep a man in
working condition. But to keep him where there is a larger kind of
living, and where his energies of both body and mind, together with the
moral qualities which render him most efficient, are at their best, the
consumption must be more generous.

Besides subsistence there must be materials, tools, machines, and
a variety of conditions involving the destruction of value. It is
desirable to sustain man not as a mere savage, but to give him the
largest volume of human life; and the civilized man, it will be
admitted, lives a broader life than the savage. We are not to forget
that Political Economy aims at the increase of the value of man, more
than at the multiplication of material wealth, or the increase of
commerce, except as the latter are conditions of the former.

(2) A second kind of consumption is of such articles as minister
to bodily enjoyment and meet certain mental appetencies of a lower
order. They are not necessary to sustain life, nor to render it more
efficient. On the contrary, they often impair the vigor and competence
of the person. At the best they simply gratify certain desires without
adding anything to the value of the man. To this category belong mere
dainty food, gold and jewels, and other ornaments, valued solely
because of their showiness and not for any artistic excellence; gay and
costly apparel, in which the gayety and the costliness are the main
features. These constitute a class of luxuries that are in nearly every
sense non-productive. They favorably affect neither the individual nor
society, and are for the most part hurtful to both.

(3) But not all consumption, the object of which is to gratify desire,
is to be reckoned in this category. There are certain pleasures which
ennoble and really enrich those who participate in them. There are
desires the gratification of which enlarges the volume of one’s being.
They are related not so much to man’s productive capability as to that
which is the final cause of all production, and to which all wealth
is only a means. The labor, material, implements, and whatever else
is consumed in the production of the works or effects of genuine art,
result in the most _real wealth_ that exists. By this is meant not
merely pictures, statues, books, carved work, tasteful tapestries,
and similar objects which can be bought and sold, but also oratorios
which you may hear but once; magnificent parks to which you may be
admitted, but may never own; great actors and singers whose genius may
be exhibited to others, but not possessed by them. It is true that much
which properly belongs here may be so consumed as to deserve only a
place in the second class; but it may also have those higher and nobler
uses which imply production in the best sense.

5. _Public consumption_ is the expenditure of means for society in its
aggregate capacity. It has reference principally to the support of
those agencies which are implied in the term _government_. The reasons
for the necessity of such expenditures have already been given. The
purposes to which such consumption is properly applied may be grouped
as follows:

(_a_) The support and administration of government. This embraces
compensation to executive, legislative and judicial officers,
and expenditure for public buildings. (_b_) For works of public
convenience. Here are included the paving and lighting of streets,
water-works and sewerage. (_c_) For advancing science and promoting
intelligence, by means of exploring expeditions, geological surveys,
meteorological and astronomical observations, etc. (_d_) For the
promotion of popular education. (_e_) For the support of the poor and
the relief of the afflicted. (_f_) For national defense.

6. The general law of economical consumption, both individual and
public, is that only so much and such a quality should be consumed as
is necessary to effect the purpose designed, whether that be further
production or individual gratification. It is nearly the same in the
case of labor. In relation to the work to be done, the character,
ability and skill of the laborer should be considered.




READINGS IN ART.


II.—SCULPTURE: GRECIAN AND ROMAN.

While Egyptian sculpture was losing its individuality, and Assyrian
was wearing itself out in excessive ornamentation, there was a new art
growing up in the isles and on the eastern shores of the Mediterranean.
The early centuries of its growth are hidden from our knowledge. The
remains are so scanty, so imperfect, that it is with difficulty that
we trace the influences which were molding the art, and the extent to
which it was taking hold of the people. Of this primitive period but
one single work of sculpture is preserved.

“At Mycenæ, once perhaps in the days of Homer (850-800? B. C.) the most
important city of Greece, there are sculptural works in the remains
of two lions over the entrance gate. The height of these is about ten
feet, and the width fifteen feet. The stone is a greenish limestone.
The holes show where the metal pins held the heads, long since decayed.
Fragments as they are, they show an Assyrian rather than an Egyptian
influence in the strong marking of the muscles and joints, softened
though it is by decay, and in the erect attitude, which denotes action,
such as is not seen in Egyptian art of this kind. Of this gate of the
lions, which has long been known as the most ancient work of early
Greek sculpture, it must be noticed that it is not in the round, but
only in high relief. And this is the case with all the earliest works,
just as it is with the Assyrian sculptures. They tend to show therefore
that the Greek sculptor had not yet learnt to model and carve in the
round in marble and stone.”

In the objects found by Cesnola in Cyprus, and consisting of statues
and other sculptures, incised gems, and metal work of the hammered-out
kind, the resemblance to the art of Assyria is remarkable. Three
hundred years later than the “gate of lions” are the reliefs discovered
at Xanthus in Lycia. “They belong to the Harpy monument—a pier-shaped
memorial, along the upper edge of which is a frieze ornamented in
relief.” The archaic is still visible in the figures. The drapery
falls in long straight folds, with zigzag edges. There is the stiff,
inevitable smile of the Egyptian statue. The figures are in motion, but
both feet are set flat on the ground. Though in profile the eyes are
shown in full. In spite of these primitive absurdities, and the fact
that the subjects represent foreign myths, the statues are Greek.

In the fifth century various art schools were founded. “In Argos lived
Argeladas (515-455 B. C.), famous for his bronze statues of gods and
Olympic victors, and still more famous for his three great pupils,
Phidias, Myron, and Polycleitus. In Sicyon there lived, at the same
time, Canachus, the founder of a vital and enduring school. He executed
the colossal statue of Apollo at Miletus, and was skilled not only
in casting bronze but in the use of gold and ivory and wood carving.
Ægina, then a commercial island as yet not subjected, was rendered
illustrious by the two masters Callon and Onatas, the latter especially
known by several groups of bronze statues and warlike scenes from
heroic legends. Lastly, Athens possessed among other artists Hegias,
the teacher of Phidias and Critius. But all of these old masters were
severe, hard, archaic in their treatment.”

But a period approaches when by a freer, happier treatment of their
work the way was led to the highest Athenian sculpture. We can but
mention the leading sculptors, Calamis of Athens, Pythagoras of
Rhegium, and, greatest of all, Myron of Athens. They do not belong
to the epoch of the finest Grecian art, but they were the immediate
forerunners.

“Now, for the first time in opposition to the barbarians, the
national Hellenic mind rose to the highest consciousness of noble
independence and dignity. Athens concentrated within herself, as in
a focus, the whole exuberance and many-sidedness of Greek life, and
glorified it into beautiful utility. The victory of the old time
over the new was effected by the power of Phidias, one of the most
wonderful artist minds of all times. He lived in the times of Athens’
greatest prosperity, and to him Pericles gave the task of executing
the magnificent works he had planned for adorning the city. Among
the famous statues which Phidias wrought in carrying out these plans
was that of Athene, the patron goddess of the Athenians. The booty
which had been taken at Salamis was set aside for this purpose, and
forty-four talents, equal to $589,875 of our money, was spent in
adorning the statue. The virgin goddess was standing erect; a golden
helmet covered her beautiful and earnest head; a coat of mail, with
the head of the Medusa carved in ivory concealed her bosom; and long,
flowing, golden drapery enveloped her whole figure—a statue of Niké,
six feet high, stood on the outstretched hand of the goddess. The
undraped parts were formed of ivory; the eyes of sparkling precious
stones; the drapery, hair, and weapons of gold. In it Phidias portrayed
for all ages the character of Minerva, the serious goddess of wisdom,
the mild protectress of Attica.”

Still more than in this statue the austere maidenliness of the goddess
was elevated into noble, intellectual beauty in a figure of Athene
placed on the Acropolis by the Lemnians; so much so that an old epigram
instituted a comparison with the Aphrodite of Praxiteles of Cnidus, and
calls Paris “a mere cow-driver for not giving the apple to Athene.”

The still more famous colossal statue by Phidias, the Zeus at Olympia
in Elis, was his last great work. It was made between B. C. 438, the
date of the consecration of the Parthenon statue, and B. C. 432, the
year of his death, at Elis.

This was a seated statue of ivory and gold, 55 feet high, including
the throne. Strabo remarks, that “if the god had risen he would have
carried away the roof,” and the height of the interior was about 55
feet; the temple being built on the model of the Parthenon at Athens,
which was 64 feet to the point of the pediment.

The statue was seen in its temple by Paulus Æmilius in the second
century B. C., who declared the god himself seemed present to him.
Epictetus says that “it was considered a misfortune for any one to
die without having seen the masterpiece of Phidias.” In the time of
Julian the Apostate (A. D. 361-363) “it continued to receive the homage
of Greece in spite of every kind of attack which the covert zeal of
Constantine had made against polytheism, its temples, and its idols.”
This is the last notice we possess giving authentic information of this
grand statue. Phidias is said to have executed many other statues:
thirteen in bronze from the booty of Marathon, consecrated at Delphi
under Cimon—statues of Apollo, Athene, and Miltiades, with those ten
heroes who had given their names to the ten Athenian tribes (Eponymi);
an Athene for the city of Pellene in gold and ivory; another for the
Platæans, of the spoils of Marathon, made of wood gilt, with the head,
feet, and hands of Pentelic marble. “These,” M. Rochette says, “may be
considered the productions of his youth.”

The great national work of the time, however, was the Parthenon, and
the ornamentation was entrusted to Phidias. Not that all the wonderful
statues were executed by him alone. He had his pupils and associates.
The most famous of these seems to have been Alcamenes, a versatile and
imaginative disciple of his master. After him were Agoracritus and
Pæonius. There were many others who assisted in the work. The outside
of the temple was ornamented with three classes of sculpture: (1) The
sculptures of the pediments, being independent statues resting on the
cornices. (2) The groups of the metopes, ninety-two in number. These
were in high relief. (3) The frieze around the upper border of the
cella of the Parthenon contained a representation in low relief of the
Panathenaic procession. All these classes of sculpture were in the
highest style of the art.

The influence of the sculptures of the Parthenon is seen in many
directions in the temple of Apollo at Phigalia, the temple of
Niké-Apteros on the Acropolis at Athens, at Halicarnassus, etc.

“The works which are known to have been executed by the sculptors
contemporary with Phidias, and by others who formed what is spoken of
as ‘the later Athenian school,’ did not approach the great examples of
the Parthenon. Sculpture then reached the highest point in the grandest
style, whether in the treatment of the statue in the round, or of
bas-relief as in the frieze, or alto-relievo as in the metopes. As to
the chryselephantine statues of Phidias, it may be concluded without
hesitation that though we are compelled to rely upon descriptions only,
they must have been works of the great master even more beautiful than
the marbles.”

At Argos during the time of Phidias, a somewhat younger school
flourished under the leadership of Polycleitus. “The aspiration of
Polycleitus was to depict the perfect beauty of the human form in calm
repose.” His Amazon and Juno represent best his style; so perfect are
all his works in their proportions that the invention of the canon has
been assigned to him.

In the works of the later Athenian school, at the head of which were
Scopas and Praxiteles, the sublime ideal of Greek art was no longer
sustained by any new creations that can be compared with those of
the Phidian school; no rivalry with those great masters seemed to
be attempted. The severe and grand was beyond the comprehension, or
probably uncongenial to the spirit of the age, which inclined toward
the poetic, the graceful, the sentimental and romantic. The whole range
of the beautiful myths found abundant illustration in forms entirely
different from the ancient archaic representations, and in these the
fancy of the sculptor was allowed the fullest and freest indulgence.
Nymphs, nereids, mænads, and bacchantes occupied the chisel of the
sculptor in every form of graceful beauty.

After this epoch, to which so many of the fine statues
belong—repetitions in marble of famous originals in bronze—Greek
sculpture took another phase in accordance with the social life and
the taste of the age, which inclined toward the feeling for display
that arose with the domination of the Macedonian power, brought to its
height by the conquests and ambition of Alexander the Great. Lysippus,
a self-taught sculptor of Sicyon, was the leading artist of his time.
He was evidently a student of nature and individual character, as he
was the first to become celebrated for his portraits, especially those
of Alexander. He departed from the severe and grand style, and in the
native conceit of all self-taught men sneered at the art of Polycleitus
in the well-known saying recorded of him, “Polycleitus made men as they
were, but I make them as they ought to be.” He seems to have been the
first great naturalistic sculptor.

Rhodes had unquestionable right to give her name to a school of
sculpture, both from the great antiquity of the origin of the culture
of the arts in the island, and from the number, more than one hundred,
of colossal statues in bronze. The Rhodian school is also distinguished
by those remarkable examples of sculpture in marble of large groups
of figures—the Toro Farnese and the Laocoon. In these works there is
the same feeling for display of artistic accomplishment that has been
noticed as characteristic of the Macedonian age, with that effort at
the pathetic, especially in the Laocoon, which belongs to the finer
style of the later Athenian school as displayed in the works of Scopas
and Praxiteles, in the Niobe figures and others.

At Pergamus, another school allied in style to that of Ephesus arose,
of which the chief sculptor was Pyromachus, who, according to Pliny,
flourished in the 120th Olympiad, B. C. 300-298. A statue of Æsculapius
by Pyromachus was a work of some note in the splendid temple at
Pergamus, and is to be seen on the coins of that city. It is also
conjectured that the well-known Dying Gladiator is a copy of a bronze
by Pyromachus. The vigorous naturalistic style of these statues,
surpassing anything of preceding schools in the effort at expression,
may be taken as characteristic of the school of Pergamus, then
completely under Roman influence, and destined to become more so. But
all question as to the nature of the sculptures was set at rest by the
discovery of many large works in high relief by the German expedition
at Pergamus in 1875. These are now in the Museum at Berlin. They are
of almost colossal proportions, representing, as Pliny described, the
wars of Attalus and the Battles with the Giants. The nude figure is
especially marked by the effort to display artistic ability as well
as great energy in the action. In these points there is observable a
connection with the well-known and very striking example of sculpture
of this order—the Fighting Gladiator, or more properly the Warrior of
Agasias, who, as is certain from the inscription on his work, was an
Ephesian.

The equally renowned statue of the Apollo Belvedere, finely conceived
and admirably modeled as it undoubtedly is, bears the stamp of artistic
display which removes it from the style of the great classic works of
sculpture.

The history of Roman sculpture is soon told. If it have any real
roots, they are to be traced in the ancient Etruscan; for all that was
really characteristic in it as art is associated with that style, in
that intense naturalism which became developed so strikingly in the
production of portrait statues and busts, and in those great monumental
works in bas-relief which are marked by the same strong feeling for
descriptive representation of the most direct and realistic kind, upon
their triumphal columns and arches.

As has already been stated, early Roman sculpture, if such it can be
called, was entirely the work of Etruscan artists, employed by the
wealth of Rome to afford the citizens that display of pomp in their
worship of the gods and the triumphs of their warriors which their
ambition demanded. All important works were made of colossal size. Some
of the early Roman (quasi Etruscan) statues spoken of by the historians
are a bronze colossus of Jupiter, an Etruscan bronze colossus of
Apollo, eighty feet high, in the Palatine Library of the temple of
Augustus. A portrait statue of an orator in the toga, and a chimæra,
both of bronze, are in the Florence Museum. Sculpture, from the love
of it as a means of expressing the beautiful in the ideal form of the
deities or the heroic and the pathetic of humanity, never existed as
a growth of Roman civilization. The inclination of the Roman mind was
toward social, municipal, and imperial system and ordering; in this
direction the Romans were inventors and improvers upon that which they
borrowed from the Greeks. But in art they began by hiring, and they
ended by debasing the work of the hired.

They took away the bronze statues of Greece as trophies of conquest,
covered them with gold, and set them up in the palaces and public
places of Rome. They subsidized the sculptors of Greece, who under
Roman influence had fallen away from their high traditions; they did
nothing for the sake of art, but simply manufactured, as it were,
copies and imitations of Greek statues for their own use. Happily we
have to be grateful for the fact, though we can not honor the motive.
Had it not been for this bestowal of their wealth in the gratification
of their taste for luxury and display, many of the renowned statues
of ancient Greek art would have been known only by the vague mention
of them by Pausanias and Pliny, or the early Christian writers of the
Church, or the poetic allusions of the Greek anthologists and the Latin
epigrammatists.

The Column of Trajan was the great work of Apollodorus, the favorite
architect of the emperor, dedicated A. D. 114. It is 10½ feet in
diameter and 127 feet high, made of thirty-four blocks of white marble,
twenty-three being in the shaft, nine in the base, which is finely
sculptured, and two in the capital and _torus_. The reliefs at the base
are smaller than those toward the top, being two feet high, increasing
to nearly four as they approach the summit; this was, of course, to
enable the more distant subjects to be seen equally well with the
others, a singular illustration of the intensely practical turn of
Roman art in its application. There are about 2,500 figures, not
counting horses, representing the battles and sieges of the Dacian war.
The column of M. Aurelius Antoninus, erected A. D. 174, is similar in
height, but the sculptures, although in higher relief, are not so good.
They represent the conquest of the Marcomans.

The Augustan age (B. C. 36-A. D. 14), favorable as it was to
literature, only contributed to the multiplying of copies of the Greek
statues, such as we see in so many instances, some of which are of
great excellence, and inestimable as reliable evidence of fine Greek
sculpture. These copies were sometimes varied by the sculptor in some
immaterial point of detail.

Nero (A. D. 54-68) is said to have adorned his Golden House with no
less than 500 statues, brought from Delphi. In the Baths of Titus,
still in existence (they were built on the ground of the house and
gardens of Mæcenas), many valuable statues have been discovered. The
Arch of Titus furnishes an excellent example of bas-relief of that
time, in it the golden candlestick and other spoils from the temple of
Jerusalem are shown.

Hadrian (A. D. 117-138) encouraged the reproduction of the Greek
statues, with great success as regards execution, for his famous villa
at Tivoli, and besides these are the statues of his favorite Antinous,
which are the most original works of the time. Hadrian’s imperial
and liberal promotion of sculpture, gave an immense impetus to the
production of statues of every form. All the towns of Greece which he
favored made bronze portrait statues of him, which were placed in the
temple of Jupiter Olympius at Athens, and the enclosure round more than
half a mile in extent was filled with its many statues.

The learned Varro speaks of Arcesilaus as the sculptor of Venus
Genetrix, in the forum of Cæsar, and of a beautiful marble group of
Cupids playing with a lioness, some leading her, others beating her
with their sandals, others offering her wine to drink from horns.

Under the Antonines arose the outrageous fashion of representing noble
Romans and their wives as deities, and this was carried so far that
the men are not unfrequently nude as if heroic. The bas-reliefs on the
arch of Septimus Severus at Rome, and that which goes by the name of
Constantine—though made chiefly of reliefs belonging to one raised in
honor of Trajan—show the poor condition of sculpture at that time. The
numerous sarcophagi, some made by Greek sculptors for the Roman market,
and others by those working at Rome, are other examples of the feeble
style of imitators and workmen actuated by no knowledge or feeling of
art. Some of these are still to be seen in the collections at Rome,
with mythological subjects, the heads being left unfinished, so that
the portraits of the family could be carved when required.

The rule of Constantine was, however, far more disastrous to art as the
seat of the Empire was removed to Byzantium. Most of the finest statues
accumulated in Rome were removed there only to be lost forever in the
plundering of wars and the fanatical rage of the Christian iconoclasts.
While destroying the statues of the gods, they may have spared those
which commemorated agonistic victors; but we may be sure that nearly
all the works in metal which the Christians spared were melted down by
the barbarous hordes of Gothic invaders, who under Alaric occupied the
Morea about A. D. 395.

With this glance at the complete decadence of art and the coming
darkness that preceded its revival, we approach the subject of
sculpture as connected with the rise of ecclesiastical religious art,
which is necessarily reserved for further consideration.




SELECTIONS FROM AMERICAN LITERATURE.


BENJAMIN FRANKLIN.

    I recommend the study of Franklin to all young people;
    he was a real philanthropist, a wonderful man. It was
    said that it was honor enough to any one country to
    have produced such a man as Franklin.—_Sydney Smith._

    A man who makes a great figure in the learned world;
    and who would still make a greater figure for
    benevolence and candor were virtue as much regarded in
    this declining age as knowledge.—_Lord Kaimes._

    He was a great experimental philosopher, a consummate
    politician, and a paragon of common sense.—_Edinburgh
    Review._

    He has in no instance exhibited that false dignity by
    which science is kept aloof from common application;
    and he has sought rather to make her an useful inmate
    and servant in the common habitations of man, than
    to preserve her merely as an object of admiration in
    temples and palaces.—_Sir Humphrey Davy._

    His style has all the vigor, and even conciseness
    of Swift, without any of his harshness. It is in no
    degree more flowery, yet both elegant and lively.—_Lord
    Jeffrey._

    When he left Passy it seemed as if the village had lost
    its patriarch.—_Thomas Jefferson._


Extracts From Poor Richard’s Almanac.

“Love well, whip well.” “The proof of gold is fire; the proof of
woman, gold; the proof of man, a woman.” “There is no little enemy.”
“Necessity never made a good bargain.” “Three may keep a secret, if
two of them are dead.” “Deny self for self’s sake.” “Keep thy shop,
and thy shop will keep thee.” “Here comes the orator, with his flood
of words and his drop of reason.” “Sal laughs at everything you say;
why? because she has fine teeth.” “An old young man will be a young old
man.” “He is no clown that drives the plow, but he that does clownish
things.” “Diligence is the mother of good luck.” “Wealth is not his
that has it, but his that enjoys it.” “He that can have patience can
have what he will.” “Good wives and good plantations are made by good
husbands.” “God heals, the doctor takes the fee.” “The noblest question
in the world is, What good may I do in it?” “There are three faithful
friends, an old wife, an old dog, and ready money.” “Who has deceived
thee so oft as thyself?” “Fly pleasures, and they will follow you.”
“Hast thou virtue? Acquire also the graces and beauties of virtue.”
“Keep your eyes wide open before marriage; half shut afterward.”
“As we must account for every idle word, so we must for every idle
silence.” “Search others for their virtues, thyself for thy vices.”
“Grace thou thy house, and let not that grace thee.” “Let thy child’s
first lesson be obedience, and the second will be what thou will.”
“Let thy discontents be thy secrets.” “Happy that nation, fortunate
that age, whose history is not diverting.” “There are lazy minds, as
well as lazy bodies.” “Tricks and treachery are the practice of fools,
who have not wit enough to be honest.” “Let no pleasure tempt thee, no
profit allure thee, no ambition corrupt thee, no example sway thee, no
persuasion move thee, to do anything which thou knowest to be evil; so
shalt thou always live jollily, for a good conscience is a continual
Christmas.”

    “Altho’ thy teacher act not as he preaches,
     Yet ne’ertheless, if good, do what he teaches;
     Good counsel failing men may give, for why?
     He that’s aground knows where the shoal doth lie.
     My old friend Berryman, oft when alive,
     Taught others thrift, himself could never thrive.
     Thus like the whetstone, many men are wont
     To sharpen others while themselves are blunt.”


Poetry for December, 1834.

    “He that for the sake of drink neglects his trade,
     And spends each night in taverns till ’tis late,
     And rises when the sun is four hours high,
     And ne’er regards his starving family,
     God in his mercy may do much to save him,
     But, woe to the poor wife, whose lot it is to have him.”


An Astronomical Notice.

During the first visible eclipse _Saturn_ is retrograde: for which
reason the crabs will go sidelong, and the rope-makers backward.
Mercury will have his share in these affairs, and so confound the
speech of the people, that when a _Pennsylvanian_ would say _panther_,
he shall say _painter_. When a _New Yorker_ thinks to say _this_, he
shall say _diss_, and the people in _New England_ and _Cape May_ will
not be able to say _cow_ for their lives, but will be forced to say
_keow_, by a certain involuntary twist in the root of their tongues. No
_Connecticut man_ nor _Marylander_ will be able to open his mouth this
year but _sir_ shall be the first or last syllable he pronounces, and
sometimes both. Brutes shall speak in many places, and there will be
about seven and twenty irregular verbs made this year if grammar don’t
interpose. Who can help these misfortunes? This year the stone-blind
shall see but very little; the deaf shall hear but poorly; and the dumb
sha’n’t speak very plain. As to old age, it will be incurable this
year, because of the years past. And toward the fall some people will
be seized with an unaccountable inclination to roast and eat their
own ears: Should this be called madness, doctors? I think not. But
the worst disease of all will be a most horrid, dreadful, malignant,
catching, perverse, and odious malady, almost epidemical, insomuch that
many shall seem mad upon it. I quake for very fear when I think on’t;
for I assure you very few shall escape this disease, which is called by
the learned Albromazer—_Lacko’mony_.


GEORGE WASHINGTON.

    His papers which have been preserved show how he gained
    the power of writing correctly—always expressing
    himself with clearness and directness, often with
    felicity and grace.—_George Bancroft._

    No one who has not been in England can have an idea of
    the admiration expressed among all parties for General
    Washington.—_Rufus King, 1797._

    * * * The great central figure of that unparalleled
    group, that “noble army” of chieftains, sages,
    and patriots, by whom the revolution was
    accomplished.—_Edward Everett._

    He had in his composition a calm which gave him
    in moments of highest excitement the power
    of self-control, and enabled him to excel in
    patience.—_Bancroft._


Account of the Battle of Trenton.

    HEADQUARTERS, MORRISTOWN, Dec. 27, 1776.

    _To the President of Congress_:

SIR—I have the pleasure of congratulating you upon the success of an
enterprise which I had formed against a detachment of the enemy lying
in Trenton, and which was executed yesterday morning.

The evening of the twenty-fifth I ordered the troops intended for this
service to parade back of McKonkey’s ferry, that they might begin to
pass as soon as it grew dark, imagining we should be able to throw them
all over, with the necessary artillery, by twelve o’clock, and that we
might easily arrive at Trenton by five in the morning, the distance
being about nine miles. But the quantity of ice made that night impeded
the passage of the boats so much that it was three o’clock before the
artillery could all be got over; and near four before the troops took
up their line of march.

This made me despair of surprising the town, as I well knew we could
not reach it before the day was fairly broke. But as I was certain
there was no making a retreat without being discovered, and harassed on
re-passing the river, I determined to push on at all events. I formed
my detachment into two divisions, one to march by the lower or river
road, the other by the upper or Pennington road. As the divisions had
nearly the same distance to march, I ordered each of them, immediately
upon forcing the out-guards, to push directly into the town, that they
might charge the enemy before they had time to form.

The upper division arrived at the enemy’s advanced post exactly at
eight o’clock: and in three minutes after I found, from the fire on the
lower road, that that division had also got up. The out-guards made but
small opposition, though, for their numbers, they behaved very well,
keeping up a constant retreating fire from behind houses. We presently
saw their main body formed; but from their motions, they seemed
undetermined how to act.

Being hard pressed by our troops, who had already got possession of
their artillery, they attempted to file off by a road on their right,
leading to Princeton. But, perceiving their intention, I threw a body
of troops in their way; which immediately checked them. Finding,
from our disposition, that they were surrounded, and that they must
inevitably be cut to pieces if they made any further resistance, they
agreed to lay down their arms. The number that submitted in this manner
was twenty-three officers and eight hundred and eighty-six men. Colonel
Rahl, the commanding officer, and seven others, were found wounded in
the town. I do not exactly know how many they had killed; but I fancy
not above twenty or thirty, as they never made any regular stand. Our
loss is very trifling indeed—only two officers and one or two privates
wounded.

I find that the detachment consisted of the three Hessian regiments of
Lanspach, Kniphausen, and Rahl, amounting to about fifteen hundred men,
and a troop of British light horse; but immediately upon the beginning
of the attack, all those who were not killed or taken pushed directly
down toward Bordentown. These would likewise have fallen into our hands
could my plan have been completely carried into execution.

General Ewing was to have crossed before day at Trenton ferry, and
taken possession of the bridge leading out of town; but the quantity
of ice was so great that, though he did every thing in his power to
effect it, he could not get over. This difficulty also hindered General
Cadwallader from crossing with the Pennsylvania militia from Bristol.
He got part of his foot over; but finding it impossible to embark his
artillery, he was obliged to desist.

I am fully confident that, could the troops under Generals Ewing and
Cadwallader have passed the river, I should have been able, with their
assistance, to have driven the enemy from all their posts below
Trenton. But the numbers I had with me being inferior to theirs below
me, and a strong battalion of light infantry being at Princeton above
me, I thought it most prudent to return the same evening with the
prisoners and the artillery we had taken. We found no stores of any
consequence in the town.

In justice to the officers and men, I must add that their behavior upon
this occasion reflects the highest honor upon them. The difficulty of
passing the river in a very severe night, and their march through a
violent storm of snow and hail, did not in the least abate their ardor;
but when they came to the charge each seemed to vie with the other in
pressing forward; and were I to give a preference to any particular
corps I should do great injustice to the others.

Colonel Baylor, my first aid-de-camp, will have the honor of delivering
this to you; and from him you may be made acquainted with many other
particulars. His spirited behavior upon every occasion requires me to
recommend him to your particular notice.

I have the honor to be, etc.,

    G. W.


THOMAS JEFFERSON.

    As a composition, the Declaration [of Independence]
    is Mr. Jefferson’s. It is the production of his mind,
    and the high honor of it belongs to him clearly and
    absolutely. To say that he performed his great work
    well would be doing him an injustice. To say that
    he did excellently well, admirably well, would be
    inadequate and halting praise. Let us rather say
    that he so discharged the duty assigned him that all
    Americans may well rejoice that the work of drawing
    the title-deed of their liberties devolved upon
    him.—_Daniel Webster._

    After Washington and Franklin there is no person who
    fills so eminent a place among the great men of America
    as Jefferson.—_Lord Brougham._


Washington.

His mind was great and powerful, without being of the very first order;
his penetration strong, though not so acute as that of a Newton, Bacon,
or Locke; and as far as he saw, no judgment was ever sounder. It was
slow in operation, being little aided by invention or imagination,
but sure in conclusion. Hence the common remark of his officers, of
the advantage he derived from councils of war, where, hearing all
suggestions, he selected whatever was best; and certainly no general
ever planned his battles more judiciously. But if deranged during the
course of the action, if any member of his plan was dislocated by
sudden circumstances, he was slow in a re-adjustment. The consequence
was, that he often failed in the field, and rarely against an enemy
in station, as at Boston and York. He was incapable of fear, meeting
personal dangers with the calmest unconcern. Perhaps the strongest
feature in his character was prudence, never acting until every
circumstance, every consideration was maturely weighed; refraining
if he saw a doubt, but when once decided, going through with his
purpose, whatever obstacles opposed. His integrity was most pure, his
justice the most inflexible I have ever known; no motives of interest
or consanguinity, of friendship or hatred, being able to bias his
decision. He was, indeed, in every sense of the word, a wise, a good,
and a great man. His temper was naturally irritable and high-toned; but
reflection and resolution had obtained a firm and habitual ascendency
over it. If ever, however, it broke its bounds, he was most tremendous
in his wrath. In his expenses he was honorable, but exact; liberal in
contributions to whatever promised utility; but frowning and unyielding
on all visionary projects, and all unworthy calls on his charity.
His heart was not warm in its affections; but he exactly calculated
every man’s value, and gave him a solid esteem proportioned to it.
His person, you know, was fine, his stature exactly what one would
wish; his deportment easy, erect, and noble, the best horseman of his
age, and the most graceful figure that could be seen on horseback.
Although in the circle of his friends, where he might be unreserved
with safety, he took a free share in conversation, his colloquial
talents were not above mediocrity, possessing neither copiousness of
ideas nor fluency of words. In public, when called on for a sudden
opinion, he was unready, short, and embarrassed. Yet he wrote readily,
rather diffusely, in an easy and correct style. This he had acquired
by conversation with the world, for his education was merely reading,
writing, and common arithmetic, to which he added surveying at a
later day. His time was employed in action chiefly, reading little,
and that only in agriculture and English history. His correspondence
became necessarily extensive, and with journalizing his agricultural
proceedings, occupied most of his leisure hours within doors. On the
whole, his character was, in its mass, perfect, in nothing bad, in a
few points indifferent; and it may truly be said, that never did nature
and fortune combine more completely to make a man great, and to place
him in the same constellation with whatever worthies have merited from
man an everlasting remembrance. For his was the singular destiny and
merit of leading the armies of his country successfully through an
arduous war, for the establishment of its independence; of conducting
its councils through the birth of a government, new in its forms and
principles, until it had settled down into a quiet and orderly train;
and of scrupulously obeying the laws through the whole of his career,
civil and military, of which the history of the world furnishes no
other example.


THOUGHTS FROM WILLIAM ELLERY CHANNING.

ON BOOKS.—It is chiefly through books that we enjoy intercourse with
superior minds and these invaluable means of communication are in the
reach of all. In the best books great men talk to us, give us their
most precious thoughts, and pour their souls into ours.

God be thanked for books! They are the voices of the distant and the
dead, and make us heirs of the spiritual life of past ages.

Books are the true levelers. They give to all who will faithfully use
them, the society, the spiritual presence of the best and greatest of
our race. No matter how poor I am. No matter though the prosperous of
my time will not enter my obscure dwelling. If the sacred writers will
enter and take up their abode under my roof, if Milton will cross my
threshhold to sing to me of paradise, and Shakspere to open to me the
worlds of imagination and the workings of the human heart, and Franklin
to enrich me with his practical wisdom, I shall not pine for want of
intellectual companionship, and I may become a cultivated man, though
excluded from what is called the best society in the place where I live.

ON LABOR.—Manual labor is a great good, but only in its just
proportions. In excess it does great harm. It is not a good when
made the sole work of life. It must be joined with higher means of
improvement or it degrades instead of exalting. Man has a various
nature which requires a variety of occupation and discipline for its
growth. Study, meditation, society, and relaxation should be mixed up
with his physical toil. He has intellect, heart, imagination, taste, as
well as bones and muscles; and he is grievously wronged when compelled
to exclusive drudgery for bodily subsistence.

ON POLITICS.—To govern one’s self (not others) is true glory. To serve
through love, not to rule, is Christian greatness. Office is not
dignity. The lowest men, because most faithless in principle, most
servile to opinion, are to be found in office. I am sorry to say it,
but the truth should be spoken, that, at the present moment, political
action in this country does little to lift up any who are concerned
in it. It stands in opposition to a high morality. Politics, indeed,
regarded as the study and pursuit of the true, enduring good of a
community, as the application of great unchangeable principles to
public affairs, is a noble sphere of thought and action, but politics,
in its common sense, or considered as the invention of temporary
shifts, as the playing of a subtle game, as the tactics of party for
gaining power and the spoils of office, and for elevating one set of
men above another is a paltry and debasing concern.

ON SELF-DENIAL.—To deny ourselves is to deny, to withstand, to renounce
whatever, within or without, interferes with our conviction of right,
or with the will of God. It is to suffer, to make sacrifice, for duty
or our principles. The question now offers itself: What constitutes
the singular merit of this suffering? Mere suffering, we all know, is
not virtue. Evil men often endure pain as well as the good and are
evil still. This, and this alone, constitutes the worth and importance
of the sacrifice, suffering, which enters into self-denial, that it
springs from and manifests moral strength, power over ourselves, force
of purpose, or the mind’s resolute determination of itself to duty.
It is the proof and result of inward energy. Difficulty, hardship,
suffering, sacrifices, are tests and measures of moral force and the
great means of its enlargement. To withstand these is the same thing
as to put forth power. Self-denial then is the will acting with power
in the choice and prosecution of duty. Here we have the distinguishing
glory of self-denial, and here we have the essence and distinction of a
good and virtuous man.

ON PLEASURE.—The first means of placing a people beyond the temptations
to intemperance is to furnish them with the means of innocent
pleasure. By innocent pleasures I mean such as excite moderately;
such as produce a cheerful frame of mind, not boisterous mirth; such
as refresh, instead of exhausting, the system; such as are chastened
by self-respect, and are accompanied with the consciousness that life
has a higher end than to be amused. In every community there _must_
be pleasures, relaxations and means of agreeable excitement; and if
innocent ones are not furnished, resort will be had to criminal. Men
drink to excess very often to shake off depression, or to satisfy
the restless thirst for agreeable excitement, and these motives
are excluded in a cheerful community. A gloomy state of society in
which there are few innocent recreations, may be expected to abound
in drunkenness if opportunities are afforded. The savage drinks to
excess because his hours of sobriety are dull and unvaried, because
in losing consciousness of his condition and his existence he loses
little which he wishes to retain. The laboring classes are most exposed
to intemperance, because they have at present few other pleasurable
excitements. A man, who, after toil, has resources of blameless
recreation is less tempted than other men to seek self-oblivion. He has
too many of the pleasures of the man to take up those of the brute.

    [End of Required Reading for November.]




AUTUMN SYMPATHY.

By E. G. CHARLESWORTH.


    The primrose and the violet,
    The bloom on apricot and peach,
    The marriage-song of larks in heights,
    The south wind and the swallow’s nest;
    All born of spring, I once loved best.

    But now the dying leaf and flower,
    The frost wind moaning in the pane,
    The robin’s plaintive latter song,
    The early sunset in the west;
    All born of autumn, I love best.

    Tell me, my heart, the reason why
    Thy pulse thus beats with things that die;
    Is it thine own autumnal sheaves?
    Is it thine own dead fallen leaves?

    —_London Sunday Magazine._




REPUBLICAN PROSPECTS IN FRANCE.

By JOSEPH REINACH.


On the very morrow of Gambetta’s death, and when that catastrophe had
been interpreted by the immense majority of European opinion, as also
by many Frenchmen, as the certain presage of the approaching triumph
of advanced Radicalism—triumph to be followed by violent interior
discords that would infallibly bring about the fall of the Republic and
the re-establishment either of Empire or of Royalty—I said that these
predictions would not be realized, and, moreover, that Gambetta’s death
would but serve to hasten the triumph of his political ideas and party.
I will cite, word for word, what I wrote at the end of January in a
paper that appeared in this Review on February 1:

“We even believe we may predict that the realization of several of
Gambetta’s ideas will meet with fewer obstacles, at least among a
certain fraction of public opinion, to-morrow than yesterday. A
formidable reaction will take place in favor of the great statesman
whom we weep, a reaction in favor of his theories and his principles.
In short, we shall most likely witness the contrary of what has taken
place for some years. It was enough that Gambetta should defend a
theory for it to be attacked with fury. From henceforth it will often
suffice that an idea was formerly held up by Gambetta for it to be
enthusiastically acclaimed. As in the story of Cid Campeador, it is his
corpse that leads his followers to victory.”

What I foretold six months ago has been fulfilled in every point. Those
very Castilians who during Cid’s lifetime suspected him of the darkest
designs and reviled him as a criminal—what did they do after his death?
They put the hero’s corpse in an iron coffin, and the black gravecloth
on the bier was the standard which, in the front rank of battle, led
the Spanish army to victory. And so has it been, or nearly so, with
French Republicans and Gambetta. The political history of our country
during the last six months may be thus summed up: Out of Gambetta’s
death-bed has arisen a first (not complete) victory for his ideas and
friends; from the party more specially organized by him have been
chosen most men now in office, that they may execute his will.

As a matter of fact, just after the excitement of the first few days,
as soon as it became necessary for the Republicans to unite and stop
the Royalists who thought the fruit already ripe, what ministers did
the President of the Republic call for? M. Jules Ferry, who for the
last five years had been, if not the direct coadjutor, at least the
most invariable and faithful political ally of Gambetta, was made Prime
Minister; M. Waldeck-Rousseau, the late Minister for Home Affairs under
Gambetta, and M. Raynal, the late Minister of Public Works, were both
recalled to the same offices. M. Challemel-Lacour, Gambetta’s most
esteemed and devoted friend, was named Minister of Foreign Affairs, and
M. Martin Feuillèe, Under-Secretary of State for Justice on November
14, Minister of Justice; M. Margue, Under-Secretary of State for Home
Affairs, resumed the same post. General Campenon could have been
Minister of War had he wished it. And a great pity it is he declined
his friends’ proposals. Thus, in its general bearings, the Ferry
Ministry is the Gambetta Ministry without Gambetta.

Except some secondary modifications made necessary by the change of
circumstances, the political program is about the same. Abroad an
active and steady diplomacy, the regular development of our colonial
politics, the consolidation of the protectorate in Tunis; at home
the constitution of a strong government, the methodical realization
of social and democratic reforms, the policy of _scrutin de liste_,
whilst awaiting the abolition of _scrutin d’arrondissement_. The
principal bills adopted last session, except the Magistracy bill, are
but legacies from the Gambetta Cabinet. Both cabinets are animated by
the same national spirit—national above all, but also progressist and
governmental. The halo imparted by the presence of a man of genius
is certainly wanting; but Carlyle’s _hero-worship_ is by no means a
democratic necessity. There is certainly reason for rejoicing when a
nation acknowledges and appreciates in one of its sons, sprung from its
midst, an intellect of the highest order. But when Alexander leaves
lieutenants profoundly imbued with his spirit, formed in his school,
most desirous and capable of continuing his work—when these men,
instead of being at variance, remain, on the contrary, more strongly
bound together than ever—there is certainly no reason for complaining
and giving way to discouragement.

Then it is not only in parliament that the _opportunist_ policy is
again getting the upper hand. Throughout the whole country it has
regained the ground it had lost by the intrigues of hostile parties.
The great majority of Republicans have now recovered from a number of
diseases for which Gambetta had always prescribed the remedy—remedy,
alas! that too many refused to stretch out their hand for. The mania
for decentralization is forgotten. The necessity for a strongly
constituted and vigorous central power is almost universally understood
and acknowledged. Demagogue charlatans are for the most part unmasked.
Our foreign policy is steadier—we are no longer afraid of Egyptian
shadows. Intransigeants of the Right and Left still continue to see
in our colonial enterprises but vulgar jobbing, and to denounce and
revile them in every possible way. But the great mass of the nation
is no longer to be made a fool of, and has understood the necessity
of extending France beyond the seas. There is a story of an English
peasant who locked the stable door after the horse had been stolen.
Happily for France she has several horses in her stables. If she has
lost, at least for a time, her beautiful Arabian steed on the borders
of the Nile, that is but an additional reason for taking jealous care
of the others.—_The Nineteenth Century._

       *       *       *       *       *

IN 404 Honorius was emperor. At that time, in the remote deserts of
Libya, there dwelt an obscure monk named Telemachus. He had heard of
the awful scenes in the far-off Coliseum at Rome. Depend upon it, they
lost nothing by their transit across the Mediterranean in the hands of
Greek and Roman sailors. In the baths and market-places of Alexandria,
in the Jewries of Cyrene, in the mouths of every itinerant Eastern
story-teller, the festive massacres of the Coliseum would doubtless be
clothed in colors truly appalling, yet scarcely more appalling than the
truth.

Telemachus brooded over these horrors till his mission dawned upon
him. He was ordained by heaven to put an end to the slaughter of
human beings in the Coliseum. He made his way to Rome. He entered
the Coliseum with the throng, what time the gladiators were parading
in front of the emperor with uplifted swords and the wild mockery of
homage—“_Morituri te salutant._” Elbowing his way to the barrier, he
leapt over at the moment when the combatants rushed at each other,
threw himself between them, bidding them, in the name of Christ, to
desist. To blank astonishment succeeded imperial contempt and popular
fury. Telemachus fell slain by the swords of the gladiators. Legend
may adorn the tale and fancy fill out the picture, but the solid fact
remains—_there never was another gladiatorial fight in the Coliseum_.
One heroic soul had caught the flow of public feeling that had already
begun to set in the direction of humanity, and turned it. He had
embodied by his act and consecrated by his death the sentiment that
already lay timidly in the hearts of thousands in that great city
of Rome. In 430 an edict was passed abolishing forever gladiatorial
exhibitions.—_Good Words._

       *       *       *       *       *

ALL merit ceases the moment we perform an act for the sake of its
consequences. Truly in this respect “we have our reward.”—_Wilhelm von
Humboldt._




CHAUTAUQUA TO CALIFORNIA.

By FRANCES E. WILLARD, President N. W. C. T. U.


I.

I.—SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA.

In one thing Chautauqua and California are alike—each is a climax, and
both are “made up of every creature’s best.” My sufficient consolation
for missing one of them this year is, that I saw the other. Let us
speed onward, then, taking Chautauqua as our point of departure, in a
Pickwickian sense only, unless for the further reason that it has the
high prerogative of making all its happy denizens believe it to be
the center of gravity (and good times) for one planet at least; the
meridian from which all fortunate longitude is reckoned and all lucky
time-pieces set. Our swift train, “outward bound,” races along through
the old familiar East and the West no longer new.

       “Through the kingdoms of corn,
        Through the empires of grain,
        Through dominions of forest;
        Drives the thundering train;
        Through fields where God’s cattle
        Are turned out to grass,
        And his poultry whirl up
        From the wheels as we pass;
    Through level horizons as still as the moon
    With the wilds fast asleep and the winds in a swoon.”

