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D0&Min £• 2 ? 2 5 f £2 3 i.
MRS. A. P. HILL,
Editress.
Thr. attention of all housekeeper* i* invited to this Depart
ment, and the Editress urges them to send her copies of
tried receipts. Let us make this an interesting and prof
itable Department.
WHAT SHALL THE SICK EAT I
The question is often asked of the physician
by the sick, “What do you wish me to eat?” Dr.
Kitchener gives a pertinent answer: “It is not
so much the article eaten as the quantity and
quality. The most judicious choice of food will
avail nothing unless the culinary preparation of
it he equally judicious. How often is the skill
of a pains-taking physician counteracted by want
of corresponding attention to the preparation of
food, and the poor patient is distressed by indi
gestion. ”
A young physician of my acquaintance re
turned from a visit to one of his patients, an
elderly lady suffering from chronic dyspepsia.
His face wore a very discouraged look, and in
answer to my inquiry as to the condition of the
sick person, he replied:
“I may as well give up the case; I can do no
good.”
“ Have any new symptoms come up?” I asked,
remembering that when first called in he was
quite hopeful of being able to afford relief.
“No; but this evening my call was made
about supper-time, and I could not well refuse
the pressing invitation to remain and take a
family meal. Biscuits were handed, black and
blistered, and I found upon trial that they were
heavy as putty, and about as digestible. My
politeness would not go the length of eating
scorched dough. After being very liberally
helped to fried ham swimming in grease, I ac
cepted with a sense of relief some kind of pre
paration of corn-meal, at the same time remark
ing to my host, that he might not be offended at
my evident neglect of the biscuit, ‘ I am partic
ularly fond of corn-bread.’ But oh, horror! I
had, to use a familiar proverb, ‘jumped out of
the frying-pan into the fire; for this was sodden
and sour. But as I was ‘particularly fond of
corn-bread,' my hospitable entertainer pressed it
upon me; and there was no way of escape,—eat
it I must, or wound the feelings of a worthy
man. Now, if I feel so uncomfortable from eat
ing only a few ounces of such food, what chance
is there to relieve one who must starve or eat
pounds of it—every mouthful of which increases
the disease? You will now understand why I
threaten to give up my patient; for I think that
the physician who holds on to a case for the
mere purpose of increasing his fee, is dishonor
able.”
“Did the family eat?” I asked.
“Eat? I should think they did—voraciously—
even the children, and they have a bloated, blood
less look.”
By way of comforting him, I laughingly said:
“Well, just be patient, and you will have all
the family upon your hands for medical treat
ment.”
“The Fates forbid,' was the reply.
No doubt all physicians have some of this
kind of experience, where their most skillful
efforts to cure disease are frustrated by murder
ous cooking. In the words of an author, “How
much waste of the good gifts of Providence would
be spared, and how much of the national disease
of dyspepsia would vanish, if only half the
thought were given to the art of preparing food
for the table, which is devoted to the style and
make of dress.”
ANSWERS TO CORRESPONDENTS.
“Bear Editress,—What is your authority for
using ‘spoonfuls’? What do you mean by
‘Ampliitrion of the feast’? Ignoramus.”
Answer.—1. I will simply refer you to Gould
Brown, who says: “Compounds ending in fid, I
and all those in which the principal word is put
last, form the plural in the same manner as other
nouns, as handfuls, spoonfuls,” etc. I certainly !
meant one spoon in measuring; more would have j
been unnecessary and inconvenient. 2. “Giver '
of the feast ” is meant.
“Dear Madam,—I see that your readers are
invited, or rather permitted, to seek through
your columns information on any subject. I
avail myself of this privilege. I have so many
questions to ask, I am embarrassed as to which
I shall first propound. Some people might
accuse me of an unusual amount of curiosity,
but I am sure this state of mind grows out of an !
intense thirst for knowledge, and as such you
will consider it laudable. Whilst stitching away
on a shirt, with the machine our grandmothers
used, it occurred to me to ask you why thimbles
were so called ? Eva. ”
Answer.—Some authorities give the English
credit for inventing this protection to the finger,
others attribute it to the industrious Germans;
but all agree that they were worn first on the i
thumb,—why, • I have never seen stated,—and
called "thumb-bells,” which was easily contracted
to "thimble.” I hope this explanation is sufii- '
eiently satisfactory to encourage you to perse- j
vere in your “search after knowledge.”
“ Dear Madam.—“I see from the Atlanta papers
that the Irish citizens are intending to observe
St. Patrick’s Day with unusual display. When
is St. Patrick's Day ? And why do they wear I
green on that day ? Please inform A Rustic. ” j
Answer.—The seventeenth of March is St. Pat
rick’s Day. In 433, A. D.. he was sent as a mis
sionary to the Irish, who were then pagans. A
youth named Benignus accompanied St. Patrick, j
He greatly aided in gaining the good will of the
people by his sweet singing. It was very diffi
cult to make these people understand the doc
trine of the “Trinity." Believing that God was
everywhere, the missionary looked abroad for
some object in nature to illustrate the doctrine
he wished to explain to them. Seeing a sham
rock, or treefoil, he exclaimed: “Is it not as pos
sible for the Father, Son. and Holy Ghost to
exist in one person as for these three leaves to
grow upon one leaf-stalk?” The illustration made
the doctrine plain.—since which time the sham
rock and green have been adopted as the national
mbol and color. St. Patrick died at Down, in
Ireland, A. D. 462.
BILL-OF-FA RE FOR TUESDAY.
BREAKFAST.
Krokile. Sausage. Pigs’ feet fried in batter. Mutton
chops. Baked omelet. Irish potatoes sliced, stewed, and
seasoned with cream and butter. Hominy, or oat-meal
mush. Plain biscuit. Waffles. Milk toast. Cold light-
bread.
DINNER.
(Soup is the preface to the dinner.1 Soup a la Julienne.
Boiled leg of mutton with egg, or caper sauce. Boast
pork. Gipsy stew. Turnips. Irish and sweet potatoes.
Canned tomatoes. Boiled onions. Pickles. Bice omelet.
Dessert—Mince or fruit pie. Quick pudding. Boiled cus
tard. Jellies or preserves. Nuts. Coffee.
TEA.
Grated ham, or any cold meats left from dinner. Quails
or birds on toast. Sally Lunn. Yeast powder biscuit.
Souffle wafers. Chocolate, or cocoanut cake. Ambrosia.
Tea and coffee.
RECEIPTS.
Krokile.—To mince cold meat of any kind add
cold gravy; break in very small pieces, or grate
as much cracker as meat; three eggs beaten to
gether, butter, pepper and salt: stir all well to
the meat; pour over sufficient water to cover the
mixture—add a little onion, if liked: sprinkle
over the top grated cracker; bake just long
enough to brown—a few minutes will be suffi
cient.
Baked Omelet—Boil one pint of milk and drop
into it one tea-spoonful of butter: mix to a paste
with cold milk a table-spoonful of flour, and stir
to the boiling milk. Beat eight eggs together,
and pour the milk to them, stirring briskly; salt
and pepper to taste. Butter a fire-proof dish;
pour in the mixture, and bake in a quick oven
until a light-brown color; watch carefully—too
much baking will spoil it.
Soup a la Julienne.—Cut up three carrots, two
turnips, a quarter of a head of cabbage or let
tuce, one white onion, two Irish potatoes, six
heads of celery; boil a good shank-bone of beef
or veal; to a half gallon of this broth add the
vegetables, and boil until they are done. Skim
the soup well; add salt, but not pepper—this
can be used ex tempore and as suits individual
taste.
Mutton Sauce ( Egg) — Very Simple.—Half pint
of the mutton broth when sufficiently boiled;
put it in a stew-pan; add two table-spoonfuls of
butter, half a tea-cup of sweet milk; make a
paste of one table-spoonful of flour and a little
cold milk. As the broth boils, add the flour
paste: season with salt. Have four hard-boiled
eggs chopped fine; lay them in the bottom of
the tureen, and just before serving pour the
broth over the eggs. Capers may be used if
preferred, and a sufficient quantity made to pour
a part over the mutton.