From a palace car with every eastern luxury, we gaze out on the
dappled, pea-green hills of New Mexico and the wide, empty stretches
of Arizona, stopping in Santa Fe—Columbia’s Damascus, in Albuquerque—a
pocket edition of Chicago, and in Tucson—the storm-center of
semi-tropic trade. But the “W. C. T. U.” is a plant of healing as
indigenous to every soil for good as the saloon for evil, and in the
first city the Governor’s wife has accepted leadership; in the second
that place is held by a lovely Ohio girl, the wife of a young lawyer;
and in the third a leading woman of society and church work, whose
husband is one of Arizona’s most honored pioneers, consents to be our
standard-bearer. These way-side errands, with their delightful new
friendships and tender gospel lessons over, we hasten on to California.
Some token of its affluent beauty comes to us on Easter Sabbath in the
one hundred calla-lilies sent from Los Angeles, five hundred miles
beyond, to adorn the church where we worship in Tucson, that marvelous
oasis in the desert. “Go on, and God be with you,” says the friend who
escorts us to the train; “you’ll find Los Angeles a heaven on earth.”
And so, indeed, we did, coming up out of the wilderness on a soft
spring day, between fair, emerald hills that stood as the fore-runners
of the choicest land on which were ever mirrored the glory and the
loveliness of God.

We visited the thirty leading centers of interest and activity in the
great Golden State during the two months of our stay, but when the
courteous mayor of this “city of the angels” welcomed us thither,
and children heaped about us their baskets of flowers, rare, save
in California, we told “His Honor” that of all the towns we had yet
visited—and they number a thousand at least—his was the one most fitly
named.

Southern California, and this its exquisite metropolis, have been a
terra incognita even to the intelligent, until the steam horse lately
caracoled this way. Now it is thronged by emigrants and tourists, men
and women of small means reaping from half a dozen acres here what a
large farm in Illinois could hardly yield, and invalids hitherto only
an expense to their friends, finding the elixir of life in this balmy
air, and joyously joining once more the energetic working forces of
the world. Flowers are so plenty here that banks and pyramids alone
can satisfy the claims of decorative art; baskets of roses are more
frequent than bouquets or even _boutonnieres_ with us. Heliotropes and
fuchsias climb to the apex of the roof, while the common garden trees
are oranges, lemons, limes, citrons, figs, olives and pomegranates.
Strawberry short-cake can be had all the year round from the fresh
fruit of one’s own garden, and oranges at the rate of nine thousand
to one tree, and in some cases fifteen inches in circumference, have
been raised in this vicinity. Riverside and Pasadena are adjacent
colonies and bear a stronger resemblance to one’s ideal Garden of Eden
than any other places I ever expect to see. Through groves of rarest
semi-tropic fruit trees you ride for miles, in the midst of beautiful,
modern homes, for the American renaissance is not more manifest in the
suburbs of Boston or Chicago than in Southern California. Fences are
nowhere visible, the Monterey cypress furnishing a hedge which puts
to blush the choicest of old England; the pepper tree with drooping
branches, and the Australian gum tree, tall and umbrageous, outlining
level avenues whose vistas seem unending. Above all this are skies
that give back one’s best Italian memories, and for a background the
tranquil amplitude of the Sierra Madre Mountains. What would you more?
“See Naples and die” is an outworn phrase. “See California and live”
has been the magic formula of how many restored and happy pilgrims! The
tonic of cold water has electrified this soil, seven years ago an utter
desert, so that now three years of growth will work a transformation
that fifteen would fail to bring about east of the Mississippi. To
my thinking this result is but a material prototype of the heavenly
estate that shall come to our America when its arid waste of brains
and stomachs, usurped by alcohol, shall learn the cooling virtues of
this same cold water. In Riverside my host planted in May of 1880,
two thousand grape cuttings (not roots, remember), and in September,
1881, gathered from them two hundred boxes of grapes. Pasadena was
founded by a good man from Maine, and is exempt from saloons by the
provisions of its charter. Here, from six acres, a gentleman realized
thirteen hundred dollars, clear of all expenses, last year, by drying
and sacking his grapes, instead of sending them to the winery. “The
profits were so much larger that hereafter his pocket-book will counsel
him, if not his conscience, to keep clear of the wine trade,” said the
wide awake temperance woman who gave me the item. In Pasadena, Mrs.
Jennie C. Carr, whose fruit ranche and gardens, largely tilled by her
own hands, disclose every imaginable variety which the most extravagant
climate can produce, sells at three thousand dollars per acre, land
purchased by her for a mere song six years ago. In Santa Ana and San
Bernardino, also near Los Angeles, there is the same luxuriance and
swift moving life. A county superintendent of schools told me he had
one school district that includes 160 miles of railroad, and has a town
of 800 people, where three months ago there was silence and vacancy.
At San Diego, the most southerly town in California, we found the _ne
plus ultra_ of climate for consumptives, its temperature ranging from
fifty-five to seventy-five degrees, and its air dry. San Diego is
the oldest town in the State, having been established as a Catholic
“Mission” in 1769. It is now altogether modernized and is Nature’s own
sanitarium, besides being a lovely land-locked harbor of the Pacific.
Santa Barbara, which we missed seeing, has a grape vine sixty years
old, and a foot through, which in 1867 bore six tons of grapes, some
of whose clusters weighed five pounds each. The railroad will soon
make this beautiful town accessible to rapid tourists to whom the
ocean is unkind. Twenty-one missions were founded over a century ago
by Franciscan friars in Southern California. They brought with them
from Spain the orange and the vine. They were conquerors, civilizers,
subduers of the soil. They brought cattle, horses, sheep, and—alas!
hogs. They conquered the land for Spain without cruelty, baptizing
the Indians into the church and teaching them the arts of peace. Then
followed the Mexican, then our own conquest of their territory, and now
the Anglo-Saxon reigns supreme in a land on which Nature has lavished
all she had to give. Upon his victory over the alcohol habit, depends
the future of this goodly heritage. If he raises grapes he will
survive; if he turns them into wine he must succumb.


II.—SAN JOAQUIN VALLEY.

We crossed the famous and dangerous “Tehachapi Pass” at night, and
wended our way slowly through this notable valley, three hundred miles
in length by thirty-five in width, stopping to found the W. C. T. U. in
its four chief towns, Fresno, Tulare, Merced, and Modesto.

Irrigation is the watchword here, and as it takes capitalists to carry
this through on a scale so immense, large farms are now the rule. For
instance, we passed over one seventy-three miles in length by twenty in
width. Later on, it is to be hoped these immense proprietaries may be
settled by men whose primary object is to establish and maintain homes.
At present, in the agricultural line, “big enterprises” are alone
attractive. “Alfalfa,” a peculiarly hardy and luxuriant clover—imported
by Governor Bigler from Chili—is the first crop, and grazing precedes
grain. This plant “strikes its roots six feet or more into the soil,
and never requires a second planting, while every year there are five
crops of alfalfa and but two of wheat and barley.”

Varied indeed is the population of this valley. One day we dine with a
practical woman from Massachusetts, who declares that the sand storms,
which most people consider the heaviest discount on the valley, are
“really not so bad, for they polish off the house floors as nothing
else could.” The next we meet a group of earnest, motherly hearts from
a dozen different States, and almost as many religious denominations,
united to “provide for the common defense” of home against saloon. Next
day a lawyer from Charleston invites us to his cozy residence, “because
his wife knows some of our Southern leaders in the W. C. T. U.” The
next we make acquaintance with half a dozen school ma’ams from the
East, who have taken a ranche and set up housekeeping for themselves;
and in the fourth town visited an Englishman born in Auckland, New
Zealand, the leading criminal lawyer of the county, and instigator of
the woman’s crusade in Oakland, who gives us a graphic description of
that movement, which was a far-off echo of the Ohio pentecost.

So we move on at the rate of two meetings a day, with the hearty
support of the united clergy (except the Episcopal, and often they
helped us, too), and the warm coöperation of the temperance societies,
emerging in San Francisco, Monday, April 16, 1883.


III.—SAN FRANCISCO.

I am glad we did not so far forget ourselves as to arrive on Sunday,
for it appears that certain good, gifted, and famous persons, who shall
be nameless, telegraphed to certain Christian leaders of their intended
arrival on that day, and received answer: “The hour of your coming will
find us at church. The Palace is the best hotel.” Now on an overland
trip, an absent-minded traveler might fail to note the precise date
of his arrival in the metropolis of the Pacific, but that would be no
excuse to our guid folk yonder, whose Sunday laws have been smitten
from their statute books, and Christians hold themselves to strict
account for their example, which now alone conserves the Christian’s
worship and the poor man’s rest.

San Francisco is probably the most cosmopolitan city now extant. Its
three hundred thousand people sound the gamut of nationality in the
most varying and dissonant chorus that ever greeted human ears. The
struggle for survival is an astonishing mixture of fierceness and
good-nature. Crowding along the streets, Irish and Chinaman, New
Englander and Negro, show kind consideration, but in the marts of
trade and at the polls “their guns are ballots, their bullets are
ideas.” Old-time asperities are softening, however, even on these
battlegrounds. The trend is upward, toward higher levels of hope and
brotherhood. Eliminate the alcohol and opium habits, and all these
would (and will ere long) dwell together in unity. Lives like those
of Rev. Dr. Otis Gibson, and Mrs. Captain Goodall, invested for the
Christianizing of the Chinese, or like that of Mrs. Sarah B. Cooper,
devoted to kindergartening the embryo “hoodlum,” or that of Dr. R. H.
McDonald, the millionaire philanthropist, consecrated to the temperance
reform, are mighty prophecies of the good time coming.

San Francisco is the city of bay windows, and its people, beyond any
other on this continent, believe in sunshine and fresh air. In like
manner, they are fond of ventilating every subject, are in nowise
afraid of the next thing simply because it is the next, but have broad
hospitality for new ideas. Rapid as the heel taps of its street life
is the movement of its thought and the flame of its sympathy. Much as
has been said in its dispraise, Mount Diablo—the chief feature of its
environs—is not so symbolic of its spirit as the white tomb of Thomas
Starr King, which, standing beside one of its busiest streets, is a
perpetual reminder of noble power conserved for noblest use. Everybody
knows San Francisco’s harbor is without a rival save Puget Sound and
Constantinople. Everybody has heard of its “Palace Hotel,” the largest
in the world, and one that includes “eighteen acres of floor;” of
its “endless chain” street cars, the inevitable outgrowth of dire
necessity in its up-hill streets; of its indescribable “Chinatown;” of
“Seal Rock,” with its monster sea-lions, gamboling and howling year
out and year in, for herein are the salient features of the strange
city’s individuality. For a metropolis but thirty-four years old,
the following record is unrivaled: Total value of real and personal
property, $253,000,000; school property, $1,000,000; 130,000 buildings;
11,000 streets; 12 street car lines; 33 libraries and reading-rooms; 38
hospitals; 316 benevolent societies; 168 newspapers, and—the best fire
department in the world!

The two drawbacks of this wonderful city are its variable climate and
its possible earthquakes. A witty writer warns the intending tourist
thus: “Be sure to bring your _summer_ clothes. Let me repeat: be sure
to bring your _winter_ clothes.” To state the fact that in August
one may see fur cloaks any day, and in January a June toilet is not
uncommon, is but another way of stating that the galloping sea breeze,
unimpeded by mountains, rushes in moist squadrons on the shore, and
has all seasons for its own, in which to battle with the genial warmth
of this most lovely climate. As to earthquakes, there have been but
three since 1849, and these were insignificant calamities compared
with one year of our domesticated western tornadoes. Less than fifty
lives have been lost in California by earthquakes, thirty-seven of
these occurring in the country outside of San Francisco, and less than
a hundred thousand dollars worth of property has been destroyed, while
two millions would not cover our loss by cyclone in a single year,
to say nothing of the number of victims. Civilization seems to have
a naturalizing effect on fleas, snakes and earthquakes, west of the
Sierras, but acts as a tonic upon hurricanes east of the Rockies. Will
our scientists please “rise to explain” this mystery so close in its
relation to human weal and woe?

    [To be continued.]




TO MY BOOKS.

By LADY STIRLING-MAXWELL.


    Silent companions of the lonely hour,
    Friends, who can never alter or forsake,
    Who for inconstant roving have no power,
    And all neglect, perforce, must calmly take,
    Let me return to you; this turmoil ending
    Which worldly cares have in my spirit wrought,
    And, o’er your old familiar pages bending,
    Refresh my mind with many a tranquil thought:
    Till, haply meeting there, from time to time,
    Fancies, the audible echo of my own,
    ’Twill be like hearing in a foreign clime
    My native language spoke in friendly tone,
    And with a sort of welcome I shall dwell
    On these, my unripe musings, told so well.




EARTHQUAKES—ISCHIA AND JAVA.


PHENOMENA AND PROBABLE CAUSES.

These violent convulsions that from time to time shake and rend the
earth, are among the most terrible calamities that come upon men,
causing immense destruction of property and of life. Their occurrence
is often most unexpected.

Villages, cities, and whole districts of densely populated countries
sink beneath a sudden stroke, overwhelmed in a common ruin. If any
warning is given, the alarming premonitions rather confuse and paralyze
effort, because, with the appalling certainty of disaster, there is
nothing to show in what form it will come, or to indicate a place of
refuge.

While the recent horrors at Ischia and in Java excite much painful
interest in the public mind, they naturally recall similar scenes
of other years. Earthquakes of less destructive violence are very
frequent, and suggest greater power than is exerted. Even the slight
trembling, or vibratory motions, that produce no material injury,
remind us of the prodigious forces that may at any moment burst their
barriers with great violence.

In every perceptible shock we feel the mighty pulsations of the
agitated molten mass whose waves dash against the walls that restrain
them; or the struggling of compressed elastic gases, that must have
vent, though their escape rend the earth. The crust between us and the
seas of fire, whose extent no man knoweth, may be in places weakening,
cut away, as the inner walls of a furnace by the molten metal; so the
danger may be nearer and greater than is known or feared. A devout
man finds refuge and a comfortable assurance in the truth, “The Lord
reigneth; in his hands are the deep places of the earth. The strength
of the hills is his also.”

There are records of earthquakes more ancient than any books written
by men. They antedate the earliest chapters of human history, and
probably belonged to the pre-adamite earth. If no human ear heard their
tread, the footprints are still visible. In all mountainous regions
the evidence of their upheaval by some mighty force is too plain to be
doubted. The marine fossils found far up on their heights, the position
of strata, often far from horizontal, with immense fissures, and chasms
of unknown depth, all tell of disturbances that may have taken place
before the historic period. If in those primitive times mountains were
literally carried into the midst of the sea, and vast tracts of the
ocean’s bed shoved up thousands of feet, it was only a more terrible
display of the gigantic powers still in action, and of whose workings
the centuries have borne witness.

No country seems to have escaped these terrible visitations, though
some suffer more than others. Volcanoes being of the same origin, they
are more frequent in volcanic regions, and perhaps by their shocks the
seething caldrons have been uncovered.

The same localities, as Southern Italy, and the neighboring island of
Sicily, have, from a remote period, at times been terribly shaken. From
1783 to 1786 a thousand shocks were made note of, five hundred of which
are described as having much force. Lyell considers them of special
importance, not because differing from like disturbances in other
places, but because observed and minutely described by men competent to
collect and state such physical facts in a way to show their bearing on
the science of the earth. The following, collected from Lyell, Gibbon,
Humboldt, and the encyclopædias, are facts respecting some of the
principal earthquakes on record. Their statements, much condensed, are
not given in chronological order, but as we find them:

In 115, of the Christian era, Antioch in Syria, “Queen of the East,”
beautiful in itself, and beautiful for situation, a city of two hundred
thousand inhabitants, was utterly ruined by earthquake. Afterward
rebuilt, in more than all its ancient splendor, by Trajan, the tide of
life and wealth again flowed into it, and for centuries we read of no
serious disasters of the kind. All apprehension of danger removed, the
people became famous for luxurious refinements, and, strangely enough,
seem to have united high intellectual qualities with a passionate
fondness for amusements. In 458 the city was again terribly shaken,
and twice in the sixth century. Each time the destruction was nearly
complete; but each time, in less than a century, the city was restored
again, but only to stand until 1822, and from that overthrow it has
never recovered, being now a miserable town of only six thousand
inhabitants. The destruction of five populous cities, on one site,
involved a fearful loss of life. Probably more than half a million
thus perished. The most destructive earthquake in that, or any other
locality, of which we find any mention, was in 562. An immense number
of strangers being in attendance at the festival of the Ascension,
added to the multitudes belonging to the city. Gibbon estimates that
two hundred and fifty thousand persons were buried in the ruins.

Among the earliest accounts of earthquakes having particular interest,
is the familiar one of that which destroyed Herculaneum and Pompeii
in the year 63—about sixteen years before those cities were buried in
scoria and ashes from Vesuvius.

Of modern earthquakes three or four are here mentioned as presenting
some interesting phenomena. That of Chili, in 1822, caused the
permanent elevation of the country between the Andes and the coast. The
area thus raised is estimated at one hundred thousand square miles, and
the elevation from two to seven feet. Shore lines, at higher levels,
indicate several previous upheavals of the same region, along about the
same lines. The opposite of this, a depression of land, was occasioned
in the island of Jamaica in 1692, when Port Royal, the capital, was
overwhelmed. A thousand acres or more thus sank in less than one
minute, the sea rolling in and driving the vessels that were in the
harbor over the tops of the houses.

The earthquake of New Madrid, below St. Louis, on the Mississippi,
was in 1811, and interesting as an instance of successive shocks, and
almost incessant quaking of the ground for months, and at a distance
from any volcano. The agitation of the earth in Missouri continued
till near the time of the destruction of the city of Caracas, in South
America, and then ceased. One evening, about this time, is described by
the inhabitants of New Madrid as cloudless, and peculiarly brilliant.
The western sky was a continual glare from vivid flashes of lightning,
and peals of thunder were incessantly heard, apparently proceeding,
as did the flashes, from below the horizon. Comparatively little harm
was done in Missouri, but the beautiful city of Caracas, with its
splendid churches and palatial homes, was made a heap of ruins, beneath
which twelve thousand of its inhabitants were buried. Just how these
events were related we know not. Whether the same pent-up forces that
were struggling in vain to escape in the valley of the Mississippi,
found vent in that distant locality, God only knows. The supposition
allowed may account for the relief that came to the greatly troubled
New Madrid. The evils they dreaded came but in part—enough only to
suggest the greater perils they escaped. Over an extent of country
three hundred miles in length fissures were opened in the ground
through which mud and water were thrown, high as the tops of the trees.
From the mouth of the Ohio to the St. Francis the ground rose and fell
in great undulations. Lakes were formed and drained again, and the
general surface so lowered that the country along the White River and
its tributaries, for a distance of seventy miles, is known as “the sunk
country.” Flint, the geographer, seven years after the event, noticed
hundreds of chasms then closed and partially filled. They may yet, in
places, be traced, having the appearance of artificial trenches.

Fissures are occasionally met in different parts of the country, which
extend through solid rock to a great depth. “The Rocks” at Panama, N.
Y., have been elsewhere described, and furnish a profitable study.

A more remarkable chasm of this kind extends from the western base of
the Shawangunk Mountain, near Ellenville, Ulster County, N. Y., for
about a mile to the summit. At first one can easily step across the
fissure, but further up it becomes wider, till the hard vertical walls
of sandstone are separated by a gorge several feet wide, and of great
depth. At the top an area of a hundred acres or more is rent in every
direction, the continuity of the surface being interrupted by steps
of rocks, presenting abrupt walls. The gorge traced up the mountain
becomes a frightful abyss, more than a hundred feet wide. Among the
loose stones at the bottom large trees are growing, whose tops scarce
reach half way to the edge of the precipice. Most such disruptions
of rocks and mountains were doubtless caused by earthquakes at some
unknown period.

The great earthquake at Lisbon, the capital of Portugal, was in 1755.
“The ominous rumbling sound below the surface was almost immediately
followed by the shock which threw down the principal part of the city;
in the short space of six minutes, it is believed, 60,000 perished. The
sea rolled back, leaving the bar dry, and then returned, in a great
tidal wave, fifty feet, or more, in height. The mountains around were
shaken with great violence, their rocks rent, and thrown in fragments
into the valley below. Multitudes of people rushed from their falling
buildings to the marble quay, which suddenly sank with them, like a
ship foundering at sea; and when the waters closed over the place no
fragments of the wreck—none of the vessels near by, that were drawn
into the whirlpool, and not one of the thousands of the bodies that
were carried down ever appeared again. Over the spot occupied by the
quay, the water stood six hundred feet deep; and beneath it, locked in
fissured rocks, and in chasms of unknown depth, lie what was the life
and wealth of the place, in the middle of the eighteenth century.”

Earthquakes, of especial interest, from their recent occurrence and
destructive effects, are those of 1857-58, in the kingdom of Naples,
and in Mexico; but we have not room to more than mention them. The
past summer will be remembered as the period of at least two terrible
disasters from earthquakes, in localities distant from each other.
The first, July 28, was at Ischia, a beautiful island at the north
entrance of the bay of Naples. The principal town, Cassamicciola, was
mostly destroyed, and much injury done at other places. The town was
a noted health resort, and it is feared many distinguished strangers
perished in it. The shocks began in the night, when a majority of the
citizens, who frequent such places, were in the theater, and the scene
there was terrible. Lamps were overturned; clouds of dust arose, and
then the walls of the building opened, and fell, giving no opportunity
for escape. The ground opened in many places, and houses and their
inhabitants were swallowed up. The hotel Picola Sentinella sank into
the earth, with all its inmates. The number destroyed, first estimated
at three thousand, was much larger, but how much is not yet certainly
known. Years must elapse before the town is restored, when it will be
with a new class of inhabitants.

The sad tidings of disaster in Italy were soon followed by still more
startling intelligence from Java, where, as in regions bordering on
the Mediterranean, earthquakes are not a new experience with the
inhabitants. A recital of the calamities occurring in Java during
the last century would make a gloomy chapter in history, suggesting
the insecurity and transitory nature of all earthly possessions. The
island is one of the largest and, commercially, most important, in the
Indian archipelago, six hundred and sixty miles in length, and the
width varying from forty to one hundred and thirty miles. It is densely
populated, and governed by a Dutch viceroy. In the mountain range
extending through the center, with a mean elevation of seven thousand
feet, are many volcanoes; and earthquakes are of frequent occurrence,
as in other volcanic regions. In 1878 record was made of some sixteen,
in different parts of the island. One of the most famous, accompanied
by a vast eruption of Papandayang, the largest of the volcanoes,
took place a hundred years ago, overwhelming an area of a hundred
square miles, and destroying three thousand people—the island at that
time having fewer inhabitants. There were two similar eruptions from
volcanoes at the same time, respectively one hundred and thirty-four
and three hundred and fifty-two miles from Papandayang, suggesting the
fact that the power of producing them, and the earthquakes, may operate
through a field of vast extent, and breaks through where the barriers
give way. It is safe to say both have the same origin.

Ischia and Java, though almost antipodes, are companions in disaster,
and possibly felt the dashing of the same billows, striking with
violence here or there, according as some mighty impulse drove them
on. The great calamities of the past summer, besides their appeal to
our humanity, will be of interest to scientific men, and may throw
light on the relations of earthquakes and volcanoes, and their cause,
after which they have been searching a good deal in the dark, and with
results not yet satisfactory.

The accounts of the last fearful disaster are yet incomplete, and may
not all be verified. The latest, and apparently most reliable reports,
place it among the most terrible calamities known in the history of
the race, since the deluge. The earth trembled and shook—rocks were
rent—buildings tumbled in ruins. A large part of the city, full of
wealth and life, sank out of sight. Tidal waves carried destruction
along the coast. Volcanoes belched forth smoke, ashes and lava,
overspreading fertile valleys; and when the sulphurous clouds that hung
over them, black as night, were lifted, turbulent waters rolled over
fifty square miles of pasture lands that the day before were covered
with flocks, and the homes of men. It is estimated that seventy-five
thousand people perished. It may be a few thousand less, or more,
as there are yet no data from which to form more than a proximate
estimate. The whole number will not be known till the graves and the
sea give up their dead.




LOW SPIRITS.

By J. MORTIMER GRANVILLE.


There is enough in the daily experience of life to depress the feelings
and rob the mind of its buoyancy, without having to encounter lowness
of spirits as a besetting mental state or malady. Nevertheless, it so
frequently assumes the character of an affection essentially morbid,
attacks individuals who are not naturally disposed to despondency,
and gives so many unmistakable proofs of its close relations with the
health of the physical organism, that it must needs be included in the
category of disease. The constitutional melancholy which distinguishes
certain types of character and development, is a setting in the minor
key rather than depression. Within the compass of a lower range,
individuals of this class exhibit as many changes of mood as those
whose temperament is, so to say, pitched higher, and who therefore seem
to be capable of greater elation.

It is important to ascertain at the outset whether a particular person
upon whom interest may be centered is not naturally characterized by
this restrained or reserved tone of feeling! Unhealthy conditions of
mind are generally to be recognized by the circumstance that they offer
a contrast to some previous state. The movable, excitable temperament
may become fixed and seemingly unimpressionable, the self-possessed
begin to be irritable, the calm, passionate. It is the _change_ that
attracts attention, and when low spirits come to afflict a mind wont
to exhibit resilience and joyousness, there must be a cause for the
altered tone, and prudence will enjoin watchfulness. Mischief may be
done unwittingly by trying to stimulate the uncontrollable emotions.

There are few more common errors than that which assumes lowness
of spirits to be a state in which an appeal should be made to the
sufferer. We constantly find intelligent and experienced persons,
who show considerable skill in dealing with other mental disorders
and disturbances, fail in the attempt to relieve the pains of
melancholy. They strive by entreaty, expostulation, firmness, and even
brusqueness, to coerce the victim, and prevail upon him to shake off
his despondency. They urge him to take an interest in what is passing
around, to bestir himself, and put an end to his broodings. This would
be all very well if the burden that presses so heavily on the spirit
simply lay on the surface, but the lowness of which I am speaking
is something far deeper than can be reached by “rallying.” It is a
freezing of all the energies; a blight which destroys the vitality, a
poison which enervates and paralyzes the whole system.

It is no use probing the consciousness for the cause while the
depression lasts—as well look for the weapon by which a man has been
struck senseless to the earth, when the victim lies faint and bleeding
in need of instant succor. If the cause were found at such a moment,
nothing could be done to prevent its further mischief. Supposing it to
be discovered that the malady is the fruit of some evil-doing or wrong
management of self, the moment when a crushed spirit is undergoing
the penalty of its error is not that which should be selected for
remonstrance. It is vain to argue with a man whose every faculty of
self-control is at its lowest ebb. The judgment and the will are
dormant. The show of feeling made by the conscience in the hour of
dejection is in great part emotional, and the purposes then formed
are sterile. The tears of regret, the efforts of resolve, elicited in
the state of depression, are worse than useless; they are like the
struggles of a man sinking in the quicksand—they bury the mind deeper
instead of freeing it.

The state of mental collapse must be allowed to pass; but here comes
the difficulty; the moment reaction takes place, as shown by a slight
raising of the cloud, it will be too late to interfere. The mind
will then have entered on another phase not less morbid than the
depression which it has replaced. There is no certain indication of
the right moment to make the effort for the relief of a sufferer from
this progressive malady. The way to help is to watch the changes of
temperament narrowly, and, guided by time rather than symptoms, to
present some new object of interest—a trip, an enterprise, a congenial
task—at the moment which immediately precedes the recovery. The soul
lies brooding—it is about to wake; the precise time can be foreknown
only by watching the course of previous attacks; whatever engrosses the
rousing faculties most powerfully on waking, will probably hold them
for awhile. It is a struggle between good and healthy influences on the
one hand, and evil and morbid on the other. If it be earnestly desired
to rescue the sufferer, the right method must be pursued, and wrong
and mischief-working procedures—among which preaching, persuading,
moralizing, and rallying are the worst and most hurtful—ought to be
carefully avoided. When the thoughts are revived and the faculties
rebound, they must be kept engaged with cheering and healthful subjects.

There is no greater error than to suppose good has been accomplished
when a melancholic patient has been simply aroused. The apparently
bright interval of a malady of this class is even more perilous than
the period of exhaustion and lowness. The moment the mind resumes
the active state, it generally resumes the work of self-destruction.
The worst mischief is wrought in the so-called lucid interval. The
consciousness must be absorbed and busied with healthful exercise,
or it will re-engage in the morbid process which culminates in
depression. The problem is to keep off the next collapse, and this can
be accomplished only by obviating the unhealthy excitement by which it
is commonly preceded and produced. Healthy activity promotes nutrition,
and replenishes the strength of mind and body alike; all action that
does not improve the quality of the organ acting, deteriorates it and
tends to prevent normal function.




VEGETABLE VILLAINS.

By R. TURNER.


THE LARGER FUNGI.

To become acquainted with the bulkier of these villains, we must visit
their favorite haunts. An occasional one may occur in any kind of
place, as has already been explained. A good many, especially of the
edible sort, and notably the common mushroom, grow in open pastures.
To get among crowds of them, however, we must resort to close woods,
especially of fir and pine. There they grow on tree-stumps, fallen
trunks, and on the ground, in great variety and abundance. If we go at
the proper season their profusion will astonish us. This time of plenty
varies from early to late autumn with the character of the weather.
Clad in waterproof wraps and with leather gloves on hand, we may make
a fungus foray into the dripping woods amid russet and falling leaves
with comparative comfort; and even on a “raw rheumatic day” there will
likely be much enjoyment for us and still more instruction. It will
be strange, indeed, if we do not find some kinds to eat and very many
to think over. We ought to get examples, at least, of nearly all the
different families. Let us consider them in a general way as novices
do. A host of them have gills like the mushroom; and so we may take
that best known of them all as a type of the whole class. Mushroom
spawn runs through the soil in a rootlike way, absorbing the organic
matter it falls in with and every here and there swelling out into
roundish bodies, each consisting of a tubercle enclosed in a wrapper.
The tubercle bursts through the wrapper as growth goes on, and soon
above ground appears the well-known form of the mushroom, with a stalk
supporting a fleshy head by the center, and on the under surface of
this head radiating gills, which are at first covered by a veil that
finally gives way and leaves only a ring round the stem. These gills
are originally flesh-colored, but afterward become brown and mottled
with numerous minute purple spores. If we were to investigate further
by means of the microscope, we should find that the spores are not
contained in any case, and that they are produced in fours on little
points at the tips of special cells. Of the other kinds belonging to
this order of agarics, some differ from the mushroom in being poisonous
and others in being parasitic. There is much variety, also, in the
tints of gill and spore, different kinds having these white, pink,
rosy, salmon-colored, reddish, or yellowish, or darkish brown, purple
or black. Again, in some the stem is not central, but attached more or
less laterally to the head; in others there is no stem, and the gills
radiate out from the substance on which the agaric grows. The ring
round the stalk, too, often varies, or is sometimes wanting. There
are many other differences, and it is by these that we are able to
distinguish the one kind from the other: but, of course, little more
can be done here than merely to indicate this infinite variety. Dr.
Badham, in his admirable work on the “Esculent Funguses of England,”
puts this quaintly, as he does many other facts. “These are stilted
upon a high leg, and those have not a leg to stand on; some are
shell-shaped, many bell-shaped; and some hang upon their stalks like a
lawyer’s wig.”

These gill-bearers, are, however, but one order in this extensive
division of plants. Nature’s plastic hand is never weary of shaping
fresh forms. It is lavish of variety, and never works in a stinted
or makeshift way. In place of gills we find in another order tubes
or pores in which the spores are produced. These tubular kinds
are sometimes fleshy, as in the edible boletus, or woody, as in
the polypores, popularly called sap-balls, which every one who
knows anything about woods and their wonders must have seen on old
tree-stumps, often growing to a great size. In yet another order,
spines, or bristles, or teeth, take the place of gills and tubes. In
the puff-balls the spores ripen inside a roundish leathern case, which
afterward bursts and discharges them as a fine dust. Then there is an
extensive class in which the spores are not produced in this offhand
way at all, but are carefully enclosed in little cases, or rather, I
should say, loaded into microscopic guns, as in the pezizas; and very
beautiful objects these are under the microscope.

Poisonous, putrescent, strange in shape, or color, or odor, as many
of the larger fungi are, it is little to be wondered at that contempt
has been a common human feeling with respect to most of them, and a
crush with disdainful heel on occasion the lot of a good many. The
popular loathing has run out into language. Under the opprobrious
term “toadstool,” a whole host of kinds is commonly included. The
puff-balls are known in Scotland as “de’il’s sneeshin’-mills” (devil’s
snuff-boxes), an epithet which expresses with a certain imaginative
humor, and a dash of superstition, the idea of something so utterly
base that it ministers to the gratification of demons, tickling their
olfactory organs with satanic satisfaction. Indeed, in this country
the mushroom is almost the only favored exception to the popular
verdict of loathing. It has gained the hearts of the people through
their stomachs, and ketchup has overcome popular prejudice by its fine
flavor. But there are many others on which cultured palates dote.
Truffles are dear delicacies, which few but rich men taste, for fine
aroma and flavor command a high price. The Scotch-bonnets of the fairy
rings, besides possessing a certain bouquet of elfin romance, cook
into delicacies full of stomachic delight. Then there are chantarells
and morels and blewitts, and poor-men’s-beef-steaks, over which
trained appetites rejoice. A score of dainty little rogues at least
there are, and a still greater number of kinds that are nutritive
and fairly palatable. In some European countries the edible ones are
a really valuable addition to the food of the people—not from being
more plentiful than with us, but from being more eagerly gathered and
diligently cultivated. One sort or other is used as food by every
tribe of men. Not only does the edible mushroom occur in all habitable
lands, but in certain foreign parts—as in Australia—there are forms of
it very much superior in quality to our English ones. Then, of course,
every clime has its own peculiar edible kinds. The native bread of the
Australians is an instance in point; it looks somewhat like compressed
sago, and is a fairly good article of diet. The staple food of the
wild Fuegians for several months each year is supplied by a kind which
they gather in great abundance from the living twigs of the evergreen
beech. Then there are some not very pleasant, according to our ideas,
which can be safely used, and are thus available in times of scarcity,
as, for instance, the gelatinous one which the New Zealand natives
know as “thunder-dirt,” and one somewhat similar that the Chinese are
said to utilize. A curious trade has of late years sprung up between
New Zealand and China. A brown semi-transparent fungus, resembling the
human ear, grows abundantly in the North Island. This the Maoris and
others collect, dry, and pack into bags, for export to China, where
it is highly prized for its flavor and gelatinous qualities as an
ingredient in soup. It is a species nearly related to our Jew’s-ear.
The value of this fungus exported from New Zealand in 1877 was stated
at over £11,000.—_Good Words._

       *       *       *       *       *

    When we reflect how little we have done
    And add to that how little we have seen,
    And furthermore how little we have won
    Of joy or good, how little known or been,
    We long for other life, more full, more keen,
    And yearn to change with those
    Who well have run.
                         —_Jean Ingelow._

       *       *       *       *       *

A TALENT for any art is rare; but it is given to nearly every one to
cultivate a taste for art; only it must be cultivated with earnestness.
The more things thou learnest to know and enjoy, the more complete and
full will be for thee the delight of living.—_Platen._




FROM THE BALTIC TO THE ADRIATIC.

By the author of “German-American Housekeeping,” etc.

    [Concluded.]


Travelers are like conchologists, vying with one another in picking
up different shells, and herein lies the unending interest of their
records.

In the roundabout route from the Baltic to the Adriatic and
Mediterranean, Cassel, the electorate in former years of Hesse-Cassel,
afforded a most suggestive visit. To be sure, its history is not
altogether pleasant to an American, for the fact that the old elector
hired his troops to England to fight us during the Revolutionary
war, is not a savory bit of German history. Even Frederick the Great
saw the meanness of it, for when he heard they were to take their
route to England by Prussian roads, he sent word, “if they did so, he
would levy a cattle tax on them.” Perhaps some of the money paid by
England at that time was laid up in the public treasury and expended
afterward upon the extravagant ornamentation of the grounds of the
elector’s summer residence, “Wilhelmshöhe.” The palace is in itself
one of the most magnificent in Europe. Above the cascades in front
of it is the highest fountain on the continent. One stream, twelve
inches in diameter, is thrown to the height of two hundred feet. The
colossal Hercules which crowned the summit of this artificial grandeur
was thirty feet high, and the cascades are nine hundred feet long.
The whole arrangement is said to have kept two thousand men engaged
for fourteen years, and to have cost over ten million dollars! Jerome
Napoleon occupied this palace of Wilhelmshöhe when he was king of
Westphalia.

A walk of three miles under the straight and narrow road shaded by lime
trees, leads one back to Cassel, after this visit to Wilhelmshöhe.
The town is beautifully situated on either side of the river Fulda,
and has a population of thirty-two thousand. The beautiful terrace
overlooking the _angarten_, crowned by its new picture gallery, offers
as delightful promenades as the celebrated Dresden Terrace. The strains
of sweet music coming up from the _angarten_ (meadow) while one is
looking at the beautiful Rembrandts and Van Dykes in the gallery,
give the enchantment which one never fails to find in a German town.
Napoleon carried away many of the most valuable pictures from the
Cassel gallery—but it is redeemed from the number of horrible Jordaens
and Teniers by possessing the “pearl of Rembrandts,” a portrait of
“Saskia,” his wife.

Chemical products, snuff included, are manufactured in Cassel, and
it is quite a wide-awake business place—the old town preserved for
picturesque effect, and the new town building up for enterprising
manufacturers.

Leaving Cassel any day at one o’clock, one can reach Coblenz at
half-past seven in the evening, and the Bellevue Hotel will shelter one
delightfully for the night, provided a room on the _hof_, or court,
is not given. Four hundred feet above the river at Coblenz stands the
old fortress of “Ehrenbreitstein.” How fine its old gray stone and
its commanding situation is! No wonder Auerbach, the novelist, in his
“Villa on the Rhine,” devoted so many pages to Ehrenbreitstein, the
Gibraltar of the Rhine. It cost the government five million dollars.
With its four hundred cannon, and capacity to store provision for ten
years for eight thousand men in its magazine, well may it scorn attacks
“as a tempest scorns a chain.”

Instead of driving up to see this monstrous fortress, one may prefer
to wander into St. Castor’s Church in the early morning, and, like
a devout Catholic, kneel and pray. It may be more restful to thus
“commune with one’s own heart and be still,” than to keep up a
perpetual sight-seeing. Charlemagne divided his empire among his
grandchildren in this very church. It dates to the eighth century,
and is one of the best specimens of Lombard architecture in all the
Rhine provinces. Coming out in the morning about ten o’clock, the sun
will light up the severe outlines of the great old Ehrenbreitstein
across the river, and the thought comes to one, did Luther compose his
celebrated hymn, “_Ein feste Burg ist unser Gott_” (A mighty fortress
is our God), while in such a moment of inspiration as this scene
produces upon the mind?

We left Coblenz at ten o’clock on the steamer “Lorlei” for Mainz. This
romantic name for our boat, the waters we were plying, St. Castor’s
Church on the left, and Ehrenbreitstein on the right, brought a
strange combination of war, romance and religion to the mind. The
only prosaic moment which seized me was in passing the Lorlei Felsen
on the Rhine—when instead of remembering Lorlei, I exclaimed, so my
companions told me: “O! here is where they catch the fine salmon!”
Rheinstein was to my mind the most beautiful and picturesque castle of
all, and being owned by the Crown Prince is kept in becoming repair.
The little “_panorama des Rheins_” is a troublesome little companion,
for it leaves one not a moment for calm enjoyment and forgetfulness,
constantly pointing out the places of interest and crowding their
history and romance upon one.

The Dom at Mainz is a curious study for an architect—combining as it
does so many styles and containing such curious old tombs.

Frankfort, the birthplace of Goethe, and the native place of the
Rothschilds family, has too much history to detail in an article like
this. When it was a free city it had, and still retains, I believe, the
reputation of being the commercial capital of that part of Germany.

Goethe preferred little Weimar for the development of his poetical
life. His father’s stately house in Frankfort, still to be seen, was
not equal to his own in Weimar.

But let us leave the river Main and the river Rhine and look up
Nuremberg and Munich before we follow our southern course to the
Adriatic. An erratic journey this, but have we not found some shells
which the other conchologists overlooked?

Nuremberg seems to have lost more in population than any German city we
know of. Having once numbered 100,000, it now claims only 55,000. It is
a curious fact that Nuremberg toys which were so celebrated formerly,
have been surpassed in this country, and now American manufactures in
this line are taken to Nuremberg and actually sold as German toys.
This was told me by a gentleman interested in the trade. But buy a
lead-pencil in Nuremberg if you want a good article very cheap—perhaps
you can learn to draw or sketch with one, being inspired with the
memory of Albert Dürer.

Nuremberg is Bavaria’s second largest city, and attracts more
foreigners or visitors than Munich, perhaps, yet to the mind of the
Bavarian Munich is Bavaria, as to the Frenchman Paris is France, and
to the Prussian Berlin is Prussia! No traveler can be contented,
however, without some time in Nuremberg, although I dare say many go
away disappointed. The old stone houses with their carved gables, the
walls and turrets, St. Sebald Church, and the fortress where Gustavus
Adolphus with his immense army was besieged by Wallenstein, are things
which never grow tedious to the memory. In this fortress now they keep
the instruments of torture used in the middle ages to extract secrets
from the criminal or the innocent, as it might chance to be. A German
in Berlin laughingly told me when I described the rusty torturous
things, that they were all of recent manufacture, and were not the
genuine articles at all! But new or old, genuine or reproduced, they
make one shudder as does Fox’s “Book of Martyrs.” I know of no church
in Germany more worthy of study than St. Sebald’s. In it one finds a
curious old gold lamp, which swings from the ceiling about half way
down one aisle of the church. It is called _die ewige lampe_, because
it has been always burning since the twelfth century. It is related of
one of Nuremberg’s respectable old citizens that he was returning in
the darkness one stormy night to his home, and finally almost despaired
of finding his way, when a faint light from the St. Sebald’s Church
enabled him to arrive safe at his own door. He gave a fund to the
church afterward for the purpose of keeping there a perpetual light.
When the Protestants took St. Sebald’s, as they did so many Catholic
churches in Germany after the Reformation, the interest money which the
old man gave had still to be used in this way according to his will. So
_die ewige lampe_ still swings and gives its dim light to the passer-by
at night. Our American consul told me a characteristic story of an
American girl and her mother, whom he was showing about Nuremberg, as
was his social duty, perhaps. They were in St. Sebald’s Church, and
he related the story of the lamp as they stood near it. Underneath
stands a little set of steps which the old sexton ascends to trim the
lamp. “Oh!” said this precocious American girl, “I shall blow it out,
and then their tradition that it has never been out will be upset.” So
she climbed the steps fast, and as she was about to do this atrocious
thing our consul pulled her back, and said she would be in custody in
an hour, and he would not help her out. The mother merely laughed, and
evidently saw nothing wrong about the performance. It is just such
smart acts on the part of American girls abroad which induce a man
like Henry James to write novels about them. The fine, intelligent,
self-poised girls travel unnoticed, while the “Daisy Millers” cause the
judgment so often passed upon all American girls by foreigners, that
they are “an emancipated set.”

It was our good fortune while in Munich to board with most agreeable
people. The _Herr Geheimrath_ (privy counselor) had retired from active
life of one kind, to enjoy the privilege of being an antiquarian
and art critic. He had his house full of most valuable and curious
treasures. The study of ceramics was his hobby, and fayence, porcelain,
and earthenwares of the rarest kinds were standing around on his
desk, on cabinets, and on the floor. He edited _Die Wartburg_, a
paper which was the organ of _Münchener Alterthum-Verein_, and wrote
weekly articles _Ueber den Standpunkt unserer heutigen Kunst_. His
wife was formerly the _hof-singerin_ (court-singer) at the royal opera
in Munich, but was then too old to continue. Every Saturday evening
she would give a home concert, and would sing the lovely aria from
“Freischutz,” or Schumann’s songs.

St. Petersburg never looked whiter from snow than did Munich that
winter. The galleries were cold, but the new and old Pinakothek were
too rich to be forsaken. Fortunately the new building was just across
the street from the _Herr Geheimrath’s_. If it had only been the
old Pinakothek I found myself continually saying, for who cares for
Kaulbachs, and modern German art, compared with the rich Van Dykes,
the Rubens, the Dürers, and the old Byzantine school? I should say the
Munich gallery is superior to the Dresden in numbers, but not in gems.
But they have fine specimens from the Spanish, the Italian, and German
schools.

The Glyptothek is Munich’s boast. There is a stately grandeur in this
building that suggests Greece and her art. On a frosty morning, to
wander out beyond the Propylæum and enter through the great bronze door
of the Glyptothek, one feels like a mouse entering a marble quarry. I
presume there is no such collection of originals in any country but
Italy. Ghiberti, Michael Angelo, Benvenuti, Cellini, Peter Vischer,
Thorwaldsen, Canova, Rauch, Schwanthaler, are all represented by
original works. But it needs a warm climate to make such a collection
of statuary altogether attractive.

Going from Germany to Italy, one takes the “Brenner Pass,” generally,
over the Alps—the oldest way known, and used by Hannibal. After winding
around the side of these snowy peaks, and being blinded by the mists
enveloping the landscape, trembling with admiration or fear, as the
case may be, a glimpse of sunny Italy is most encouraging.

To reach the Adriatic and Venice is enough earthly joy for some
souls. Elizabeth Barrett Browning felt so; and all people feel so,
perhaps, who, as Henry James and W. D. Howells, give themselves up to
Venice, and write about her until she becomes identified with their
reputation. But let Venice and the Adriatic be silent factors in this
article, and let Verona, Florence, and Rome substitute them.

We alighted at Verona at midnight, and in the pale moonlight, which
gave a ghastly appearance to the quaint old place. “The Two Gentlemen
of Verona” were not to be seen that night. The streets were silent, yet
I thought perhaps they might greet us in the morning; but their shadowy
old cloaks are only to be seen thrown around a thousand beggars, who
are as thick as bees and as ugly as bats.

“The tomb of Juliet” is also a deception—a modern invention; but the
house of Juliet’s parents (the Capuletti), an old palace, stands as it
did in the days when Shakspere represents its banqueting halls and good
cheer.

The scenery from Verona to Florence, with the exception of a few views
of the Apennines, is very tedious—nothing beyond almond orchards,
which in March, the time of the year I saw them, resembled dead apple
trees. You will be surprised to hear that the Italian gentlemen wore
fur on their coats. They were, I imagine, traveled gentlemen, for the
genuine Italian, whether count or beggar, has a cloak thrown over his
shoulders in bewitching folds. When he pulls his large felt hat over
his magnificent eyes so that it casts a dark shadow over his mysterious
face, and stands in the sunshine, he looks simply a picture.

Verona is more Italian in appearance than Florence. The principal
street runs along either side of the river Arno, and is crowded for
some distance with little picture and jewelry shops; but farther on
toward the _cascine_, or park, the street widens, and is enriched
with handsome modern buildings, most of which are hotels. This drive
to the _cascine_ and the grand hotel was made when Victor Emmanuel
allowed the impression to exist that Florence would remain the capital
of Italy. This drive is thronged with carriages about four o’clock
in the afternoon. It was here I remember to have had the carriage of
the Medici family pointed out to me. Within sat two ladies with dark,
lustrous eyes, jet hair, and a great deal of lemon color on their
bonnets. The livery was also lemon color, and the carriage contained
the coat of arms on a lemon-colored panel. The Italians are very
partial to this shade of yellow. The beds are draped with material of
this same intense hue—very becoming to brunettes, but ruinous, as the
young ladies would say, to blondes.

Every one knows of the old Palazzo Vecchio, which rises away above
every object in the city of Florence. Its walls are so thick that in
them there are places for concealment—little cells—and in one of these
the great reformer of Florence, Savonarola, was kept until they burned
him at the stake in front of the palace.

“Santa Croce” is the name of the church which contains the tombs of
Michael Angelo, Alfieri Galileo, and Machiavelli. Byron, moved with
this idea, writes:

    “In Santa Croce’s holy precincts lie
       Ashes which make it holier, dust which is
     Even in itself an immortality.”

Every American goes to Powers’s studio to see the original of the
Greek Slave. Next to the Venus of Milo it seems the loveliest study in
marble of the female figure. But “our lady of Milo,” as Hawthorne calls
her—there is no beauty to hers!

The Baptistery in Florence is a curious octagonal church, built in
the twelfth century, and has the celebrated bronze doors by Ghiberti,
representing twelve eventful scenes from the Bible. Those to the south
are beautiful enough, said Michael Angelo, to be the gates of paradise.

As often as I had reflected upon Rome and her seven hills, on arriving
there the hills seemed to be a new revelation to me, and the rapid
driving of the Italians up and down the steep and narrow streets
bewildered me not a little. I found myself on the way from the depot,
constantly asking, can this be Rome? Everything looks so new. The
houses are light sandstone, like the buildings in Paris. I was
informed that this portion of Rome was calculated to mislead me, and
that I would find our hotel quite like Paris and New York houses. The
next morning, instead of making a pilgrimage to the Roman forum, the
Colosseum, and the palace of the Cæsars, we drove to St. Peter’s, which
kept me still quite in the notion that Rome had been whitewashed, or
something done to destroy her ancient classic aspect. We spent four
hours in the great church wandering around and witnessing a procession
of priests, monks, and gorgeous cardinals. There is no gewgaw, no
tinsel in St. Peter’s as one sees in so many other Catholic churches;
although gold is used in profusion, yet it is kept in subjection to
the tone of the walls. The bronze altar over St. Peter’s tomb is
wonderfully effective in the way of concentrating color and attention.
It is almost necessary to find a niche in the base of some pillar and
sit there awhile before plunging into the immensity of this great
building, just as a bird gets ready before darting into space. But
after all, the feeling of immensity which St. Peter’s gives is not so
grateful to the religious sense as the Gothic style of architecture,
with its stained window, and deep recesses,

    “Its long drawn aisles and fretted vaults.”

There is little solemnity in St. Peter’s, little shade and no music,
only from side chapels; but there are grand proportions, perfect
simplicity, and the pure light of heaven sending a beam upon a golden
dove above St. Peter’s tomb, which radiates in a thousand streams of
light over the marble pavement.

Nothing impressed me so much in Rome or suggested the ancient glory
so much as the ruins of the Baths of Caracalla. The magnificence of
this building must have been unparalleled. It accommodated sixteen
hundred bathers at once, and some of its walls are so thick one fears
to estimate the depth. What would the old Romans have thought of the
buildings of the present generation, which fall down or burn up without
much warning. Here is solid masonry standing since the year 212.

The different arches and columns of Rome constitute one of the most
attractive features to almost every traveller. Let those who enjoy
them climb their steps or strain their eyes to decipher in a scorching
Italian sun the dates, the seven golden candlesticks, the shew bread,
and Aaron’s rod, on Titus’s arch for example. I shall wander off while
they are so occupied into the old capitol—into the room where Rienzi
stood and exhorted the people to recover their ancient rights and into
the basement below where St. Paul was imprisoned.

The present king had just been crowned at that time. I saw the king and
queen in a procession where they were driving to gratify the people,
and again we saw him unattended driving with his brother through the
grounds of the Borghese Villa. The carnival was forbidden that year
in Rome on account of the death of the King and Pope, but there were
out-croppings of it on the streets. The tinseled finery and humbug of
it seem so incongruous in ancient classic Rome. I was glad to escape it.

The old Pantheon is too important in its history for any one to write
of it, but I have always liked the following paragraph from James
Freeman Clarke concerning it: “The Romans in this church, or temple,
worshiped their own gods, while they allowed the Jews, when in Rome,
to worship their Jewish god, and the Egyptians to worship the gods of
Egypt, and when they admitted the people of a conquered state to become
citizens of Rome their gods were admitted with them; but in both cases
the new citizens occupied a subordinate position to the old settlers.
The old worship of Rome was free from idolatry. Jupiter, Juno, and
the others were not represented by idols. But there was an impassable
gulf between the old Roman religion and modern Roman thought, and
Christianity came to the Roman world not as a new theory but as a new
life, and now her churches stand by the side of the ruins of the Temple
of Vesta and the old empty Pantheon.”




ELECTRICITY.


What is it? and what some of its manifestations? The name was given to
an occult, but everywhere present, property of material things. First
discovered by the ancients in amber (Gr. _electron_) and brought into
evidence by friction. It is generally spoken of as a highly elastic,
imponderable fluid, or fluids, with which all matter is supposed to be
in a greater or less degree charged. Though such fluids have never been
discovered as entities, and their existence may be but imaginary, it
was asserted to account for facts that otherwise seemed inexplicable.

Definitions of electricity are at hand, and could be easily given; but
they do not define or accurately point out that which they designate.
All that can be said, with confidence, is that certain phenomena which
come within our observation suggest the presence of such fluids, and
are not otherwise explained. The answer to the question, “What is it?”
must be the honest confession, we do not know. But, if ignorant of what
it is, we may yet intelligently study its manifestations. The phenomena
are not less capable of satisfactory discussion because the efficient
agent producing them is unknown.

The theory of two imponderable fluids or electricities having strong
attractive and repellant forces, is adopted because probable, and it
helps make the discussion intelligible.

The awakened interest now so widely felt in this branch of natural
science is more than just the desire to know what is knowable of the
world we live in. At first, and indeed for ages, only the curious
studied electricity, and practical men asked “_Cui bono?_” But in
the present century it has become an applied science. In no other
field have our studies of nature been more fruitful of discoveries
practically affecting the multiform industries, and improving the
rapidly advancing civilization of the age.

Some of the skillful inventions for controlling and utilizing this
power lying all about us will be mentioned hereafter.

It will be well first to state a few facts that are known and mostly
established by experimental tests:

(1) The earth, and all bodies on its surface, with the atmosphere
surrounding it, are charged with electricity of greater or less
potency. This seems their permanent state, though in some cases, its
presence is not easily detected.

(2) In quantity or intensity it is very different in different bodies,
as also in the same under different conditions. In some portions of
vast objects, as the earth and its atmosphere, it accumulates, immense
currents being poured into them, while others are perhaps to the same
extent drained.

(3) Through some bodies the subtle fluid may pass with but slight
obstruction—and they are called _conductors_. In others the hindrance
is greater, and we call them _insulators_. But the difference is only
of degrees; as the best conductors offer some obstruction, and the most
perfect insulators do not completely insulate. The metals, charcoal,
water, and most moist substances, as the earth and animal bodies, offer
but little resistance. The atmosphere, most kinds of glass, sulphur,
india rubber, vulcanite, shellac, and other resins, with dry silk and
cotton, are our best insulators. Friction used to secure electrical
manifestations is the occasion rather than the cause of the electricity
thus developed or set free. That it does not cause it, even in the
sense that it causes heat is evident, since the quantity of electricity
bears no proportion to the amount of friction used to produce it.

Though, really, there are not several distinct kinds of electricity,
as statical, dynamic, magnetic, frictional, and atmospheric, the
nomenclature of the science is at least convenient, and will not
mislead. It indicates the methods of production, and makes the
discussion of the subject more intelligible. And then the electricity
developed or set free by the different methods of excitement, though of
the same kind, differs much in degree and intensity.

What is called statical electricity is the condition of the subtle
force in a state of electrical quiescence; and all electricity in
motion, however excited by friction, heat, chemical action, or
otherwise, is dynamic.

Perpetual modifications are taking place in electrical condition of all
matter, that when made apparent, at first may seem quite inexplicable.
The excited currents flow with amazing rapidity. Their actions and
re-actions baffle our calculations, and the imagination itself is
bewildered by their extent and complexity. Yet by electrical tests and
laboratory experiments, carefully employed, the laws of electricity are
now as well known as those of any other branch of physical science,
and the phenomena, if more startling, are no more mysterious than the
manifestations of heat, light and gravitation.

Atmospheric electricity is not different in kind from that brought into
evidence by the methods of the experimenter in the laboratory, subject
to his control, and much used in the arts and industries of life. The
lightning that shineth from the one part under heaven to the other part
under heaven, a bright light in the cloud, is the same as the electric
spark from the moderately charged receiver, when the positive and
negative poles are brought into contact—the same as the less intense
spark excited by passing the hand rapidly over the fur on the cat’s
back when the electrical conditions are favorable.

The storm cloud is a vast receiver and by induction becomes at times
highly charged with electricity. If the cloud is at rest, and the
heated air grows moist, that which is known as sheet or heat lightning
appears in frequent flashes. The imprisoned electricity leaps forth
from the bosom or edge of the cloud, but as instantly gathers itself
back to its source, and apparently without tension or force enough
to crash through the atmosphere to any distant object. The flashes
are unaccompanied by the noise of thunder, and may be but reflections
on the cloud from a source far beyond. We watch them without fear of
danger, and the subdued impression is that of the beautiful.

Amidst the terrific grandeur of the violent thunder storm another form
of lightning is seen; either the vivid flash that seems to envelop us,
or zigzag, sometimes forked lines that dash across the cloud earthward,
and occasionally, as in a return stroke, from the earth to the cloud.

In about the middle of the eighteenth century the identity of lightning
with electricity was fully ascertained, and since then the most sublime
and startling phenomena of our thunder storms are better understood.
Under certain contingencies they must occur. Since the different
clouds or portions of the same cloud are charged with different
electricities, positive and negative, when these by the winds are
brought near each other, or rolled together, fierce explosions follow,
and great electrical changes take place in the clouds. Vast supplies
of the imprisoned fiery fluid leap from strata to strata, or, if the
distance is not too great, and the earth is at the same time strongly
electrified, crash down to it through whatever sufficient conductors
are found. If those not sufficient to receive and convey the charge
be in the path they are dashed aside; men and beasts are killed by
the shock, trees and other less perfect conductors are scattered in
fragments.

Usually the more prominent objects as masts of ships, trees, and
buildings are struck in the lightning’s course from the cloud, but
occasionally those lowest down, near trees, and even in cellars receive
the shock. In these cases the current is probably from the earth,
whose electric condition is negative with respect to the clouds that
pass over it. In either case the opposite electricities that strongly
attract each other, and whose concurrence produces the destructive
discharge near the earth’s surface are held apart by the stratum of air
between them. When the attraction becomes too strong to be resisted by
the insulating medium they rush together, in their fiery embrace, the
flash and concussion being in proportion to the intensity of the charge.

Do lightning rods protect? Yes; but not perfectly. If properly
constructed, and of sufficient conducting capacity, they are a source
of safety, and to discard them as useless is not wise.

The instances in which buildings provided with rods have been struck
do not prove them useless; or, as some say, that the rods do harm by
attracting the lightning that they are unable to conduct to the earth
without injury to the building. The point does not attract, but only
catches the electricity that sweeps over it. When violent shocks or
explosions occur the rod may be of little service. Its office is to
prevent these by silently conducting the excess of electricity from
the air. The rod, rightly placed, conducts to the earth all it can,
lessening the evil it does not entirely prevent. But all danger is not
removed. The position of the opposite poles in the immense battery may
be such as to give the stroke a horizontal direction, and far below the
point of the rod; such currents have been known to pass long distances
through atmosphere and smite with destructive violence objects lying
in their path. Against these lateral attacks rods above our roofs are
probably little or no protection. Still the more good conductors there
are in any locality the less danger, as they prevent the accumulation
of electricity.




POACHERS IN ENGLAND.

By JAMES TURVES.


It is somewhat surprising that none of our present-day novelists,
like Charles Reade or Thomas Hardy, who are always on the outlook
for romantic realism, whether it be in incident or in fact, have had
their eyes directed to the rural poachers who abound in every shire.
Poachers, though neither quite respectable members of the church
nor of society, are more interesting characters than burglars or
ticket-of-leave men, who figure frequently in the novelist’s pages.
And, very strange to say, it has been left to a lady to write the
first accounts of poaching episodes, episodes remarkable for their
masculine touches and their wonderful grip of open-air reality; Harriet
Martineau, in her “Forest and Game Law Tales,” astonishes us by her
graphic realism and her delicacy of treatment; Charles Kingsley wrote
one or two of his pathetic ballads on the subject of a poacher and
his wife; Norman Macleod made a Highland poacher the subject of a
character sketch; and in our own times Mr. Richard Jefferies, a writer
who finds pleasure in minute description and vivid realism, has in his
own style of exact word-painting given us a pleasant book about his
own experiences as an amateur poacher. But the real poacher, the rural
vagabond, the parish character, the ne’er-do-weel, whose life is a
living protest against the game-laws, is of more lasting interest than
any amateur can ever be.

Viewed from the serene vantage-ground of the philosophy of life,
poaching is mean and ignoble, and demoralizing sport to you or me, and
is not worth the powder and shot, while the fines and punishments are
out of all proportion to the joys; yet there are not wanting apologists
for it in this apologetic century. “Poaching! Man, there’s no sin in
catching a rabbit or snaring a hare. They belong to naebody. Bless
you! it’s a gentleman’s trick, shooting.” This is the opinion of any
Northern lowland ploughman’s wife, as she looks from her red-tiled
cottage-door out upon the face of the corn-growing mother earth, which
has given her sweet memories and a host of country neighbors and
friends.

Sixty years ago peasants could use their guns without let or hindrance,
and it was then a common thing for a farm-laborer to go out and have a
shot when no sportsman was in the way. Taking an odd shot now and then
was never, and is not even now, looked upon by them as poaching. But a
noted poacher, nicknamed the Otter, tells me, with a sigh, “Poaching
is not what it once was!” And it is true. Not so very long ago it
was a very profitable occupation, and comparatively respectable,
before railways and telegraph wires and penny newspapers stereotyped
metropolitan ideas into all and sundry. An old farmer is pointed out as
having made all his money by systematic poaching, and an influential
city official is said to have laid his early nest-egg by no other means
than being a good shot where he had no invitation to be. To-day even
rural society would look down upon a young farmer engaged in poaching.
It is no longer sport to gentlemen, says the Otter, and is left to
moral vagabonds, the waifs and strays, the parish loafers. The great
strides of agriculture, the game-laws, and the artificial breeding of
game have driven it into sneaking ways, and robbed it of its robust
picturesque adventures. To excel in it a man must give up his nights
and days to it—in short, he must become a specialist, and even then it
hardly pays.

A genuine poacher has great force of character; he has a genius for
field and woodcraft. He is the eldest survivor of rustic romance. His
wild life is tinged with the love of adventure, the love of moon and
stars, the knowledge of the seasons, the haunts and habits of game, and
the power of trapping rabbits in dark woodland glades. No man knows
more intimately the night-side of Nature between the chilly hours
of midnight and sunrise. In this cold-blooded age there are always
some Quixotic individuals, born in the outwardly sleepy villages and
lifeless farmsteads, with the love of midnight adventure, who wage
long warfare against the game-laws, and who only knuckle under to the
law’s severity when their health gives way or an enemy turns informer.
“Rheumatics plays the mischief with poaching!” exclaims the Otter,
referring to the long night-watches in wet ditches and beside hedges
for hares on the lea fields. Irrespective of all thought of gain, there
is an infatuation to eager spirits in this midnight sport. It appeals
to strong, healthy, brave men. Charles Kingsley, in “The Bad Squire,”
with its strong sympathy and feeling, and its cry of “blood” on all the
squire owned, from the foreign shrub to the game he sold, gives us the
poacher’s wife view, a view we are too apt to ignore or forget, with
the weary eyes and heavy heart, that grow light only with weeping, and
go wandering into the night. We forget too often that in the hearts of
common folk there is the glamor of poetic romance about poaching, and a
bitter hatred toward the game-laws. Like Rizpah’s son, many a lad has
had no other incentive than that “The farmer dared us to do it,” and
that he found it sweetened by the secret sympathy of the people. Too
often, I fear, the game-laws dare a brave rustic into poaching: he has
only this one way left to satisfy the insatiable British thirst for
field sport. It is gravely whispered that some of the most striking
men have tasted its romance; and if all stories be true, the master of
the English drama owes to an unlucky deer-poaching incident the lucky
turn in his career which sent him to London and to writing plays, and
poachers may reasonably claim Shakspere as their patron saint.

When the strong, sweet ale warms his heart, the poacher boasts of
dreadful adventures in the night, of leaping broad mill-dams when
chased, of giving fight in the dark, and discomfiting gamekeepers by
clever tricks. He paints his exploits in such heroical glory, that
the seat next the fire in the ale-house is given him by admiring and
fearing rustics. Honesty he ascribes to practicedness in the world’s
ways, and he looks upon keeping out of jail as the greatest victory
that man can achieve. He is the type of man that makes our best
soldiers, or, as he phrases it, is paid to stop the gun-shots. He
requires no almanac to tell him when the moon is to rise to-morrow,
and he could give the gamekeepers lessons. He is to be envied for his
quick feeling of life and his sympathy for field and forest sport, and
that wild exuberance of spirits which he seems to catch with his hares.
It is this rural vagabond—and not Mr. Commonplace Respectability—who
rivets young folks’ attention; his energy anywhere would achieve
success; and he is free from that unpardonable fault, dulness. In the
rustic drama of life he is the character that takes hold of us in our
best impulses—and is not that the best world of the ideal? He disdains
to shoot starlings or black-birds; he is too much a sportsman to pay
attention to such small game. He can put his hands to various ways
of living; he can collect bird’s eggs, shoot wild rock-pigeons for
a farmers’ club, gather blackberries, or, as they say in Scotland,
“brambles,” pull young ash-saplings in plantations, and sell them to
grooms in the livery stables in town.—_The Contemporary Review._




EIGHT CENTURIES WITH WALTER SCOTT.

By WALLACE BRUCE.


“The burning sun of Syria had not yet attained its highest point in
the horizon, when a knight of the Red Cross, who had left his distant
northern home, and joined the host of the Crusaders in Palestine, was
pacing slowly along the sandy deserts which lie in the vicinity of the
Dead Sea, or as it is called, the Lake Asphalites, where the waves of
the Jordan pour themselves into an inland sea, from which there is no
discharge of waters.”

This is the graphic opening of “The Talisman.” The steel clad pilgrim
was entering upon that great plain, once watered even as the Garden of
the Lord, now an arid and sterile wilderness, sloping away to the Dead
Sea, which hides beneath its sluggish waves the once proud cities of
Sodom and Gomorrah;—a dark mass of water “Which holds no living fish in
its bosom, bears no skiff on its surface, and sends no tribute to the
ocean.” It was a scene of desolation still testifying to the just wrath
of the Almighty. As in the days of Moses, “The whole land was brimstone
and salt; it is not sown, nor beareth, nor any grass groweth thereon.”
The first sentence of the chapter revealed the descriptive and artistic
power of the novelist, for the desolation is made more desolate by the
introduction of the solitary horseman, journeying slowly through the
flitting sand, under the noontide splendor of the eastern sun.

Almost a century has passed since the triumph of the first crusade. The
Latin Kingdom, founded by its leaders, had lasted only eighty-eight
years. Jerusalem is again in the hands of the Saracens. The crescent
gleams on the Mosque of St. Omar. The cross has been torn from her
temples, her shrines profaned, and the worshipers of the Holy Sepulcher
murdered or exiled. The second crusade had been a failure, and its
history a series of disasters. Thousands perished in the long march
across Asia Minor. Those who reached Palestine undertook the siege of
Damascus, but the attempt was disastrous. In 1187 a powerful leader
of the East appeared in the high-souled and chivalrous Saladin. By
wise counsel he united the factions of the Mohammedans, which had
been at variance for two hundred years; and on the arrival of the
third crusade, with which event we are now dealing, he was enabled to
present a solid front of warriors “like unto the sand of the desert in
multitude.”

The land, where “peace and good will to men” had been proclaimed by the
voices of angels, and emphasized by the blessed words of the Son of
God, was again converted into a vast tournament field for the armies of
Europe and Asia: aye more, even in the mountain passes that guard the
Holy City, the mission of the crusaders was sacrificed to petty insults
and rivalries. Richard the Lion-hearted and King Philip of France were
repeating the old story of Achilles and Agamemnon. The military orders
of the Knights of the Temple and the Knights of St. John, which had
grown up in Jerusalem, founded as fraternities devoted to works of
mercy in behalf of poor pilgrims, had become powerful rivals of each
other and the clergy, and by intrigue and dissension purposely fomented
the discord. According to the historian Michaud, “On the one side were
the French, the German, the Templars and the Genoese; on the other the
English, the Pisans, and the Knights of St. John.”

These are the historical circumstances with which Scott has to deal;
and it is on a mission from such a council, made up of discordant
factions, convened during the sickness of Richard, that we find the
Knight of the Red Cross, or as he is afterward styled, Kenneth the
Scot, bearing a message to the celebrated Hermit of Engaddi. His
adventures by the way are as romantic as any recorded in the Knights
of the Round-Table; for, as he directed his course toward a cluster of
palm trees, he saw suddenly emerge therefrom a Saracen chief mounted
on a fleet Arabian horse. As they drew near each other they prepared
for battle, each after the manner of his own country. “On the desert,”
according to an Eastern proverb, “no man meets a friend.” The heavy
armor of the crusader and his powerful horse are more than an even
match for the wily Saracen. The Scottish knight might have been likened
in the conflict to a bold rock in the sea, and the swift assaults
of the Eastern warrior to the waves dashing against it only to be
broken into foam. After a long struggle, which was worthy of a larger
audience, the Saracen calls a truce, and the Mohammedan and Christian,
so lately in deadly conflict, make their way side by side, each
respecting the other’s courage, to the well under the clustered palms.

The student of history will find in the description of this
hand-to-hand conflict an object-lesson of the garb and manners of the
Eastern and Western races; and will learn more in the conversation that
follows, as they partake of their scanty meal, of the sentiments and
customs of the hostile races than can be gathered from the pages of any
history with which I am acquainted: for Sir Walter had the marvelous
faculty of absorbing history. He saw everything so vividly that he was
able to reproduce it in living forms. As we read his description, we
sit with them under the palms; we hear them now responding in courtesy,
and again in sharp discussion, as allusion is made to their respective
religions or modes of life; and, as they resume their journey, we feel
grateful to the novelist for the beautiful figure which he puts in
the mouth of the Scottish knight in answer to the Saracen’s boast of
harem-life as contrasted with a Christian household.

    “That diamond signet,” says the knight, “which thou
    wearest on thy finger, thou holdest it doubtless of
    inestimable value?” “Bagdad can not show the like,”
    replied the Saracen; “But what avails it to our
    purpose?” “Much,” replied the Frank, “as thou shalt
    thyself confess. Take my war-axe and dash the stone
    into twenty shivers; would each fragment be as valuable
    as the original gem, or would they, all collected, bear
    the tenth part of its estimation?”

    “That is a child’s question,” answered the Saracen;
    “the fragments of a stone would not equal the entire
    jewel in the degree of hundreds to one.”

    “Saracen,” replied the Christian warrior, “the love
    which a true knight binds on one only, fair and
    faithful, is the gem entire; the affection thou
    flingest among thy enslaved wives, and half-wedded
    slaves, is worthless, comparatively, as the sparkling
    shivers of the broken diamond.”

We find both soldiers courteous in conversation, and their example
teaches a good lesson to modern controversy; but the “courtesy of the
Christian seemed to flow rather from a good natured sense of what was
due to others; that of the Moslem, from a high feeling of what was
to be expected from himself. The manners of the Eastern warrior were
grave, graceful and decorous;” he might have been compared to “his
sheeny and crescent-shaped saber, with its narrow and light, but bright
and keen, Damascus blade, contrasted with the long and ponderous Gothic
war-sword which was flung unbuckled on the same sod.”

They pursue their march to the grotto of the Hermit of Engaddi; a man
respected alike by Christian and Mohammedan; revered by the Latins
for his austere devotion, and by the Arabs on account of his symptoms
of insanity, which they ascribed to inspiration. The hermit, once
a crusader, was the man whom Kenneth was to meet. He delivers his
message; but at night, while the Saracen slept, Kenneth is conducted to
a subterraneous, but elegantly carved chapel, where he meets by chance
with the noble sister of King Richard, who with Richard’s newly wedded
wife, had come hither to pray for the king’s recovery. She drops a
rose at the knight’s feet confirming the approbation which her smiles
had already expressed to him in camp, and the story of true love, not
destined to run smoothly, is fairly commenced. But as with “Count
Robert of Paris,” “The Talisman” is not so much a romance as a picture
of the strife and jealousy of haughty and rival leaders. Its value, as
a historical novel, lies in the portrayal of these discordant elements.

We may read the best history of the crusades, page by page, line by
line, only to forget the next month, or the next year, everything save
the issue of the long struggle; but “The Talisman,” by its wondrous
reality, makes a lasting impression upon our minds. We see Richard
tossing upon his couch, impatient of his fever and protracted delays.
We see the Marquis of Montserrat, and the Grand Master of the Knights
Templar walking together in close-whispered conspiracy. We see Leopold,
the Grand Duke of Austria, lifting his own banner, with overweening
pride, by the side of England’s standard. We see Richard dashing aside
the attendants of his sick bed, half-clad, rushing forth to avenge the
insult, splintering the staff, and trampling upon the Austrian flag. We
stand with Kenneth under the starlight, guarding alone the dignity of
England’s banner, but decoyed away in an unlucky hour by the ring of
King Richard’s sister, which had been obtained by artifice. We see the
flag stolen in that fatal absence, and the noble knight condemned to
death, to be saved only by miracle from the fierce wrath of Richard. He
is given as a present to the Arabian physician whose art had restored
the king to health. We see him again with Richard in the disguise
of a Nubian slave. We see a strolling Saracen with poisoned dagger
attempting the life of Richard, but saved by the faithful Kenneth. We
find Richard considering in his mind the giving of his royal sister
in marriage to Saladin; an affair which fortunately needed the lady’s
consent, who had in her veins too much of the proud Plantagenet blood
to know the meaning of compulsion. We see the tournament which decided
the treachery of Conrad, and the triumph of Kenneth, who turns out to
be no other than the Earl of Huntingdon, heir of the Scottish throne.
The comrade of Kenneth, and the physician who waited upon the king,
chances to be the same person, and no less renowned a hero than the
Emperor Saladin, who sends as a nuptial present to Kenneth and Edith
Plantagenet the celebrated talisman by which he had wrought so many
notable cures; which, according to Scott, is still in existence in the
family of Sir Simon of Lee.

This tale of the crusaders is so complete that we need after closing
the volume only a few lines of history to complete the record. The
city of Ptolemais was captured after a three years’ siege. More than
one hundred skirmishes and nine great battles were fought under its
walls. Both parties were animated by religious zeal. It is said
that the King of Jerusalem marched to battle with the books of the
Evangelists borne before him; and that Saladin often paused upon the
field of battle to recite a prayer, or read a chapter from the Koran.
Philip finally returns to France. Richard remains in command of one
hundred thousand soldiers. He conquers the Saracens in battle, repairs
the fortifications of Jaffa and Ascalon, but in the intoxication
of pleasure forgets the conquest of Jerusalem. His victories were
fruitless. He obtained from Saladin merely a truce of three years
and eight months, “which insured to pilgrims the right of entering
Jerusalem untaxed,” and, without fulfilling his promise of striking
his lance against the gates of the Holy City, sets off on his homeward
journey, to be taken captive and held a prisoner in a Tyrolese castle.
In brief the history of the Third Crusade is that of a house divided
against itself.

As “The Betrothed” brought us back from Constantinople and Palestine
to Merrie England, so “Ivanhoe” transports the reader, and some of
the prominent actors of the drama, from the eastern shores of the
Mediterranean to the pleasant district of the West Riding of Yorkshire,
watered by the river Don, “where flourished in ancient times those
bands of gallant outlaws, whose deeds have been rendered so popular in
English song.”

The prominent historical features which Scott illustrates in the
romantic story of “Ivanhoe” are the domestic and civil relations
existing between the Saxon and the Norman about the year 1196, when the
return of Richard the First from Palestine and captivity was an event
rather hoped for than expected; and an event _not_ hoped for by King
John and his followers.

The Saxon spirit had been well nigh subdued by the strict and unjust
laws imposed by the Norman kings. For one hundred and thirty years
Norman-French had been the language of the court, the language of law,
of chivalry and justice. The laws of the chase and the curfew,—and
many others unknown to the Saxon constitution,—had been placed upon
the necks of the inhabitants of the soil. With few exceptions the race
of Saxon princes had been extirpated; and it was not until the reign
of Edward III. that England became thoroughly united as one people.
The English language at the close of the twelfth century was not yet
born. The Saxon mother and Norman father were not yet wedded; the two
languages were gradually getting acquainted with each other; or, as
Scott has logically expressed it, “the necessary intercourse between
the lords of the soil, and those oppressed inferior beings by whom that
soil was cultivated, occasioned the formation of a dialect, compounded
betwixt the French and the Anglo-Saxon, in which they could render
themselves mutually intelligible to each other; and from this necessity
arose by degrees the structure of our present English language, in
which the speech of the victors and the vanquished has been so happily
blended together, and which has since been so richly improved by
importations from the classical languages, and from those spoken by
the southern nations of Europe.” In the first chapter—and it is always
well to read carefully the first chapter of Scott—we are introduced
to a swine-herd, born thrall of Cedric of Rotherwood, one of the few
powerful Saxon families existing in England at the time of our story.
He is attended by a domestic clown, or jester, maintained at that time
in the houses of the wealthy. With an art and unity like Shakspere,
Scott emphasizes at the very outset the chief historic feature of his
story, by putting the following conversation in the mouths of these
Saxon menials:

    “How call you those grunting brutes running about on
    their four legs?” demanded Wamba, the jester.

    “Swine,” said the herd.

    “And swine is good Saxon,” said the jester; “but how
    call you it when quartered?”

    “Pork,” answered the cow-herd.

    “And pork,” said Wamba, “is good Norman-French; and
    so when the brute lives, and is in the charge of a
    Saxon slave, she goes by her Saxon name; but becomes a
    Norman, and is called _pork_, when she is carried to
    the castle-hall to feast among the nobles. Nay, I can
    tell you more,” said Wamba, in the same tone, “there is
    Alderman Ox, who continues to hold his Saxon epithet,
    while he is under the charge of serfs and bondsmen such
    as thou, but becomes _beef_, a fiery French gallant,
    when he arrives before the worshipful jaws that are
    destined to consume him. Mynheer Calf, too, becomes
    Monsieur de _Veau_ in the like manner; he is Saxon when
    he requires tendance, and takes a Norman name when he
    becomes matter of enjoyment.”

The third chapter brings together a strange gathering under the roof
of the hospitable Cedric: Brian de Bois Gilbert, a haughty Templar;
Prior Aymer, of free and jovial character; a poor Palmer, just returned
from the Holy Land, and a Jew known as Isaac of York; all journeying
on their way to a tournament to be held a few miles distant at Ashby
de la Zouche. Lady Rowena, descended from the noble line of Alfred,
graced the table with her presence, a ward destined by Cedric, but not
by fate, to be the wife of Athelstane,—a Saxon descended from Edward
the Confessor: in the furtherance of which idea his only son had been
exiled, when it became known that he aspired to the hand of the Saxon
beauty.

At the tournament the remaining characters of the drama are introduced:
King John, with his retinue; Richard the Lion-Hearted, under the
disguise of the “Black Knight;” Rebecca, the Jewess; the proud baron
Front de Bœuf; Robin Hood, the brave outlaw, under the name of Loxley;
and Ivanhoe, the poor pilgrim, who wins the prize at the tournament
and crowns Rowena Queen of Beauty. At the close of the second day’s
tournament, in which Ivanhoe is again successful, a letter is handed
to King John with the brief sentence, “Take heed to yourself, for
the devil is unchained.” It was like the handwriting on the wall of
Belshazzar’s palace, and proclaimed the end of his kingdom.

Cedric, Rowena, Isaac, Rebecca, Athelstane and Ivanhoe depart their
several ways from the tournament, but are captured and taken to Front
de Bœuf’s castle. Cedric escapes in the guise of a monk. The castle is
stormed, and now occurs one of the most dramatic pictures in the pages
of romantic literature, destined to reveal to all time the undying
hate between the Saxon and the Norman. A Saxon woman, by name Ulrica,
had lived for years in Front de Bœuf’s castle. She had seen her father
and seven brothers killed in defending their home, but she “remained
to administer ignominiously to the murderers of her family. She used
the seductions of her beauty to arm the son against the father; she
heated drunken revelry into murderous broil, and stained with a
parricide the banqueting hall of the conquerors.” She had sold body
and soul to obtain revenge for Norman cruelties; and now, grown old
in servitude, incensed by the contempt of her masters, she determines
upon a deed, which will make the ears of men tingle while the name of
Saxon is remembered. She fires the castle and appears on a turret in
the guise of one of the ancient furies, yelling forth a war-song. “Her
long, dishevelled grey hair flows back from her uncovered head; the
inebriated delight of gratified vengeance contends in her eyes with the
fire of insanity; and she brandishes the distaff which she holds in her
hand, as if she were one of the fatal sisters, who spin and abridge
the thread of human life. At length, with a terrific crash, the whole
turret gives way, and she perishes in the flames which consume her
tyrant.”

There is another historic feature of the times emphasized in this
romance: the oppression of the Jews in England during these cruel and
adventurous times. The character of the race is vividly portrayed in
Isaac of York, in which masterly delineation Scott seems truer to
nature than Shakspere in the character of Shylock. Rebecca, his noble
and beautiful daughter, is the type of all that is pure and womanly.
Her words have the eloquence of the poets and prophets of old: “Know
proud knight,” she says, “we number names amongst us to which your
boasted Northern nobility is as the gourd compared with the cedar—names
that ascend far back to those high times when the Divine Presence shook
the mercy seat between the cherubim, and which derive their splendor
from no earthly prince, but from the awful Voice, which bade their
fathers be nearest of the congregation to the vision; such were the
princes of the house of Jacob; now such no more. They are trampled down
like the shorn grass, and mixed with the mire of the ways; yet there
are those among them who shame not such high descent, and of such shall
be the daughter of Isaac, the son of Adonikam. Farewell! I envy not
thy blood-won honors; I envy not thy barbarous descent from northern
heathens; I envy not thy faith, which is ever in thy mouth, but never
in thy heart nor in thy practice.”

The description of Friar Tuck entertaining King Richard in disguise
is in Scott’s happiest vein; and Robin Hood, with his bold outlaws,
shares the honors gracefully with knights and nobles. But it is alike
unnecessary and unprofitable to attempt a condensation of “Ivanhoe.”
No outline can convey the beauty of a finished picture. It is not to
be taken at second hand. It is only for us to indicate its relation
to history; and it will suffice to say that King Richard was gladly
welcomed by the English people, and that Ivanhoe was wedded to the
beautiful Rowena.

But, do I hear the reader ask, what becomes of the fair Jewess? Scott
has answered the question so beautifully in his preface that I borrow
his own words—a passage to my mind unsurpassed in English prose: “The
character of the fair Jewess found so much favor in the eyes of some
fair readers, that the writer was censured, because, when arranging the
fates of the characters of the drama, he had not assigned the hand of
Wilfred to Rebecca, rather than the less interesting Rowena. But, not
to mention that the prejudices of the age rendered such an union almost
impossible, the author may, in passing, observe, that he thinks a
character of a highly virtuous and lofty stamp, is degraded rather than
exalted by an attempt to reward virtue with temporal prosperity. Such
is not the recompense which Providence has deemed worthy of suffering
merit, and it is a dangerous and fatal doctrine to teach young persons,
the most common readers of romance, that rectitude of conduct and of
principle are either naturally allied with, or adequately rewarded
by, the gratification of our passions, or attainment of our wishes.
In a word, if a virtuous and self-denied character is dismissed with
temporal wealth, greatness, rank, or the indulgence of such a rashly
formed or ill-assorted passion as that of Rebecca for Ivanhoe, the
reader will be apt to say, ‘Verily, virtue has had its reward.’ But
a glance on the great picture of life will show that the duties of
self-denial and the sacrifice of passion to principle are seldom thus
remunerated; and that the internal consciousness of their high-minded
discharge of duty produces on their own reflections a more adequate
recompense in the form of that peace which the world can not give or
take away.”




THE GREAT ORGAN AT FRIBOURG.

By EDITH SESSIONS TUPPER.


After thoroughly “doing” Berne in most approved guide-book fashion;
feeding the bears—hot, dusty looking creatures; standing in the middle
of the street, heads thrown back at the risk of dislocating our necks
to watch the celebrated clock strike, we stand one evening on the hotel
terrace and take our farewell look at the Bernese Alps. Sharply defined
against a sunset-flushed sky, as if cut from alabaster, glittering
fair and white like the pinnacles and domes of a city celestial, rise
the Mönch, Eiger, Wetterhorn, and, serene and august in her icy virgin
beauty, the Jungfrau.

    “Too soon the light began to fade,
       Tho’ lingering soft and tender;
     And the snow giants sank again
       Into their calm dead splendor.”

Leaving Berne, we take our way to Fribourg, to see its wonderful
gorges and skeleton bridges, and hear its more wonderful organ. On
our arrival at this quaint old Romanesque town, we are driven to the
most delightful little hotel, hanging on the very edge of the great
ravine, upon the sides of which the town is built. Through the more
closely-built region of the town runs the old stone wall with its high
watch-towers. Spanning the great gulf are the bridges—mere phantoms of
bridges they seem from our windows. A dreary, drizzling rain sets in
soon after we arrive, and some American lads across the court-yard from
time to time send forth in their sweet untrained voices the refrain of
that mournful ballad, the “Soldier’s Farewell,”

    “Farewell, farewell, my own true love.”

A prevalent tone of _heimweh_ is in the air; eyes are filling, and
memory is stretching longing hands over the ocean, when fortunately
comes the summons to _table d’hote_. At our plates we find programs
in very bad English of a concert to be given this evening upon the
great organ in the cathedral. Thither we go at dusk, pausing a moment
to look at the grotesque carving of the last judgment over the great
door. Thereon the good, with most satisfied faces, are being admitted
to heaven by St. Peter, a stout old gentleman in a short gown, jingling
a bunch of keys; while the wicked are being carried in Swiss baskets
to a great cauldron over a blazing fire, therein to be deposited, and
to be stirred up by devils armed with pitchforks for that purpose.
We enter. Without, the ceaseless drip of the rain; within, gloom,
darkness—save for the never-ceasing light before the altar, decay.
The air is chill and damp. Around us stretch dark, shadowed aisles.
Tombs of those long dust are on every hand. The air seems peopled with
ghosts. We are seated, and patiently wait for life to be breathed
into that mighty monster looming up in the darkness, above our heads.
Suddenly, with a crash that shakes the building, the organ speaks.
Silenced, overwhelmed, we listen, possessing our souls in patience for
the “Pastorale,” representing a thunder storm among the Alps, which
is to close the evening’s entertainment. We have but recently come
from the everlasting hills, and our souls are still under their magic
enchantment. At last the moment comes. A pause, and there steals upon
the ear a light, sweet refrain. It is spring, the old, ideal spring;
the trees are budding; flowers are smiling from the meadows; we feel
warm south winds blowing; afar in the woods we hear the sylvan pipe of
the shepherd and the songs of birds. A peace is upon everything. Nature
is calm, happy, and full of promise of glad fruition. To this succeeds
a languid, dreary strain—it is a drowsy summer afternoon. A delicious
languor pervades the air; we hear the trees whispering to each other
of their perfect foliage; we hear the laughing waters leaping and
calling to each other through their rocky passes; the flocks are asleep
in the shade; the shadows are stealing and playing over the sides of
the mountains, and the whole world swims in a misty, golden haze. Now
listen closely. Do not we catch the mutter of distant thunder? And
again, do not we hear that clear, bell-like bird-call for rain? The
distant muttering grows louder, a stronger breeze sways the trees;
still we hear distinctly that bird-call. Now louder rolls the thunder,
the wind has arisen, the trees are bending to meet it, and in rage
are tossing their boughs to the overcast sky; and ah! here comes the
rain. Patter, patter, at first, now fast and faster, and now with a mad
rush down it comes in one tremendous, outpouring sheet, and now with a
terrific rumble and crash,

    “From peak to peak the rattling crags among,
       Leaps the live thunder:
       Not from one lone cloud,
     But every mountain now hath found a tongue,
       And Jura answers from her misty shroud
       Back to the joyous Alps who call on her aloud.”

The wind shrieks and howls, and yet above all this tumult and roar of
the elements, clearly and unmistakably rings that sweet flute-like
bird-call. The storm rages, spends its fury, and dies away, and from a
neighboring cloister come the voices of an unseen choir, raising a “Te
Deum” to him who holds the storms in his hands. Silently we rise and
go, a great peace upon us, for divine notes from the soul of the organ
have entered into ours.

       *       *       *       *       *

IT is not the nature of man to be always moving forward; it has its
comings and goings. Fever has its cold and hot fits, and the cold
shiver proves the height of the fever quite as much as the hot fit.
The inventions of man from age to age proceed much in the same way.
The good nature and the malice of the world in general have the same
ebbs and flows. “Change of living is generally agreeable to the
rich.”—_Pascal._




ECCENTRIC AMERICANS.

By COLEMAN E. BISHOP.


II.—THE STATESMAN IN A STATE OF NATURE.

David Crockett was born in the wilds of Tennessee, August 17, 1786. He
toughened rapidly, like a bear’s cub, but he showed in addition to the
usual woodsman’s instincts the unusual qualities of great tenderness
of feeling and generosity, with a remarkable gift of wit and love of
fun. The incredible stories of his hardships at the age of twelve and
thereafter we have not room to recount. In the best sense he was a
tough boy. The closing scene of his home life—if a hut presided over
by a drunken father, and a mother who left no impression on the boy’s
character that showed itself in after years can be by any courtesy
called a home—was a dissolving view of a ragged, bare-footed urchin of
fourteen chased through the brush by a father with a large goad and a
large load of liquor. Thus David Crockett set out upon the world for
himself.

With Crockett’s story as a bear-hunter, nomadic woodsman, soldier and
Indian-fighter, exciting and marvelous as are these incidents of the
first thirty years of his life, we shall not much concern ourselves.
But I do wonder that his life-like, quaint narrative of these has not
become standard juvenile literature, along with Robinson Crusoe and
Mayne Reid’s stories of adventure. Through all these exciting though
isolated years, the young woodsman picked up a good deal of practical
knowledge, not one scrap of which he ever forgot; and withal was
developing a strange quality of unpretentious self-esteem. “The idea
seemed never to have entered his mind that there was any one superior
to David Crockett, or any one so humble that Crockett was entitled to
look down upon him with condescension. He was a genuine democrat, and
all were in his view equal. And this was not the result of thought, of
any political or moral principle. It was a part of his nature, like his
stature or complexion. This is one of the rarest qualities to be found
in any man.”[H]

He also was developing oratorical powers. He acquired unbounded
popularity at musters and frolics, in camp and in the chase by his
fun-making qualities, his homely, kindly, keen wit. His retentive
memory was an inexhaustible store-house of anecdote, and he always had
an apt illustration for any point he wanted to make. He began to taste
the sweet consciousness of power over his fellows, and to easily fall
into the position of leadership, for which nature designed him.