Gipsy Stew.—Soak a tumbler full of white field
peas an hour; cut fine half a head of cabbage, a
carrot, turnip, two onions, parsley; two cloves
of garlic, if the flavor is liked; four stalks of
celery, if convenient; spices, if liked; pepper
and salt. Fry four ounces of salt pork; add to
it two pounds of fresh beef, mutton, veal or ven
ison, and birds, all cut up; put all the meat in a
pot or stew-pan, and just cover with water; let
it stew half an hour; skim well, and then add
the vegetables, stirring gently until thoroughly
done; add boiling water to keep it covered, but
no more. It will probably be rich enough with
out butter; if not, a little may be added.
To Boil Bice.—Rub the rice through several
waters, to remove the glue. A vessel lined with
porcelain is best for boiling. Put the rice in
the stew-pan after it is well washed, and cover it
with boiling water; stew a quarter of an hour;
empty it in a cullender, and pour over cold
water; shake the vessel well until the water all
runs out; then pour over hot water, and after
this has dripped through, set the cullender open
on a warm part of the stove; boil salt in the
water. If these directions are followed, the rice
will be white and dry. The omelet is a nice,
economical dish; for making it, see page 245 of
Mrs. Hill’s cook book.
Quick Pudding.—Soften as much sponge cake
as you wish to use with hot, rich sweet milk—let
it soak. Just before dinner make a boiled cus
tard of the yolks of the eggs, and pour it hot
over the cake; beat it well; season to taste; bake
until firm. Put a marengue over the custard.
Make the marengue by whipping the whites to
a stiff froth; add a table-spoonful of pulverized
sugar for each egg; flavor. Better eaten with
sauce.
Souffle Wafers.—Rub into a quart of flour four
ounces of butter; mix with sweet milk; roll
thin; bake quick. These may be fried, and are
then called puff's.
Chocolate Cake.—One cup of sugar, two eggs,
half cup of butter, the same of sweet, milk, two
cups of flour, two tea-spoonfuls of yeast powder;
bake this in a pan rather shallow. When cold,
split the cake in half carefully without injuring
the shape. Make a frosting or custard and place
between the cakes; ice the top and sides of the
cake.
Frosting. —The whites of three eggs beaten to
a stiff froth; a cup and a half of white sugar;
six table-spoonfuls of sweet, grated chocolate;
beat until thick; flavor with vanilla.
Chocolate Custard.—One cup of sweet choco
late, the same of white sugar and sweet milk,
the white of one egg beaten; mix and boil until
like custard; flavor with vanilla. When cold,
spread between the cake. It may be iced.
Cocoanut Cake.—A white cake is best for this.
Some excellent receipts for this cake may be
found in Mrs. Hill's cook book. Cut the cake
in four pieces, but without injuring the shape.
Make the frosting by any good receipt,—I prefer
the boiled icing No. 1 in my cook book; reserve
part of this icing for the outside, and in the re
mainder stir grated cocoanut to make it as thick
and rich as desired. The cocoanut may be scalded
in milk, which should be drained from it before
being stirred to the icing; this is put between
the slices of cake. A rough icing may be made
by adding grated cocoanut to all the icing, and
using it for the outside as well as between the
slices. Flavor with lemon or vanilla.
“Courage,” says Sancho Panza, “supports a
man in time of danger, but it is the stomach
that supports his courage.”
[For The Sutinv South.]
THACKERAY.
Why His Memory Should be Dear to Amer
icans, and Especially mo to Southerner*.
BY G. C. PLAYER.
This may be illustrated, in part, by comparing
his course in regard to America with that of his
distinguished friend, Charles Dickens.
As many know. Dickens, Thackeray and Bul-
wer constituted a trio at the head of late English
literature. The last, with more versatility than
either of the others, has never written anything
unfriendly to our country that we have seen.
But Dickens visited it years ago, soon after he
attained celebrity; and he was received in one
of our leading cities, by some enthusiastic young
men, with an abject homage which ought at least
to have won his pity and forbearance. But in
his novel of “Martin Chuzzlewit,”—in which
Martin, the hero, comes to the United States,
hoping to repair a shattered fortune, and is made
the mouth-piece of the author on the affairs of
the country generally,—disgust and contempt
are expressed, of greater bitterness and longer
drawn out than any author, perhaps, of such
rank has ever indulged in. The ship had scarcely
anchored in New Y'ork harbor when he began his
abuse of editors and the spirit of the press, from
whence he passsd on in hot haste to the manners
and customs, the hollowness of the republican
ism, the propensity to overreach in trade, the
politicians, the frontier’s-men. and in fact, every
thing. Chuzzlewit’s entire stay, including his
journey to the West and back, is one unbroken
tirade, except where he paused for a derisive
laugh. The people are accused of wide-spread
hypocrisy, of swindling and of black-mailing;
and not content with scourging all the present
with his fury, he digressed to draw dark forebod
ings of the future.