His first official position came to him at about the age of thirty.
There were a good many outlaws in the region where he at that time had
his cabin and claim, and society began to cohere for self-protection.
The settlers convened and appointed Crockett and others to be justices
of the peace, and a corps of stalwart young men to be constables.
These justices were really provost-marshals in power. There were no
statute laws nor courts; but there was authority enough, and Crockett
says everybody made laws according to his own notions of right. For
shooting and appropriating a hog running at large, for instance, the
sentence was to strip the thief, tie him to a tree and give him a
flogging, burn down his cabin and drive him out of the country. Soon
after, the new territory was organized into counties and Crockett was
regularly commissioned a justice by the legislature. His account of his
administration is interesting:

    “I was made a squire according to law; though now the
    honor rested on me more heavily than before. For, at
    first, whenever I told my constable, says I, ‘catch
    that fellow and bring him up for trial!’ away he
    went, and the fellow must come, dead or alive. For we
    considered this a good warrant, though it was only in
    _verbal writing_. But after I was appointed by the
    Assembly, they told me my warrants must be in _real_
    writing and signed; and that I must keep a book and
    write my proceedings in it. This was a hard business
    on me, for I could just barely write my own name. But
    to do this, and write the warrants too, was at least
    a huckleberry over my persimmon. I had a pretty well
    informed constable however, and I told him when he
    should happen to be out anywhere and see that a warrant
    was necessary and would have a good effect, he needn’t
    take the trouble to come all the way to me to get one,
    but he could just fill one out, and then on the trial
    I could correct the whole business if he had committed
    any error. In this way I got on pretty well, till by
    care and attention I improved my handwriting in such a
    manner as to be able to prepare my warrants and keep my
    record books without much difficulty. My judgments were
    never appealed from: and if they had been they would
    have stuck like wax, as I gave my decisions on the
    principles of common justice and honesty between man
    and man, and relied on natural born sense, and not on
    law learning, to guide me; for I had never read a page
    in a law-book in all my life.”

Crockett made his first stump speech when he was about thirty-four
years old. A militia regiment was to be organized, and a Captain
Mathews, after promising Crockett the majority of the regiment if he
would support him for its colonel, turned against Crockett in favor of
his own son. At a great muster prepared by Mathews, he made a stump
speech in his own and his son’s favor. Crockett, entirely unabashed,
mounted the stump as soon as Mathews finished, and on the captain’s own
grounds proceeded to expose his duplicity and argue the total unfitness
of both him and his son for the command. The speech was fluent,
witty, full of anecdote, and carried the rude audience by storm. It
effectually beat both father and son. The fame of this maiden effort
traveled fast in a community where oratory was the great, if not the
only engine of popular control, and the result was that a committee
soon waited on Crockett and asked him to stand for the legislature then
about to be elected (1821). Some of his first electioneering adventures
illustrate the frankness and tact so queerly combined in him, and also
show how he got his education in politics. Hickman county wanted to
change its county seat. He says: “Here they told me that they wanted to
move their town nearer to the center of the county, and I must come out
in favor of it. I did not know what this meant, or how the town was to
be moved, and so I kept dark, going on the same identical plan that I
now find is called _non-committal_.”

On one occasion the candidates for governor of the State, Congress,
and several for legislature, some of them able stump-speakers, were
announced. As he listened, a sense of inferiority for the first time,
probably, penetrated him; he drank in all they said, and remembered it.
He says:

    “The thought of having to make a speech made my knees
    feel mighty weak, and set my heart to fluttering almost
    as bad as my first love scrape with the Quaker’s niece.
    But as luck would have it, these big candidates spoke
    nearly all day, and when they quit the people were worn
    out with fatigue, which afforded me a good apology for
    not discussing the government. But I listened mighty
    close to them, and was learning pretty fast about
    political matters. When they were all done I got up and
    told some laughable story and quit.”

He was elected, and in the legislature proved a good story-teller, a
formidable antagonist in repartee, and above all a good listener. He
says the first thing that he took pains to learn was the meaning of the
words “judiciary” and “government,” as up to that time he had “never
heard that there was any such thing in all nature as a judiciary.” The
halls of the Tennessee legislature were again brightened in 1823-24 by
the wit and good sense of “the gentleman from the cane” as an opponent
derisively dubbed him, very much to his subsequent regret.

Crockett was now so well known that he was put forward for Congress.
His rapid advancement staggered even his self-sufficiency, and
he objected, saying he “knowed nothing about Congress matters.”
Fortunately, perhaps, he was given time to learn more, for he was
beaten at the polls this time. It was claimed by his supporters the
result was obtained by fraud, and as the adverse majority was small, he
was urged to contest the election; but he declined, saying he did not
care enough for office to take it unless the clearly expressed will of
the people called him thereto. From hunting for men he turned with zest
to hunting for bears; his endurance, hardihood and success, and the
never-failing benevolence with which he divided the fruits of the hunt
with poor settlers, or lent a helping hand in many other ways, made him
more political capital than the best stump speeches could have done. He
killed one hundred and five bears one season. Two years later (1827)
he ran for Congress again and was triumphantly elected over two strong
opponents. Thus the bear-hunting, Indian-fighting “gentleman from the
cane,” barely able to write his name, so poor that he had to borrow
money to pay his traveling expenses to Washington, became a law-maker
of a great nation by sheer force of native talent and goodness of heart.

His fame preceded him to Washington. His prowess in arms, his dexterity
in politics, and his quaint wit had been in the papers; all his sayings
had been, as is the style of American journalism, exaggerated and
embellished and distorted, until the general impression of him was that
of a coarse, outlandish, swaggering yahoo. His appearance in Washington
dispersed these illusions thence, but the misrepresentations did not
cease in the prints. As in the case of Lincoln, every profane and
vulgar thing that cheap wit could invent was attributed to Crockett,
and received as his. Many of these false impressions survive to this
day; it is therefore proper here to give a picture of the man as he
was seen at home. It is thus reported by an intelligent gentleman who
visited his cabin just after his election. The visitor penetrated to
Crockett’s cabin eight miles through unbroken wilderness by a path
blazed on the trees. He says:

    Two men were seated on stools at the door, both in
    their shirt-sleeves, engaged in cleaning their rifles.
    As the stranger rode up, one of the men came forward
    to meet him. He was dressed in very plain homespun
    attire, with a black fur cap upon his head. He was
    a finely proportioned man, about six feet high,
    apparently forty-five years of age, and of very frank,
    pleasing, open countenance. He held his rifle in his
    hand, and from his right shoulder hung a bag made of
    raccoon-skin, to which there was a sheath attached
    containing a large butcher-knife.

    “This is Colonel Crockett’s residence, I presume,” said
    the stranger.

    “Yes,” was the reply, with a smile as of welcome.

    “Have I the pleasure of seeing that gentleman before
    me?” the stranger added.

    “If it be a pleasure,” was the courteous reply, “you
    have, sir.”

    “Well, Colonel,” responded the stranger, “I have ridden
    much out of my way to spend a day or two with you, and
    take a hunt.”

    “Get down, sir,” said the Colonel, cordially. “I am
    delighted to see you. I like to see strangers. And the
    only care I have is that I can not accommodate them as
    well as I could wish. I have no corn, but my little boy
    will take your horse over to my son-in-law’s. He is a
    good fellow, and will take care of him.”

    Leading the stranger into his cabin, Crockett very
    courteously introduced him to his brother, his wife,
    and his daughters. He then added:

    “You see we are mighty rough here. I am afraid you will
    think it hard times. But we have to do the best we can.
    I started mighty poor, and have been rooting ’long ever
    since. But I hate apologies. What I live upon always, I
    think a friend can for a day or two. I have but little,
    but that little is as free as the water that runs. So
    make yourself at home.”

He seemed to have a great horror of binding himself to any man or
party. “I will pledge myself to no administration,” he said. “When
the will of my constituents is known, that will be my law; when it
is unknown my own judgment shall be my guide.” So clear and lofty an
idea had this unlearned man formed of the duties of a representative!
Well for the country if as high a standard of political duty even now
prevailed among the best and wisest legislators!

Nothing is recorded of his first term in Congress except that he
“brought down the house” every time he spoke, and once so discomfited a
colleague that a duel was talked of; upon which Crockett gave out that
if any one challenged him he should select as their weapons _bows and
arrows_.

He was re-elected in 1829. This was the Jackson tidal wave—the
inauguration of that craze of hero-worship and spoils-grabbing which
entailed its curse upon our politics, even to this day. During this
term came the turning point in Crockett’s career and a triumphant test
of the strength of his character. At first he supported Jackson’s
administration and acted with the party. But when that “constitutional
democrat” blossomed out into an unconstitutional autocrat, one man of
his party was found manly enough to act upon his own convictions. One
of these unconstitutional measures was an act to vote half a million
of dollars for disbursements made without color of law, and Crockett
opposed it. The result is best told in his own words:

    “Soon after the commencement of this second term, I
    saw, or thought I did, that it was expected of me that
    I would bow to the name of Andrew Jackson, and follow
    him in all his motions, and mindings, and turnings,
    even at the expense of my conscience and judgment.
    Such a thing was new to me, and a total stranger to
    my principles. I know’d well enough, though, that if
    I didn’t ‘hurrah’ for his name, the hue and cry was
    to be raised against me, and I was to be sacrificed,
    if possible. His famous, or rather I should say his
    _infamous_ Indian bill was brought forward, and I
    opposed it from the purest motives in the world.
    Several of my colleagues got around me, and told me how
    well they loved me, and that I was ruining myself. They
    said this was a favorite measure of the President, and
    I ought to go for it. I told them I believed it was a
    wicked, unjust measure, and that I should go against
    it, let the cost to myself be what it might; that I
    was willing to go with General Jackson in everything I
    believed was honest and right; but, further than this,
    I wouldn’t go for him or any other man in the whole
    creation.

    “I had been elected by a majority of three thousand
    five hundred and eighty-five votes, and I believed they
    were honest men, and wouldn’t want me to vote for any
    unjust notion, to please Jackson or any one else; at
    any rate, I was of age, and determined to trust them.
    I voted against this Indian bill, and my conscience
    yet tells me that I gave a good, honest vote, and one
    that I believe will not make me ashamed in the day
    of judgment. I served out my term, and though many
    amusing things happened, I am not disposed to swell my
    narrative by inserting them.

    “When it closed, and I returned home, I found the storm
    had raised against me sure enough; and it was echoed
    from side to side, and from end to end of my district,
    that I had turned against Jackson. This was considered
    the unpardonable sin. I was hunted down like a wild
    varment, and in this hunt every little newspaper in
    the district, and every little pin-hook lawyer was
    engaged. Indeed, they were ready to print anything
    and everything that the ingenuity of man could invent
    against me.”

It proved as he had anticipated; he failed of re-election, but only by
a majority of seventy votes. Two years of bear-hunting followed, during
which Crockett thirsted for the nobler pursuit of ambition of which he
had had a taste. Some of his predictions as to Jackson’s course had
been verified, and many things conspired to open his constituents’
eyes to the high character of their representative’s course. In the
canvass of 1833 he was elected the third time, winning one of the
most remarkable political triumphs ever known in this country. He had
against him all the education, talent and wealth of his district; the
administration made it a test vote, and all that promises of reward,
threats of punishment, political and social, unlimited money, the
influence of the national banks, and every appliance that the most
tyrannical disposition ever dominant in our affairs could bring to bear
were used. Men of genius, eloquence, influence and fortune rode the
district; whiskey was free as water. The entire press opposed Crockett
with the ingenuity and abandon which only “patronage” can inspire.
More than all this the common people of the district, with whom lay
Crockett’s influence, if he had any, worshiped “Old Hickory,” under
whom many of them had fought. Against these odds the impoverished,
uneducated hunter, with no aid but his natural gifts and a clean
record, canvassed the district of seventeen counties and 100,000
inhabitants and won. This remarkable victory in Jackson’s own State,
when his popularity was at its height, gave Crockett a new and better
title to respect than any he had before presented; and it increased
the mystery hanging about this strange, uncultured genius. The world
abandoned its preconceived notions of the back-woodsman when it saw his
power; but it was at loss to conceive a true idea of him.

During this session of Congress (1833-34) Crockett wrote his
autobiography. As might be expected, it is a very unique work. Its
style is simple and vigorous; the language is Shaksperian in its
monosyllables and short sentences, but the _ensemble_ is graphic, and
as the events narrated are of the most extraordinary kind, it makes
very exciting reading. On the title page appears his famous motto:

    “I leave these words for others when I’m dead;
     Be always sure you’re right, then GO AHEAD!”

Crockett submitted the manuscript of this work to a critic for
revision; but he declared afterward that the reviser had not improved
the work—probably because he toned down its vigorous language. Such
expressions as “my son and me went,” occur, and spelling like this:
“hawl,” “tuff,” “scaffled,” “clomb” (for climbed); “flower” (for
flour). But he positively objected to some of the orthographical
corrections, as he said “such spelling was contrary to nature.” He
brought the narrative of his life up to the date, and concluded it as
follows:

    “I am now here in Congress, this 28th day of January,
    in the year of our Lord 1834; and, what is more
    agreeable to my feelings, as a free man. I am at
    liberty to vote as my conscience and judgment dictate
    to be right, without the yoke of any party on me or the
    driver at my heels with the whip in hand commanding
    me to ‘gee-wo-haw!’ just at his pleasure. Look at my
    arms: you will find no party handcuffs on them! Look at
    my neck: you will not find there any collar with the
    engraving,

    . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
    .  MY DOG.—ANDREW JACKSON.   .
    . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

    But you will find me standing up to my rack as the
    people’s faithful representative, and the public’s most
    obedient, very humble servant,

    “DAVID CROCKETT.”

What would not senators and representatives of to-day give for the same
independence? What health and manliness it would impart to public life,
if every legislator were thus free of handcuffs and collars!

In the spring of 1834, Crockett made his famous “starring tour” through
the East. From Philadelphia to Portland, and back to Washington, it
was a continuous ovation. Crockett and the populace were mutually
astonished; he at his receptions, and they at the actions, appearance,
and utterances of the man who had been represented to them by his
political opponents as a buffoon and semi-savage. He was more than
all impressed with the developments of wealth and enterprise in the
North; he frankly confessed the prejudices he had formed against the
Yankees, and praised their thrift and principles. He spoke well and
appropriately on each occasion, though—strange change in him!—with
evident confusion at the lionizing. He wrote of the ovation he received
on landing in Philadelphia:

    “It struck me strangely to hear a strange people
    huzzaing for me; it took me so uncommon unexpected,
    as I had no idea of attracting attention. The folks
    came crowding around me, saying, ‘Give me the hand
    of an honest man.’ I thought I had rather be in the
    wilderness with my gun and dogs, than to be attracting
    all that fuss.”

In a happy little speech here, from the hotel balcony, he said:

    “I am almost induced to believe this flattery—perhaps
    a burlesque. This is new to me, yet I see nothing but
    friendship in your faces.”

At a grand banquet in New York City, Crockett having been toasted as
“The undeviating supporter of the constitution and the laws,” made
this neat and characteristic hit, as he reports it:

    “I made a short speech, and concluded with the story of
    the red cow, which was, that as long as General Jackson
    went straight, I followed him; but when he began to go
    this way, and that way, and every way, I wouldn’t go
    after him; like the boy whose master ordered him to
    plough across the field to the red cow. Well, he began
    to plough, and she began to walk; and he ploughed all
    forenoon after her. So when the master came, he swore
    at him for going so crooked. ‘Why, sir,’ said the boy,
    ‘you told me to plough to the red cow, and I kept after
    her, but she always kept moving.’”

Most enthusiastic of all was his reception in Boston, where President
Jackson’s policy was most unpopular. It was even proposed to confer
on Crockett the degree of LL.D., an honor that had been awarded to
Jackson: but, unlike Jackson, Crockett had the wit to decline an honor
which neither of the two deserved.

The more he saw and heard the more humble he became. When called
up for an after-dinner speech in Boston he burst out in his honest
way—“I never had but six months’ schooling in all my life, and I
confess I consider myself a _poor tyke_ to be here addressing the most
intelligent people in the world.” If he had not culture, he had what
was far more rare in that age of truckling to one-man power—_manhood_.
It seemed as if unlettered David Crockett was the only man in public
life to stand up straight, and people acknowledged the power of true
character. The culture and wealth of the East bowed to unspoiled
manhood; it was a revelation fresh from Nature’s hand.

A few extracts from one of his more sustained and dignified efforts
will illustrate the development Crockett had attained by simple
observation. After praising New England he said:

    “I don’t mean that because I eat your bread and drink
    your liquor, that I feel so. No; that don’t make me see
    clearer than I did. It is your habits, and manners,
    and customs; your industry; your proud, independent
    spirits; your hanging on to the eternal principles of
    right and wrong; your liberality in prosperity, and
    your patience when you are ground down by legislation,
    which, instead of crushing you, whets your invention to
    strike a path without a blaze on a tree to guide you;
    and above all, your never-dying, deathless grip to our
    glorious Constitution. These are the things that make
    me think you are a mighty good people.

    “I voted for Andrew Jackson because I believed he
    possessed certain principles, and not because his name
    was Andrew Jackson, or the ‘Hero,’ or ‘Old Hickory.’
    And when he left those principles which induced me to
    support him, I considered myself justified in opposing
    him. This thing of man-worship I am a stranger to; I
    don’t like it; it taints every action of life.

    “I know nothing, by experience, of party discipline. I
    would rather be a raccoon-dog, and belong to a Negro in
    the forest, than to belong to any party, further than
    to do justice to all, and to promote the interests of
    my country. The time will and must come, when honesty
    will receive its reward, and when the people of this
    nation will be brought to a sense of their duty, and
    will pause and reflect how much it cost us to redeem
    ourselves from the government of one man. It cost the
    lives and fortunes of thousands of the best patriots
    that ever lived. Yes, gentlemen, hundreds of them fell
    in sight of your own city.

    “Gentlemen, if it is for opposing those high-handed
    measures that you compliment me, I say I have done so,
    and will do so, now and forever. I will be no man’s
    man, and no party’s man, other than to be the people’s
    faithful representative: and I am delighted to see the
    noble spirit of liberty retained so boldly here, where
    the first spark was kindled; and I hope to see it shine
    and spread over our whole country.”

He took his seat in Congress, a central object in the political
field. His position was anomalous. Party ties were closely drawn,
and party rancor bitter as it can be only when nothing but plunder
is at stake between parties. The Democrats could not claim Crockett
so long as he antagonized their god, Jackson; and the alliance of
the Whigs he most distinctly repudiated. He was an independent, an
“unattached statesman;” the prototype of an element which has now
become formidable in our politics, but a character for whom there was
no place in those times. He was, like all eccentrics, ahead or apart
from his age, and was at first feared, then shunned, and then called
crazy by the great body of public men, whose standard of sanity was to
sacrifice manhood to party, to betray the Republic for spoils.

It was during this Congress that he created a sensation by antagonizing
benevolence of representatives at government expense. A bill had
been reported and was about to pass, appropriating a gratuity to a
naval officer’s widow. Crockett made an unanswerable argument on the
unconstitutionality of this and other such appropriations, and closed
by offering, with other friends of the widow, to give her a week of his
salary as congressman. Not a member dared to answer or to vote for the
bill, and not one followed Crockett’s example of charity at his own
expense.

But the independent, honest eccentric had reached the end of his public
career. In the next congressional election he was beaten by tricks such
as would not be tolerated at this time. One of these devices was to
announce fictitiously a large number of public meetings in Crockett’s
name on the same day. When he failed to appear, as announced, speakers
of the Jackson party, who would always arrange to be present, denounced
Crockett as afraid to face his constituents upon his “treacherous and
corrupt record in Congress.” The defeat was a surprise to him; more, it
almost broke his heart. He wrote, manfully, but pathetically, “I have
suffered myself to be politically sacrificed to save my country from
ruin and disgrace.” I may add, like the man in the play, “Crockett’s
occupation’s gone.”

Shortly after he made a farewell address to his constituents, into
which he compressed a good deal of plain speaking, or as he says,
“I put the ingredients in the cup pretty strong, I tell you: and
I concluded by telling them that I was done with politics for the
present, and that they might all go to hell and I would go to Texas.”

“When I returned home,” he adds, “I felt sort of cast down at the
change that had taken place in my fortunes; sorrow, it is said, will
make even an oyster feel poetical. Such was my state of feeling that I
began to fancy myself inspired; so I took my pen in hand, and as usual,
I went ahead.” This is


CROCKETT’S FAREWELL TO HOME.

    “Farewell to the mountains whose mazes to me
     Were more beautiful far than Eden could be;
     No fruit was forbidden, but Nature had spread
     Her bountiful board, and her children were fed.
     The hills were our garners—our herds wildly grew
     And Nature was shepherd and husbandman too.
     I felt like a monarch, yet thought like a man,
     As I thanked the Great Giver, and worshiped his plan.

    “The home I forsake where my offspring arose;
     The graves I forsake where my children repose.
     The home I redeemed from the savage and wild;
     The home I have loved as a father his child;
     The corn that I planted, the fields that I cleared,
     The flocks that I raised, and the cabin I reared;
     The wife of my bosom—Farewell to ye all!
     In the land of the stranger I rise or I fall.

    “Farewell to my country! I fought for thee well,
     When the savage rushed forth like the demons from hell.
     In peace or in war I have stood by thy side—
     My country, for thee I have lived, would have died!
     But I am cast off, my career now is run,
     And I wander abroad like the prodigal son—
     Where the wild savage roves, and the broad prairies spread,
     The fallen—despised—will again go ahead.”

We can not follow our hero—for he was a moral hero—in his adventures
while going across the country to Texas. Only one incident have we
room for. On the way he rode apace with a circuit preacher, a man not
less a hardy adventurer than himself. He narrates this:

    “We talked about politics, religion, and nature,
    farming, and bear-hunting, and the many blessings that
    an all-bountiful Providence had bestowed upon our
    happy country. He continued to talk on this subject,
    traveling over the whole ground, as it were, until
    his imagination glowed, and his soul became full to
    overflowing; and he checked his horse, and I stopped
    mine also, and a stream of eloquence burst forth from
    his aged lips, such as I have seldom listened to:
    it came from the overflowing fountain of a pure and
    grateful heart. We were alone in the wilderness, but as
    he proceeded, it seemed to me as if the tall trees bent
    their tops to listen; that the mountain stream laughed
    out joyfully as it bounded on like some living thing;
    that the fading flowers of autumn smiled, and sent
    forth their fresher fragrance, as if conscious that
    they would revive in spring; and even the sterile rocks
    seemed to be endued with some mysterious influence. We
    were alone in the wilderness, but all things told me
    that God was there. The thought renewed my strength and
    courage. I had left my country, felt somewhat like an
    outcast, believed that I had been neglected and lost
    sight of. But I was now conscious that there was one
    watchful eye over me; no matter whether I dwelt in
    the populous cities, or threaded the pathless forests
    alone; no matter whether I stood in the high places
    among men, or made my solitary lair in the untrodden
    wild, that eye was still upon me. My very soul leaped
    joyfully at the thought. I never felt so grateful in
    all my life. I never loved my God so sincerely in all
    my life. I felt that I still had a friend.

    “When the old man finished, I found that my eyes were
    wet with tears. I approached and pressed his hand, and
    thanked him, and says I, ‘Now let us take a drink.’ I
    set him the example, and he followed it, and in a style
    too that satisfied me, that if he had ever belonged
    to the temperance society, he had either renounced
    membership, or obtained a dispensation.”

Crockett reached Texas just in time to take part with the American
filibusters in the famous defense of the fortress of the Alamo, against
Santa Anna’s army. On the 6th of March, 1836, the citadel was carried
by the Mexicans by assault, only six of the little garrison surviving,
of whom Crockett was one. When captured he stood at bay in an angle of
the fort, his shattered rifle in one hand and a bloody bowie-knife in
the other; twenty Mexicans, dead or dying, were at his feet. His face
was covered with blood flowing from a deep gash across his forehead.
Santa Anna ordered the prisoners to be put to the sword. Crockett,
hearing the order, though entirely unarmed, sprang like a tiger at the
throat of the Mexican general, but a dozen swords interrupted him and
cut off his life.

Thus in its prime was thrown away a life that in many respects was
one of the most extraordinary in our annals. If he had enjoyed early
advantages, he would have been one of the greatest of Americans.
Nay, it is possible that if he had not been so deeply wounded by
ingratitude, treachery and defeat, and had remained at home, he,
instead of General Harrison, would have been the one to lead the
popular revolution, when came the reaction from the unlicensed _regime_
of Jackson and Van Buren.

David Crockett’s courage, independence, honesty, goodness of heart,
made him shine “like a good deed in a naughty world.” He ought not
to be forgotten by his countrymen, for a noble illustration of the
capabilities that may be found among the common people, and of the
career possible to even the lowliest-born American citizen.

       *       *       *       *       *

WHEN a man is called feeble, what is meant by the expression?
Feebleness denotes a relative state; a relative state of the being to
whom it is applied. He whose strength exceeds his necessities, though
an insect, a worm, is a strong being; he whose necessities exceed his
strength, though an elephant, a lion, a conqueror, a hero, though a
god, is a feeble being.—ROUSSEAU.

FOOTNOTE:

[H] Abbott.




ETIQUETTE.


Etiquette is from the French word for ticket, and its present use in
English suggests the old custom of distributing tickets or cards on
which the ceremonies to be observed at any formal proceedings are
fully set forth—a kind of program for important social gatherings of
distinguished persons. Modern usage has given the word a much wider
significance. It means the manners or deportment of cultured people;
their bearing toward, or treatment of others.

The suggestions in a recent number of THE CHAUTAUQUAN, respecting
“street etiquette,” or things proper to be observed in riding, driving
and walking, will not now be repeated, though many of our younger
readers might profit by having, on so familiar a subject, “line upon
line, precept upon precept.”

The etiquette proper for the home and every-day life, in town and
country, is quite as important, and embraces more things than there is
space to notice.


CALLS AND CARDS.

Home, the dearest spot on earth, would be no fit abode for social
beings if closed against the entrance and friendly offices of those
without. The courtesies and kindness of neighbors must be received and
reciprocated to make the home comforts complete. By simple methods
the most important amicable relations in society are established and
maintained.

Calls may be distinguished as ceremonious or friendly. The latter
among intimate friends may, and ought to be quite informal, and for
them no rules need be prescribed. Common-sense may be safely trusted,
as to their manner, frequency, and the time spent in making them. But
well-disposed, cultured people will usually have friendly relations
with a much larger number than can be received on terms of close
intimacy. As a means of establishing and maintaining such relations,
mere formal calls are made. In the country and in small towns residents
are expected to call on new-comers without having any previous
acquaintance with them, or even having met them before. Ordinarily the
new-comer, of whatever rank, should not call formally on a resident
first, but wait till the other has taken the initiative. If after the
first meeting, for any reason, the resident does not care to pursue the
acquaintance, it will be discontinued by not leaving cards or calling
again. The newcomer in like manner if not wishing to extend or continue
the acquaintance, will politely return the first call, leaving cards
only if the neighbors are not at home.

In some sections of the country calling on newcomers is done rather
indiscriminately and with little regard to the real, or supposed social
standing of the persons. This accords best with our American ideas of
equality, and is consistent for those whose friendships are decided by
character and personal accomplishments, rather than by the accidents
of birth or wealth. The good society for which all may rightly aspire
claims as among its brightest jewels some who financially rank with
the lowly—rich only in the nobler qualities of mind and heart. The
etiquette that, in any way, closes the door to exclude them is more
nice than wise.

Those in high esteem in their community and most worthy will naturally,
if circumstances permit, take the responsibility of first calls on
strangers who come to reside among them. The call itself is a tender
of friendship, and friendly offices, even though intimacy is not found
practicable or desirable.

Custom does not require the residents of large cities to formally call
on all new-comers in their neighborhood, which would be impracticable,
only those quite near and having apparently about the same social
status are entitled to this courtesy. Some discrimination is not only
allowable but necessary.

A desirable acquaintance once formed, however initiated, is maintained
by calls more or less frequent, as circumstances may decide, or by
leaving cards when for either party that is more convenient.

Visiting cards must be left in person, not sent by mail or by the
hand of a servant, unless in exceptional cases. Distance, unfavorable
weather or delicate health might be sufficient reasons for sending the
cards, but, as a rule, ladies leave their cards themselves, this being
found more acceptable.

A lady’s visiting card should be plain, printed in clear type, with no
ornamental or old English letters. The name printed on the middle of
the card. The place of residence on the left-hand corner.

A married lady would never use her christian name on a card, but that
of her husband after Mrs., before her surname.

In most places it is customary and considered in good taste for
husbands and wives to have their names printed on the same card: “Mr.
and Mrs.,” but each would still need separate cards of their own.

The title “Honorable” is not used on cards. Other titles are, omitting
the “The” preceding the title.

It is not in accordance with etiquette in most places for young ladies
to have visiting cards of their own. Their names are printed beneath
that of their mother, on her card, either “Miss” or “the Misses,” as
the case may be. If the mother is not living, the daughter’s name would
be printed beneath that of her father, or of her brother, in case of a
brother and sister residing alone.

If a young lady is taken into society by a relative or friend, her name
would properly be written in pencil under that of her friend.

If a lady making calls finds the mistress of the house “not at home”
she will leave her card and also one of her husband’s for each, the
mistress and her husband; but if she have a card with her own and her
husband’s name on it, she leaves but one of his separate cards.

If a lady were merely leaving cards, and not intending to call she
would hand the three cards to the person answering at the door, saying,
“For Mrs. ——,” without asking whether she is at home or not.

If a lady is sufficiently intimate to call, asks for and finds her
friend at home, she should, on leaving the house, leave two of her
husband’s cards in a conspicuous place on the table in the hall. She
should not drop them in the card-basket or hand them to the hostess,
though she might silently hand them to the servant in the hall. She
will on no account leave her own card, having seen the lady which
removes all occasion for leaving her card.

If the lady were accompanied by her husband and the lady of the house
at home, the husband would leave one of his own cards for the master of
the house, but if he also is at home no cards are left. A lady leaves
her card for a lady only, while a gentleman leaves his for both husband
and wife.

A gentleman when calling takes his hat in his hand into the room and
holds it until he has met the mistress of the house; he may then either
place it on a chair or table near him, or hold it in his hand till he
takes his leave.

       *       *       *       *       *

    DREAMS, books, are each a world: and books we know,
    Are a substantial world, both pure and good;
    Round these, with tendrils strong as flesh and blood,
    Our pastime and our happiness will grow.
    There find I personal themes, a plenteous store,
    Matter wherein right voluble I am,
    To which I listen with a ready ear;
    Two shall be named, preëminently dear,—
    The gentle lady married to the Moor;
    And heavenly Una, with her milk-white lamb.

    Blessings be with them, and eternal praise,
    Who gave us nobler loves and nobler cares—
    The poets, who on earth have made us heirs
    Of truth and pure delight by heavenly lays!
    Oh! might my name be numbered among theirs,
    Then gladly would I end my mortal days.

    —_Wordsworth’s “Personal Talk.”_




NAPOLEON’S MARSHALS.


Napoleon’s marshals were twenty-six in number, of whom seven only
were born in a rank which would have entitled them to become general
officers under the old Monarchy. These were Kellermann, Berthier,
Davoust, Macdonald, Marmont, Grouchy, and Poniatowski, a Pole. Of
the others, Murat was the son of an innkeeper, Lefèbvre of a miller,
Augereau of a mason, Bernadotte of a weaver, and Ney of a cooper.
Masséna’s father, like Murat’s, kept a village wine-shop; Lannes was
the son of an ostler, and was himself apprenticed to a dyer; Victor,
whose real name was Perrin, was the son of an invalided private
soldier, who after leaving the service became a market-crier; while
Soult’s mother kept a mercer’s shop, and Oudinot’s a small _cafè_ with
a circulating library. The marshals sprung from the _bourgeoisie_ or
middle class were Serrurier, whose father was an officer, but never
rose above the rank of captain; Bessières, whose father, though a poor
clerk in a lawyer’s office, was the son of a doctor; Suchet, who was
the son of a silk-merchant; Moncey, the son of a barrister; Gouvion,
who assumed the name of Saint-Cyr, and whose father practiced as an
attorney; and Brune, who started in life as a journalist. It is curious
to trace through the lives of the different men the effect which
their earliest associations had upon them. Some grew ashamed of their
parentage; whilst others bragged overmuch of being self-made men. Only
one or two bore their honors with perfect modesty and tact.

The noblest character among Napoleon’s marshals was beyond doubt
Adrien Moncey, Duc de Conégliano. He was born at Besançon in 1754,
and enlisted at the age of fifteen, simply that he might not be a
charge to his parents. From his father, the barrister, he had picked
up a smattering of education, while Nature had given him a talent
for drawing. He looked so small and young when he was brought before
the colonel of the Franche Comté regiment for enrollment, that the
latter, who was quite a young man—the Count de Survilliers—asked him,
laughing, whether he had been tipsy from “drinking too much milk”
when he fell into the hands of the recruiting sergeant. The sergeant,
by way of proving that young Moncey had been quite sober when he had
put on the white cockade (which was like taking the king’s shilling
in England), produced a cleverly executed caricature of himself which
the boy had drawn; upon which M. de Survilliers predicted that so
accomplished a recruit would quickly win an epaulette. This promise
came to nothing, for in 1789, after twenty years’ service, Moncey was
only a lieutenant. It was a noble trait in him that in after years he
never spoke resentfully of his slow promotion. He used to say that he
had been thoroughly well-trained, and he alluded kindly to all his
former officers. After Napoleon’s overthrow, Moncey’s conduct was most
chivalrous; he privately blamed Ney’s betrayal of the Bourbons, for it
was not in his nature to approve of double-dealing, but he refused to
sit in judgment upon his former comrade. Marshal Victor was sent to
shake his resolution, but Moncey repeated two or three times: “I do not
think I should have acted as Ney did, but I believe he acted according
to his conscience and did well; ordinary rules do not apply to this
case.” He eventually became governor of the Invalides, and it fell to
him in 1840 to receive Napoleon’s body when it was brought from St.
Helena. It was remarked at the time that if Napoleon himself could have
designated the man who was to discharge this pious duty, he would have
chosen none other than Moncey, or Oudinot, who by a happy coincidence
became governor of the Invalides in 1842 after Moncey’s death.

Nicolas Oudinot, Duc de Reggio, was surnamed the Modern Bayard. He was
born in 1767, and like Moncey enlisted in his sixteenth year. He was
wounded thirty-two times in action, but was so little of a braggart
that in going among the old pensioners of the Invalides he was never
heard to allude to his own scars. At Friedland a bullet went through
both his cheeks, breaking two molars. “These Russians do not know how
to draw teeth,” was his only remark, as his wound was being dressed.

After Friedland he received with the title of count a grant of £40,000,
and he began to distribute money at such a rate among his poor
relations, that the emperor remonstrated with him. “You keep the lead
for yourself, and you give the gold away,” said His Majesty in allusion
to two bullets which remained in the marshal’s body.

Macdonald comes next among the marshals for nobility of character. He
was of Irish extraction, born at Sancerre in 1765, and served under
Louis XVI. in Dillon’s Irish Regiment. Macdonald won his colonelcy at
Jemmapes. In 1804, however, all his prospects were suddenly marred
through his generous espousal of Moreau’s cause. Moreau had been
banished on an ill-proven charge of conspiracy; and Macdonald thought,
like most honest men, that he had been very badly treated.

But by saying aloud what most honest men were afraid even to whisper,
Macdonald incurred the Corsican’s vindictive hatred, and during
five years he was kept in disgrace, being deprived of his command,
and debarred from active service. He thus missed the campaigns
of Austerlitz and Jéna, and this was a bitter chagrin to him. He
retired to a small country-house near Brunoy, and one of his favorite
occupations was gardening. He was much interested in the projects
for manufacturing sugar out of beetroot, which were to render France
independent of West India sugar—a matter of great consequence after
the destruction of France’s naval power at Trafalgar: and he had an
intelligent gardener who helped him in his not very successful efforts
to raise fine beetroots. This man turned out to be a police-spy.
Napoleon in his jealousy of Moreau and hatred of all who sympathized
with the latter, had thought it good to have Macdonald watched, and
he appears to have suspected at one time that the hero of Otricoli
contemplated taking service in the English army. There were other
marshals besides Macdonald who had reasons to complain of Napoleon;
Victor’s hatred of him was very lively, and arose out of a practical
joke. Victor was the vainest of men; he had entered Louis XVI.’s
service at fifteen as a drummer, but when he became an officer under
the Republic he was weak enough to be ashamed of his humble origin
and assumed his Christian name of Victor as a surname instead of his
patronymic of Perrin. He might have pleaded, to be sure, that Victor
was a name of happy augury to a soldier, but he does not appear to
have behaved well toward his Perrin connections. He was a little man
with a waist like a pumpkin, and a round, rosy, jolly face, which had
caused him to be nicknamed _Beau Soleil_. A temperate fondness for red
wine added occasionally to the luster of his complexion. He was not a
general of the first order, but brave and faithful in carrying out his
master’s plans; he had an honorable share in the victory of Friedland,
and after this battle was promoted to the marshalate and to a dukedom.
Now Victor would have liked to be made Duke of Marengo; but Napoleon’s
sister Pauline suggested that his services in the two Italian wars
could be commemorated as well by the title of Belluno—pronounced in
French, Bellune. It was not until after Napoleon had innocently acceded
to this suggestion that he learned his facetious sister had in choosing
the title of Bellune (Belle Lune) played upon the sobriquet of Beau
Soleil. He was at first highly displeased at this, but Victor himself
took the joke so very badly that the emperor ended by joining in the
laughter, and said that if the marshal did not like the title that had
been given him, he should have no other. Wounds in vanity seldom heal,
and Victor, as soon as he could safely exhibit his resentment, showed
himself one of Napoleon’s bitterest enemies. During the Hundred Days he
accompanied Louis XVIII. to Ghent, and he figured in full uniform at
the _Te Deum_ celebrated in the Cathedral of Saint Bavon in honor of
Waterloo.

Augereau, Duc de Castiglione, was of all the marshals the one in whom
there is least to admire; yet he was for a time the most popular among
them, having been born in Paris and possessing the devil-may-care
impudence of Parisians. He was the son of a mason and of a street
fruit-vendor, and he began life as apprentice to his father’s trade.
Soon after he enlisted, and proved a capital soldier; but his character
was only good in the military sense. He was thirty-two when the
Revolution broke out, and was then wearing a sergeant’s stripes; in
the following year he got a commission; in 1793 he was a colonel; in
1795 a general. His rapid promotion was not won by valor only, but by
sending to the war office bombastic despatches in which he magnified
every achievement of his twenty-fold, and related it with a rigmarole
of patriotic sentiments and compliments to the convention.

There was one great point of resemblance between Augereau and Masséna:
they were both inveterate looters. In 1798, when Masséna was sent
to Rome to establish a republic, his own soldiers were disgusted by
the shameless way in which he plundered palaces and churches, and he
actually had to resign his command owing to their murmurs. Augereau was
a more wily spoiler, for he gave his men a good share of what he took,
and kept another share for Parisian museums, but he always reserved
enough for himself to make his soldiering a very profitable business.

It was politic of Napoleon to make of Augereau a marshal-duke, for
apart from the man’s intrepidity, which was unquestionable (though he
was a poor general), the honors conferred upon him were a compliment
to the whole class of Parisian _ouvriers_. Augereau’s mother, the
costerwoman, lived to see him in all his glory, and he was good to
her, for once, at a state pageant, when he was wearing the plumed
hat of a senator, and the purple velvet mantle with its _semis_ of
golden bees, he gave her his arm in public. This incident delighted
all the market-women of Paris, and helped to make Napoleon’s court
popular; but in general respects Augereau proved an unprofitable,
ungrateful servant. He was one of the first marshals to grumble against
his master’s repeated campaigns, and he deserted him in 1814 under
circumstances which looked suspicious. Napoleon accused him of letting
himself be purposely beaten by the Allies. After the escape from Elba,
Augereau first pronounced himself vehemently against the “usurper;”
then proffered him his services, which were contemptuously spurned. The
Duc de Castiglione’s career ended then, for he retired to his estate at
Houssaye, and died a year afterward, little regretted by anybody.

Masséna, who had been born the year after Augereau, died the year after
him, in 1817. He too had enlisted very young, but finding he could get
no promotion, had asked his friends to buy his discharge, and during
the five years that preceded the Revolution, he served as potman in his
father’s tavern at Leven. Re-enlisting in 1789, he became a general in
less than four years. After Rivoli, Bonaparte dubbed him “The darling
of victory;” but it was a curious feature in Masséna that his talents
only came out on the battle-field. Usually he was a dull dog, with no
faculty for expressing his ideas, and he wore a morose look. Napoleon
said that “the noise of cannon cleared his mind,” endowing him with
penetration and gaiety at the same time. The din of war had just the
contrary effect upon Brune, who, but for his tragic death, would have
remained the most obscure of the marshals, though he is conspicuous
from being almost the only one of the twenty-six who had no title of
nobility. Brune was a notable example of what strong will-power can
do to conquer innate nervousness. He was the son of a barrister, and
having imbibed the hottest revolutionary principles, vapored them
off by turning journalist. He went to Paris, and was introduced to
Danton, for whom he conceived an enthusiastic admiration. He became
the demagogue’s disciple, letter-writer, and boon companion, and it is
pretty certain that he would eventually have kept him company on the
guillotine, had it not been for a lucky sneer from a woman’s lips which
drove him into the army. Brune had written a pamphlet on military
operations, and it was being talked of at Danton’s table, when Mdlle.
Gerfault, an actress of the Palais Royal, better known as “Eglé,” said
mockingly, “You will be a general when we fight with pens.” Stung to
the quick, Brune applied for a commission, was sent into the army with
the rank of major, and in about a year, through Danton’s patronage,
became a brigade-general; meanwhile poor Eglé, having wagged her pert
tongue at Robespierre, lost her head in consequence.

The marshal on whom ducal honors seemed to sit most queerly was
François Lefèbvre, Duc de Dantzig. He was born in 1755, the son of a
miller, and was a sergeant in the French guards at the time of the
Revolution. He had then just married a _vivandière_. The anecdotes of
Madame Lefèbvre’s incongruous sayings at the consular and imperial
courts are so many as to remind one of the proverb, “We yield only to
riches.” Everything that could be imagined in the way of a _lapsus
linguæ_ or a bull was attributed to this good-natured Mrs. Malaprop,
whose oddities amused Josephine, but not always Napoleon.

Once Lefèbvre fell ill of ague, and his servant, an old soldier, caught
the malady at the same time. The servant was quickly cured; but the
fever clung to the marshal until it occurred to his energetic duchess
that the doctor had blundered by giving to a marshal the same doses as
to a private soldier. She rapidly counted on her fingers the different
rungs of the military ladder. “Here, drink, this suits your rank,” she
said, putting a full tumbler to her husband’s lips, and the duke having
swallowed a dozen doses at one gulp, was soon on his legs again. “You
have much to learn, my friend,” was the lady’s subsequent remark to the
astonished doctor.

Napoleon was a great stickler for appearances, and for this reason
loathed the dirtiness and slovenliness of Davoust. Madame Junot, in
her amusing “Memoirs,” relates that the Duc d’Auerstadt, having some
facial resemblance to Napoleon, was fond of copying him in dress and
manners; but she adds that Napoleon himself was very neat. A marshal
had no excuse for being untidy. Davoust had been at Brienne with
Bonaparte, and had thus a longer experience of his master’s character
than any of the other marshals. Had he been wise he would have turned
it to account, not only by cultivating the graces, but by giving the
emperor that ungrudging, demonstrative loyalty which Napoleon valued
above all things, and rewarded by constant favor. But Davoust was a
caballer, a grievance-monger, and a _grognard_; and it must have been
rather diverting to see him aping the manners of a master at whom he
was always carping in holes and corners. On the other hand, it must
be said that Davoust proved faithful in the hour of misfortune, and
did not rally to the Bourbons till 1818; that is, when all chances of
an imperial restoration were gone; moreover, every time he held an
important command he did his duty with courage, talent, and fidelity.
His affected brusqueness of speech was an unfortunate mannerism, for it
made him many enemies, and sometimes exposed him to odd reprisals. The
roughness of tongue which was affected in Davoust was natural in Soult.
This marshal had an excellent heart, but he could not, for the life
of him, refrain from snarling at anybody whom he heard praised. The
proverb about bite and bark might have been invented for him, as the
men at whom he grumbled most were often those whom he most favored.

Soult was born in the same year as Napoleon, 1769, and out-lived
all his brother marshals, dying in 1852, when the second empire was
already an impending fact. He had been a private soldier under Louis
XVI., he passed through every grade in the service, he became prime
minister, and when he voluntarily resigned office in 1847, owing to
the infirmities of age, Louis Philippe created him marshal-general—a
title which had only been borne by three marshals before him, Turenne,
Villars, and Maurice de Saxe. But these honors never quite consoled
Soult for having failed to become king of Portugal. He could not
stomach the luck of his comrade Bernadotte, the son of a weaver, who
was wearing the crown of Sweden.

Bernadotte, whom Soult envied, has some affinities with M. Grévy.
This president of the republic first won renown by a parliamentary
motion to the effect that a republic did not want a president; so
Bernadotte came to be a king, after a long and steadfast profession
of republican principles. Born in 1764, he enlisted at eighteen, and
was sergeant-major in 1789. He was very nearly court-martialed at that
time for haranguing a crowd in revolutionary terms. Five years later
he was a general, and in 1798 ambassador at Vienna. He was an able,
thoughtful, hardy, handsome man, who, having received no education as a
boy, made up for it by diligent study in after years; and no man ever
so well corrected, in small or great things, the imperfections of early
training. Tallyrand said of him, “He is a man who learns and _unlearns_
every day.” One thing he learned was to read the character of Napoleon
and not to be afraid of him, for the act which led to his becoming king
of Sweden was one of rare audacity. Commanding an army sent against
the Swedes in 1808, he suspended operations on learning the overthrow
by revolution of Gustavus IV., against whom war had been declared.
The Swedes were profoundly grateful for this, and Napoleon dared not
say much, because he was supposed to have no quarrel with the Swedes
as a people; but Bernadotte was marked down in his bad books from
that day, and he was in complete disgrace when in 1810 Charles XIII.
adopted him as crown prince with the approval of the Swedish people.
Bernadotte made an excellent king, but remembering his austere advocacy
of republicanism, it is impossible not to smile and ask whether there
is not some truth in Madame de Girardin’s definition of equality as _le
privilége pour tous_.

Napoleon always valued Kellerman as having been a general in the old
royal army. Born in 1735, he was a maréchal de camp (brigadier) when
the war broke out. The emperor would have been glad to have had more
of such men at his court; but it was creditable to the king’s general
officers that very few of them forgot their duties as soldiers during
the troublous period when so many temptations to commit treason beset
men holding high command. Grouchy, who in 1789 was a lieutenant in
the king’s body-guard, hardly cuts a fine figure as a revolutionist
accepting a generalship in 1793 from the convention which had beheaded
his king. He was an uncanny person altogether; the convention having
voted that all noblemen should be debarred from commissions, he
enlisted as a private soldier, and this was imputed to him as an act
of patriotism; but he had friends in high quarters who promised that
he should quickly regain his rank if he formally renounced his titles;
and this he did, getting his generalship restored in consequence. In
after years he resumed his marquisate, and denied that he had ever
abjured it. Napoleon created him marshal during the Hundred Days for
having taken the Duc d’Angoulême prisoner; but the Bourbons declined
to recognize his title to the _bâton_, and he had to wait till Louis
Philippe’s reign before it was confirmed to him. Grouchy was never
a popular marshal, though he fought well in 1814 in the campaign of
France. His inaction on the day of Waterloo has been satisfactorily
explained, but somehow all his acts have required explanation; he was
one of those men whose records are never intelligible without footnotes.

But how many of the marshals remained faithful to their master when his
sun had set? At St. Helena Napoleon alluded most often to Lannes and
Bessières, who both died whilst he was in the heyday of his power, the
first at Essling, the second at Lützen. As to these two Napoleon could
cherish illusions, and he loved to think that Lannes especially—his
brave, hot-headed, hot-hearted “Jean-Jean”—would have clung to him like
a brother in misfortune. Perhaps it was as well that Lannes was spared
an ordeal to which Murat, hot-headed and hot-hearted too, succumbed. It
is at all events a bitter subject for reflection that the great emperor
found among his marshals and dukes no such friend as he had among the
hundreds of humbler officers, captains, and lieutenants, who threw up
their commissions sooner than serve the Bourbons.—_Temple Bar._




C. L. S. C. WORK.

By REV. J. H. VINCENT, D.D., SUPERINTENDENT OF INSTRUCTION C. L. S. C.


The Class of ’84 rules the year.

       *       *       *       *       *

The readings for November are: “History of Greece,” Timayenis, volume
II, parts 10 and 11, or (for the new Class of 1877) “Brief History of
Greece;” Chautauqua Text-Book No. 5, “Greek History;” Required Readings
in THE CHAUTAUQUAN.

       *       *       *       *       *

Memorial Day for November, Special Sunday, November 11. Read Job,
twenty-eighth chapter. One of the finest passages in all literature.

       *       *       *       *       *

Talk much about the subject of your reading. You know what you have by
your speech caused others to know.

       *       *       *       *       *

Have you ever tried to control conversation at a table in the interest
of some sensible subject? It will be a curious study for you to see
how this mind and that will run away with or from the topic you have
proposed. It will tax your ingenuity to bring the company back to the
original topic. The measures of your success will be the interest you
can awaken in others, the amount of information on the subject which
you can elicit from them, and the amount, also, which you can give them
without seeming to be a lecturer or preacher for the occasion.

       *       *       *       *       *

We must insist upon the observance of the Memorial Days. Put up your
list of Memorial Days in plain sight, so that you may not forget them.
Order a copy of the little volume of “Memorial Days” from Phillips &
Hunt, 805 Broadway, New York, or Walden & Stowe, Cincinnati, Ohio.
Price, 10 cents.

       *       *       *       *       *

It is proposed that “the C. L. S. C. as a body organize a lecture
bureau, to be entirely or partially sustained by small contributions
from each member, thereby enabling weak circles to obtain one or two
good lectures during the year at reasonable prices.” A proposition to
be considered.

       *       *       *       *       *

“Will I be required to read the ‘Preparatory Latin Course in English’
next year? I have studied the same thing in the original very lately.”
Answer: You will be required to read the “Preparatory Latin Course in
English.” You can not have studied, except under such a teacher as Dr.
Wilkinson, the Latin Course in English as we require it under the C. L.
S. C. The book must be read.

       *       *       *       *       *

“Does the C. L. S. C. confer a degree? If so, what is it?” Answer:
The C. L. S. C. is not a university or college. It has no charter,
consequently it has no power to confer degrees. There is a university
charter in the hands of the Chautauqua management—a university to be.
In this university there will be non-resident courses of study, with a
rigid annual examination, to be followed by degrees and diplomas. There
may sometime in the future be a permanent Chautauqua University at
Chautauqua. Further than this I can say nothing now. It is to be hoped
the Chautauqua University will never confer honorary degrees.

       *       *       *       *       *

Correspond with some one on the studies of the C. L. S. C. Make your
letter a means of self-improvement. Congratulate yourself if your
friend, in reply, shows where you made two or three mistakes in your
letter.

       *       *       *       *       *

Will you find out the names of the latest graduating class of the high
school in your town, and send them to me? I may interest them in the C.
L. S. C. course of study, by sending a “Popular Education Circular.”
Address Drawer 75, New Haven, Conn.

       *       *       *       *       *

Are you willing wisely to distribute from ten to a hundred copies of
the “Popular Education Circular,” and would you scatter copies of the
tiny C. L. S. C. advertisement, if they were sent you?

       *       *       *       *       *

The most indefatigable worker in the C. L. S. C., next to our worthy
secretary, Miss Kimball, is the secretary of the new class—the Class of
1887—Mr. Kingsley A. Burnell, who is making a remarkable record as he
travels to and fro in the far West, visiting editors of papers, offices
of railroad superintendents, cabins of employes, and on the cars,
urging persons to adopt this new plan of self-culture.




C. L. S. C. STATIONERY.


A promise was made at the Round-Table at Chautauqua that in THE
CHAUTAUQUAN for November there should be something said about all kinds
of C. L. S. C. stationery known to the writer.

William Briggs, 80 King St., E., Toronto, Ont., sells several styles
of stationery, sheets and envelopes, with a monogram printed in blue,
mauve, or crimson. Information can be obtained by addressing him at
Toronto.

By the time this number has reached the hands of its readers, or
within a few days after, there will be for sale at the various book
stores dealing in the “Required Reading” of the C. L. S. C. a variety
of _papeterie_ stationery, having on the front page a beautiful
design most artistically engraved, showing Chautauqua Lake, with the
Chautauqua landing on the right, as seen from the railroad station,
and in the upper left hand corner an oval, or circle, with the Hall
of Philosophy very tastily enshrined therein. In the foliage drooping
into the lake there is inwrought the monogram of the C. L. S. C. A box
of this very fine paper and envelopes will cost about fifty cents. It
will be sent by mail from Messrs. Fairbanks, Palmer & Co., 133 Wabash
Avenue, Chicago, Ill., or from J. P. Magee, 38 Bromfield St., Boston,
Mass., or from H. H. Otis, Buffalo, N. Y. An advertisement of this
stationery will be found in the December number of THE CHAUTAUQUAN.

Another style of stationery can be had of Messrs. Fairbanks, Palmer &
Co., for the class of 1884, with a beautiful design especially arranged
for that class. Forty cents for a quire of paper and envelopes to match.

Ten thousand sheets prepared for general use by the members and
officers of the several classes, specially designed to be used by
gentlemen, can be had by addressing the several class officers.

For further information write to Rev. W. D. Bridge, 718 State St., New
Haven, Conn.




NEW ENGLAND BRANCH OF THE CLASS OF ’86.


While at Lake View a New England Branch of the Class of ’86 was
organized, with the following officers: President, Rev. B. T. Snow,
Biddeford, Me.; vice-presidents, Rev. W. H. Clark, South Norridgewock,
Me., Edwin F. Reeves, Laconia, N. H., Rev. J. H. Babbitt, Swanton, Vt.,
Charles Wainwright, Lawrence, Mass., Miss Lousia E. French, Newport, R.
I., Rev. A. Gardner, Buckingham, Ct.; secretary and treasurer, Mary R.
Hinckley, Bedford, Mass. The above officers were authorized to act also
as an executive board.

The badge of Class of ’86 can be obtained of the President. It has
been decided to use in private correspondence a certain style of
letter paper marked with “C. L. S. C. ’86” in a neat monogram. Further
particulars in regard to this paper will soon be given.

Just before leaving Chautauqua the Class of ’86 adopted a motto: “We
study for light, to bless with light.” The New England branch adopts
this motto, in addition to the one chosen at Lake View: “Let us keep
our Heavenly Father in the midst.”




C. L. S. C. TESTIMONY.


_Canada._—It was a bitter disappointment to me that I was compelled
to leave school at fourteen and earn my own living, giving up the
idea of a college course. The C. L. S. C. has been to me therefore an
unspeakable boon.

       *       *       *       *       *

_Vermont._—I have received large benefit as well as pleasure during the
year that I have been a member of the C. L. S. C. The course of reading
has taken me into broader fields, opened new avenues of thought and
reflection, widened my field of vision, and altogether made me a better
man.

       *       *       *       *       *

_Vermont._—According to Isaiah xxx:7, I have been trying to show my
strength by “sitting still” four years. I often ask myself, what
should I have done had I not had this interesting course—the C. L. S.
C. During these four years of deprivation how many sorrows have been
almost forgotten while reading the many interesting thoughts that are
presented in our reading. I thank God many times for this glorious
enterprise.

       *       *       *       *       *

_Connecticut._—I have been very much interested in the studies of
the C. L. S. C. during the first year. It is an honor as well as a
privilege to be a member.

       *       *       *       *       *

_Rhode Island._—Many times home duties have occupied time and thought
so fully as to discourage me. But realizing that I am to live “heartily
as to the Lord,” and viewing the course as his special blessing, I have
gathered inspiration and journeyed on patiently.

       *       *       *       *       *

_New York._—I have enjoyed my four years’ course very much, and hope
that it has been profitable to me. Though having reached the age of
sixty years my love for improvement has not been gratified, and I
purpose to continue the course that is marked out.

       *       *       *       *       *

_New York._—I am surprised at the pleasure and advantage the C. L. S.
C. has been to me. I have read no more than usual, but have read more
systematically, and received greater benefit. There is inspiration in
being “one of many.”

       *       *       *       *       *

_New York._—I have taken great pleasure in the reading. Am very
enthusiastic over the course, and will try my best to graduate. I do it
a great deal for my children, hoping that I may be a better mother, and
train their minds so that they will make better men and women than they
would have been had I not become a member of the C. L. S. C. Am all
alone in my reading, except what my boy of fourteen does with me; even
my little girl just turned seven studies geology with me, and is much
interested in finding specimens.

       *       *       *       *       *

_Pennsylvania._—I have only been a member of the C. L. S. C. for about
four months and in that time I have done most of my reading at night,
reading usually from eight o’clock until eleven. As I have to work hard
all day, I have little time for reading except at night, I find the
course very interesting, and I am deriving a great amount of good from
it.

       *       *       *       *       *

_Pennsylvania._—For almost two years my work has required my presence
twelve hours every week day, and part of the time sixteen and eighteen
hours. I gave up last summer, thinking I could not finish the course,
but after being present at Chautauqua I had a greater desire than ever
to continue. I have at leisure moments read up for the two years, and
must ever feel grateful to Chautauqua influence.

       *       *       *       *       *

_Ohio._—I am a farmer’s wife, but with all the care of the work that
position in life brings (and a good share of the work too), I still
find time to read the regular four years’ course of the C. L. S. C.,
and desire to do as thorough work as I am capable of doing. Am reading
not merely for pleasure, far less to criticise, but for _instruction_,
and have been greatly helped by this first year’s study.

       *       *       *       *       *

_Ohio._—In many ways I think the C. L. S. C. has been of benefit to
the little ones. This last winter my eldest daughter said: “Why can’t
we have a society of our own?” “We,” meant the family. I seconded it
gladly, and my husband also, and we resolved ourselves into the “Clio
Clique” and took as our work “Art and Artists,” as mapped out in the
_St. Nicholas_. Each member pledged themselves to take the work given
them by the president (who was our only officer), and also to commit
not less than eight lines of some poem to memory. We had no outside
members, and we did our work right well, I think.

       *       *       *       *       *

_Illinois._—The C. L. S. C. has done much for me. Life has been
brighter, sweeter and better than it might otherwise have been.
Friendships have been formed which I am sure will survive life, and add
another link in the golden chain that binds us to another world.

       *       *       *       *       *

_Michigan._—To the C. L. S. C. I owe everything.

       *       *       *       *       *

_Michigan._—Were it not that I still may keep a place in the Circle,
I should be sorry the four years were over. They have been pleasant
ones, so far as the Circle was concerned, and have passed swiftly. It
seemed a great undertaking to me four years ago, when I commenced the
course. For one thing, I did not see my way clear to get the books, but
I resolved to try, and it has seemed all along that it was God’s way of
helping me to the knowledge I had so much desired.

       *       *       *       *       *

_Wisconsin._—A lady writes: The regular methods of the C. L. S. C. have
suggested to me the plan of having a little home monthly, contributed
to only by members of the family, written, and read aloud on a
specified evening each month. The children write prose and poetry that
are a surprise, but only the effect of a regular course of reading and
conversations by one member of the family. While reading astronomy,
one of the little girls, aged ten years, took two looking-glasses and
illustrated, in play, the motions of a planet. She held them by the
window in the sun, so as to throw the reflection on the ceiling. One
she had stationary, for the sun, the other she caused to go around
it, causing the motion to hasten at perihelion, and to become slow at
aphelion, describing the motions correctly. Then she imagined a comet,
causing it to go out of sight, then return, and upon its approach to
the sun rushing it past with lightning speed. I called the attention
of their father to their play with much delight, for I had no idea
they understood the motions so well, simply from conversations on the
subject in the family circle. They all joined in the conversation at
play, and seemed to comprehend it all.

       *       *       *       *       *

_Iowa._—The studies have benefited me much more than I can express
in words. May heaven’s choicest blessings rest upon the officers and
everyone connected with the C. L. S. C.

       *       *       *       *       *

_Kansas._—I am one of the busy housekeepers, but always find time
to read. My reading has uplifted my soul, and led me to a fuller
appreciation of the power and love of God, and I feel thankful that I
am numbered with the army of Chautauquans.

       *       *       *       *       *

_California._—When I read the C. L. S. C. testimony in THE CHAUTAUQUAN,
I always think Chautauqua has been _all that_ and _more_ to me, for
it has led me from cold, dark skepticism to my Bible and my Father in
heaven, and it is gradually leading some of my friends into the light.
I prize my C. L. S. C. books more highly that they are worn and soiled
by many readers, and I believe I can do no better missionary work than
by enlarging the Circle.




C. L. S. C. REUNION.


On the afternoon of June 27, at Pendleton, Indiana, a delightful C. L.
S. C. reunion was held. The circle of Pendleton invited the circle from
the neighboring village of Greenfield to join with them in their last
meeting for the year. A goodly number of visitors were present. After
an entertaining program of speeches, songs, toasts, etc., had been
carried out, the following class histories were read:


PENDLETON LOCAL CIRCLE.

    On the evening of the 28th of December, 1881, a little
    company of eight ladies and five gentlemen assembled
    at the home of Dr. Huston, Pendleton, Indiana, for the
    purpose of more fully discussing the Chautauqua Idea,
    and if possible to organize a branch of the great
    Chautauqua Literary and Scientific Circle. Three months
    behind in the year’s studies, the outlook was not as
    encouraging as could have been wished, but finding one
    of the class mottoes to be “Never be discouraged,”
    it was unanimously agreed that we organize. Teachers
    were also chosen for the principal studies, and it
    was thought best that they should present the lessons
    to the class in the form of questions. This method
    was generally observed throughout the year, with the
    exception of some lectures on geology. At each session
    two of the members were appointed to write papers
    for the following week, on some subject pertaining
    to the lessons. Longfellow’s birthday was the only
    memorial observed. Besides the usual exercises of the
    evening a short sketch of the life of the poet was
    read, followed by the reading of two of his poems. Our
    weekly meetings were well kept up, and much interest
    manifested in the studies until the first of May, when
    owing to summer heat, and many calls on the time of the
    different members, it was thought best to meet once a
    month, each member being given a portion of the studies
    to be brought forward at the next session. This plan
    was found to be a good one for the summer months, and
    was continued until the beginning of the new year’s
    studies, when the weekly meetings were again resumed,
    and the meetings were spent in much the same manner as
    the first year with the exception of the evening of the
    thirtieth of November, when a complete change was made
    in the program, by having a C. L. S. C. thanksgiving
    supper and a general good time at the residence of Mr.
    and Mrs. Whitney. Since that time our circle has lost
    several of its members either from sickness or change
    of residence, but we hope ere the beginning of another
    year to be fully reinforced and ready to continue the
    good work.


    GREENFIELD LOCAL CIRCLE.

    Although we have met to-day as strangers, we find that
    the unity of thought and purpose that has characterized
    our work the past year has made us friends. The history
    of our circle is necessarily brief because of the short
    time it has been in existence. When we first organized
    in the fall of ’82, a part of us supposed we were
    entering the society temporarily and did not expect to
    matriculate and become regular members of the mystic
    tie, but we only met a few times till we perceived the
    advantages we were deriving from the association, one
    with another, and saw the necessity of a permanent
    organization. Now there are ten of us enrolled as
    students of the “University of the C. L. S. C.” We
    pursued the course with a great deal of enthusiasm and
    delight, and if it were possible, each study seemed
    more interesting than the preceding. With a great deal
    of reluctance we laid aside geology and Greek history
    for astronomy and English history, but we soon saw we
    were susceptible of inspiration from the latter as well
    as the former. Our circle, except two, is composed of
    married ladies. As housewives we feel that the course
    has been very beneficial—it has relieved the monotony
    and tedium of housekeeping because it has given us
    something ennobling to think of—it has also given us
    a taste for something else than the last novel and
    the latest piece of gossip in the daily papers. We
    feel as though we could adopt the sentiment of Plato.
    A friend who observed that he seemed as desirous to
    learn himself as to teach others, asked him how long he
    expected to remain a student? Plato replied, “As long
    as I am not ashamed to grow wiser and better.”

       *       *       *       *       *

TEMPERANCE and labor are the two best physicians of man; labor
sharpens the appetite, and temperance prevents him from indulging to
excess.—_Rousseau._




LOCAL CIRCLES.


=Province of Quebec (Bedford).=—The Harmony Circle was organized here
last September. We are seven in number, all having so many cares that
the Chautauqua work has to be done by improving the spare moments, and
often by giving up some pleasure or recreation; but the sacrifice is
made willingly. Each member prepares seven questions; the number to be
chosen from each subject in hand is determined at the previous meeting.
Each in turn puts a question to his or her nearest neighbor, then the
second time round to the nearest but one, and so on; thus each member
puts a question to every other member. This, with discussions and
conversations which arise from the lesson, occupies more than two hours
in a very enjoyable manner. We have derived profit from the work, both
in increase of knowledge and improvement of literary taste. Our circle
has also been the source of much kindly feeling and mutual interest,
and a strong bond of friendship amongst us.

       *       *       *       *       *

=Maine (Brownfield).=—Our circle was organized early in October, 1882,
with ten regular members, five gentlemen and five ladies. We arranged
to meet once in two weeks, and enjoyed our evenings together so much
that it was extremely difficult to keep the length of our sessions
within reasonable bounds. We congratulated ourselves constantly on the
pleasure afforded us by our studies, and on the obvious improvement,
from month to month, in the work of individual members. It was
decided, for the present year at least, to change the whole board of
officers once in three months, that the educating influences of the
responsibilities connected with the various offices might be shared, in
turn, by all who were willing to accept them.

       *       *       *       *       *

=Maine (Fairfield).=—A local circle was organized here in October,
1882, and now numbers fifteen members, nearly all of whom have
completed the required readings to date. Teachers are assigned to each
of the subjects as they are taken up, and recitations are conducted
with excellent system and thoroughness. In addition to this we have
numerous essays and readings, and the enthusiasm is such that,
notwithstanding our regular meetings occur fortnightly, we have many
special meetings. It is the custom at all of our meetings to criticize
freely, and this leads to an exactness of pronunciation when reading,
not otherwise to be attained.

       *       *       *       *       *

=Maine (Brownfield).=—Our circle meets once in two weeks, takes
up questions in THE CHAUTAUQUAN, and then devotes a short time to
questions of our own asking, using a question-box. We think this an
excellent plan. After this we generally have short essays on the
subjects we are reading, often closing with general conversation.

       *       *       *       *       *

=Massachusetts (Wareham).=—The Pallas Circle closed for the season with
a lawn party, June 18.


PROGRAM.

    Singing—“A Song of To-day.”

    Roll-Call—Responses of quotations from any of the
    reading of the past year.

    Secretary’s report.

    Selected questions in Astronomy, answered by members of
    the circle.

    Reading—“The Vision of Mirza.”

    Essay—“The Mythological Story of Ursa Major and Ursa
    Minor.”

    Reading—Selections from “Evangeline.”

    Reading—“The Fan-drill.”—(Addison.)

    Singing—Chautauqua Carols.

    Supper—Toasts and Responses, including two original
    poems.

Though small in numbers the circle is very enthusiastic in its work.
New members for the coming year were enrolled from the invited guests
of the occasion, and the readings will be commenced in October with
fresh vigor.

       *       *       *       *       *

=Massachusetts (Haverhill).=—A local circle was organized in Haverhill,
March 14, 1883, with the following officers: R. D. Trask, president;
George H. Foster, vice president; Delia Drew, secretary. Whole
membership numbers seventeen.

       *       *       *       *       *

=Massachusetts (Natick).=—The Natick local circle was organized
September 20, 1879. Eight of the original members, keeping in view the
motto, “never be discouraged,” have completed the four years’ course.
At the commencement of the present year our local circle numbered
twenty-five. We enjoy our reading greatly, and consider the Natick C.
L. S. C. a success.

       *       *       *       *       *

=Connecticut (West Haven).=—Our circle was organized November 14,
1881, and numbers seventeen members. We meet once a week. Our circle
is divided into committees of three and four to arrange programs for
the month’s entertainments. They include reviews, essays on different
subjects connected with the course, readings and recitations.
“Shakspere’s Day” was observed by reading a portion of the play,
“Merchant of Venice,” the committee having previously assigned the
different characters to the members present. We are very social at
our meetings, and occasionally have a little collation at the close
of the exercises. Most of us are well up with the class, and find the
Chautauqua evenings not only instructive, but exceedingly enjoyable.

       *       *       *       *       *

=New York (Angola).=—A local circle was organized here February 5,
1883, and consists of eighteen members. We usually do the reading in
THE CHAUTAUQUAN at our meetings, information being given, and questions
asked by all. We have made use of the questions and answers in THE
CHAUTAUQUAN, and found them to be of much assistance. Occasionally
topics are assigned, upon which we are to read or speak at the next
meeting. Criticism upon pronunciation is unsparingly given to all. We
intend to continue our meetings, and hope that another year may bring
us a larger membership.

       *       *       *       *       *

=Pennsylvania (Allegheny City).=—In November, 1882, the Woodlawn
segment of the C. L. S. C. was organized and officers elected. The
president having drawn up a constitution, it was read and unanimously
adopted. Our constitution regulates the manner of conducting the
society, prescribes parliamentary rules, etc. During our study of
geology, we were favored with an interesting and instructive lecture by
A. M. Martin, Esq., General Secretary of the C. L. S. C. Our membership
now consists of seventeen persons, six being ladies.

       *       *       *       *       *

=Pennsylvania (Gillmor).=—Our circle owes its being to the earnest,
persistent efforts of two or three persons who had read one year alone.
The first meeting was held October 24, 1882, and the circle organized
with fifteen members. We labor under some peculiar difficulties. Our
members represent several little villages, and are so scattered that
it is some times hard to get together. Then we are in the oil country
where people stay rather than live, so they gather around them only
such things as are needful for comfortable living. The majority have
but few books of reference, or other helps to study. Our meetings
were opened with prayer and the singing of a Chautauqua song, and
sometimes repeating the Chautauqua mottoes, any items of business being
attended to before beginning the regular work of the circle. Before
closing members were appointed by the president to conduct the various
exercises in the succeeding meeting. In the latter part of the winter
the president proposed a course of lectures. It was a decided success.
Our lecturers were J. T. Edwards, D.D., Randolph, N. Y.—subject:
“Oratory and Eloquence;” D. W. C. Huntington, Bradford, Pa., “Rambles
in Europe;” C. W. Winchester, Buffalo, N. Y., “Eight Wonders of the
World.” This course closed with a home entertainment, consisting of
vocal and instrumental music, readings, essays, etc., mostly by members
of the circle. Our number is at present nineteen, and we are happy to
have proved those to be false prophets who predicted that three months
would be the limit of our existence.

       *       *       *       *       *

=District of Columbia (Washington).=—The Parker Circle has been
reorganized for the course of 1883-84. Several new members were
received, and the circle now numbers about thirty-six. On Tuesday
evening, the 18th, Dr. Dobson, our president, will organize a new
circle in another part of the city, beginning with a dozen members.
Foundry Circle reorganizes the same night, and several new circles will
be organized during the fall. There is considerable interest manifested
in the course.

       *       *       *       *       *

=Maryland (Baltimore).=—The Class of 1887 was organized on Thursday
evening, September 20, at the Young Men’s Christian Association
Hall. The membership for the coming year will be about thirty. The
officers constitute the committee on instruction. The class of the
past year, the fourth since its organization, was one of the best; the
method adopted was that of the question box; each member placing such
questions of interest in the box as he had met with in his reading.
The director, Prof. J. Rendell Harris, would read the questions one at
a time, and open the discussion upon them, in which all joined. Two
meetings each month from October to June were held, and the entire time
spent on the three books, the rest of the books being used for home
reading only. This plan was considered preferable to the study of two
or three at one time. The outlook for the new class is good.

       *       *       *       *       *

=Ohio (Harrisburg).=—We have eleven members, of whom ten are regular
members of the C. L. S. C. Our method of work thus far has consisted of
essays, readings, and conversations. The interest in the work increases
with each meeting.

       *       *       *       *       *

=Illinois (Fairburg).=—We have here a small circle of eight members. We
have met regularly once a week, taking each study in its course, and
in an informal way have discussed the various subjects presented. Much
interest has been felt and expressed, and we all feel that a prescribed
course of reading is by all means the best and most direct means of
self-culture.

       *       *       *       *       *

=Illinois (Yorkville).=—For the past two years quite a number of our
people have pursued the course of studies, but not until last year
did we see proper to unite with the home society. Our class comprised
lawyers, bankers, insurance agents, carriage trimmers, preachers,
teachers and farmers. All feel that it has been two years of very
profitable study for us. We closed our last year’s study by a meeting
at the residence of one of the members, where we were entertained by a
program consisting of essays, character sketches, class history, music,
and last, but not least, refreshments for the inner man. It was indeed
an enjoyable occasion. We hope to organize a much larger class for the
coming year.

       *       *       *       *       *

=Tennessee (Knoxville).=—The local circle at this place reorganized
this year with a membership of twenty-eight, an increase of twenty
over last year. How was this accomplished? The secret can be given in
just two words: _personal influence_. At the close of last year we
felt that our circle here was dying. The members were negligent about
the preparation of lessons, careless and indifferent about attendance,
and we disbanded for the summer feeling almost discouraged, yet in the
heart of each member was a secret determination to do something to
make the circle more interesting next year. One of our members went
to Monteagle, another to Europe, and another to Chautauqua. Those
who remained at home worked also for the C. L. S. C., and all worked
earnestly and with enthusiasm. We thought, wrote and talked C. L. S.
C. until our friends laughingly called us “people of one idea.” We
sent for circulars, which we gave to every one whom we could betray
into the slightest expression of interest. We loaned our books and
magazine with the request, “please just look it over and tell us what
you think of it.” The seventh of September we held a meeting at the Y.
M. C. A. rooms, kindly tendered to us for that purpose. All who were
interested in the C. L. S. C. were invited, and two of the ministers of
our city also encouraged us by their presence and cheering words. Then
we began to reap the fruits of our summer’s work. Seven new members
were reported and two more asked for membership. Another meeting was
held September 21 for reorganization, at which six new names were
reported and five more requested admission to the circle, making our
number twenty-eight. The circle will meet once a week, and we hope to
accomplish results worthy of our enthusiasm. We send greeting to our
sister circles, especially to the weak, to whom we would say: _Use your
influence_ as a society and as individuals, and _success_ is yours.

       *       *       *       *       *

=Michigan (Niles).=—Our circle was organized last October, with
thirteen members. We have held thirty-three meetings, at which reviews
upon the topics studied and readings from THE CHAUTAUQUAN have formed
part of the program. In addition, we have read Bryant’s translation of
the “Iliad,” and “Evangeline.” All the Memorial Days have been kept.
Selections from the author, sketches of his life and home, responses to
roll-call with quotations from the same, and familiar talks upon the
subject of the memorial, have made these occasions of unusual interest.

       *       *       *       *       *

=Michigan (Imlay City).=—On Tuesday evening, November 28, 1882, we
organized a local circle of the C. L. S. C. We have eight regular and
three local members. The meetings have been held once in two weeks,
at the houses of the members, and from the interest manifested in the
work, we have every reason to hope for a large increase in numbers next
year. On the evening of February 27 we observed Longfellow’s birthday
by an interesting program of essays, readings, recitations and songs.
We closed with a sentiment from each one present, from Longfellow.

       *       *       *       *       *

=Wisconsin (La Crosse).=—A local circle was organized here last
January. The membership is small, but we have been faithful to the
work. Although we began very late, we have nearly completed the year’s
work. We are all glad we began such a course of study, and have found
much pleasure in gathering round our “round-table.” The prospects for
an increase in numbers and interest for the coming year are encouraging.

       *       *       *       *       *

=Minnesota (Minneapolis).=—The Centenary Circle has just finished the
work of the year. Our circle has numbered forty-two in all, with six
local members, though six, at least, have been unable to attend the
meetings on account of distance,—one even living in another State—but
most are keeping up their work. There has been more interest and
enthusiasm all through the year than during our first year.

       *       *       *       *       *

=Minnesota (Albert Lea).=—This is the first year of our local circle,
and we number five, all ladies with home cares. We have short sketches
of the “Required History Readings” in THE CHAUTAUQUAN, which we think
make us remember them better. We are reading the “White Seal Course”
aloud, and enjoy it so much. Can not be glad enough that we have taken
up this course.

       *       *       *       *       *

=Iowa (Muscatine.)=—The Acme Circle is composed of fifty-five members,
with an average attendance of thirty-five. We are very enthusiastic,
and expect to take the examinations. We recite the lesson, occasionally
reading a part which it does not seem worth while to commit to
memory. Our exercises are varied by essays on topics of importance in
connection with the lesson.

       *       *       *       *       *

=Iowa (St. Charles).=—I wish to report from our town a circle of three
(myself and family). We hold no regular meetings. Although we began the
first year’s course late last December, we have completed the reading
up to this month. It has been very profitable and entertaining to us.
We are each determined to complete the course. We will advertise it
in our county papers, and do our utmost to solicit members and get
up local circles. We do not think any better plan than the C. L. S.
C. could be devised for furnishing those who have not the privilege
of an academic or collegiate course an opportunity to acquire a good
practical education.

       *       *       *       *       *

=Texas (Palestine.)=—The Houston _Daily Post_ gives the following
history of the local circle in Palestine: Some young people and some
adults of Palestine have formed themselves into a branch of the now
world-renowned Chautauqua Literary and Scientific Circle, and have
entered upon the four years’ course of study prescribed by that
institution. The circle was organized in October, 1882, and now has a
membership of twenty-three. Meetings are held every week at the homes
of the members. The evenings thus spent are highly profitable to the
members, socially and intellectually. Dr. Yoakum has assisted the
circle greatly by lectures and talks on geology, astronomy, botany and
history. The program of exercises is varied semi-occasionally from the
regular channel, and the evening is spent in purely a literary way.
Such seasons of refreshment occur on the birth anniversaries of popular
authors. On the 23d of April a Shakspere memorial meeting was held
at Sterne’s Hotel, on which occasion Mrs. Overall read “The Fall of
Cardinal Wolsey.” Miss Kate Colding rendered “Hamlet’s Soliloquy” most
admirably. Miss Florence Finch presided at the organ and lead in the
Chautauqua songs. On May 1 the circle did honor to the life and memory
of Addison. Mrs. J. C. Bradford read a sketch of his life and writings,
Miss Ena Sawyers read “The Omnipresence and Omniscience of the Deity,”
and Miss Fannie Reese read “The Vision of Mirza.”

       *       *       *       *       *

=California (Brooklyn).=—Our circle is an informal quartet of congenial
spirits who have been close friends and companions for some time past.
We meet every Monday evening and have a delightful free and easy
discussion over what we have read during the week, with Webster’s
Unabridged in its post of honor—the piano stool, and the encyclopædia
rack within reachable distance. We are enjoying the course very much,
and feel that it is just what we need.




HOW TO CONDUCT A LOCAL CIRCLE.[I]


THE TROY METHOD OF ORGANIZING A CIRCLE.

The “Rock of Ages” was sung, a prayer was offered by Mr. Martin, after
which Mr. Farrar said:

I desire to give you a little history of the inauguration of our circle
work in Troy. I do so because I am confident that what was done there
last year may be done in every city, in every village, and may be
multiplied a thousand times.

About the middle of last September I wrote an article on “Reading,
Circles for Reading, and The C. L. S. C.,” and published it in the Troy
_Daily Times_.

I wrote this article, published it on Wednesday, calling a meeting
at my church for Thursday evening, inviting anybody and everybody
who desired, to be present. The evening was quite unfavorable. I
expected about twenty. I was exceedingly surprised and gratified in the
interests of the C. L. S. C. work when I found nearly three hundred
people present. Being inspired by their presence, I began to talk to
them on reading, the importance of it, the value of it to-day, and the
cheapness of literature. I unfolded to them the C. L. S. C. plan, the
numbers that were taking it up, the enthusiasm that prevailed here at
Chautauqua, and how the Circle was spreading all over the world, not
only in this country but in other countries. It was all new to many of
them.

At the conclusion of my half hour’s talk I asked how many persons
wanted to join some such circle as this. About every hand in the
audience went up. I was surprised again. Looking over the audience,
I knew nearly every one of them, for I was back the second time as
pastor of the same church, and knowing that four or five denominations
were represented there, I suggested that there ought to be a circle in
every church. I did not want to “scoop up” the whole right there in
our church, and I was generous enough to say that there ought to be a
dozen circles established in our city, one in connection with every
church, and in the suburbs. I said that a week from that night we would
organize a circle there, and any who desired to be connected with that
circle would be gladly welcomed.

During the week I received several letters from parties in the city,
and out of the city, asking about the C. L. S. C., what its course
of reading was, etc. I followed it in the _Daily Times_ with another
letter on Wednesday, saying that our circle was to meet on Thursday,
and explaining the text books that we were to take up for the year,
and more fully entering into the C. L. S. C. idea. Our evening came,
and we had over three hundred present. I had the whole list of books
with me. I took them up and showed them to each person. I said, “this
is the course.” I went on unfolding the whole idea of the course, the
amount of time each year, the examinations at the end of the year,
and the outlook of the four years’ course. I told them that this was
the student’s outlook from college halls, with the exception of the
mathematics and the languages to be translated.

Then I asked how many desired to join this Circle. Over two hundred
hands went up. Immediately we fell to organization. Fortunately,
or unfortunately, I was elected president, and a Protestant
Episcopal clergyman, rector of Christ Church, close by me, was
elected vice-president. We have in our organization a president,
vice-president, secretary, treasurer, and a board of managers
consisting of five.

I found on inspecting the number that joined our circle that we
were about equally divided Baptists, Protestant Episcopalians,
Presbyterians, and Methodist Episcopalians. Our board of managers
was wisely selected from these various churches, so that there might
be the largest remove possible from anything like an organization
confined to our church. I say this because I believe that people are
hungry for just such an organization as this. There are thousands in
our communities who are tired of idle gossip. They want something to
talk about, and the only way to stop gossip is to put something into
their heads on a higher plane. I have had testimony from our members
repeatedly, “Now we have so little time to talk about these other
things.” Whenever they come together they talk about these wonders
found in the C. L. S. C. work.

This board of five managers arranges our monthly plan. Our large
meetings are monthly. Our circle divides itself up; six or a dozen, or
twenty, form little organizations, read together, meet once a week, and
then we meet as a large circle monthly and review our work. This board
of managers lays out the month’s work. The first week after our monthly
meeting this board of managers is called together. They make out their
plan, print it on a postal card, and send it out at once to every
member of the circle, so that every member knows what the plan is to be
three weeks before the meeting. Our method in the large meeting is to
review our work by the essay method.

Let me give you a program. First, singing. I was fortunate enough to
have an enthusiastic singer in our number, and I gave him the work of
organizing a glee club. He gathered twenty or twenty-five of the very
best young people in the number, and formed a glee club, and they led
our devotions. We followed with scripture and prayer. And then began
our essays. We usually have three, four, sometimes five essays, and no
essay is over ten minutes in length. We desire that the essays shall
not exceed eight minutes. It requires a deal of skill and practice to
reduce our thoughts on a subject to a six or eight minutes essay, but
it is practicable. Then we are all interested in the subject which we
have been studying for a month. When an individual rises and reads, we
feel that we have gone over the same subject, and it is like a review
to us, and helps to fasten it more definitely in our minds. Following
each essay we have remarks and questions. We never criticise an essay.
That would be unkind. You could not do it. You would intimidate
everybody.

We ask questions and throw in additional remarks. We take up half an
hour, or three-quarters at most, devoted to the three, four or five
essays. Following these we appoint some person to ask the questions
which are printed in THE CHAUTAUQUAN. Any person who will ask and
answer these questions will find that he has a wonderfully clear
_résumé_ of the whole subject in his mind. I suppose that we are
indebted to Mr. Martin for them. They are very clear, very concise, and
greatly appreciated by the Troy members.

Following these questions we have a recess of twenty minutes, in which
it is the custom of our circle to shake hands, make each others’
acquaintance, encourage each other, find out about each other, and
inquire about the work. Upon the recall the Glee Club gives a song.
Then follows the round-table. I need not explain this because you are
all familiar with the round-table. After that a _conversazione_ on some
prominent character of the world, old or new. We desire that every
member will give us some extract of five lines, not to exceed five
lines, unless it would break the harmony of the thought, from every
person brought before us. We have had Shakspere, Longfellow, Bryant,
and a variety of persons.

Immediately after this _conversazione_ follows “a miscellaneous
exercise”—anything that needs to be taken up. While we were studying
geology, we went down to the village of Albany where the capital is
located. They have a very fine series of geological rooms arranged by
Prof. Hall, the State Geologist. As you enter the room, there are the
very lowest specimens of the rocks with their fossils. As you go up
story after story you reach the highest rocks. Prof. Hall, by previous
appointment, met our large circle of about two hundred. We chartered
a car or two and went down. He met us and gave us a very satisfactory
lecture. We appreciated it.

When we came to astronomy, we found out where we could find an
astronomer. We invited him, and he came and gave us a lecture. Then
we had a teacher of the high school stand before us, and allow us to
question him to our heart’s content. We found it available to work in
all the outside force possible. When we studied the subject of art we
got together all the pictures of the town that we could find. I was in
Gloversville as pastor at that time. We arranged them, and spent two or
three very delightful evenings. You have two or three, another has one,
another has six; bring them all together and discuss the whole subject
of art. We found it very profitable.

In Troy our circle is so enthusiastic in its work that there is a
constant clamor of outside people to get in. We sometimes allow a few
outsiders, and there is hardly a session that we do not have four to
five hundred in our gathering, but the front seats are always reserved
for members, and visitors, if there be any, must take the back seats.
There are anywhere from fifty to one hundred and fifty clamoring to be
admitted into the circle this fall. I do not know what we shall do. If
we admit them, we shall go into the audience room. I think it is better
to divide up.

I have given you our work. I said in the outset, it is possible for
any young man or woman, pastor or superintendent, through your village
paper, to write a short article calling the attention of the people to
it, saying that in such a place there will be an organization of this
work. I have the impression that you can gather quite a large circle
in every place, two or three of them. But my conviction is from the
work as I have observed it through Troy and vicinity, that you need
somebody in that circle, at the head of it, who loves it. You can make
nothing in this world grow without love. Not even the flowers you may
plant in your garden will grow unless you love them.

As the result of the article in the Troy _Times_, eight circles were
organized in our city. As the result of those two articles, twenty-six
circles were organized around Troy.

I would be glad to hear from you to-day. Criticise my plan as much as
you please. I have taken more time because Dr. Vincent urged me to do
so. He urged me to take twenty-five minutes. I have only taken twenty.
Give me your plans, any suggestions, any practical idea that you have
worked out in your circles.

MR. MARTIN: I can say that I commend every feature that has been
mentioned here by Mr. Farrar in the method of conducting local circles.
I believe we have tested in Pittsburgh every one he has mentioned.
There are several others we have tried, to which I would like to refer.
For instance, I think it well for persons to start with the inspiration
and a love of the Circle right here at Chautauqua. A great many persons
have come to me on the ground, and asked me how to form a local circle,
saying they had no local circles in their vicinity. I say to them if
they have two or three members on the ground here who belong together
in a circle, meet under the trees and start your organization here. We
started with seven members under these trees by the Hall of Philosophy,
in the year 1878, and we had somewhere between three and four hundred
before the following January, and have as many more since. Last year
about half a dozen who graduated in the class of ’82 met under the
trees here, and we formed our preliminary organization. We carried
the spirit and love of the C. L. S. C. home with us, and we formed in
Pittsburgh an alumni association of nearly sixty members. We expect to
increase the number largely during the coming year.

One word with reference to the use of newspapers. Our executive
committee apportion the different papers of the city between them. We
have five members, and each member looks after a paper to see that the
paper looks after C. L. S. C. matters. We make each member the editor
of a C. L. S. C. department in a newspaper, and it is his duty to get
in as many notices about the C. L. S. C. as possible. Our press has
very generously opened to us its columns. Every monthly meeting is
noticed before and after in the papers. I am glad to say that we have
got into many considerable controversies in the newspapers. We like
them because they bring our organization into notice.

We avail ourselves of the papyrograph, the electric pen, the type
writer, and the various plans for duplicating that we now have, in the
way of sending out notices, preparing the programs, etc. Any of you who
know how cheaply any of these appliances can be used for printing, will
see how efficiently they can be employed for the use of the circle.

Another point: If we get a little depressed, or a little behind, we
get Dr. Vincent or one of the counselors to come and give us a rousing
lecture. We have given them good audiences, and they have spread a
new enthusiasm. What an amount of enthusiasm can be developed about
the C. L. S. C. If you will have the patience to answer clearly and
fully all questions that are asked you about the C. L. S. C., you will
find that you are doing a grand missionary work. I know my business
is often interrupted by people who come in and ask about the C. L. S.
C., but I am always sorry if I ever have to turn any one away without
information. If I give them full information, and they go away and join
the C. L. S. C., and form a local circle afterward, I feel that I have
done a missionary work.

MR. FARRAR: Any suggestions?

A VOICE: Did you permit persons to become members of your local circle
who did not belong to the parent society?

MR. FARRAR: Yes. But we requested them, if they did not wish to take up
the full course of reading, to join the C. L. S. C. and pay their fifty
cents, and take THE CHAUTAUQUAN. We honored the home office. But they
need not fill out the questions unless they choose.

MR. BRIDGE: In that way you will get a great many members of the C. L.
S. C. who are not doing the work.

MR. FARRAR: Very few. We took a few husbands who wanted to come with
their wives. “Very good,” I said, “pay your fifty cents and take THE
CHAUTAUQUAN.”

REV. J. O. FOSTER: We had a large circle where I was last appointed.
We found in the school a man well posted in geology. We found the
depot agent was an astronomer, and he was very enthusiastic over the
invitation that we gave him. He came down and spattered the blackboard
all over with facts. He got a long strip of paper and stuck up around
the room, and marked out the planets. He gave us a very fine lecture on
astronomy, so good that the people requested him to repeat it before
the whole congregation. We had this “jelly-pad business,” and struck
off our programs the week before. Every one knew what he was expected
to do. We secured plenty of books, if any one was at a loss for books.
We had about twenty in the circle, and that circle is now running. I
think it is three and a half years old. I do not know of any older than
that.