To those who have not read it, we would say
it is worthy of perusal, as a curious example of
how so great a genius could give so loose a rein
to anger and prejudice.
As the scenes of the above are laid in the
North, the onslaught would have been a good
joke for the South, if he had stopped there.
But, as if with gathered strength from the exer
cise of his rage on that section, he (in his Amer
ican Notes) turned and emptied the vials of his
wrath on our section for her slavery.
He suffered himself to fall into the error so com
mon with the outside world—of confounding
negro slavery to higher races with slavery in the
abstract; and also ignoring the fact that more
crime, degradation, want and irremediable mis
ery could have been found in the purlieus of
London and Liverpool, and the British collier
ies, than in the entire South. He stigmatized it
as the great sin of the world. He seemed to be
reckless as to fanning the already glowing flames
of ignorance, hate and fanaticism. He let him
self be gulled into publishing a long list of atro
cious cruelties alleged to have been practiced
upon slaves, furnished, no doubt, by some abo
lition zealot who (like himself) had never so
journed among slave-holders.
So much for Dickens on America. And we
■ have written it in no spirit of unkindness, be
ing, as we are, of his warmest admirers (as was
Thackeray); but have done it, as was our right
to use the historical fact, to show how very far
he could fall below our author in a profound
and unerring insight into life.
Thackeray visited America twice, and traveled
lecturing through North and South. He who
was so candid in reproof throughout the old
world, uttered no unkind words against our peo
ple or institutions. The scenes of his novel,
“The Virginians,” are laid partly in dear old
Virginia; and in this work, as in others, he dis
plays the faculty he possessed in so high a de
degree (like Scott, Bulwer and Miss Muhlbach)
of entering into the spirit and manner of other
generations and countries. He has described
the colonial life in that State better than any of
our countrymen: the dignified old society; the
frontier life; the poor and the aristocracy; the
slaves and their cordial relations to their mas
ters; the motley' militia organized by T the y'ounger
Warrington, who took the American side in the
Revolutionary' War; how old Braddock, with
the characteristic drunken military arrogance of
those times, snubbed the nascent philosopher,
Frinklin, because he was only a printer; and,
overbearing the remonstrances of the cool and
skillful y'oung Colonel Washington, marched
his army' headlong into the ambuscade of the
Indians. Washington is introduced sparingly
(in a few chapters) in this novel, and surely our
justly-idolized Irving has hardly portrayed this
great patriot in as lofty' colors as did Thackeray',
the foreigner. For this, and the other reasons
just given, it would seem strange not to And
some of his writings in every library' in Virginia.
But we come now to the main reason why
Thackeray is entitled to the warm and lasting
gratitude of our Southern people; and it turns on
his remarkable faculty (already alluded to) of
looking at men and things divested of prejudice
and with a deeper scrutiny than others are capa
ble of. Bear in mind that his experience as a
passionate art-student, conning lineaments, atti
tude and countenance, aided him here again es
sentially. Some years before our civil war, he
made a summer tour by invitation, in a ship in
the Peninsula and Oriental Steam Navigation
Company's service, via Gibraltar and through
the Mediterranean, to the Orient. The trip em
braced, besides other places of great interest,
the following belonging to the Ottoman Empire:
Alexandria and Grand Cairo, in Egypt; Jaffa
and Jerusalem, in Syria; and Smyrna and Con
stantinople He wrote a concise little sketch,
one-fourth the size of most books of travel, de
scribing this tour, which he called, “A Journey
from Cornhill to Cairo,” (Cornhiil being the lit
erary street of London in which he resided.)