MR. MARTIN: We have one five years old.

MR. FOSTER: Very good. Dr. Goodfellow organized this. Another member
and I went to people in the city and asked them to lend us their
pictures upon several subjects. You will be astonished at the amount of
material you can gather together in a single afternoon to illustrate
any subject.

DR. VINCENT: I have no doubt that some small local circles have quite
unique plans which they have adopted, and I hope if they hesitate to
speak out, that they will write out their plans for us.

A LADY: I was about to speak for a small circle. I am very positive
in our circle of twenty it would be almost impossible to have essays,
except occasionally. The members generally would be so frightened at
the idea of having to write an essay that we should lose the circle
entirely. We have to pet them a little, and we use the conversational
method as freely as possible to get them to express themselves. What
they can not tell we tell them. In my experience—I have been conductor
four years—I find the essay method frightens small circles. Where you
have circles of two hundred, where they have a great many ministers,
and lawyers, you can get them to write essays.

A LADY: I would say that I belong to a circle out West of six members.
We pursued the essay work for the first two years entirely. Every one
of us for the first two years wrote an essay every week. [Applause.]

DR. EATON: I would like to speak for another small circle. We had a
program. We opened with singing and prayer, and then the leader, who
had prepared himself thoroughly, or tried to prepare himself thoroughly
on the lesson, particularly in science and in history, examined every
class by questioning and removing every difficulty connected with
them. The whole circle replied at once, answering the questions. If
there were any in the circle that could not answer a question, they
had it answered for them, and were not placed under any embarrassment
by the sense of failure. A great many said of these meetings every two
weeks, that they obtained a better knowledge by this thorough drill
than by reading privately at home. Likewise we had essays, but not very
frequently. We had essays in the first part of the evening. Sometimes
there was a failure to respond, but generally the subject was assigned
to particular individuals, and a great many facts in connection with
the difficulties in history were brought in that way. I think we
commenced with a circle of about twenty or thirty, and we graduated
here a year ago some sixteen members, I think. And others are coming
in, but with what success I am unable to say, as I have not been in
that place all the time. I think that every one in that circle would
bear testimony that in this way—by close examination, the plan of a
regular class drill—we have obtained a better knowledge than in any
other way, and that they were satisfied at the end of the year they
had accomplished more and better work than they would under any other
circumstances.

A VOICE: I would like to say we consider that the writing of these
essays and insisting upon it, was as much for the advantage of the
persons writing these essays as for that of those who listened to them.
Therefore, we had a critic who was to write the criticisms, and had
them read by the president. Do you think that was a good way?

MR. FARRAR: We thought it was not the best way. Dr. Vincent suggests
that the criticisms might be given privately to the writer. I found it
quite difficult to get essays. Many young ladies and gentlemen looked
upon it as a fearful task. Many times I had to call on them, and sit
down with them, and talk them into it, showing them how they could do
it. And never one wrote an essay in our circle but said “When you want
me to write an essay, call on me again.” I have tried a dozen others
who persisted in refusing, but at the close of the year they came to
me and said: “If you will forgive us for our refusing to write you may
call upon us next year.”

After singing, the benediction was pronounced by Dr. Vincent.

FOOTNOTE:

[I] Round-Table held in the Hall of Philosophy, at Chautauqua, August
16th, 1883, conducted by Rev. H. C. Farrar, of Troy, N. Y.




    [_Not required._]




QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS.

    ONE HUNDRED QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS ON “HISTORY OF
    GREECE,” VOLUME II, PARTS 10 AND 11—“THE ROMAN
    SUPREMACY, AND BYZANTINE HELLENISM.”

By A. M. MARTIN, GENERAL SECRETARY C. L. S. C.


1. Q. When is it generally said by historians that Hellas fell under
the Roman rule? A. In 145 B. C., when Mummius captured Corinth.

2. Q. Strictly speaking, when did Hellas become a Roman province? A.
During the reign of Augustus.

3. Q. Where was the principal theater of the Mithridatic war? A.
Hellas, transplanted thither by the daring king of Pontus.

4. Q. Whom did the Romans finally find it necessary to send against
him? A. Sulla.

5. Q. During this war what Hellenic city did Sulla capture after a long
siege? A. Athens.

6. Q. What is the assertion of several modern historians in regard
to the devastation of the land and the slaughter of the inhabitants
during this war, which ended in 84 B. C.? A. They did their work so
effectually that Asia never thereafter recovered from the Roman wounds.

7. Q. By what was the moral decay of the nation which began long before
now followed? A. By a corresponding material ruin.

8. Q. By what was the Ægean Sea from the earliest times infested? A. By
pirates, who boldly attacked the coasts, islands and harbors, seizing
vessels and plundering property.

9. Q. In the year 78 B. C., what action did the Romans take against
these pirates? A. They declared war against them, and entrusted the
conduct of hostilities to Pompey.

10. Q. What was the result of Pompey’s expedition against them? A. Ten
thousand of them were put to death, twenty thousand captured, and one
hundred and twenty of their harbors and fortifications were destroyed.

11. Q. In the great struggle between Pompey and Cæsar for the supremacy
of the world, whom did Hellas furnish with every possible assistance?
A. Pompey.

12. Q. In the year 44 B. C., what Hellenic city did Cæsar rebuild that
had been destroyed a hundred years before by Mummius? A. Corinth.

13. Q. In the Roman civil wars which followed the death of Cæsar, with
whom did Athens ally herself? A. With Brutus and Cassius.

14. Q. After the defeat of Brutus and Cassius by Octavius and Anthony,
followed by hostilities between the latter two, for whom did the
greater part of Hellas declare? A. For Anthony.

15. Q. Shortly after Octavius assumed the name of Augustus to what did
he reduce Hellas? A. To a Roman province.

16. Q. What is said of the jurisdiction of the Roman proconsul
thereafter sent annually to rule Hellas? A. Many cities and countries
continued still to be regarded as “freed and allied.” The subject
territory was designated by the name of Achaia as if it did not remain
an integral part of “free Hellas.”

17. Q. During the reign of Tiberias what did both Achaia and Macedonia
become by reason of the harsh treatment received from the proconsuls?
A. Cæsarean instead of public provinces.

18. Q. What was the course of Nero toward Hellas? A. In the year 66 he
declared the country autonomous, and at the same time plundered Hellas,
inflicting far greater misfortunes on it than those sustained through
the invasion of Xerxes.

19. Q. When Vespasian ascended the throne what political change did he
make? A. He reduced the country again to a Roman province.

20. Q. During the reign of Vespasian what action was taken in regard
to the Greek philosophers? A. Nearly all the Greek philosophers were
banished from Rome.

21. Q. How did Trajan prove to be one of the greatest benefactors of
the Hellenic nation? A. He sent Maximus to Hellas as plenipotentiary
and reorganizer of the free Hellenic cities, with instructions to
honor the gods and ancient renown of the nation, and revere the sacred
antiquity of the cities.

22. Q. What was Hadrian’s treatment of Hellas? A. He visited Athens
five times; sought to ameliorate the condition of the people, and
adorned Athens and other cities with temples and buildings.

23. Q. What political rights did he give the Hellenes? A. The rights of
Roman citizenship.

24. Q. During the reigns of what two Roman emperors did Hellas
pre-eminently flourish? A. The Emperors Antoninus Pius and Marcus
Aurelius.

25. Q. Notwithstanding the benefits received from the Roman emperors
what did Hellas continue to do? A. To wither and decline.

26. Q. During the latter part of the third century what destructive
invasion of Hellas took place? A. The invasion of the Goths and
other northern barbarians, who overran the country like a deluge,
depopulating cities and destroying everything in their path.

27. Q. What relation does our author give Hellenism to Christianity? A.
He makes it the first herald of Christianity.

28. Q. Who was the first Roman emperor that issued a decree in favor of
Christianity? A. Constantine the Great.

29. Q. What discussions led Constantine to the convocation of the first
General Council of the Christian Church, which assembled at Nice in
A. D. 325? A. The discussions of Arianism, or opinions concerning the
nature of the second person of the Trinity.

30. Q. Who was the most noted opponent of Arianism? A. Athanasius.

31. Q. What city did Constantine dedicate as the capital of his empire?
A. Constantinople.

32. Q. During the general slaughter of the relatives of Constantine
that took place after his death, what cousin of his escaped and was
assigned to the city of Athens for his place of habitation? A. Julian.

33. Q. By comparing the present with the past, to what conclusion
did Julian arrive as to the cause of the decline of the empire? A.
That Christianity was the cause of the decline, or was not adapted to
prevent the demoralization of the empire; that the change of affairs
resulted from the debasement of the ancient religion and life, and that
the reformation of the world could only be accomplished through their
reëstablishment.

34. Q. By what class of philosophers was Julian sustained in his views?
A. By the Neapolitanists.

35. Q. After Julian was recognized as emperor what was his main object
on entering Constantinople? A. The restoration of the ancient religion.

36. Q. What were some of the steps he took to accomplish this object?
A. He restored the ancient temples and caused new ones to be erected to
the gods; the games were celebrated with magnificence, and the schools
of philosophy were especially protected.

37. Q. Who was the successor to Julian? A. Jovian.

38. Q. What was his course toward Christianity? A. He abolished the
decrees enacted by Julian on behalf of idolatry, and seemed favorably
inclined toward Christianity, but he died suddenly on his way to
Constantinople.

39. Q. About this time what two names became prominent in theological
controversies? A. Basil the Great and Gregory the theologian.

40. Q. What new invasion of the northern barbarians took place in the
latter part of the fourth century? A. That of the Goths, who overran
Thrace, Macedonia and Thessaly, ravaged the country, killed the
inhabitants, and destroyed the cities that were not strongly fortified.

41. Q. To what did Theodosius first direct his attention after he
became emperor? A. To the pacification of the Goths, and succeeded
within the space of four years in rendering them if not fully
submissive to his scepter, at least anxious to seek terms of peace.

42. Q. What did the solemn edict which Theodosius dictated in 380
proclaim? A. The Athanasian doctrine of the Trinity, branded all who
denied it with the name of heretics, and handed over the churches in
Constantinople to the exclusive use of the orthodox party.

43. Q. What synod did he convene at Constantinople a few months
afterward, in the year 381? A. The second General Council of the
Christian Church, which completed the theological system established by
the Council of Nice.

44. Q. After the death of Theodosius, who were the nominal rulers of
the Roman empire? A. Arcadius in the East, and Honorius in the West,
both sons of Theodosius.

45. Q. Who, however, were the real rulers of the empire? A. Rufinus in
the East and Stilicho in the West.

46. Q. How are each characterized? A. Stilicho was noted for his
military virtues, but Rufinus became notorious only for his wickedness.

47. Q. Failing in his project of marrying his daughter Maria to
Arcadius, how did Rufinus seek to revenge himself? A. By plotting the
destruction of the empire itself.

48. Q. What barbarians is it said he called into the empire? A. The
Huns, who laid waste many provinces in Asia; and Alaric, the daring
general of the Goths, who invaded Hellas, plundering and destroying
everything in his path.

49. Q. Who, called the greatest orator of Christianity, became
archbishop of Constantinople near the close of the fourth century? A.
John Chrysostom.

50. Q. After the death of Arcadius, who virtually assumed the
government of the empire? A. Pulcheria, the daughter of Arcadius.

51. Q. What are we told as to the kind of life she led? A. That she
embraced a life of celibacy, renounced all vanity in dress, interrupted
by frequent fasts her simple and frugal diet, and devoted several hours
of the day and night to the exercises of prayer and psalmody.

52. Q. How did her brother Theodosius, who was the nominal emperor,
spend his time? A. His days in riding and hunting, and his evenings in
modeling and copying sacred books.

53. Q. How long did Pulcheria continue to reign? A. For nearly forty
years.

54. Q. What is said of the condition of Hellenism in the meantime? A.
It continued to wither in Hellas, while the modern began to spread and
strengthen itself in Constantinople.

55. Q. What is said of Hellenic literature from this time onward? A. It
produced none of those works by which the memory of nations is honored
and perpetuated.

56. Q. To what is its intellectual decline mainly due? A. To the
incursions of the barbarians, by which society was shaken to its
very foundations, and the genius and enterprise of the nation almost
paralyzed.

57. Q. Under what leader did the Huns ravage without restraint and
without mercy the suburbs of Constantinople and the provinces of Thrace
and Macedonia? A. Attila, called the “Scourge of God.”

58. Q. With the dethronement of what emperor did all political
relations between Rome and the Eastern Empire cease? A. Romulus
Augustulus in 476.

59. Q. How did the emperors of the East continue to be styled? A.
They continued to be styled emperors of the Romans, but legislation,
government, and customs became thoroughly Hellenized.

60. Q. What was the mainspring of the success in life of Justinian who
became emperor in 527? A. An unrestrained desire for great deeds and
his wonderful good fortune in the choice of ministers.

61. Q. What military victories glorified the early years of his reign?
A. Splendid victories over the Persians.

62. Q. What general began his career in this war? A. Belisarius, the
general who imparted such eminent distinction to the reign of Justinian.

63. Q. What were Justinian’s most glorious and useful memorials? A.
The composition of the celebrated collection of laws comprising the
Institutes, the Digest or Pandects, and the Code.

64. Q. To whom was the work entrusted? A. To ten law-teachers, over
whom the famous Tribonian presided.

65. Q. What are of special importance as among other memorable events
which signalized the reign of Justinian? A. The successful wars which
he waged against the Vandals in Africa and the Goths in Italy, and his
expeditions to Sicily and Spain.

66. Q. Among the many edifices erected during the reign of Justinian
which is the most famous? A. That of St. Sophia.

67. Q. To what epoch does the reign of Justinian partly belong? A. To
the Roman epoch of the Eastern Empire.

68. Q. What does the reign of Heraklius from 610 to 641 form? A. An
integral part of mediæval Hellenism.

69. Q. By what was Heraklius invited to ascend the throne, and how long
did his posterity continue to reign over the empire of the East? A. The
voice of the clergy, the senate, and the people invited him to ascend
the throne, and his posterity till the fourth generation continued to
reign over the empire of the East.

70. Q. In 627, after many brilliant actions, what defeat did Heraklius
inflict upon the Persians? A. So severe a defeat that their empire was
nearly crushed.

71. Q. Almost at the same time what unexpected and more terrible
opponent arose in the Arabian peninsula whose conflict with Hellenism
continues to the present day? A. Mohammedanism.

72. Q. What did the Mohammedans of Arabia wrest from the empire? A.
Syria, Egypt, and Northern Africa.

73. Q. What was the Mohammedan religion called, and to what two dogmas
was it limited? A. Islam, meaning devotion; its dogmas were the belief
in a future life, and the unity of God.

74. Q. In what words was the latter expressed? A. “There is only one
God, and Mohammed is the apostle of God.”

75. Q. Who was the next emperor of real historic value after the death
of Heraklius? A. Constantine IV., surnamed Poganatus, or the Bearded.

76. Q. For what was the reign of Constantine especially memorable? A.
For the first siege of Constantinople by the Mohammedans.

77. Q. How long did this siege last? A. For seven years, but was not
carried on uninterruptedly throughout this time.

78. Q. What was the result of the siege? A. The Mohammedans were
finally forced to relinquish the fruitless enterprise in 675.

79. Q. What formidable weapon did the Byzantines employ during this
siege, the composition of which is now unknown? A. The Greek fire.

80. Q. What declarations of an œcumenical council he convoked at
Constantinople in 680 did Constantine sanction by a royal edict, and
thus reëstablish religious union in the empire? A. That the church has
always recognized in Christ two natures, united but not confounded—two
wills, distinct, but not antagonistic.

81. Q. When did the next siege of Constantinople by the Mohammedans
take place? A. In the year 717, during the reign of Leo III.

82. Q. What was the result? A. In the following year the Arabs were
driven away, having suffered a loss of twenty-five hundred ships and
more than five hundred thousand warriors.

83. Q. What decrees did Leo III. issue in 726 and 730? A. A decree
forbidding the worship of images, and another banishing them entirely
from the churches.

84. Q. How did these decrees divide the nation? A. Into two
intensely hostile parties, of iconoclasts or image-breakers, and
image-worshipers, by whose contests it was long distracted.

85. Q. What action did Leo V. take in regard to image-worship? A. He
not only banished the images from the churches, but also destroyed the
songs and prayers addressed to them.

86. Q. What further order was made in regard to their worship by
Theophilus who became emperor in 829? A. He forbade the word “holy” to
be inscribed on the images, and also that they should be honored by
prayers, kissing, or lighted tapers.

87. Q. After the death of Theophilus what action did the empress
Theodora, into whose hands the positive power of the government passed,
take in regard to the images? A. She herself worshiped images. The
pictures were again hung in the churches, and the monastic order more
than ever became potent both in society and government.

88. Q. During the reign of Alexius what storm suddenly burst from the
west? A. The so-called First Crusade.

89. Q. Who was the Pope at this time? A. Urban II.

90. Q. By whom were the crusades first incited? A. Peter the Hermit.

91. Q. When did Jerusalem fall into the hands of the crusaders? A. July
15, 1099.

92. Q. Who were the leaders of the second crusade? A. Conrad III., king
of Germany, and Louis VII., king of France.

93. Q. What was the ostensible intention of the crusaders? A. To free
Eastern Christianity from the oppression of the Turks.

94. Q. What does our author say was their ultimate object? A. The
capture of Constantinople and the abolition of the Byzantine empire.

95. Q. What was the result of the second crusade? A. It was wholly
inglorious, being relieved by no heroic deeds whatever.

96. Q. What took place in Syria during 1187? A. The Christian authority
was overthrown in Syria, and Jerusalem was captured by Saladin, the
sultan of Egypt.

97. Q. What occurred to Constantinople during the fourth crusade, in
the year 1204? A. After a siege of five months it fell into the hands
of the crusaders.

98. Q. When and by whom was Constantinople recovered? A. In 1261, under
the leadership of Michael Palœologus.

99. Q. When was Constantinople again attacked by the Turks? A. In 1453,
under the famous Mohammed II.

100. Q. What was the result of the final decisive engagement? A. The
city fell before overwhelming numbers, and passed under Turkish rule.




OUTLINE OF C. L. S. C. STUDIES.


NOVEMBER, 1883.

The C. L. S. C. readings for November include parts 10 and 11 of
Timayenis’s “History of Greece,” for students having read the first
volume; or from page 93 to the end of “Brief History of Greece,” for
students of Class of ’87.

Chautauqua Text-Book, No. 5, “Greek History.”

Readings in THE CHAUTAUQUAN.

_First week_ (ending November 8)—1. “History of Greece,” from page 258
to “Arius,” page 293; or, “Brief History of Greece,” from page 93 to
“The Battle of Salamis,” page 118.

2. Readings in German History and Literature in THE CHAUTAUQUAN.

3. Sunday Readings in THE CHAUTAUQUAN, for November 4.

_Second Week_ (ending November 15)—1. “History of Greece,” from
“Arius,” page 293, to chapter viii, page 328; or, “Brief History of
Greece,” from “The Battle of Salamis,” page 118, to “Life of Socrates,”
page 143.

2. Readings in Physical Science and Political Economy in THE
CHAUTAUQUAN.

3. Sunday Readings in THE CHAUTAUQUAN, for November 11.

_Third Week_ (ending November 22)—1. “History of Greece,” from chapter
viii, page 328, to chapter iii, page 359; or, “Brief History of
Greece,” from “Life of Socrates,” page 143, to “Causes of the Sacred
War,” page 169.

2. Readings in Art, in THE CHAUTAUQUAN.

3. Sunday Readings in THE CHAUTAUQUAN, for November 18.

_Fourth Week_ (ending November 29)—1. “History of Greece,” from chapter
iii, page 359, to the end of part 11, page 342; or, “Brief History of
Greece,” from “Causes of the Sacred War,” page 169, to the end of the
book.

2. Readings in American Literature in THE CHAUTAUQUAN.

3. Sunday Readings in THE CHAUTAUQUAN, for November 25.




CHAUTAUQUA NORMAL CLASS.

Season of 1884.

J. L. HURLBUT, D.D., and R. S. HOLMES, A.M., INSTRUCTORS.


I. The course of instruction to be pursued in the Sunday-school
Normal Department of the Chautauqua Assembly, at its session in 1884,
will embrace lessons upon the following subjects, prepared by the
instructors in the department. The full text of these lessons will be
printed during the year in THE CHAUTAUQUAN, which should be taken by
all who desire to prepare for the Normal Department.

_Twelve Lessons on the Bible._—(1) The Divine Revelation; (2) The Bible
from God through Man; (3) The Bible as an English Book; (4) The Canon
of Scripture; (5) The World of the Bible; (6) The Land of the Bible;
(7) The History in the Bible; (8) The Golden Age of Bible History; (9)
The House of the Lord; (10) The Doctrines of the Bible; (11) Immanuel;
(12) The Interpretation of the Bible.

_Twelve Lessons on the Sunday-school and the Teacher’s Work._—(1)
The Sunday-school—its Purpose, Place, and Prerogatives; (2) The
Superintendent—his Qualifications, Duties, and Responsibility; (3) The
Teacher’s Office and Work; (4) The Teacher’s Week-day Work; (5) The
Teacher’s Preparation; (6) The Teacher’s Mistakes; (7) The Teaching
Process—Adaptation; (8) The Teaching Process—Approach; (9) The Teaching
Process—Attention; (10) The Teaching Process—Illustration; (11) The
Teaching Process—Interrogation; (12) The Teaching Process—Reviews.

II. Students of the Normal Course should study in addition to the
outlines in THE CHAUTAUQUAN, the following Chautauqua Text-Books (ten
cents each): No. 18, “Christian Evidences;” No. 19, “The Book of
Books;” No. 36, “Assembly Bible Outlines;” No. 37, “Assembly Normal
Outlines;” No. 38, “The Life of Christ;” No. 39, “The Sunday-school
Normal Class” (including the preparation of the Normal Praxes); and
No. 41, “The Teacher Before his Class.”

III. Students of the Normal Course are also desired to read the
following books: Chautauqua Text-Book No. 1, “Bible Exploration;” No.
8, “What Noted Men Think of the Bible;” No. 10, “What is Education?”
No. 11, “Socrates;” and “Normal Outlines of Christian Theology,” by
L. T. Townsend (price, forty cents). These books may be obtained
of Phillips & Hunt, 805 Broadway, New York; or of Walden & Stowe,
Cincinnati or Chicago.

IV. Students in special classes in churches or schools, or individual
students who prosecute the course as given above, may receive by mail
outline memoranda for examination, and if they can certify to having
studied the lessons and text-books, and will also prepare the Normal
Praxes named in Chautauqua Text-Book No. 39, and fill out the Outline
Memoranda, may receive the diploma of the Chautauqua Teachers’ Union,
and will be enrolled as members of the Chautauqua Society. Such
students will send name and address, with twenty-five cents, to Rev. J.
L. Hurlbut, D.D., Plainfield, N. J.


CHAUTAUQUA NORMAL CLASS—BIBLE SECTION.

_Twelve Lessons on Bible Themes._


LESSON I.—THE DIVINE REVELATION.

I. There is in me a something which is called mind. I do not know what
it is. I can neither tell whence it came, nor whither it will go when
it ceases to inhabit this body. That in me, which is thus ignorant
concerning the mind, is the mind itself. There are therefore matters
beyond my mental range. That is, my mind is limited, bounded, finite
in its powers. What is true of my mind is true of all human mind. Here
then is one of the first results of consciousness: FINITE MIND IN THE
WORLD.

II. This finite mind did not produce itself; it sees in the body which
it controls evidence of a design of which it is not the author. It
turns to the phenomena of the universe and discovers in them the same
evidences of design. It seeks the attributes and character of the
designer or designers of human body and of natural phenomena, and finds
them to be unlimited in action, unbounded by time or space, infinite in
power, and uniform in manifestation. It therefore concludes that there
is but one designer of all the phenomena of created nature, and that
he is both intelligent and infinite. Here then is a second result of
consciousness: INFINITE MIND IN THE UNIVERSE.

III. We have so far brought to view two powers, infinite mind in the
universe and finite mind in the world, and between them a distance
immeasurable and impassable from the finite side. They are extremes in
the progression of the universe. Let us notice some facts concerning
each of these powers:

1. The infinite mind is self-existent; eternal.

2. The infinite mind created finite mind in its own likeness. Both
these points will be considered in our lesson on the “Doctrines of the
Bible.”

3. The infinite mind has _provided a means of passing the distance
between itself and the finite mind_, so that the finite might know the
infinite; i. e. it has revealed itself to the finite mind.

4. The finite mind is the highest created existence. This is left
without discussion for the student to amplify.

5. The finite mind exists because of the infinite mind. The gas jet
burning above my head affords an illustration. It exists because of a
well-stored gasometer two miles away; because of complicated machinery
by which coal has been caused to yield up its hidden stores of light;
because of a system of underground conductors that terminates in
the burner on the wall. Without the burner and the light all these
appliances would be useless; and they in turn exist only that there
may be light. So the finite mind exists because of the infinite—nor
can we think with satisfaction of infinite mind in the universe and no
creation or correlated force.

6. The finite mind hungers to know the infinite; it peers into the
measureless space which its eye can not pierce, and longs for the
infinite to reveal itself. This fact is historical, “Canst thou by
searching find out God?” has been the question of the ages; and
the answer has been “the world by wisdom knew not God.” The cry of
multitudes of hungering souls has been: “O, that I knew where I might
find him.” As light is necessary to the eye, and air to the bird’s
wing, and sound to the ear, that each may perform the work for which
it is adapted, so a knowledge of the infinite mind that is of God, is
essential that the finite mind—that is, man—may fulfill its destiny.
And this knowledge is possible only through self-revelation by God to
man. That such a revelation has been made we have already asserted.
That the Bible is that revelation is our claim, which we will discuss
in a future lesson. The present lesson will be content to inquire
simply, how that revelation has been effected. We answer:

_God wrought it out in the presence of the race_ in ways unmistakable,
exhibiting every attribute of his character, _even to those of mercy
and forgiveness_. God wrought (not wrote). What we call the inspired
Word is a mediate, not an immediate act of God. God wrought, the work
extending through many ages, perhaps not even yet finished.

_Wrought_ (_a_) in nature, so that “the invisible things of him since
the creation of the world are clearly seen, being perceived through
the things that are made.” Creation then is itself a part of the
revelation, but only a part; for out of it comes no hint of forgiveness
or redemption.

(_b_) In man, _by spiritual manifestations_, _by intellectual
enlightenments_, _by illuminations of conscience_, such as could not
originate in the human soul. These revelations or workings of God in
man mark a large portion of the history of thought through the ages;
and in that dim twilight of the race, when men like Enoch walked with
God, though history is but a shadow, yet it is the shadow of God
working in man.

(_c_) In Providence—that is, in his ordering the work of the world. He
not only “produced a supernatural history extending through centuries,
... and working out results which human wisdom could never have
conceived, nor human power executed,”[J] but also he has directed all
the workings of all history in accordance with the central purpose of
his revelation.

(_d_) In grace, by his spirit revealing what the human mind could
never have discovered for itself, redemption and atonement through
forgiveness of sin.

IV. This divine revelation so wrought by God _has been, and is being
reported_ that all the world may know and confess that “the Lord, he is
the God.” Reported:

1. _Through Tradition._—There was an unwritten Bible before the
written word, handed down from patriarchs to scribes; and even in
lands destitute of the Scriptures, we trace the dim outlines of truth
transmitted from ancient authority.

2. _Through Philosophy._—Wise men and thinkers have read the revelation
in nature and gathered it up from human thought, and the highest
philosophy, as that of a Socrates and a Plato, finds God.

3. _Through Prophecy._—In the earlier ages, and perhaps through all the
ages, God has communed with chosen men who have lived in fellowship
with himself; and has made them the mouthpiece uttering his will to the
world.

4. _Through Preaching._—The pulpit, when it is true to its mission,
voices the message of God to man.

V. _We find also that this divine revelation has been written out,
under a divine direction_:

1. _In Various Books._—The Bible is not one book, but sixty-six books,
a whole library, presenting the divine revelation under varied aspects,
but all under one divine origin and supervision.

2. _By Various Writers._—Not less than thirty authors, and probably
many more, shared in the composition of the Scriptures, but all wrote
under a divine control, and expressed, each in his own style, the mind
of the Spirit.

3. _Through Various Ages._—Moses may have begun the writing, doubtless
from earlier documents. Samuel, David, Solomon, Isaiah, Ezra, Matthew,
Paul, John, each in turn carried on the work through a period of
sixteen hundred years. The book grew like a cathedral, rising through
the centuries, under many successive master-builders, yet according to
one plan of one divine Architect.

4. _In Various Languages._—Two great tongues, one Semitic, the other
Aryan, were employed, the Hebrew in the Old Testament, the Greek in the
new; but the Hebrew of Moses is not that of Daniel a thousand years
later.

VI. _We find this divine revelation preserved_:

1. _By being stereotyped into Dead Languages._—A living language is
ever changing the meaning of its words; and truth written in it is in
danger of being misunderstood by another generation. But the words of
a dead language, like the Hebrew and the Greek, are fixed in their
meaning, and once understood are not likely to be perverted. Soon after
the Bible was completed, both its languages ceased to be spoken, and
have been kept since as the shrine for the great truths contained in
the Word.

2. _By being translated into Living Languages._—The Bible has been
translated into all the tongues of earth, and thus its perpetuation
to the end of time has been assured. No other work has been read by
so many races, and no other is so capable of being understood by the
masses of mankind.

3. _By being incorporated into Literature._—If every copy of the
Scriptures in the whole world were destroyed every sentence of it could
be reproduced from the writings of men, since it has become an integral
part of the thought of the world.

4. _By being perpetuated in Institutions._—The Jewish church
perpetuates the Old Testament; the Christian church the New; and while
either endures, the Bible containing the divine revelation must endure.

VII. _We find this divine revelation proved_:

1. _By Testimonies._—The child looking upon the opened page of the
Bible at his mother’s knee, accepts her testimony that it is the word
of God, and thus each generation receives the book from the preceding
generation with a declaration of its divine origin.

2. _By Probabilities._—Such has been the history of this book in its
relation to the world, and its triumph over opposing forces; such has
been its early, continuous and present acceptance; that there is every
probability in favor of its being, what it appears to be, a divine book.

3. _By Experience._—There are many who have put this book to the test
in their own lives; have tried its promises; have tasted its spiritual
experience; have brought it into contact with their own hearts; and
have obtained from it a certain assurance that it comes from God.

4. _By Evidences._—If any reader will not accept the Bible upon the
testimonies of others; if he fails to see in its behalf the weight of
probability; if he has not been able to put it to the test in his own
experience, there is yet a strong line of argument appealing to his
reason, and proving the book divine.

VIII. _We find this divine revelation searched_:

1. _Through Curiosity._—There are some who read and study the Bible
from no higher motive than desire to know its contents.

2. _Through Literary Taste._—There are others who read the Bible from
an appreciation of its value as a work of literature, recognizing the
high poetic rank of David and Isaiah, the historic worth of Joshua and
Samuel, the philosophic thought of Paul.

3. _Through Opposition._—In every age there have been searchers of the
Bible actuated by the motive of unbelief; men trying to find in it the
weapons for its own destruction. Yet even their study has often proved
serviceable to the believer in the divine revelation.

4. _Through Spiritual Desire._—Multitudes have studied the Bible,
multitudes are studying it now because they find in it that which their
spiritual nature craves, the knowledge of God. They feed upon the Word
because it satisfies the hunger of their spirits.

IX. We find this _divine revelation circulated among men_. The history
of the Bible since its translation into English has been the history
of multiplication. Language after language has had the Bible added to
the library of its language. Unwritten languages have had characters
invented for them to represent their words and the Bible has thus
become the first book of the new-made written language of the people.
All the leading languages of the world have thus been put in possession
of the Bible, and the signs of the times point to a speedy realization
of the hope that soon all the nations of the earth will know the divine
revelation of our Father which is in heaven.


CHAUTAUQUA NORMAL CLASS.

_Twelve Lessons on the Sunday-school and the Teacher’s Work._


LESSON I.—THE PLACE, PURPOSE AND PREROGATIVES OF THE SUNDAY-SCHOOL.


_I. The place of the Sunday-school._

1. The Sunday-school is one of the means employed by the Church of
Christ for bringing men under the influence of the Gospel. It is not
designed to fill the place of any of the other accepted agencies of the
church.

2. The Sunday-school does not, and should not accomplish the work
belonging to the pulpit and the pastor, nor does it subserve the
purpose of the church meeting for prayer and interchange of Christian
experience.

3. The Sunday-school can in no sense do the work of the Christian home.
It is an agency differing from all other agencies of the church, and is
made necessary by the nature and extent of the body of truth accepted
by the church, so necessary that without it the church would be to a
certain extent crippled.

4. It is a school, _organized and officered as such_; occupying a well
defined place in the religious system of the church, having a specific
purpose, and entitled to certain prerogatives.

5. As a school, its constituency is a body of teachers and pupils,
associated together voluntarily, but not without responsibility and
accountability.

6. The Sunday-school in its theoretic constitution is the parallel of
the secular school.

(_a_) As the latter derives its life from the community, so the
Sunday-school derives its life from _the religious community, the
church_.

(_b_) As the community delegates the power of control over the secular
school to a representative body which exercises supreme authority over
its affairs, so the church entrusts the management of the Sunday-school
to her representative executive body, by whatever name known.

(_c_) As the representative body controlling the secular school places
the oversight of the system and its details of management in the hands
of a general executive officer, or superintendent, so the governing
power of the church entrusts the management of the Sunday-school to one
of similar name—a superintendent.

(_d_) As the secular school is within and subordinate to the
community, and alongside of the home as its aid and supplement, so the
Sunday-school is within and subordinate to the church, and beside the
Christian home as its supplement.

Let us gather up these propositions concerning the Sunday-school into a
general definition.

_Definition._

The Sunday-school is a department of the church of Christ, in which the
word of Christ is taught for the purpose of bringing souls to Christ
and building up souls in Christ.

As suggested by this definition, we make the following propositions:

(1) The Sunday-school is a _school_.

(2) The Sunday-school is not a substitute for the church.

(3) The Sunday-school is not a substitute for the prayer meeting.

(4) The Sunday-school is not a substitute for home training.

(5) The Sunday-school is _in_ the church as an integral part.

(6) The Sunday-school is subordinate to the church.

(7) The Sunday-school is an aid to the Christian home.

_II. The Purpose of the Sunday-school._

1. The chief purpose of the Sunday-school is the _spiritual education_
of the soul. By education we do not mean the mere putting in possession
of knowledge. There have been learned men who were not educated men;
men of wide knowledge, but with the power of _self-control_ and
_self-use_ undeveloped. By education we mean leading the soul out
of its natural condition, into a condition where it can do what God
meant it to do, and be what God meant it to be. Spiritual education
will therefore be the development of a soul by nature averse to divine
control, into a condition of oneness with the divine will, such as
is made possible by the at-one-ment of Jesus Christ. This process
involves, (1) conversion, and (2) upbuilding in Christ, and would
produce, if unhindered, a character that would reach toward the measure
of the fulness of Christ.

But many souls in the church have never reached farther than the first
or preparatory step in spiritual education—the step which we call
conversion. Hence,

2. A second purpose of the Sunday-school is upbuilding in Christ, and
this is possible only through searching study of the Word of God.

As the astronomer must know all the intricacies of his science, and
be able with the telescope to read the heavens as an open book, and
scan their farthest depths, so the Christian must know the hidden
mysteries and deep things of God as revealed in the Bible, which is
both text-book and telescope to the soul.

3. A third purpose of the Sunday-school is the development of the
teaching power in the church. “Go teach,” in the Revised version
becomes “Go disciple.” Sunday-school teaching therefore becomes
_disciple-making_. In this respect its aim is the same as that of
the church. To accomplish it by preaching, the church provides years
of careful training for her ministers in special schools. As careful
training is needed by the Sunday-school teacher, and the school itself
is the only means by which the end can be secured.

_III. The Prerogatives of the Sunday-school._

The Sunday-school exists within the church and because of the church.
Yet though a part of the church, it maintains a separate organic
life. As a member of the body it has certain _rights_ which we call
Prerogatives. We name the most important.

1. _Care._—As no member of the body can be neglected without physical
loss, so if any part of the body of Christ be left without watchful
care, spiritual loss must ensue. The Sunday-school has a _right to
the care_ of the church, exercised (_a_) officially by the governing
body, that no want may be left unsupplied, and (_b_) individually that
sympathy, help, prayer and interest may never be lacking, and that
ample provision may be made for the efficient working of the school.

2. _Support._—The Sunday-school has a right to the pecuniary support
of the church. It never should be crippled by lack of means to carry
out its plans. The school should not be expected to provide for its own
necessary expenses. The voluntary contributions of the school should
never be applied to the support of the school as such. Systematic
giving should be taught, and should include all the benevolent
operations of the church, even to the extent of contributing toward the
general church expenses, but that the school should use its funds for
defraying its own expenses is clearly an evil.

(3) _Recognition._—The school has a right to be recognized as an
established agency of the church. This recognition should include (1)
regular notice from the pulpit of the time and place of holding its
sessions; (2) the same prominence to the annual meeting for the choice
of officers that is given to the same meetings of the church, and (3)
its importance as a church agency should be recognized by giving to the
school official recognition in the governing body of the church.

(4) _Pastoral Supervision._—The school has a right to the watchful
oversight and regular presence of the pastor. It is not necessary that
he should superintend the school—it is better not. It is not necessary
that he should be burdened with its cares. But it is essential (1)
that he use it as a field of pastoral labor; (2) that he give to it
the encouragement of his commendation; (3) that he extend to it the
sympathy of his presence; (4) that he know as to the character of the
work being done within it.

(5) _Coöperation._—The Sunday-school has a right to the hearty
coöperation of the whole church, so that (1) there may be no lack of
teachers to do the work of the school, and (2) that the work of the
teacher may be understood and appreciated in the Christian family,
which is the church unit; and (3) that teacher and parent may work in
perfect harmony.

This is not intended as an exhaustive treatment of this subject. It
presents in outline some salient points concerning the Sunday-school,
and leaves the student to continue by himself the line of thought
suggested, and to this end reference is made to “Hart’s Thoughts on
Sunday-schools,” “Pardee’s Sunday-school Index,” and the “Chautauqua
Normal Guide,” by J. H. Vincent, D.D., 1880.

FOOTNOTE:

[J] J. H. Vincent, D.D.




EDITOR’S OUTLOOK.


DR. HAYGOOD’S BATTLE FOR THE NEGRO.

There is something sublime in the spectacle of an earnest man
contending for his cause. The sublimity is heightened when we remember
that his cause and his convictions are identical, without any reckoning
of the cost. Of this character was the figure of Dr. Atticus G. Haygood
on the Chautauqua platform, uttering brave words for the Negro, his
former slave, but present fellow-citizen. Nor did we have to wait till
opportunity made him heard at Chautauqua. From the close of the war
until now, he has been a moulder and leader of the best sentiment in
the South, and has occupied advanced ground upon all questions relating
to the education and welfare of the liberated slave. His recent book,
“Our Brother in Black,” is the ablest contribution we have had to the
“Negro question.” It breathes throughout the same generous, Christian
sentiment and sympathy that characterize all his utterances and his
work elsewhere. Nor is the word “battle” too strong a term to be
used. When we remember the jealousies, hates, and prejudices of long
standing, and greatly intensified by the war; and how they have been
kept alive by designing men on both sides; when we bear these things
in mind, it is easy to see that it has required no little courage for
a Southern man, in the midst of Southern people, with their sentiments
and feelings, to take up the black man’s cause and advocate it in words
of bold, plain truth.

Dr. Haygood is the Christian, and not the politician. When he praises,
as he does without stint, the work accomplished for the Negro by the
people of the North, it is not the work of that particular politician,
with his promise of “a mule, forty acres, and provisions for a year,”
but of teachers, secular and religious, who, with a motive higher than
the personal, have sought the elevation, moral and intellectual, of
the Negro. He pleads no apology for his Southern brethren who have
met these benevolent workers with opposition, social ostracism, and
other forms of persecution, but utters his condemnation of this spirit
whenever and wherever manifested.

And the results of the first twenty years’ history have justified his
high and hopeful views. It is only two years since Senator Brown,
of Georgia, said of the Negro, in a speech delivered in the United
States Senate: “He has shown a capacity to receive education, and a
disposition to elevate himself that is exceedingly gratifying, not
only to me, but to every right-thinking Southern man.” The results
show that the Negro has a real hunger for the education he so greatly
needs. It is shown that in the year 1881, forty-seven per cent. of the
colored school population was enrolled as attending the public schools,
whilst in the same year there was enrolled fifty-two per cent. of the
white population. Though both figures are painfully low, and suggest a
condition of great illiteracy, yet, when we remember the past of the
Negro—how he has been trampled down and trodden under—the figure 47 at
the end of his first twenty years, is both encouraging and significant.

But Dr. Haygood finds his strongest hope in the religious nature of
the Negro. The religious element of the race was very manifest in the
days of slavery, and since its freedom still more so. The moral and
religious progress of twenty years is encouraging. Of seven millions,
the entire colored population, a million and a half are communicants of
the various churches. Whilst their notions are crude, their conceptions
of religious truth often painfully realistic and grotesque, yet their
religion is real and worthy of confidence. More than to all other
influences combined, to the black man’s religion is due the shaping of
his better character. It is from this basis, and working along this
line, that Dr. Haygood sees the success of the future. His closing word
at Chautauqua is a statement of the whole theory which will commend
itself to the sympathy and judgment of right-thinking Christian men
everywhere: “Mere statesmanship can not solve this hard problem. It
is not given to the wisdom of man; but God reigns, and God does not
fail. We are workers with him in his great designs. When we stand by
the cross of Jesus Christ we will know what to do. We can solve our
problem, God being our helper. But on no lower platform than this—the
platform of the Ten Commandments and of the Sermon on the Mount.”




THE POLITICAL OUTLOOK.


In a few months we shall be in the midst of another presidential
campaign, and one as exciting, perhaps, as the country has known.
Already we see earnest preparations for the fray. The party managers
are busily laying their schemes; the question of candidates and the
measures to secure victory are being thoroughly canvassed by the rival
parties.

What now strikes the thoughtful person as he considers the political
outlook is the lack of party issues. Two great parties are seen on the
eve of a tremendous struggle for the reins of government; but when the
question is asked, what are the living issues at the bottom of this
fight? one is puzzled for a reply. The situation is about this: instead
of coming before the people with certain great principles as a ground
of contention, one party has for its cry, “Put the rascals out;” and
the other, “Let us keep the rascals from coming in.”

Our feeling is that the case should be different. Are there no living
issues important enough to serve as the rallying cry of political
parties? Must parties live on a past record? Is there nothing for
them to do but to glory in what they have done, and point a finger of
contempt at the other side? By no means is this the case. There are
to-day vitally important matters pertaining to the public welfare which
call loudly to our political leaders for attention; and the party
which shall take hold of these matters in an earnest way, and boldly
present itself as the champion of principles of truth and justice and
purity, ought to be, and must be, the party of the future.

The reform of the civil service might very well be a party issue, but
it is not. Neither of the great parties shows a disposition to take a
hearty and united stand in favor of such reform. Some prominent men in
both parties have it at heart, and the movement which has been seen
can not be claimed as a party movement. The reform of the tariff wise
men see to be one of the crying needs of the hour; but how hopelessly
at sea seem our party leaders in dealing with the question. It can not
be said that any principles of tariff are a party issue. There is a
wide diversity of sentiment among those who have the management of the
parties; on either side are seen free-trade men and protective tariff
men; and probably some have their opinions yet to form upon a subject
so live and important as the tariff. The nation has a yearly surplus
revenue of $100,000,000, to get rid of which extravagant and needless
appropriations are made; the embarrassment of certain branches of
industry in our land, as things are, is evident; but to which party can
we point as the one intelligently and earnestly bent on tariff reform?
The time may come when the prohibition of the liquor traffic will be
the underlying principle of a great political party, but it is not now.
We may have our opinions as to which of the great parties bidding for
the suffrages of the people is the more a temperance party, but either
is a great way from being ready to adopt as an issue the righteous
principle of prohibition. In just one State to-day (Iowa), one of the
parties appears as the supporter of this principle. Turn to another
State (Massachusetts), which sometimes is thought to lead all the
rest in moral ideas, and see the same party fighting neither for this
principle nor any other, but simply to wrest the power from Governor
Butler.

We judge of the coming national campaign by that now in progress in
different States, and we see it is to be marked by a lack of high and
worthy party issues. It will be—what it should not be—a contest without
great underlying principles. Let whichever party may triumph, the
victory can not be regarded one of living principles; it will be rather
the success of individuals to whom the majority of the people choose
to commit the reins of authority, or the triumph of a party which
the people prefer for its record, or to which they give a blind and
unthinking preference. Whatever the outcome of the impending political
struggle, we have faith in the perpetuity of our institutions, and that
there is a nobler destiny for the American people than they have yet
attained.




HISTORY OF GREECE.


The installment of Grecian History required in the C. L. S. C. course
is not extensive, but has been prepared with much care, and is adapted
to its purpose. A careful study—enough to give possession of the
principal facts stated, can hardly fail to kindle the desire for
further knowledge of a people who had so many elements of greatness,
and for centuries surpassed all others in knowledge and culture. The
most advanced nations of to-day are largely indebted to the Greeks.
Modern art and literature bear witness to the indebtedness. The race
had wonderful capabilities. Their country, climate, blood, early habits
of self-control, or all these together, secured in that corner of
Europe a class of stalwart men, physically and intellectually capable
of great deeds.

Much of their early history is, of course, fabulous. The gods,
goddesses, heroes and kings, whose councils and exploits are rehearsed,
were but myths. Yet the legendary traditions respecting them have
charms that attract and hold the reader. We may utterly discredit
the story, but pay homage to the ability and versatile genius of
the writer, whose glowing words so paint the scenes described. Only
a slight basis of fact is conceded to some of the most captivating
Homeric descriptions; yet they are in an important sense true. False
in history, but sublimely true to the conceptions of the greatest of
poets, as a bold delineator, peerless in his own, or any other age. If
the ideal of the divinities thought to be interested in the affairs of
men falls far below the conceptions of a monotheist, and seems unworthy
of a philanthropic heathen, the portraiture is both complete and
captivating.

When the mists, that for centuries shrouded Greece and the neighboring
isles, are dispersed, and we recognize the certain dawn of the
_historic_ period, though the descendants of those mighty heroes and
kings that were deified as sons of the gods, shrink to the proportions
of men, they are still found to be mighty men, whose noble deeds and
achievements have been an inspiration to millions in the generations
since. Excepting only such as have the true light, and are blest with
Christian civilization, we adopt the statement “No other race ever did
so many things well as the Greeks.”

Let the book be closely studied. If the cursory, objectless reader
lacks interest, and tires in the work, the student feels more than
compensated for his toil.




A COLLEGE REFORM.


The present agitation touching college courses of study is one from
which good is likely to come. There is danger, however, that we swing
to the other extreme. That undue prominence in the ordinary college
curriculum has hitherto been given to classical studies, and too little
room made for the modern languages, natural science, and English
literature is coming to be widely felt. But the true reform is not
utterly to eliminate the classics; it is not the part of wisdom to
decry as folly the study of the dead tongues.

The oration of Charles Francis Adams, Jr., last summer at Harvard,
published under the title of “A College Fetich,” was quite as
unexpected and sensational as that of Wendell Phillips on another
similar occasion. Mr. Phillips arraigned his _alma mater_ that her sons
were no more active in social reforms, while Mr. Adams charged upon her
that, in retaining the dead languages as a required part of the course
of study, she was guilty of worshiping a fetich. This grandson and
great-grandson of a President, whose illustrious ancestors one after
another were inmates of Harvard’s halls, makes against the venerable
institution, the most serious charge that her graduates, upon leaving
her, are not fitted as they should be for practical life. She sends
them forth, he affirms, with a smattering of the dead languages, which
is quite without advantage, instead of with a thorough knowledge of
what can be turned to practical account and will qualify them for the
duties of active life. He would have a drill in the classics no longer
required of the college student; but would allow him to win his A. B.
by pursuing other and more useful branches of study. Mr. Adams’s bold
claim against Harvard, if sustained, would of course hold against other
colleges, and against some others would hold in a higher degree.

But we think his statements are too sweeping, and the reform he
advocates, because it goes too far, would not be a wise reform. We
would not abolish the study of Latin and Greek in our colleges. They
are dead tongues, but it does not follow that time spent in their
study is wasted. On the contrary, we would have them taught with such
thoroughness, by such qualified and skillful teachers that the college
graduate will go out with something more than a smattering of them. It
is a fact which can not be disproved, that from a study of the classics
comes a mental discipline and a mastery of good English, such as can
be acquired from nothing else. But that too much comparative attention
has been given to these branches is freely conceded. There is a want
of more thorough study in our higher institutions of the natural
science, the modern tongues, and the models of our own language. The
true reform is to cease to magnify Latin and Greek at the expense of
these other things, and to give to the latter their due attention. Of
the wisdom of elective college courses there can be no doubt. It may
not be always best for the young man who has not in view one of the
learned professions, but a business life, to spend years in the study
of the ancient languages. But it is our judgment that a knowledge of
these should always be required of the candidate for the Bachelor of
Art’s degree. Certain things are in the air, and we rejoice. Natural
science, that field of study in richness so exhaustless, is attracting
the student as never before. The importance of gaining a knowledge of
languages now spoken, other than our own, is being felt as it was not
once. We welcome the indications that promise a college reform. Let us
have it without over-shooting the mark.




EDITOR’S NOTE-BOOK.


The trustees of the Garfield monument to be erected in Cleveland, Ohio,
have more than one hundred and thirty thousand dollars on hand, and
they expect to secure a sufficient increase to this sum, at an early
day, to complete the work. This, with the fund of more than three
hundred thousand dollars which the American people contributed and
presented to the widow of the lamented Garfield, is positive proof that
our republic is not ungrateful.

       *       *       *       *       *

The old statement that a low grade of moral character may exist in
the same community with a high grade of mental culture may be true of
any type of the best modern civilizations, but it is not necessarily
true. Education, like the gospel, may be the savor of death unto death,
but moral death need not be its effect. A good illustration of the
elevating tendencies of education in the community is found in the fact
that since the compulsory school law went into operation in New York,
juvenile crime in that city has been reduced by more than thirty-six
per cent. And yet it is said the law has been only partially enforced.

       *       *       *       *       *

Scientific temperance education has been by legislative action
introduced into the public schools of Vermont and Michigan, and at the
last session of the legislature in New Hampshire it was by a unanimous
vote introduced into the schools of that State. The W. C. T. U. is
laying its hand on legislatures in a very effective way, and we may
look for an abundant harvest in the next generation. “Long voyages make
rich returns.”

       *       *       *       *       *

Prince Bismarck is a timber merchant, and why should not a dealer
in timber be called a merchant? But this is not all. He is a large
distiller of spirituous liquors. The Germans do not object to his
occupation as a distiller, for their drinking customs are on a low
grade. Public opinion, in this country, would not long tolerate a
statesman, even of great abilities, who manufactured distilled liquors
for sale as a beverage. And herein we see one point of difference
between these two nations on a great moral reform.

       *       *       *       *       *

The _Scientific American_ of a recent date says: “Too much reliance
is placed on the sense of taste, sight and smell in determining the
character of drinking water. It is a fact which has been repeatedly
illustrated that water may be odorless, tasteless and colorless, and
yet be full of danger to those who use it. The recent outbreak of
typhoid fever in Newburg, N. Y., is an example, having been caused by
water which was clear, and without taste or smell. It is also a fact
that even a chemical analysis sometimes will fail to show a dangerous
contamination of the water, and will always fail to detect the specific
poison if the water is infected with discharges of an infectious
nature. It is therefore urged that the source of the water supply
should be kept free from all possible means of contamination by sewage.
It is only in the knowledge of perfect cleanliness that safety is
guaranteed.”

       *       *       *       *       *

Mr. Henry Hart, of Brockport, N. Y., manufactures a C. L. S. C. gold
pin of beautiful design for gentlemen, and another one attached to
an arrow, which is equally handsome, for ladies. Either one makes an
appropriate badge for members of the Circle to wear in everyday life,
and at times it will serve to introduce strangers when traveling or in
strange places, who have a common sympathy in a great work, and thus
aid the possessor in extending his circle of acquaintances.

       *       *       *       *       *

One of the most embarrassing questions in the management of colleges
and universities is, how shall trustees superannuate a certain class of
professors, whose days of usefulness in the recitation room are past.
When that problem is solved the unity and peace of the management will,
as a rule, be secured.

       *       *       *       *       *

The New York _Herald_ is led to pronounce against capital punishment
because in many cases the law against murder is a dead letter, and
produces the following historical reference to confirm the statement:
“It appears that from 1860 to 1882 a hundred and seventy persons were
tried in Massachusetts for murder in the first degree. Of this number
only twenty-nine were convicted, and only sixteen paid the extreme
penalty of the law. Of those convicted one committed suicide, and
twelve got their sentences commuted. Here, then, during a period of
little more than twenty years were a hundred and seventy murders in one
State, and only sixteen executions.”

       *       *       *       *       *

They have one hundred and fifty miles of electric railway in operation
in Europe. Active preparations are making by rival inventors and
corporations in New York City to introduce electricity on a large scale
as a safe, rapid, and cheap motor. As in lighting houses, towns, and
cities we have passed from the tallow candle to kerosene, and then to
gas, and on to the electric light, so by many steps and advances we
are almost ready to accept electricity as the moving power of railway
trains.

       *       *       *       *       *

The pardoning power of the general government is liable to work
pernicious results in the regular army. Cases of embezzlement and
fraud among army officers have been growing in number since our civil
war, and laxity in the enforcement of the laws against these offenders
is a growing evil. General J. B. Fry, an officer of repute, and a
graduate of West Point, thus points out the evil: “The interposition
of higher authority in favor of offenders has been so frequent since
the war, especially from 1876 to 1880, as to be a great injury to
the service. Many of the evils which have been exposed recently are
fairly chargeable to executive and legislative reversal of army action.
* * * When the strong current of military justice is dammed by the
authorities set over the army, stagnant pools are formed which breed
scandal, fraud, disobedience, dissipation, and disgrace, sometimes even
among those educated for the service.”

       *       *       *       *       *

Cable intelligence, received September 3, shows that the Baron
Nordenskjöld, as a Greenland explorer, has accomplished a large part of
his original purpose. The expedition entered West Greenland in latitude
68°, and proceeded 220 miles inland, attained an altitude of seven
thousand feet above the sea level. In 1878 Lieutenant Jansen, of the
Danish navy, penetrated fifty miles from the coast, and reached an “icy
mountain, in lat. 62° 40′, five thousand feet high.” But no explorer
has since done anything worth mention toward solving the mystery of
Greenland’s interior physical geography. The expedition with Professor
Nordenskjöld has gone farther and seen more of the “immense desert of
ice;” and the latest telegrams claim that some important scientific
data have been obtained.

       *       *       *       *       *

The prohibition amendment, submitted to the voters of Ohio, is
defeated, and our cherished hopes of its success, for the present,
sadly disappointed. The non-partisan temperance people, everywhere,
felt deeply interested in the issue, and will hear the result with
profound sorrow. Multitudes of Ohio’s best men and women, who had
prayed, worked, and hoped that deliverance might come in that way,
and that from the 9th of October we would see the unspeakable curse
of the liquor traffic placed where it ought to be, under the ban of
the constitution, from which corrupt tinkering politicians would be
unable to protect it, will confess their disappointment, but neither
suppress their prayers nor cease their efforts. They are clearly in the
majority, and when united will succeed.

       *       *       *       *       *

Telegraphic report says the Vicar of Stratford has authorized the
exhumation of the remains of Shakspere that they may compare the skull
with the bust that stands over the grave. Dr. Ingleby, of London, who
is a trustee of the Shakspere Museum at Stratford, wishes, it seems,
to photograph the face and take a cast of the skull. The absurdity of
the proposal makes it almost incredible, and should itself prevent the
desecration. We are not surprised that the bishop and local authorities
have protested, and the intended outrage will hardly be perpetrated.
By the terms of the deed of interment the consent of the Mayor of
Stratford-on-Avon must first be given before the body can be moved. To
this proposal, that official has given a decided refusal, and the dust
of the poet will not be disturbed. Shakspere has been dead two hundred
and sixty-seven years. The type of face and head, universally accepted
as his, is sufficiently accurate. If it were not the correction of any
fault in that likeness is now impossible.

       *       *       *       *       *

The Pittsburgh Exposition building, with most of its contents, was
entirely consumed by fire during the exposition week. The principal
loss was the goods on exhibition, including many articles of exquisite
workmanship, and valuable relics that can not be replaced. The building
itself, though a wooden structure, was large, and seemed suitable for
the purpose. It was valued at $150,000 and not heavily insured. Perhaps
sufficient care was not taken to secure the property against the
calamity that, in so short a time, destroyed the whole. The company,
who had before suffered some reverses and losses, and were struggling
into what seemed a safe condition, with hopes of future prosperity,
have the sympathy of the public.

       *       *       *       *       *

During the last decade, and especially since the great Centennial,
expositions have been numerous, and, in many cases, attended with most
gratifying results. When the associations providing them are controlled
by men of culture, they are generously sustained. The articles they
have to exhibit are not only numerous, but in kind and quality,
worthy of our advanced civilization. These American expositions are
becoming notably rich in manufactured articles, and in the extent and
variety of useful machinery. For inventive genius the Yankee nation is
unrivaled, while in the mechanical execution of the designs our skilled
artisans have few, if any, superiors. In the principal western cities
the holding of at least annual expositions is no longer a tentative
measure. The institutions are established, and their continuance, in
most cases, pretty well assured. An example of these is the “Detroit
Art and Loan Exposition” of recent origin. Already it has fair
proportions, being from the commencement, in most respects, equal
to the best. Evidently the project for having there a creditable,
first-class exposition was clearly conceived, generously sustained, and
most successfully executed.

       *       *       *       *       *

Before Congress opens General W. T. Sherman will close up the affairs
of his office, and General Sheridan will succeed him as commander
of the United States Army. General Sherman has made a good officer,
but his reputation in history will rest chiefly on his bravery and
skill as a general in his famous march to the sea. The Sherman family
have served their country well. John Sherman, in the Senate, and as
Secretary of the Treasury, in times when great abilities were in
demand, has made a name as great in his line as the general in the army.

       *       *       *       *       *

The receipts of the great Brooklyn bridge for nineteen weeks from the
opening, were: For passengers, $34,464; for vehicles, $31,563; for
cars, $3,936. Total receipts, $69,163. The average per day was $526.04.
The total expenses during the nineteen weeks were $51,418.08.

       *       *       *       *       *

The C. L. S. C. continues to grow with great rapidity in all parts of
the country. There is no sign of the interest waning in any community
from which we have heard. From Plainfield, N. J., the central office,
we receive news that the new class will be the largest of our history.
New England is rolling up a large membership. All over the West
and Northwest there is an interest among the people amounting to
enthusiasm. Mr. Lewis Peake, of Toronto, reports a C. L. S. C. revival
in Canada. This is the time to circulate C. L. S. C. circulars, and to
use your town, city, and county papers to call the attention of the
people to the aims and methods of work. By these means a C. L. S. C.
fire may be kindled on every street in every town and city in the land.

       *       *       *       *       *

The recent pastoral letter of the Cardinal and other high officials
in the Romish Church, caused a reporter to ask one of these officers
some questions about marriage and divorce, to which he replied as
follows. It is wholesome truth: “Marriage is a divine institution,
and the Catholic Church under no circumstances whatever permits the
sacred contract to be broken.” To the question, “Is there no such thing
as separation between husband and wife recognized in the Catholic
Church?” he answered: “Separation, yes, for the gravest reasons and
under restrictions that do not admit of the remarriage of either of the
parties to the original contract while both are living. But divorce in
the sense generally accepted, never. Rather than permit divorce, the
Church let England separate from the Holy See. The same question was
raised by the first Napoleon, and it was ruled against him by the Pope.
You will find that if anything bearing the appearance of divorce has
been allowed in the Catholic Church, it has always been a case where
the most careful investigation showed that the marriage was originally
invalid.”

       *       *       *       *       *

The Germans on October 8 in many towns and cities celebrated the
bi-centennial of the arrival of the first German immigrants in this
country, on the ship “Concord.” Their singing, secret, and literary
societies paraded in regalia, with banners and music. It was a notable
day among the Germans of America.

       *       *       *       *       *

Bishop Paddock, of the Protestant Episcopal Church, in charge of the
diocese of Washington Territory, when speaking of his field of labor
before the Episcopal Council in Philadelphia last month, said: “I am
decidedly opposed to separating the colored people in their worship
from the whites.”

       *       *       *       *       *

We learn from an exchange that the authorities of the Erie Railway
have decided to discharge every employe who uses liquor as a beverage,
whether he gets drunk or not. It is plain that for the safety of
passengers a drinking man should not be entrusted with an engine,
the care of a switch, with messages as a telegraph operator, or as a
superintendent in charge of a division.

       *       *       *       *       *

The Methodists of Canada have eliminated the words “serve” and “obey”
from the woman’s part of the marriage ceremony. Even the argument that
the New Testament enjoins this kind of obedience on wives, did not
preserve the words in the ritual. We congratulate the wives on the
change.

       *       *       *       *       *

Professor W. F. Sherwin has been appointed by Dr. E. Tourjee chorus
director in that prosperous institution, the New England Conservatory
of Music, in Boston, Massachusetts. The Professor will make Boston
his home, and continue to lecture and conduct musical conventions, as
heretofore.

       *       *       *       *       *

The Cooper Union was crowded one evening last month to welcome Francis
Murphy home from England and his own native Ireland. Judge Noah Davis
presided and delivered the address of welcome. “In speaking of Mr.
Murphy’s work in England and Scotland he quoted the statistics of the
United Kingdom to prove that Mr. Murphy’s efforts had been effectual in
reducing the excise revenues many thousands of pounds sterling. He said
that during his two years’ stay in England and Scotland he had obtained
half a million signers to the pledge. Mr. Murphy responded in a few
brief words, declaring that the occasion was the happiest of his whole
life. A number of short addresses were made by clergymen, and with the
singing of songs and choruses, in which the whole assembly engaged, the
ceremonies were prolonged until about half-past ten o’clock.”

       *       *       *       *       *

The C. L. S. C. is rapidly becoming an established institution among
New England people. This is to be accounted for in part by the fact
that the religious press of Boston and other New England cities has
favored the work with earnest, strong words. The Rev. Dr. B. K. Pierce,
editor of _Zion’s Herald_, closes a leading editorial on the C. L. S.
C., in his paper of a recent date, with these words: “There is another
reason why we look with great satisfaction upon this widely-extended
home-university. We have fallen upon an era of doubt. The literature
of the hour is full of sneers at revealed religion and of arrogant
and destructive criticism upon the Holy Scriptures. The daily, weekly
and monthly press is strongly flavored with this. Our young people
breathe it in the atmosphere of the school and of the streets. Here
is one of the best, silent, powerful, positive correctives. This
carefully-arranged plan of study and reading for successive years is
entirely in the interest of the ‘truth as it is in Jesus.’ It is not
narrow, nor dogmatic, nor polemical, nor confined to purely religious
subjects, but the whole system is arranged and followed out upon
the presumption of the inspiration of the Bible, the divine origin
of Christianity, and its ultimate triumph upon the earth. It will
powerfully strengthen the faith of young Christians, preserve them from
the insidious attacks of infidelity, and enable them to have, and to
give to any serious inquirer, an answer for the hope that is in them.”

       *       *       *       *       *

The jury system has some glaring defects which should be laid bare
and made the subject of agitation till they are corrected. Recently
in a famous bribery case (so called) at Albany, N. Y., when jurors
were being called and questioned, one of them said, “I don’t know who
were the United States Senators two years ago from New York.” Yet
this ignorant man was accepted as a juror. This is a common custom in
the selection of jurors. It is exalting ignorance at the expense of
intelligence and justice. Some remedy should be found for this growing
and terrible evil.

       *       *       *       *       *

A new field of artistic ability is being developed in the East. It is
the decoration of the interior of private residences. Already in New
York a number of young artists, who find it difficult to sell all the
pictures they paint, are giving their attention to this work, which
promises to be very remunerative and very extensive.

       *       *       *       *       *

The Chicago agency of Alice H. Birch has been abandoned, and her old
patrons may order any game previously advertised by her, at her home,
Portland, Traill Co., Dakota.

       *       *       *       *       *

The Commissioner of Education has prepared a table showing the
illiteracy among voters in the South, which presents a painfully
interesting study for educators and statesmen. In the formerly
slaveholding States there are 4,154,125 men legally entitled to vote.
Of these, 409,563 whites, and 982,894 colored, are unable to write
even their names, and their ability to read is very limited. Many, who
profess to be able to read, can only with difficulty spell out a few
simple sentences in their primers, and really get no knowledge, such as
the citizen needs, from either books or papers. Thousands of them have
neither books nor papers, and could not read them if they had. Surely a
great work must be done for these freed men and poor whites before they
are quite equal to all the duties of citizens in a country like ours.




EDITOR’S TABLE.


Q. Dec´orus or deco´rus, which?

A. Webster authorizes both, giving preference to the latter. The
former has the advantage of placing the accent on the root syllable, a
rule that is very helpful in settling questions of pronunciation, and
conforms to usage in the accentuation of cognate words, as “dec´orate,”
“dec´oration,” etc. We prefer it.

Q. What is the meaning of “liberal,” in the phrases, “liberal
education,” and “liberal religious views?”

A. An education extended much beyond the practical necessities of our
every-day business and social life, is liberal. It is not a possession
belonging alone to the alumni of colleges and universities. Any person
of culture, who, with or without the aid of teachers, has mastered
the curriculum of studies prescribed by colleges, or its equivalent,
is liberally educated. In the best sense, a man of “liberal religious
views” is generous, freely according to others the right to their
opinions on all subjects about which good men may differ. He is not
creedless, but not bigoted; and cordially approves “things that
are most excellent,” wherever they are found. The claim to great
liberality, set up by those who have no rule of faith, and no views
they are willing to formulate, does not seem well founded.

Q. Where is the line, “Far from the madding crowd’s ignoble strife”
found? and should not the word “madding” be “maddening?”

A. The line is from Gray’s Elegy (73). The adjective “mad” is made a
causative verb, without the usual suffix, “en.” We do not find the form
in prose, and would not use it.

Q. Are there any books purporting to prove scientifically the
immortality of the soul?

A. If by “scientifically,” the querist means, as we suppose,
rationally, philosophically, our answer is, yes, very many. More
books have been written upon this one subject than one could read
carefully in a lifetime. Several thousand distinct works, written in
Greek, Latin, English, and the principal languages of Europe, have
been catalogued by Ezra Abbott. The catalogue itself, published as
an appendix to Alger’s “Doctrine of a Future Life,” would make a
respectable volume, containing, as it does, a list of more than five
thousand books, by almost as many authors, who discuss, more or less
satisfactorily, the great problem of the soul. Some propose, not
argument, but only a history of the doctrine of a future, immortal
life as held by the different races of men, with various shades
of opinion respecting it. Some doubt, some disbelieve, and some,
discarding all rational processes, accept the dogma as a matter of
faith alone, lying beyond the field of our reason. But many Christian
writers, thankful for the “more sure word of prophecy,” and that
“life and immortality are brought to light by the gospel,” hold also
that outside the realm of faith, it is a fit subject for rational
investigation, and as capable of proof or demonstration as other
moral and psychical problems. Perhaps most of the works named in
the catalogue consulted, treat of the soul and its immortality in
connection with other principles and facts of the religious systems
accepted by the authors, and are too voluminous for common use. Drew’s
“Essay on the Immateriality and Immortality of the Soul” founded wholly
on psychological and rational principles is regarded a masterpiece of
metaphysical argument—clear, logical, satisfactory.

Q. Is the expression “as though” ever correct?

A. “Though” is often used in English, taking the place of the
conditional _if_, especially in the phrases _as though_ and _what
though_, which interchange with _as if_ and _what if_; _e. g._:

    “If she bid me pack, I’ll give her thanks _as though_
    she bid me stay by her a week.”—_Shakspere._

    “A Tartar, who looked _as though_ the speed of thought
    were in his limbs.”—_Byron._

Other examples need not be given. These approve the expression as
correct, though not much used at present.

Q. Will the firing of cannon over water bring a dead body at the bottom
to the surface; if so, why, or how?

A. The concussion or violent agitation of the water may loosen a body
slightly held at the bottom, when, if specifically lighter than water,
it will rise.

Q. In “Recreations in Astronomy,” p. 163, it is said 192 asteroides
have been discovered, with diameters from 20 to 400 miles; and on the
next page it is “estimated” that if all these were put into one planet,
it would not be over 400 miles in diameter. How can that be?

A. Allowing, as the author does, that the density of the masses remains
the same, it would, of course, be impossible. We have not the means
at hand to either verify or correct the diameters given, and can not
locate the error.




C. L. S. C. NOTES ON REQUIRED READINGS FOR NOVEMBER.




TIMAYENIS’S HISTORY OF GREECE.


PARTS 10 AND 11.

P. 258.—“Mummius,” mum´mi-us. See Timayenis, p. 251, vol. II.

“Delos,” de´los.

“Mithradatic,” mith´ra-da=´=tic. For history of Mithradates see
Timayenis, vol. II., p. 254.

P. 259.—“Sulla,” sul´la. (B. C. 138-78). A Roman general, the rival of
Marius. After the close of this war Sulla went to Italy, defeated the
Marian party and issued a proscription by which many thousands of his
enemies perished. For the two years following he held the office of
dictator, which in 79 he resigned to retire to private life.

“Epidaurus,” ep´i-dau=´=rus. One of the most magnificent temples in all
Greece, that of the god Æsculapius, was situated there.

“Peiræan,” pei-ræ´an. Through this gate ran the road to the Piræus, and
at the Sacred Gate began the sacred road to Eleusis where the festivals
and mysteries were celebrated.

“Bithynia,” bi-thyn´i-a; “Kappadokia,” cap=´=pa-do´ci-a; “Paphlagonia,”
paph=´=la-go´ni-a.

P. 260.—“Chrysostom,” krĭs´os-tom. See Timayenis, vol. II., 319 sq.

“Anthemius,” an-the´mi-us; “Isidorus,” is´i-do=´=rus. Eminent
architects.

P. 261.—“Pompey.” (B. C. 106-48.) Pompey had been a successful general
from early life, receiving from Sulla the surname of Magnus.

P. 262.—“Soli,” so´li. The word solecism (to speak incorrectly) is said
to have been first used in regard to the dialect of the inhabitants of
this city.

“Pompeiopolis,” pom´pe-i-op=´=o-lis; “Armenia,” ar-me´ni-a.

“Tigranes,” ti-gra´nes. The king of Armenia from B. C. 96-55. He was an
ally of Mithradates until this invasion by Pompey, when he hastened to
submit to the latter, thus winning favor and receiving the kingdom with
the title of king.

P. 263.—“Phillippi,” phil-lip´pi; “Octavius,” oc-ta´vi-us.

“Philhellenist,” phĭl-hĕl´len-ist. A friend to Greece.

“Philathenian,” phĭl-a-the´ni-an. A friend to Athens.

“Actium,” ac´ti-um.

P. 264.—“Ægina,” æ-gi´na; “Eretria,” e-re´tri-a.

“Stoa,” sto´a. Halls or porches supported by pillars, and used as
places of resort in the heat of the day.

“Athene Archegetes,” a-the´ne ar-cheg´e-tes; “Peisistratus,”
pi-sis´tra-tus; “Nikopolis,” ni-cop´o-lis.

P. 265.—“Cæsarean,” cæ-sā´re-an.

“Seneca.” (B. C. 5?-A. D. 65.) A Roman Stoic philosopher. The tutor and
afterward adviser of Nero. When the excesses of the latter had made
Seneca’s presence irksome to him, he was dismissed and soon after, by
order of Nero, put to death. His writings were mainly philosophical
treatises.

“Agrippina,” ag-rip-pi´na. Nero was the son of Agrippina by her first
husband. On her marriage with her third husband, the Emperor Claudius,
she prevailed upon the latter to adopt Nero as his son. In order to
secure the succession she murdered Claudius and governed the empire in
Nero’s name until he, tired of her authority, caused her to be put to
death.

“Isthmian,” ĭs´mĭ-an; “Pythian,” pyth´i-an; “Nemean,” nē´me-an;
“Olympian,” o-lym´pi-an. See author for accounts of these games.

“Pythia,” pyth´i-a. See Timayenis, p. 44-45, vol. I.

P. 266.—“Vespasian,” ves-pā´zhĭ-an; “Lollianus,” lol-li-a´nus.

“Aristomenes,” ar´-is-tom=´=e-nes. The legendary hero of the Second
Messenian War. In 865 B. C. he began hostilities and defeated Sparta
several times but was at last taken prisoner. The legends tell that he
was rescued, from the pit where he had been confined, by an eagle and
led home by a fox. When at last Ira fell, Aristomenes went to Rhodes,
where he died.

“Aratus,” a-ra´tus; “Achæan,” a-chæ´an. See Timayenis, vol II., p.
242-243.

P. 267.—“Zeno.” The founder of the Stoic philosophy. A native of
Cyprus. He lived, probably, about 260 B. C. He is said to have spent
twenty years in study, after which time he opened his school in a stoa
of Athens. From this place his disciples received the name of _Stoics_.

Translation of foot-notes: “They call those sophists who for money
offer knowledge to whomsoever wishes it.” “A sophist is one who seeks
the money of rich young men.” “Sophistry consists in appearing wise,
not in being so; and the sophist becomes wealthy by an appearance of
wisdom, not by being wise.”

“Gorgias,” gor´gi-as. “Leontine,” le-on´tine. An inhabitant of Leontini
in Sicily.

P. 268.—“Dion,” di´on chry-sos´to-mus, or Dion, the golden mouthed, so
called from his eloquence.

“Strabo,” stra´bo. His geography is contained in seventeen books. It
gives descriptions of the physical features of the country, accounts of
political events, and notices of the chief cities and men.

“Plutarch.” His “Parallel Lives” is a history of forty-eight different
Greeks and Romans. They are arranged in pairs, and each pair is
followed by a comparison of the two men.

“Appianus,” ap-pi-a´nus. The author of a history of Rome.

“Dion Cassius.” (A. D. 155.) The grandson of Dion Chrysostomus.

“Herodianus,” he´ro-di-a=´=nus.

“Epiktetus,” ep´ic-te=´=tus. Few circumstances of his life are known.
Only those of his works collected by Arrian are extant. As a teacher it
is said that no one was able to resist his appeals to turn their minds
to the good.

“Hierapolis,” hi´e-rap=´=o-lis.

“Longinus,” lon-gi´nus. The most distinguished adherent of the Platonic
philosophy in the third century. His learning was so great that he
was called “a living library.” He taught many years at Athens, but at
last left to go to Palmyra, as the teacher of Zenobia. When she was
afterward defeated by the Romans and captured, Longinus was put to
death (273).

“Lucian.” See notes in THE CHAUTAUQUAN for May, 1883.

“Samosata,” sa-mos´a-ta.

P. 270.—“Thesmopolis,” thes-mop´o-lis. “Sappho,” sap´pho. “Domitian,”
do-mish´ĭ-an.

P. 271.—“Pliny,” plĭn´ĭ. (61?-115?) The nephew of the elder Pliny. His
life was largely spent in literary pursuits. His works extant are the
_Panegyricus_, an eulogium on Trajan, and his letters.

“Seleukidæ,” se-leu´ci-dæ. So named from Seleucus, the first ruler of
the Syrian kingdom, one of the four into which Alexander’s kingdom was
divided on his death.

P. 272.—“Archon Eponymus,” ar´chon e-pon´y-mus. The first in rank of
the nine Athenian Archons, so called because the year was named after
him.

“Favorinus,” fav´o-ri=´=nus. He is known as a friend of Plutarch and
Herodes. Although he wrote much, none of his books have come down to
us. “Herodes,” he-ro´des.

“Mnesikles,” mnes´i-cles. The architect of the Propylæa.

“Ilissus,” i-lis´sus. A small river of Attica.

Translations of Greek inscriptions: “This is Athens the former city of
Theseus.” “Here stands the city of Adrian, not of Theseus.”

P. 273.—“Stymphalus,” stym-pha´lus. A lake of Arcadia.

“Patræ,” pa´træ.

P. 275.—“Pliny.” (23-75.) Although he held various civil and military
positions, and during his whole life was the intimate friend and
adviser of Vespasian, he applied himself so incessantly to study that
he left one hundred and sixty volumes of notes. Pliny, the younger,
says that the lives of those who have devoted themselves to study
seem to have been passed in idleness and sleep when compared with the
wonderful activity of his uncle. The only work of value come down to us
is his “Historia Naturalis.”

“Lebadeia,” leb´a-dei=´=a.

“Stoa Pœkile.” The painted porch, so-called from the variety of curious
pictures which it contained.

“Theseum,” the-se´um. The temple erected in Athens in honor of the hero
Theseus. To-day it is the best preserved monument of the splendor of
the ancient city.

“Kerameikus,” cer´a-mi=´=cus. A district of Athens, so called from
Ceramus, the son of Bacchus, some say, but more probably from the
potter’s art invented there.

P. 277.—“Commodus,” com´mo-dus; “Caracalla,” car´a-cal=´=la; “Dacia,”
da´ci-a; “Mœsia,” mœ´si-a; “Decius,” de´ci-us.

P. 278.—“Gallienus,” gal´li-e=´=nus; “Valerianus,” va-le´ri-a=´=nus.

“Pityus,” pit´y-us; “Trapezus,” tra-pe´zus; “Chrysopolis,”
chry-sop´o-lis; “Kyzikus,” cyz´i-cus.

“Dexippus,” dex-ip´pus. He held the highest official position at
Athens. Was the author of histories, only fragments of which remain.

P. 279.—“Artemis,” ar´te-mis. This temple of Artemis, or Diana,
Lübke calls the “famous wonder of the ancient world.” Its dimensions
were enormous, being 225 feet broad and 425 feet long. “Aurelian,”
au-re´li-an.

P. 280.—“Flavius Josephus,” fla´vi-us jo-se´phus. (37?-100?) The author
of “History of the Jewish War” and “Jewish Antiquities.”

“Philo Judæus,” phi´lo ju-dæ´us. His chief works are an attempt to
reconcile the Scriptures with Greek philosophy.

P. 281.—“Nikolaus,” nic´o-la=´=us; “Nikomedeia,” nic´o-me-di=´=a;
“Claudius Ptolemæus,” clau´di-us ptol´e-mæ=´=us; “Pelusium,”
pe-lu´si-um; “Plotinus,” plo-ti´nus; “Lykopolis,” ly-cop´o-lis.

P. 282.—“Zenobia,” ze-no´bi-a; “Palmyra,” pal-my´ra.

P. 286.—“Maximian,” max-im´i-an.

P. 287.—“Constantius,” con-stan´ti-us. “Chlorus,” chlo´rus, “the pale;”
“Naissus,” nais´sus; “Galerius,” ga-le´ri-us.

P. 288.—“Eboracum,” eb´o-ra=´=cum; “Licinius,” li-cin´i-us;
“Maxentius,” max-en´ti-us.

P. 290.—“Labarum,” lăb´a-rŭm. The word is supposed by many to have been
derived from the Celtic word _lavar_, meaning command, sentence.

P. 292.—“Zosimus,” zos´i-mus; “Adrianopolis,” a=´=dri-an-op´o-lis.

“St. Jerome.” (340-420.) The most famous of the Christian fathers. He
spent many years in study and travel, was the friend of Gregory of
Nazianzus and Pope Damascus. Much of his labor was given to obtain
converts to his theories of monastic life. His commentaries on the
Scriptures and translations into Latin of the New and Old Testaments
are his most valuable works.

P. 294.—“Athanasius,” ath´a-na=´=si-us.

Translations of Greek in foot-note; “Speech against the Greeks.”
“Concerning the incarnation of Christ and his appearance to us.”

P. 295.—“Eusebius,” eu-se´bi-us. He afterward signed the creed of the
Council of Nice.

“Porphyrius,” por-phyr´i-us.

P. 297.—“Tanais,” tan´a-is. Now the Don. “Borysthenes,” bo-rys´the-nes;
the Dneiper.

P. 299.—“Arianism,” a´ri-an-ism.

P. 302.—“Magnentius,” mag-nen´ti-us.

P. 303.—“Sapor,” sa´por. “Nisibis,” nis´i-bis.

P. 304.—“Eusebia,” eu-se´bi-a. “Eleusinian,” el´u-sin=´=i-an. See
foot-note p. 215, vol. II. Timayenis.

P. 305.—“Aedesius,” ae-de´si-us. “Chrysanthius,” chry-san´thi-us.

P. 306.—“Ochlus,” och´lus. The crowd, the populace.

“Thaumaturgy,” thau=´=ma-tur´gy. The act of performing miracles,
wonders.

P. 307.—“Gregory Nazianzen,” greg´o-ry na-zi-an´zen; “Basil.” See page
312 for sketches of these men.

P. 308.—“Hierophant,” hī-er´o-phănt, a priest; “Oribasius,”
or-i-ba´si-us.

P. 311.—“Dadastana,” dad-as-ta´na.

P. 312.—“Valentinian,” va-len-tin´i-an.

P. 313.—“Eleemosynary,” ĕl´ee-mŏs´y-na-ry. Relating to charity.

P. 315.—“Gratian,” gra´ti-an; “Theodosius,” the´o-do=´=si-us;
“Eugenius,” eu-ge´ni-us.

P. 317.—“Rufinus,” ru-fi´nus; “Stilicho,” stil´i-cho.

“Claudian,” clau´di-an. The last of the classic poets of Rome. During
the reigns of Honorius and Arcadius he held high positions in court,
and from Stilicho he received many honors. Many of his poems are
extant, all of them characterized by purity of expression and poetical
genius.

P. 318.—“Eutropius,” eu-tro´pi-us; “Eudoxia,” eu-dox´i-a; “Bauto,”
bau´to; “Gainas,” gai´nas.

“Alaric,” al´a-ric (all rich). Alaric made a second invasion into Italy
in 410, taking and plundering Rome. His death occurred soon after.

P. 319.—“Libanius,” li-ba´ni-us. The emperors Julian, Valens and
Theodosius showed much respect to Libanius, but his life was
embittered by the jealousies of the professors of Constantinople, and
by continual dispute with the Sophists. His orations and a quantity
of letters addressed to the eminent men of the times are still in
existence.

P. 320.—“Nectarius,” nec-ta´ri-us.

P. 321.—“Theophilus,” the-oph´i-lus; “Chalkedon,” chal-ce´don.

P. 322.—“Cucusus,” cu´cu-sus; “Comana,” co-ma´na.

P. 323.—“Anthemius,” an-the´mi-us. “Pulcheria,” pul-che´ri-a.

P. 324.—“Kalligraphos,” cal-lig´ra-phos; “Athenais,” ath´e-na=´=is;
“Leontius,” le-on´ti-us.

P. 326.—“Nestorius,” nes-to´ri-us; “Germanikeia,” ger-man´i-ci=´=a;
“Marcian,” mar´ci-an; “Yezdegerd,” yez´de-jerd.

“Successor.” This successor was Varanes I. He waged wars with the Huns,
Turks and Indians, performing deeds which ever since have made him a
favorite hero in Persian verse.

P. 327.—“Attila,” at´ti-la; “Aetius,” a-ē´ti-us.

P. 328.—“Aspar,” as´par; “Basiliscus,” bas-i-lis´cus; “Verina,”
ve-ri´na.

P. 329.—“Odoacer,” o-do´a-cer; “Ariadne,” a-ri-ad´ne; “Isaurian,”
i-sau´ri-an; “Anastasius,” an-as-ta´si-us.

P. 330.—“Sardica,” sar´di-ca.

“Prokopius,” pro-co´pi-us. (500-565.) An historian as well as
rhetorician. His talents early attracted the attention of Belisarius,
who made him his secretary. Afterward Justinian raised him to the
position of prefect of Constantinople. Among his extant works are
several volumes of histories and orations, besides a collection of
anecdotes, mainly court gossip about Justinian, the empress Theodora,
Belisarius, etc.

P. 331.—“Belisarius,” bel-i-sa´ri-us.

“Collection of Laws.” Justinian first ordered a collection of the
various imperial _constitutiones_ which he named “Justinianeus Codex.”
The second collection was of all that was important in the works
of jurists, and was called the “Digest.” This work contained nine
thousand extracts, and the compilers are said to have consulted over
two thousand different books in their work. But for ordinary reference
these volumes were of little value, so that the “Institutes” were
written, similar in contents, but condensed. A new code was afterward
promulgated; also several new _constitutiones_—together these books
form the Roman law.

“Tribonian,” tri-bo´ni-an; “Side,” si´de.

P. 333.—“Kalydonian Kapros.” The Calydonian wild boar.

“Bronze-eagle.” In every race-course of the ancient Greeks a bronze
eagle and a dolphin were used for signals in starting. The eagle was
raised in the air and the dolphin lowered.

P. 334.—“Chosroes,” chos´ro-es. “The generous mind.” One of the most
noteworthy of the kings of Persia. He carried on several wars with the
Romans and extended his domain until he received homage from the most
distant kings of Africa and Asia. Although despotic, his stern justice
made him the pride of the Persians.

P. 335.—“Hæmus,” hæ´mus; “Aristus,” a-ris´tus; “Antes,” an´tes.

P. 336.—“Melanthias,” me-lan´thi-as.

P. 338.—“Fallmerayer,” fäl´meh-rī-er. (1791-1862.) A German historian
and traveller. Among his important works are “Fragments from the East,”
in which he publishes the results of his studies and travels there, and
“The History of the Peninsula of Morea in the Middle Ages.” It is in
this latter work that he advances the strange views here mentioned.

“Malelas,” mal´e-las. A Byzantine historian who lived soon after
Justinian. He wrote a chronological history from the creation of the
world to the reign of Justinian, inclusive.

P. 342.—“Heraclius,” her´a-cli=´=us; “Mauricius,” mau-ri´ci-us.

P. 345.—“Ayesha,” â´ye-sha. The favorite wife of Mohammed and daughter
of Abubeker, who succeeded him. The twenty-fourth chapter of the Koran
treats of the purity of Ayesha. After her husband’s death she in many
ways supported the religion.

“Fatima,” fâ´te-ma. The only child living at the time of the Prophet’s
death. She became the ancestress of the powerful dynasty of the
Fatimites.

P. 347.—“Aiznadin,” aiz´na-din; “Yermuk,” yer´muk; “Khaled,” kha´led.

P. 348.—“Herakleonas,” her-ac-le-o´nas; “Pogonatus,” pog-o-na´tus;
“Moawiyah,” mo-â-wē´yâ.

P. 349.—“Charles Martel.” (690-741.) The duke of Austrasia, and the
mayor of the palace of the Frankish kings. The name Martel, or “the
hammer,” was given to him from his conduct in this battle.

P. 350.—“Kallinikus,” cal-li-ni´cus.

“Naphtha.” A volatile, bituminous liquid, very inflammable.

P. 352.—“Rhinotmetus,” rhin-ot-me´tus.

P. 353.—“Chersonites,” cher-son´i-tes.

“Crim-Tartary.” The Crimea, also called Little Tartary.

“Absimarus,” ab-sim´a-rus; “Khazars,” kha´zars.

P. 354.—“Terbelis,” ter´be-lis.

P. 356.—“Bardanes,” bar-da´nes; “Phillippicus,” phil-lip´pi-cus.

P. 357.—“Moslemas,” mos´le-mas.

P. 365.—“Haroun al-Rashid,” hä-roon´ äl-răsh´id. (765-809.) Aaron the
Just, the fifth caliph of the dynasty of the Abassides. His conquests
and administration were such that his reign is called the golden age of
the Mohammedan nations. Poetry, science and art were cultivated by him.
Haroun is the chief hero of Arabian tales.

“Nikephorus,” ni-ceph´o-rus.

P. 368.—“Theophilus,” the-oph´i-lus.

P. 369.—“Armorium,” ar-mo´ri-um.

P. 370.—“Bardas,” bar´das; “Theoktistus,” the-ok´tis-tus.

“John Grammatikus.” John the grammarian. It was he that held that there
were three Gods and rejected the word unity from the doctrine of the
being of God.

P. 371.—“Photius,” fo´shĭ-us. He played a distinguished part in the
political, religious and literary affairs of the ninth century. After
holding various offices, he was made patriarch by Bardas, deposing
Ignatius. This incensed the Romish Church, and the controversy which
arose did much to widen the gulf between the Eastern and Western
Churches. Photius was deposed from his position, but replaced until the
death of Basil, when he was driven into exile. Among his writings the
most valuable is a review of ancient Greek literature. Many books are
described in it of which we have no other knowledge.

P. 372.—“Arsacidæ,” ar-sac´i-dæ. So called from Arsaces, the founder
of the Parthian empire. About 250 B. C. Arsaces induced the Parthians
to revolt from the Syrian empire, of the Seleucidæ. The family existed
four hundred and seventy-six years, being obliged in 226 A. D. to
submit to Artaxerxes, the founder of the dynasty of the Sassanidæ.

P. 373.—“Porphyrogenitus,” por-phy-ro-gen´i-tus.

P. 374.—“Seljuks,” sel-jooks´; “Commeni,” com-me´ni.

P. 375.—“Robert Guiscard,” ges´kar=´=. Robert, the prudent.
(1015-1085.) The founder of the kingdom of Naples. He had come from
Normandy to Italy, where by his wit and energy he had been appointed
Count of Apulia in 1057. Soon after he added other provinces to his
kingdom, conquered Sicily, and drove the Saracens from Southern Italy.
His hasty departure from Thessaly was to relieve the Pope from the
siege of Henry IV. After accomplishing this he immediately undertook
the second expedition against Constantinople.

P. 376.—“Kephallenia,” ceph´al-le=´=ni-a; “Durazzo,” doo-rät´so.

P. 377.—“Anna Commena.” The daughter of Alexis I. She wrote a full
history of her father’s life; one of the most interesting and valuable
books of Byzantine literature.