It was known to but few, and those mainly
travelers and foreign diplomatists, until this hook
was written, that slavery existed outside of the
Southern States, Cuba and Brazil; and strangely
enough, all the odium was attached to our de
voted section, as if Christendom could not see
the evil in but one country' at a time. But our
author met with it in these venerable and exten
sive dominions of the sultan at every turn; it
was in vogue, as it has been ever since the times
of the Ptolemies and Carthage; at the wonted
season annually, the “straight-nosed” dealers
came down with them from the slave villages of
the interior, pretty much as our Kentucky
brethren bring horses and mules. Some were
disposed of here in the land of the Pharaohs,
while others were passed on for sale into other
portions of the empire. Here are the remarks
he made upon the negro slavery as he met with
it again and again. At Cairo, love of art impell
ing him, he went to see the “desolated, noble
old buildings outside the city, known as the
tombs of the caliphs. Every'"one of these edi
fices, with their domes, and" courts, and min
arets, is strange and beautiful. In one of them
there was an encampment of negro slaves newly
arrived. A series of studies of negroes alone
would form a picture-book delightfully gro
tesque. Some scores of them were huddled
against the sunny wall; two or three of their ■
masters lounged'about the court or lay smoking
upon carpets. There was one of these fellows,
a straight-nosed, ebony-faced Abyssinian, with
an expression of such sinister good-humor in
his handsome face as would form a perfect type
of vallainy. He sat leering at me over his car
pet as I endeavored to get a sketch of that incar
nate rascality.
‘“Give me some money,’ said the fellow. * I
know what yon are about. Von will sell my ;
picture for money' when you get hack to Europe;
give me some of it now.'" * * * *
“Then one of his companions got up and
showed us his black cattle. The male slaves
were chiefly lads, and the women young, well-
formed and abominably hideous; the dealer
pulled her blanket off one of them and bade her
stand up. which she did with a great deal of
shuddering modesty. She was coal-black; her
lips were the size of sausages, her eyes large and
good-humored: the hair or wool on this young
person's head was curled and greased into a
thousand filthy little ringlets. She was evi
dently the beauty of the flock. They are not
unhappy: they look to being bought, as many a
spinster looks to an establishment in England;
once in a family they are kindly treated and well
clothed, and fatten, and are the merriest people
of the whole community.”
Many of the streets of this great “thorough
fare of travel,” Cairo, being too narrow for vehi
cles, those who do not choose to go afoot, ride
on horses or donkeys: and usage gives the privi
lege to those mounted, or their attendants, to
lash those on foot out of the way. He writes:
“The whip is in everybody's hands: the pasha’s
running footman, as he goes hustling through
the bazaar; the doctor's attendant, as he soberly
threads the crowd on his mare: the negro stare,
who is riding by himself, the most insolent of all,
strikes and slashes about icithout mercy, etc.”
On the way to Jerusalem he saw "a negro, of
preternatural ugliness, in a yellow gown, with a
crimson handkerchief streaming over his head,
digging his shovel-spurs into the lean animal he
rode, and driving three others before—swaying
backwards and forwards on his horse, now em
bracing his ears, and now almost under his belly,
screaming yallah, with the most frightful shrieks,
and singing country songs."
On a day of royal procession in Constantino
ple—
“The common women were assembled by
many hundreds; the yak mac, a muslin chin-
cloth which they wear, makes almost every face
look the same; but the eyes and noses of these
beauties are generally visible, and, for the most
part, both these features are good. The jolly
negresses wear the same white vail, but they are
by no means so particular about hiding the
charms of their good-natured black faces, and
they let the cloth blow about as it lists, atui grin
unconfined. Wherever we went the negroes seemed
happy. They have the organ of rhikl-loving; little
creatures were always prattling on their shoul
ders—queer little things in night-gowns of yel
low dimity, with great flowers, and pink, or red,
or yellow shawls, with great eyes glistening un
derneath. Of such the black women seemed
always the happy guardians. I saw one at a
fountain, holding one child in her arms and
giving another a drink, a ragged little beggar—
a sweet and touching picture of black charity.”
In the rejuvenated Egyptian port, Alexandria,
he says:
“The best sight I saw was a negro holiday,
which was celebrated outside the town by a sort
of negro village of huts, swarluing with old,
lean, fat, ugly, infantine happy faces, that Na
ture has smeared with a preparation more black
and durable than Warren’s blacking. * * *
Every one of these jolly faces was on the broad
grin, from the dusky mother to the India-rubber
child sprawling upon her back, etc. * * *
To these dancers a couple of fellows were playing
on a drum and a little banjo. They were sing
ing a chorus which was not only singular and
perfectly marked in the rythm, but exceed
ingly sweet in the tune. They danced in a cir
cle, and performers came trooping from all quar
ters, who fell into the round and began wag
ging their heads and waving their left hands,
and tossing up and down the little thin rods
which they each carried, and all singing to the
very best of their power.
“I saw the chief eunuch of the Grand Turk
at Constantinople pass by, but with what a dif
ferent expression! Though he is one of the
greatest of the great in the Turkish Empire
(ranking with a Cabinet Minister or Lord Cham
berlain in England), his countenance was cloud
ed with care and savage with ennui. Here his
black brethren were ragged, starving and happy;
and I need not tell such a fine moralist as you
are how it is the case, in the white as well as the
black world, that happiness (republican leveler
that does not care a fig for the fashion) often
disdains the turrets of kings, to pay a visit to
the ‘ tabemas pauperum.’
“We went the round of the coffee-houses in
the evening, both the polite Europen places of
resort, where you get ices and the French papers,
and those in the town—where Greeks, Turks and
general company resort, to sit upon uncomfort
able chairs and drink wretchedly muddy coffee,
and to listen to two or three miserable musi
cians, who keep up a variation of howling for
hours together. But the pretty song of the niggers
had spoiled me for that abominable music." (The
Italics are ours.)
The shrewdest and most learned scion of the
oldest and most experienced slave-holding fam
ily of Virginia (nay, the shade of Jefferson arisen)
could not have summed up, more briefly and fit
tingly, negro traits and ways in slavery, than did
this Englishman at a glance,—their easy adapta
tion to this condition of servitude, their thought
less merriment, their imitative insolence, their
good humor, their kindness, their “child-lov
ing,” and their sweet, simple music. And he
wrote this, too, utterly regardless of the power
ful current of public opinion in the opposite
direction at home.
All honor, Southerners, to the practical phi
losopher who, uninvited, uttered so complete a
palliation of the entailed “institution,” for
which it was the fashion with other men to
deride us. Oh, that the Republican statesmen
(so called) could have had a tithe of his wisdom !
Then would they have gone on to a peaceful
termination of slavery, instead of drenching the
country in blood.
[For The Sunny South.]
IS LETTER-WRITING AT AN END?
BY C. WOODWARD HUTSON.
Are the telegram and the postal card really :
going to make an end of letter-writing ? Is pos- j
terity to he deprived of any chance of receiving
the sort of enlightenment about the daily life
and the heart-history of society in our time,
which makes us so thankful to Madame de Sev-
igne and Lady Mary Wortley Montague, Horace
Walpole, Gray, Cowper and Byron, for the way
in which they filled up the historic back-ground
of their days? Or is it only business that will
use the modern improvements, in the long run,
leaving the gossip and the self-revelation, the
jottings-down of witty triflers, the rapid record
of some picturesque event that has escaped the
newspaper reporters, and the confidential sketch
of character, to the dear old time-honored friendly
letter.
Yet again: If the letter-writing of our fore
fathers is to be a lost art, may we still hope, for
the use of future historians and biographers,
and the delectation of readers among our great-
grand-children, such treasures as Pepys’s and
Evelyn’s and Crabb Robinson's diaries, "and Dr.
Thomas Carlyle’s autobiography, and memoirs
like those of the Youngs, and a score more that
will rush to the mind of any one who enjoys
that delightful class of literature, as real and '
far fresher than the life that goes on around
most of us ?
These are questions that may be asked, but
who shall answer them ? There is a great fear
upon the heart of every cultivated man in our
day, that the ways of life have become so terri
bly practical, and the communication between
man and man so practicable, that there will soon
be no leisure left to pause and mark the forms
of the life we are living, and that the manner of
our communication will henceforth he as abrupt
as that short, quick nod of recognition which
the French Revolution (the first of them all) is
said to have brought into fashion. Such, indeed,
are already the tendencies of all intercourse be
tween man and man. Commerce, in every sense
of the word, is the fittest term for it. But how
is it as to the communication between man and
woman, and again, between woman and woman ?