P. 379.—“Piacenza,” pe-ä-chen´zä. The capital of the province of the
same name in the north of Italy.

P. 382.—“Nureddin,” noor-ed-deen´. A Mohammedan ruler of Syria and
Egypt.

P. 383.—“Dandolo,” dän´do-lo.

P. 385.—“Scutari,” skoo´tă-ree.

P. 386.—“Morisini,” mo-ri-si´ni.

P. 387.—“Boniface,” bŏn´e-făss; “Montferrat,” mŏnt-fer-răt´;
“Bouillon,” boo´yon=´=; “Laskaris,” las´ca-ris.

P. 388.—“Palæologus,” pa-læ-ol´o-gus.

       *       *       *       *       *

BRIEF HISTORY OF GREECE.

The November readings in the “Brief History of Greece” are almost
identical with the October readings in Timayenis’s history. For this
reason no notes have been made out on the work. By consulting the notes
on Timayenis’s history in THE CHAUTAUQUAN for October, all necessary
help will be obtained. The papers on Physical Science and Political
Economy, also the Sunday Readings, are too clear to need annotating.


NOTES ON REQUIRED READINGS IN “THE CHAUTAUQUAN.”


GERMAN HISTORY.

P. 63, c. 1.—“Hermann.” The Latinized form of whose name was Arminius.
He had learned the language and the military discipline of the Romans
when he led his tribe as auxiliaries to their legions.

“Varus,” va´rus. He had been consul at Rome in B. C. 13, and afterward
governor of Syria, where he accumulated great wealth. After this battle
Varus put an end to his life.

P. 63, c. 2.—“Alemanni,” al-e-man´ni.

“Sicambrians,” si-cam´bri-ans. In early German history one of the most
powerful tribes. They lived in Westphalia, between the Rhine and Weser.

“Chatti,” or “Catti,” so called from an old German word _cat_ or _cad_,
meaning “war.” They dwelt south of the Sicambrians in the modern state
of Hesse.

“Batavi.” A Celtic people who had settled in the portion of the present
Netherlands lying at the mouth of the Rhine. Their chief city was
Leyden. The country was afterward extended and called Batavia.

P. 64, c. 1.—“Salzburg,” sälts´boorg; “Ratisbonne,” ra´tis-bon;
“Augsburg,” owgs´boorg; “Basle,” bâl, or “Basel,” bä´zel; “Baden,”
bä´den; “Spires,” spīr´es; “Metz,” mĕts; “Treves,” treevz.

“Ammianus,” am´mi-a=´=nus mar´cel-li=´=nus. A Greek serving under the
emperor Julian 363. Later we find him in Rome where he wrote a history
from the time of Nerva, 96, to the death of Valens, 378. Many of the
events were contemporaneous, so that the descriptions and incidents are
particularly valuable.

P. 64, c. 2.—“Vandals.” This tribe first appeared in the north of
Germany, from whence they went to the Reisengebirge, sometimes called
from them the Vandal Mountains. In the fifth century they worked their
way from Pannonia into Spain, marched southward and founded the once
powerful kingdom of Andalusia (Vandalusia). In 429 they conquered
Africa. An hundred years afterward Belisarius overthrew their power,
and the race disappeared. Many claim that descendants of the Vandals
are to be seen among the Berber race, with blue eyes and light hair.

“Troyes,” trwä.

“Catalaunian,” cat´a-lau=´=ni-an. A people formerly living in
northeastern France, their capital the present Châlons-sur-Marne.

“Méry-sur-Seine,” mā-rē-sur-sane.

“Visigoths.” In the fourth century the Goths were divided into the
Ostrogoths and Visigoths or the Eastern and Western Goths; the latter
worked their way from the Danube westward to France and Spain where
they built up a splendid kingdom which lasted until 711, when it was
overthrown by the Moors.

P. 65, c. 1.—“Genseric,” jĕn´ser-ik. A king of the Vandals under whom
the tribe invaded Africa in 429. They conquered the entire country,
capturing Carthage in 439 and making it their capital. After the sack
of Rome, the entire coast of the Mediterranean was pillaged. Genseric
ruled until his death in 477.

“Heruli,” her´u-li; “Sciri,” si´ri; “Turcilingi,” tur-cil-in´gi;
“Rugii,” ru´gi-i.

“Theodoric.” The king of the Visigoths, who in 489 undertook to expel
Odoacer from Italy. He defeated him in several battles and finally laid
siege to Ravenna, where Odoacer had taken refuge. After holding out
three years, Odoacer submitted on condition that he rule jointly with
Theodoric, but the latter soon murdered his rival. For thirty-three
years Theodoric ruled the country. He was a patron of art and learning
and his sway was very prosperous. The porphyry vase in which his ashes
were deposited is still shown at Ravenna.

“Thuringians,” thu-rin´gi-ans. Dwellers in the central part of Germany
between the Harz Mountains and the Thuringian forest.

“Dietrich,” dē-trich; “Hildebrand,” hĭl´de-brand.

“Siegfried,” seeg´freed. See notes on “Nibelungenlied” in this number.

P. 65, c. 2.—“Langobardi” or Lombards. A German tribe which migrated
southward from the river Elbe. In 568 they conquered the plains of
northern Italy and founded a kingdom which lasted two centuries.

GERMAN LITERATURE.

The article on German Literature is abridged from Sime’s article on
this subject in the “Encyclopædia Britannica.”

P. 66, c. 1.—“Nibelungelied.” The song of the Nibelungen. “The work
includes the legends of Siegfried, of Günther, of Dietrich, and of
Attila; and the motives which bind them into a whole are the love and
revenge of Kriemhild, the sister of Günther and Siegfried’s wife.
She excites the envy of Brunhild, the Burgundian queen, whose friend
Hagen discovers the vulnerable point in Siegfried’s enchanted body,
treacherously slays him, and buries in the Rhine the treasure he
has long before conquered from the race of the Nibelungen. There is
then a pause of thirteen years, after which Kriemhild, the better to
effect her fatal purpose, marries Attila. Thirteen years having again
passed away her thirst for vengeance is satiated by slaying the entire
Burgundian court. The Germans justly regard this epic as one of the
most precious gems of their literature.”—_Sime._

“Ulfilas,” ŭl´fĭ-las. (310-381.) The family of Ulfilas were Christians
supposed to have been carried away by the Goths. In 341 he became the
bishop of these people and soon induced a number of them to leave their
warlike life to settle a colony in Mœsia. Here he cultivated the arts
of peace, doing much to civilize the people. He introduced an alphabet
of twenty-four letters and translated all of the Bible except the book
of Kings. This work is the earliest known specimen of the Teutonic
language.

“Wolfram von Eschenbach,” fon esh´en-bäk. He lived at the close of the
twelfth century. A nobleman by birth and a soldier in the civil wars.
He joined the court of Hermann of Thuringia in the castle of Wartburg
(where Luther escaped after the Diet of Worms) and was a contestant in
the famous musical contest called “The war of the Wartburg.” Leaving
here he afterward sang at many other courts, dying in 1225.

“Parzival” or Parcival, par´ci-val.

“Holy Grail.” The chalice said to have been used by Christ at the
Last Supper and in which the wine was changed to blood. As the legend
runs it fell into the hands of Joseph of Arimathea, by whom it was
held for centuries, but finally, at his death, it passed to his
descendants, with whom it remained until its possessor sinned; then the
cup disappeared. The Knights of the Round-Table sought it, but until
Sir Galahad no man was found so pure in heart and life that he could
look upon it. Sir Galahad in some romances is called Sir Percival or
_Parzival_. Eisenbach wrote another romance, “Titural,” founded on the
same legend.

“Gottfried,” gott´freed; “Tristram and Iseult,” trĭs´tram, is´eult;
“Gudrun,” gu´drun.

“Walther von der Vogelweide,” wäl´ter fon der fō=´=gel-wī´deh.
(1165?-1228?) Walter “from the bird meadow.” He lived some time at
Wartburg and was a friend of King Philip and of Frederick II. He died
on a little estate the latter had given him.

“Sachenspiegel.” Codex of the Saxon law.

“Schwabenspiegel.” Codex of the Swabian law.

“Berthold,” bĕr´tōlt. (1215-1272.) His love for the poor led him to
zealous work in their behalf. Through many years he preached in the
open air in Germany, Switzerland and Hungary.

“Eckhart,” ĕk´hart. The father of German speculative thought, as Bach
calls him, was a Dominician monk who attempted to reform his order but
preached so exalted a philosophy that the Pope demanded a recantation.
Eckhart never gave this but claimed that his views were entirely
orthodox. His prose is among the purest specimens in the German
language.

“Meistersänger.” Master-singer.

P. 66, c. 2.—“Shrove-Tuesday,” or confession Tuesday is the day before
Lent. Although originally a day of preparation for the Lenten fast, it
was soon changed to one of merry-making and feasting. As everything was
devised to increase the gaiety of the occasion, these plays soon became
a regular feature.

“Reineke Vos.” Reynard the fox.

“Barkhusen,” bark´hu-sen; “Rostock,” ros´tŏck.

“Ulrich von Hutten,” ul´rich fon hoot´en. (1488-1523.) His life was
spent in hot contests with the enemies of his reforms. As an advocate
of the new learning, he went from city to city teaching and writing;
“Epistolæ Obscurorum Virorum” was written in defense of this theory. He
espoused the cause of the Reformation more because it favored religious
and secular progress than from sympathy with its principles.

“Hans Sachs.” (1494-1576.) “Honest Hans Sachs,” as he was called,
was a cobbler of Nuremberg, who had learned verse-making from a
_meistersänger_ of Munich. His verses included every style of poetry
known, but the “Shrove-Tuesday plays” were the best, being full of
strong characters and striking situations. The hymn mentioned, “Why art
thou cast down, O, my soul?” is but one of several by him.

“Leibnitz,” līp´nits. (1646-1716.) Educated at Leipsic, he says of
himself, that before he was twelve, he “understood the Latin authors,
had begun to lisp Greek and wrote verses with singular success.” After
taking his degree he went to Frankfort under the patronage of a wealthy
gentleman; here he devoted himself to composing treatises on religion,
philosophy, law, etc. All manner of projects interested him. He tried
to bring about a union between the Catholic and Lutheran Churches, to
introduce a common alphabet for all languages, to urge the king of
France to conquer Egypt, and other plans, more or less Utopian. In the
latter part of his life he received high honor from Hanover, Vienna,
and Peter the Great. His correspondence was voluminous, and his works
covered almost the whole field of human thought.

“Klopstock,” klop´stok. (1724-1803.)

“Wieland,” wee´land. (1733-1813.)

“Lessing,” lĕs´ĭng. (1729-1781.)

“Oberon,” ŏb´er-on. The Oberon of Shakspere. The king of the fairies
and the husband of Queen Titania.

“Agathon,” ag´a-thon. A tragic poet of Athens, who died about 400 B. C.

“Pietist,” pī´e-tist. The name was applied to a certain class of
religious reformers in Germany, who sought to restore purity to the
Church.

P. 67, c. 1.—“Herder,” hĕr´der. (1744-1803.)

“Kant.” (1724-1804.)

“Kritik.” Critique of pure reason.

“Fichte,” fik´teh. (1797-1879.)

“Hardenburg.” (1772-1801.)

“Wilhelm von Schlegel,” shlā´gel. (1767-1845.)

“Friedrich.” (1772-1829.)

“Tieck,” teek. (1773-1853.)

“Fouquè,” foo=´=ka´. (1777-1843.)

“Schleiermacher,” shlī´er-mä-ker. (1768-1834.)

“Feuerbach,” foi´er-bäk. (1804-1872.)

“Schopenhauer,” sho=´=pen-how´er. (1788-1860.)

“Freytag,” frī´täg; “Heyse,” hī´zeh; “Spielhagen,” speel´hä-gen;
“Reuter,” roi´ter.


READINGS IN ART.

The papers on Sculpture are compiled from Redford’s “Ancient Sculpture”
and Lübke’s “History of Art.”

P. 75, c. 1.—“Mycenæ,” my-ce´næ.

“Cesnola,” ches´no-la. Born in Turin in 1832. He served in the Crimean
war, and afterward in the war of the Rebellion. Having been made an
American citizen he was appointed consul to Cyprus, where he discovered
the necropolis of Idalium, a city which ceased to exist two thousand
years ago. He began excavations, opening some eight thousand tombs,
but an edict from the sultan stopped the work. Cesnola had already,
however, gathered a magnificent collection of antiquities, which, in
1872 was purchased for the Metropolitan Museum of New York.

“Harpy.” The reliefs on this monument represent harpies, fabulous
monsters in Greek mythology, carrying off children.

“Frieze,” freez. The broad band resting upon the columns of a porch is
called the entablature. It is divided into three portions; the central
one is the frieze.

P. 75, c. 2.—“Ageladas,” ag´e-la=´=das. _Not Argeladas._

“Myron.” A Bœotian, born about 480 B. C. His master-pieces were all
in bronze. The “quoit-player” and the “cow” are most famous. Myron
excelled in animals and figures in action.

“Canachus,” can´a-chus. (B. C. 540-508.) He executed the colossal
statue of Apollo at Miletus, was skilled in casting bronze, in gold and
silver, and in wood carving.

“Callon,” cal´lon. (B. C. 516.)

“Onatus,” o-na´tus. (B. C. 460.) “Hegias,” he´gi-as; “Critius,”
cri´ti-us.

“Calamis,” cal´a-mis. (B. C. 467-429.) He worked in marble, gold and
ivory. His horses are said to have been unsurpassable, and his heroic
female figures superior to those of his predecessors.

“Pythagoras.” Lived about 470 in Magna Græcia. He executed life-like
figures in bronze.

“Lemnians,” lem´ni-ans.

“Paris.” At a certain wedding feast to which all the gods had been
invited except the goddess of Strife, she, angry at the slight, threw
an apple into their midst with the inscription “to the fairest.” Juno,
Minerva and Venus claimed it, and Jupiter ordered that Paris, then a
shepherd on Mount Ida, should decide the dispute. As Venus promised him
the most beautiful of women for his wife, he gave her the apple.

P. 76, c. 1.—“Pellene,” pel-le´ne. A city of Achaia.

“Rochette,” ro´shĕt=´=. (1790-1854.) A French archæologist.

“Alcamenes,” al-cam´e-nes. (B.C. 444-400.) His greatest work was a
statue of Venus.

“Agoracritus,” ag´o-rac=´=ri-tus. (B. C. 440-428.) His most famous work
was also a Venus, which he changed into a statue of Nemesis and sold
because the people of Athens preferred the statue of Alcamenes.

“Pæonius,” pæ-o´ni-us.

“Pediment.” The triangular facing or top over a portico, window, gate,
etc.

“Metope,” met´o-pe. In the Doric style of architecture, the frieze was
divided at intervals by ornaments called triglyphs. The spaces between
these ornaments were called metopes.

“Cella.” The interior space of a temple.

“Phigalia,” phi-ga´li-a.

“Niké-Apteros.” The wingless goddess of victory. Wingless, to signify
that the prayer of the Athenians was that victory might never leave
their city.

“Scopas,” sco´pas. (395-350.) An architect and statuary, as well as
sculptor. He was the architect of the temple of Minerva at Tegea, and
assisted in the bas-reliefs of the mausoleum at Halicarnassus. The
famous group of Niobe and her children is supposed to have been the
work of Scopas.

“Praxiteles,” prax-it´e-les. Born at Athens B. C. 392. He worked
in both marble and bronze. About fifty different works by him are
mentioned. First in fame stands the Cnidian Venus, “one of the most
famous art creations of antiquity.” Apollo as the lizard-killer, his
faun and a representation of Eros are probably best-known.

“Nereid,” nē´re-id. A sea nymph.

“Mænad,” mæ´nad. A priestess or votary of Bacchus.

P. 76, c. 2.—“Toro Farnese” or Farnese Bull. Was discovered in the
sixteenth century and is now in the Naples museum. It represents the
sons of Antiope tying Dirce to a bull by which she is to be dragged to
death. The work when discovered went to the Farnese palace in Rome,
hence the name of Farnese bull.

“Laocoon,” la-oc´o-on. One of the chief groups in the Vatican
collection; discovered at Rome in 1506. Laocoon was a priest of Apollo,
who having blasphemed the god was destroyed at the altar with his two
sons by a serpent sent by the deity.

“Niobe,” ni´o-be. The group of Niobe and her children was probably
first an ornament of the pediment of a temple. The subject is the
vengeance of Apollo and Artemis upon the Theban queen Niobe, who had
boasted because of her fourteen children, that she was superior to Leda
who had but two. As a punishment all her children were destroyed.

“Pyromachus,” py-rom´a-chus.

“Æsculapius,” æs-cu-la´pi-us. The god of the medical art.

“Apollo Belvedere,” bel-vā-dā´rā, or bĕl=´=ve-deer´. This statue by
many is considered the greatest existing work of ancient art. The
subject is the god Apollo at the moment of his victory over the Python.
It was discovered in 1503, and takes its name from its position in the
belvedere of the Vatican, a gallery or open corridor of the Vatican
which is called _belvedere_, (beautiful view) from the fine views it
commands. It is of heroic size, and is considered the very type of
manly beauty.

P. 77, c. 1.—“Torus,” to´rus. A large moulding used in the base of
columns.

“Mæcenas,” mæ-ce´nas. (B. C. 73?-8.) A Roman statesman. His fame rests
on his patronage of literature. He was a patron of both Horace and
Virgil.

“Tivoli,” tiv´o-le.

“Varro.” (B. C. 116-28.) “The most learned of the Romans and the most
voluminous of Roman writers.” He composed no less than 490 books; but
two of these have come down to us.

“Arcesilaus,” ar-ces=´=i-la´us.

“Genetrix.” A mother.

“Septimius Severus,” sep-tim´i-us se-ve´rus. (A. D. 146-211.) Roman
Emperor.


AMERICAN LITERATURE.

P. 77, c. 2.—“Sydney Smith.” (1771-1845.) Educated at Oxford, he took
orders and became a curate in 1794. Afterward he taught, and in 1802
assisted in establishing the _Edinburgh Review_, of which he was the
first editor. Although he had charge, during his life, of various
parishes, he was active in literary work; for twenty-five years he
contributed to the _Edinburgh Review_; he published “Sketches of Moral
Philosophy,” several volumes of sermons, papers on “American Debt,” and
many miscellaneous articles, all characterized by humor and sound sense.

“Kaimes,” or Kames, kāmz. (1696-1782.) A Scottish jurist, educated at
Edinburgh, and for thirty years practiced law; was then made Lord Chief
Justice. He wrote many works on law, metaphysics, criticism, etc.

“Davy.” (1778-1829.) The English chemist. His attention was first
directed to chemistry by his medical studies, and he made such progress
in original investigation that at twenty-three he was made lecturer on
chemistry in the Royal Society of London. In 1817 he became a member
of the French Institute, and his reputation as a chemist was second to
that of no one in Europe. He wrote much and among his discoveries were
the bases potassium, sodium, and iodine as a simple substance. His most
valuable invention was the miner’s safety lamp.

“Jeffrey.” (1773-1850.) Educated for the law, but was deeply interested
in literature. After being admitted to the bar this division of
interest for a long time hindered his success. He was one of the
original founders of the _Edinburgh Review_, and became its editor
with the fourth number. He soon made the magazine an organ of liberal
thought on every theme. His most valuable contributions were his
literary criticisms. His work at the bar improved with his literary
ability, and in 1834 he was made a judge, a position he held until his
death.

“Passy,” päs=´=se´.

P. 78, c. 1.—“Bancroft,” băng´kroft. (1800.) See American Literature.

“Rufus King.” (1755-1827.) American statesman.

“Everett.” (1794-1865.) American orator and statesman.

P. 78, c. 2.—“Hessian,” hĕsh´an. The troops were from Hesse-Cassel. The
king, Frederick II., between 1776 and 1784, received over £3,000,000 by
hiring these soldiers to the English government to fight against the
Americans.

“Lanspach,” lanz´päk; “Kniphausen,” knip´how=´=zen.

P. 79, c. 1.—“Brougham,” broo´am. (1779-1868.) A British statesman
and author. After leaving school he spent some time in traveling
and writing before being admitted to the bar. In 1810 he entered
Parliament, and his first resolution was to petition the king to
abolish slavery. From this time he was allied with the reforms of the
age: the emancipation of Roman Catholics, government reforms, etc. The
education of working people and charity schemes received the aid of his
pen and voice, and he was instrumental in founding several societies
since very powerful. In 1834 the change of ministry ended his official
life, but his interest and zeal in public works never ceased.




TRICKS OF THE CONJURORS.

By THOMAS FROST.

The dense ignorance which prevailed during the seventeenth century
on the subject of conjuring, as the word is now understood, would be
scarcely credible at the present day, if instances did not even now
occur at intervals to show that there are still minds which the light
of knowledge has not yet penetrated. Books did not reach the masses in
those days, and hence the beginning of the eighteenth century found
people as ready to drown a wizard as their ancestors had been.

A book which was published in 1716, by Richard Neve, whose name is the
first which we meet with in the conjuring annals of the eighteenth
century, bears traces of the lingering fear of diabolical agency
which still infected the minds of the people. Having stated, in his
preface, that his book contained directions for performing thirty-three
legerdemain tricks, besides many arithmetical puzzles and many jests,
Neve says: “I dare not say that I have here set down all that are or
may be performed by legerdemain, but thou hast here the most material
of them; and if thou rightly understandest these, there is not a trick
that any juggler in the world can show thee, but thou shalt be able to
conceive after what manner it is done, if he do it by sleight of hand,
and not by unlawful and detestable means, as too many do at this day.”

The following are a few of the tricks which puzzled the people of
those days: The tricks of the fakirs, or religious mendicants of India
were remarkable. One of these fellows boasted that he would appear at
Amadabant a town about two hundred miles from Surat, within fifteen
days after being buried, ten feet deep, at the latter place. The
Governor of Surat resolved to test the fellow’s powers, and had a grave
dug, in which the fakir placed himself, stipulating that a layer of
reeds should be interposed between his body and the superincumbent
earth, with a space of two feet between his body and the reeds. This
was done, and the grave was then filled up, and a guard was placed at
the spot to prevent trickery.

A large tree stood ten or twelve yards from the grave, and beneath its
shade several fakirs were grouped around a large earthern jar, which
was filled with water. The officer of the guard, suspecting that some
trick was to be played, ordered the jar to be moved, and, this being
done by the soldiers, after some opposition on the part of the fellows
assembled round it, a shaft was discovered, with a subterranean gallery
from its bottom to within two feet of the grave. The impostor was
thereupon made to ascend, and a riot ensued, in which he and several
other persons were slain.

This trick has been repeated several times in India, under different
circumstances, one of the most remarkable instances being that related
by an engineer officer named Boileau, who was employed about forty
years ago in the trigonometrical survey of that country. I shall relate
this story in the officer’s own words, premising that he did not
witness either the interment or the exhumation of the performer, but
was told that they took place in the presence of Esur Lal, one of the
ministers of the Muharwul of Jaisulmer.

“The man is said, by long practice, to have acquired the art of
holding his breath by shutting the mouth, and stopping the interior
opening of the nostrils with his tongue; he also abstains from solid
food for some days previous to his interment, so that he may not be
inconvenienced by the contents of his stomach, while put up in his
narrow grave; and, moreover, he is sewn up in a bag of cloth, and the
cell is lined with masonry, and floored with cloth, that the white ants
and other insects may not easily be able to molest him. The place in
which he was buried at Jaisulmer is a small building about twelve feet
by eight, built of stone; and in the floor was a hole, about three
feet long, two and a half feet wide, and the same depth, or perhaps a
yard deep, in which he was placed in a sitting posture, sewed up in
his shroud, with his feet turned inward toward the stomach, and his
hands also pointed inward toward the chest. Two heavy slabs of stone,
five or six feet long, several inches thick, and broad enough to cover
the mouth of the grave, so that he could not escape, were then placed
over him, and I believe a little earth was plastered over the whole,
so as to make the surface of the grave smooth and compact. The door of
the house was also built up, and people placed outside, that no tricks
might be played, nor deception practised.

“At the expiration of a full month, the walling of the door was broken,
and the buried man dug out of the grave; Trevelyan’s moonshee only
running there in time to see the ripping open of the bag in which the
man had been inclosed. He was taken out in a perfectly senseless state,
his eyes closed, his hands cramped and powerless, his stomach shrunk
very much, and his teeth jammed so fast together that they were forced
to open his mouth with an iron instrument to pour a little water down
his throat. He gradually recovered his senses and the use of his limbs;
and when we went to see him he was sitting up, supported by two men,
and conversed with us in a low, gentle tone of voice, saying that ‘we
might bury him again for a twelvemonth, if we pleased.’”

A conjuror was exhibiting a mimic swan, which floated on real water,
and followed his motions, when the bird suddenly became stationary. He
approached it more closely, but the swan did not move.

“There is a person in the company,” said he, “who understands the
principle upon which this trick is performed, and who is counteracting
me. I appeal to the company whether this is fair, and I beg the
gentleman will desist.”

The trick was performed by magnetism, and the counteracting agency was
a magnet in the pocket of Sir Francis Blake Delaval.

In 1785 the celebrated automatic chess player was first exhibited in
London, having previously been shown in various cities of Germany and
France. It had been invented about fifteen years before by a Hungarian
noble, the Baron von Kempelen, who had until then, however, declined to
permit its exhibition in public. Having witnessed some experiments in
magnetism by a Frenchman, performed before the Court of Maria Theresa,
Kempelen had observed to the empress that he thought himself able to
construct a piece of mechanism the operations of which would be far
more surprising than the experiments they had witnessed. The curiosity
of the empress was excited, and she exacted a promise from Kempelen to
make the attempt. The result was the automatic chess-player.

The figure was of the size of life, dressed as a Turk, and seated
behind a square piece of cabinet work. It was fixed upon castors, so as
to run over the floor, and satisfy beholders that there was no access
to it from below. On the top, in the center, was a fixed chess-board,
toward which the eyes of the figure were directed. Its right hand and
arm were extended toward the board, and its left, somewhat raised, held
a pipe.

The spectators, having examined the figure, the exhibitor wound up
the machinery, placed the cushion under the arm of the figure, and
challenged any gentleman present to play.

The Turk always chose the white men, and made the first move. The
fingers opened as the hand was extended toward the board, and the piece
was deftly picked up, and removed to the proper square. If a false move
was made by its opponent, it tapped on the table impatiently, replaced
the piece, and claimed the move for itself. If a human player hesitated
long over a move, the Turk tapped sharply on the table.

The mind fails to comprehend any mechanism capable of performing with
such accuracy movements which require knowledge and reflection. Beckman
says indeed that a boy was concealed in the figure, and prompted by the
best chess-player whose services the proprietor could obtain.




TALK ABOUT BOOKS.


Oliver Wendell Holmes is a philanthropist in the world of letters.
Since his college days at Harvard, where he distinguished himself by
his contributions to the _Collegian_, he has been giving to his wide
circle of readers strong, clean, good thoughts, mixed with the happiest
humor. His essays have been among the most enjoyable of his writings.
His publishers have recognized this and collected a dozen of them into
“Pages from an Old Volume of Life.”[K] There are many subjects touched,
but his “Phi Beta Kappa” oration of 1870, “Mechanism in Thought and
Morals,” is, perhaps, the best in the collection. The two essays,
written during the war for _The Atlantic_ readers, have a pathos so
touching, it completely does away with the false idea that Holmes is
only a humorist. The volume is a pleasant book for an hour’s reading;
indeed, it may well be classed along with what the author himself has
aptly called “pillow-smoothing authors;” not a dull, heavy book, but
one whose easily-flowing thoughts and continued good humor, quiet the
mind and allow the reader to pass into dreamy forgetfulness.

“Things that have to be done, should be learned by doing them.”
Teachers know as well, perhaps, as any class of people how applicable
this old truism is to their work. They only learn by doing; but too
often they learn the routine, not the science. A little book just
published by A. Lovell & Co.,[L] is sent out in the interest of
thoughtful teaching. There are some excellent development lessons, in
which, simply by questions, and a few simple materials, are developed
ideas of the senses, of forms, flat and solid, ideas of right and
left, etc. A series of lessons on plants and insects have for their
object “to bring the child into contact with nature, to teach him to
observe, think, reason, and to express himself naturally.” The book
contains an excellent paper on the much-discussed “Quincy School
Work.” No new departure in the educational world has caused more talk.
That there is something in it no one doubts that knows of the results
of Superintendent Parker’s system, but how to use it is not easily
explained. This essay will help teachers to understand the method and
show them how it may be used.

During this year Messrs. Harper & Brothers have added to the
biographies of eminent Americans three very valuable works. Following
Mr. Godwin’s life of Bryant, is the “Memoirs of John A. Dix.”[M] In so
pretentious a work as the latter it is unfortunate that the compilation
should have been made by his son. The unbiased, impersonal judgment
that makes a biography trustworthy, is wanting. The fondness of the
writer is continually evident to the reader. The book, however, is
valuable from its fullness and exactness. It is really an epitome of
the history of the most exciting times in our annals. General Dix’s
part in the stirring events before and after the rebellion, his work
as secretary of the treasury, as military commander during the New
York riots in ’63, and his position upon various questions of national
policy, are all explained minutely, and his correspondence is given in
full. Although so voluminous, the work is never fatiguing. A feature
which adds to the interest of the book is the selections from his
translations, sketches, etc. General Dix added to his political and
military ability a literary taste that led him to cultivate letters.
His translations are particularly good. _Stabat Mater_, his son has
seen fit to publish; it seems a pity that _Dies Iræ_ was not also given.

The third of these biographies is the “Life of James Buchanan.”[N]
The author himself says of this work, that “it was followed within a
week by an amount of criticism such as I do not remember to have seen
bestowed on any similar book in the same space of time.” Mr. Curtis was
assigned a task from which most men would have shrunk. Mr. Buchanan’s
administration as President of the United States was not popular. The
belief that he favored the secession of the Southern States has been
general. For his biographer to treat him as a conscientious actor in
the struggle before the war has necessarily entailed criticism. Mr.
Curtis says in his preface, “My estimate of his abilities and powers as
a statesman has arisen with every investigation I have made and it is,
in my judgment, not too much to say of him as a President of the United
States, that he is entitled to stand very high in the catalogue—not
a large one—of those who have had the moral courage to encounter
misrepresentation and obloquy, rather than swerve from the line of
duty which their convictions marked out for them.” Mr. Curtis will not
change the popular opinion on the Buchanan administration, but he must
modify that opinion. This treatment alone makes the work worth reading
by both friend and foe. The most entertaining part of the book is the
voluminous private correspondence, which well portray Mr. Buchanan’s
social and friendly nature.

One of the most delightful books of the season is “Spanish Vistas,”[O]
by Mr. Lathrop. The publishers have given us a genuine _édition de
luxe_, heavy paper, numberless choice illustrations, and beautiful
binding. The book is the joint product of two artists, and if one
wields the quill instead of the pencil he is no less artistic. Two
things are particularly noticeable in Mr. Lathrop’s fine descriptions
of scenery, of architecture, city sights and peasant gatherings: the
skill with which he chooses his point and time of observation, and
his really superior coloring. He knows at what hour the Alhambra will
exercise its supreme spell, where the picturesque vagabondism of these
handsome Spanish rascals will be most striking. To this power add his
ability in colors and there is not a page but glows with effective
pictures. Character sketches enliven the volume. The commonplace
American abroad is introduced in Whetstone, a man of “iron persistence
and intense prejudice,” who continually exclaims “I don’t see what
I came to Spain for. If there ever was a God-forsaken country,” and
who amid the grandeur of the cathedral of Seville squints along the
cornice to see if it is straight. The writer has been ably assisted by
his “Velveteen,” alias Mr. C. S. Reinhart, whose pictures give doubled
value to the book. To all contemplating a trip to Spain the chapter on
“Hints to Travelers” will be valuable.

“Spanish Vistas” represents one class of books on travels. There is
another more interesting to the majority of people, in which facts
and adventures are the chief elements. Such a work is “The Golden
Chersonese,”[P] by Isabella Bird. After having traveled on horseback
through the interior of Japan, and braved the roughest passes of the
Rocky Mountains, and spent six months among the wonders of the Sandwich
Islands, this indefatigable woman penetrates that _terra incognita_,
the Malay Peninsula. The dangers and inconveniences which she undergoes
to get there and get through are remarkable. She sailed from Hong Kong
not long after a party of piratical Chinese, shipping as steerage
passengers on board a river steamer, had massacred the officers and
captured the boat. There was but one English passenger on board besides
herself, and some two thousand Chinese imprisoned in the steerage, an
iron grating over each exit, and an officer ready to shoot the first
man who attempted to force it. The decorations of the saloons consisted
of stands of loaded rifles and unsheathed bayonets. She penetrates the
country where the mosquitoes are a terror to life; snakes, land-leeches
and centipedes are everywhere, but the enthusiastic traveler mentions
them but casually. The dangers and bravery of the writer of course add
piquancy to the interesting description of the scenes, the customs and
peculiarities of “The Golden Chersonese.”

Along with these fresh works comes out a new edition of one of the
pioneers in this field of literature. We refer to Dr. Hayes’ “Arctic
Boat Journey.”[Q] In 1860 it was first published, and speedily took
its place as an authority on Arctic travels. The fresh interest given
to this subject by the sad fate of the “Jeannette” has led to a new
edition. The accounts lose nothing of interest by time, but rather
become clearer from the added knowledge we have of the frozen seas and
icy lands.

No work will be found a more valuable addition to a C. L. S. C. library
than Lübke’s “History of Art.”[R] In connection with the art readings
it will be found invaluable. Since its first publication in 1860 it has
gone through seven editions, and that, too, in critical Germany. The
new translation from the latest German edition is the best.


BOOKS RECEIVED.

“Bible Stories for Young Children,” by Caroline Hoadley. Philadelphia:
J. B. Lippincott. & Co.

“Ancient Egypt in the Light of Modern Discoveries,” by Professor H. S.
Osborn, LL.D. Cincinnati: Robert Clark & Co., 1883.

“Woman and Temperance; or, The Work and the Workers of The Woman’s
Christian Temperance Union,” by Frances E. Willard, President of the W.
C. T. U. Hartford, Conn.: Park Publishing Co., 1883.

“The Soul Winner.” A Sketch of Facts and Incidents in the Life and
Labors of Edmund J. Zard, for sixty-three years a class-leader and
hospital visitor in Philadelphia. By his sister, Mrs. Mary D. James.
New York: Phillip & Hunt; Cincinnati: Walden & Stowe, 1883.

“The Preacher and His Sermon.” A Treatise on Homiletics. By Rev. John
W. Etter, B.D. Dayton, O.: United Brethren Publishing House, 1883.

“Seven Stories, with Basement and Attic.” By the author of “Reveries of
a Bachelor.” New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1884.

“Reveries of A Bachelor; or, A Book of the Heart,” by Ik Marvel. New
and revised edition. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1884.

“The Story of Roland,” by James Baldwin. New York: Charles Scribner’s
Sons, 1883.

“Our Young Folks’ Plutarch;” edited by Rosalie Kaufman. Philadelphia:
J. B. Lippincott & Co., 1883.

“Young Folks’ Whys and Wherefores.” A Story by Uncle Lawrence.
Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott & Co., 1884.

“Mrs. Gilpin’s Frugalities.” Remnants, and Two Hundred Ways of using
them. By Susan Anna Brown, author of “The Book of Forty Puddings.” New
York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1883.

FOOTNOTES:

[K] Pages from an Old Volume of Life; a collection of essays
(1857-1881) by Oliver Wendell Holmes. Boston: Houghton, Mifflin & Co.,
1883.

[L] Development Lessons for Teachers, by Esmond V. DeGraff and Margaret
K. Smith. New York: H. Lovell & Co., 1883.

[M] Memoirs of John A. Dix; compiled by his son, Morgan Dix. In two
volumes. New York, Harper & Brothers, 1883.

[N] Life of James Buchanan, Fifteenth President of the United States.
By George Ticknor Curtis. In two volumes. New York: Harper & Brothers,
1883.

[O] Spanish Vistas, by George Parsons Lathrop, illustrated by Charles
S. Reinhart. New York: Harper & Brothers, 1883.

[P] The Golden Chersonese, by Isabella Bird. New York: G. P. Putnam’s
Sons, 1883.

[Q] An Arctic Boat Journey in the Autumn of 1854, by Isaac I. Hayes, M.
D. New edition, enlarged and illustrated. Boston: Houghton, Mifflin &
Company, 1883.

[R] Outlines of the History of Art, by Dr. Wilhelm Lübke. A new
translation from the seventh German edition, edited by Clarence Cook.
New York: Dodd, Mead & Co., 1881.





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THE CHAUTAUQUAN.

1883-1884.


The Fourth Volume Begins with October, 1883.

A monthly magazine, 76 pages, ten numbers in the volume, beginning with
October and closing with July.


THE CHAUTAUQUAN

is the official organ of the C. L. S. C., adopted by the Rev. J. H.
Vincent, D.D., Lewis Miller, Esq., Lyman Abbott, D.D., Bishop H. W.
Warren, D.D., Prof. W. C. Wilkinson, D.D., and Rev. J. M. Gibson, D.D.,
Counselors of the C. L. S. C.

One-half of the “Required Readings” in the C. L. S. C. course of study
for 1883-84 will be published only in THE CHAUTAUQUAN.

Our columns will contain articles on Roman, German, French and American
History, together with “Sunday Readings,” articles on Political
Economy, Civil Law, Physical Science, Sculpture and Sculptors, Painting
and Painters, Architecture and Architects.

Dr. J. H. Vincent will continue his department of C. L. S. C. Work.

We shall publish “_Questions and Answers_” on every book in the course
of study for the year. The work of each week and month will be divided
for the convenience of our readers. Stenographic reports of the
“Round-Tables” held in the Hall of Philosophy during August will be
given.

Special features of this volume will be the “C. L. S. C. Testimony” and
“Local Circles.”


THE EDITOR’S OUTLOOK, EDITOR’S NOTE-BOOK AND EDITOR’S TABLE,

WILL BE IMPROVED.

The new department of _Notes on the Required Readings_ will be
continued. The notes have met with universal favor, and will be
improved the coming year.

Miscellaneous articles on Travel, Science, Philosophy, Literature,
Religion, Art, etc., will be prepared to meet the needs of our readers.

Prof. Wallace Bruce will furnish a series of ten articles, especially
for this Magazine, on Sir Walter Scott’s “Waverley Novels,” in which
he will give our readers a comprehensive view of the writings of this
prince of novelists.

Rev. Dr. J. H. Vincent, Rev. Dr. G. M. Steele, Prof. W. C. Wilkinson,
D.D., Prof. W. G. Williams, A.M., Bishop H. W. Warren, A. M. Martin,
Esq., Rev. C. E. Hall, A.M., Rev. E. D. McCreary, A.M., and others,
will contribute to the current volume.

The character of THE CHAUTAUQUAN in the past is our best promise of
what we shall do for our readers in the future.


    THE CHAUTAUQUAN, one year,                         $1.50


    CLUB RATES FOR THE CHAUTAUQUAN.

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Remittances should be made by postoffice money order on Meadville, or
draft on New York, Philadelphia or Pittsburgh, to avoid loss. Address,

    THEODORE L. FLOOD,
    Editor and Proprietor,
    MEADVILLE, PA.

Complete sets of the _Chautauqua Assembly Herald_ for 1883 furnished at
$1.00.




CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS’ NEW BOOKS.


    =Biblical Study.= Its Principles, Methods, and a
    History of its Branches. Together with a Catalogue of
    a Reference Library of Biblical Study. By CHARLES A.
    BRIGGS, D.D., Professor of Hebrew and Cognate Languages
    in Union Theological Seminary. 1 vol. 12mo, $2.50.

Professor Briggs’ book is admirably adapted for the use of the great
number of readers and Bible students who desire to know the results
of the most recent investigation and the best modern scholarship in
the field of Biblical Study. Without such a guide it is impossible to
comprehend the discussions which now agitate the religious world as
to the canon, the languages, the style, the text, the interpretation,
and the criticism of Scripture. Each of these departments, with other
kindred topics, is treated in a brief but thorough and comprehensive
manner, and their history and literature are presented together with
their present aspect.

    =The Scriptural Idea of Man.= By MARK HOPKINS, D.D.,
    LL.D., 1 vol., 12mo, $1.00.

“We wish every theological student in the land might have the chance,
at least, of reading this book. The doctrines of the Bible in relation
to man in his original nature have seldom been more powerfully
enforced, and the different schools of modern infidelity have seldom
been exposed more completely in all their weakness. It is like taking a
tonic or a breath of mountain air for one to listen to such teachings
as the pen of Doctor Hopkins here gives to the younger race of
ministers.”—_The Christian Intelligencer._

    =The Grounds of Theistic and Christian Belief.=
    By GEORGE P. FISHER, D.D., LL.D., Professor of
    Ecclesiastical History in Yale College, 1 vol., crown
    8vo. $2.50.

This volume embraces a discussion of the evidences of both natural and
revealed religion, and prominence is given to topics having special
interest at present from their connection with modern theories and
difficulties. Professor Fisher’s learning, skill in argument, and
power of language have given him the position of one of the foremost
defenders of the faith now living, and this volume will be useful to
many in clearing up perplexities and throwing new light upon the nature
of the Christian faith and its relation to modern thought.

    =Christian Charity in the Ancient Church.= By
    Dr. GERHARD UHLHORN, author of “The Conflict of
    Christianity with Heathenism.” 1 vol. crown 8vo, $2.50.

Dr. Uhlhorn is favorably known on this side of the Atlantic by his able
and fascinating treatment of one of the most important chapters in
history, “The Conflict of Christianity with Heathenism.”

    =The Life of Luther.= By JULIUS KOSTLIN, Professor
    in the University of Halle. With more than 60
    illustrations from original portraits, documents, etc.
    1 vol. 8vo.

“At last we have a life of Luther which deserves the name.... The Herr
Kostlin, in a single well-composed volume, has produced a picture which
leaves little to be desired. A student who has read these six hundred
pages attentively will have no question left to ask.”—JAMES ANTHONY
FROUDE in _The Contemporary Review_.

    =The Middle Kingdom.= A survey of the Geography,
    Government, Literature, Social Life, Arts, and History
    of the Chinese Empire and its inhabitants. With
    illustrations and a new map of the Empire. By S. WELLS
    WILLIAMS, D.D., LL.D. 2 vols. royal 8vo, $9.00.

This new issue of Dr. S. Wells Williams’s standard and important work,
“The Middle Kingdom,” is practically a new book. The text of the old
edition has been largely rewritten, and the work has been expanded so
as to include a vast amount of new material collected by Dr. Williams
during the later years of his residence in China, as well as the most
recent information regarding all the departments of the Empire.

    =The Story of Roland.= By JAMES BALDWIN. With a series
    of illustrations by R. B. Birch. 1 vol. square 12mo,
    $2.00.

This volume is intended as a companion to “The Story of Siegfried.” As
“Siegfried” was an adaptation of Northern myths and romances to the
wants and understanding of young readers, so is this story a similar
adaptation of the Middle Age romances relating to Charlemagne and his
paladins.

    =The Hoosier School-Boy.= By EDWARD EGGLESTON, author
    of “The Hoosier School-Master,” etc. With full-page
    illustrations. 1 vol. 12mo, $1.00.

“Those who have read ‘The Hoosier School-master’—and who has not?—will
feel that they must have this companion volume. Mr. Eggleston is a
writer of very charming stories of a peculiar character. His stories
always mean something, and are pervaded by a Christian tone of thought
and feeling.”—_Christian Secretary, Hartford._

    =Mrs. Gilpin’s Frugalities.= Remnants, and 200 Ways of
    Using Them. By SUSAN ANNA BROWN, author of “The Book of
    Forty Puddings.” 1 vol. illuminated, $1.

This little volume, which in the range of cook-book literature occupies
a new and unoccupied field, aims to combat the spirit of wastefulness
that is the besetting sin of American housekeeping. Miss Brown provides
a multitude of receipts for transforming these remnants into savory and
nutritious _plats_, side dishes, entrees, etc. Some of these receipts
are from the French, but most of them are from the author’s own
experiments.


    _These books are for sale by all book-sellers, or will
    be sent, post-paid, on receipt of price._

    CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS, Publishers,
    743 and 745 Broadway, New York.

       *       *       *       *       *

Transcriber’s Note:

Obvious punctuation errors repaired.

Page 66, “Muremburg” changed to “Nuremburg” (of Nuremburg, is now)

Page 81, “Lybia” changed to “Libya” (deserts of Libya, there dwelt)

Page 82, “Fresho” changed to “Fresno” (four chief towns, Fresno)

Page 88, “Propylænm” changed to “Propylæum” (the Propylæum and enter)

Page 97, “ti” changed to “it” (huzzaing for me; it)

Page 98, stanza break placed between first and second stanza of poem.

Page 103, “Lousta” changed to “Louisa” (Lousia E. French)

Page 108, “be” changed to “he” (he came and gave)

Page 109, “invested” changed to “infested” (earliest times infested)

Page 116, “city” changed to “City” (New York City to introduce)

Page 128, “cannon” changed to “canon” (as to the canon)

Page 128, “Ulhorn” changed to “Uhlhorn” (Dr. Uhlhorn is favorably)

Page 128, “adaption” changed to “adaptation” (an adaptation of Northern)