Surely, the oldest and deepest instincts of human
nature must intervene here, and forbid the art
of letter-writing wholly to die out. Wherever
there is a little leisure left in the wild rush and
business-hurry of modern life, there must be
some few men and women left in the gentle eddy
made by the sweep of the current, to think of
little pleasant things to write to one another,
and to put what idle trifles they have to utter
into neat and graceful forms.
To he sure, if the passion of the age for level
ing everything and everybody runs its free
course, we shall not know much difl'erenee be
tween the sexes; there will be no leisure left for
anybody; ltttle things, however pretty, will be
thrown into the mould that is to fashion all
material into the same shapes: and the graceful
will be pooh-pooh'd as of no earthly consequence.
We seem rather to he drifting to that state of
things. But it is to he hoped there will be a halt
called somewhere on this march to the land of
bricks. Indeed, the like has been tried more
than once before in the history of the human
race: and human nature has always been too
strong for the communists. As Horace says,
push out nature with a pitch-fork, and the old
lady 'll be back again in a hurry. They tried
agragrianism in old Rome several times, but it
did not succeed. The leaders in the movement
perished, and those who came into power through
agitating the same popular measures, in a modi
fied form, ended by establishing a plebeian aris
tocracy by the side of the patrician. They tried
compulsory education—a favorite measure with
both the One-man Tyrant and the Mob Tyrant—
and a sort of military commune in Sparta; but
Sparta never accomplished the mighty things
which have made the name of Athens a beauty
and a gloiy for all time. Moreover, she was
beaten in her own peculiar sphere of glory by
the Thebans, as soon as their great leaders had
applied to them the secret of Spartan success—
thorough military discipline.
They tried sofnething of the same kind in
ancient China, and China has ever since remain
ed —China,—a symbol for defeated progress and
stereotyped half-development.
The Christians of the early church began with
a community of goods; hut the life that glowed
in that organization was too heathful for so un
natural a system to last, and the whole principle
lapsed away so silently that no records survive
to tell us how or when it ceased to be operative.
In almost every stirring age, some effort has
been made to reduce the separate elements of
society to parts of a great co-operative machinery;
and in every age the experiment has failed when
ever the God-ordained distinctions of sex and
age and condition were cast out of the account.
The principle of inheritance—that is, the hered-
itariness of qualities physical, mental and moral;
the doctrine of property acquired and inherited,
and the relations of the family, are great facts in
human nature and human history which can
never be disregarded with impunity, and every
revolt against their authority must end in the
overthrow of the system which aims to set them
aside. Hence, when the material progress of
our day would dally with the temptation to util
ize everything under the sun in the same way
and on the same scale, without regard to the
distinctions and the limits appointed by nature,
and would fuse all the social elements in the
same crucible, to be put to the same use, it is
the tool of a limited science, working within a
narrow scope and from a one-sided point of
view; and it breaks in the hands of those who
ignorantly use it thus.
To go back to the trifle which I took as a text
for this little sermon on the drift of modern
thought—the affections and the frailties of hu
manity alike will prove too strong for the busi
ness spirit of our time, in the end, in the matter
of correspondence as well as in greater things.
Mothers will still write fond letters to their ab
sent sons, yearning to be with them in spirit,
and to guide, as of old, the tenor of their ways,
counseling and exhorting, planning for them
and indulging in golden dreams of what they
may accomplish if they will but bestir them
selves and show what is in them, and striving,
by a thousand tender references to the home-
world, to keep their hearts warm to the sweet
influences of that fireside circle in which the
thought of them is ever present. Lovers will
still be penning long epistles in the vain attempt
to express the unutterable emotions which
crowd the soul in so rich an exuberance at that
dawn-tinted time of human experience. Friends
will still be filling many a page with lively non
sense and pleasant chit-chat, exchanging desul
tory reflections on things in general, and re
counting plans and prospects. School-girls will
still be retailing multitudinous gossip and
mingling endless terms of endearment with a
vast assortment of under-scored sentiment; and
prosy old fellows will still be busily explaining
everything in the world to a dozen or so corres
pondents, as if there were not a superfluity of
encyclopedias and popular magazines in the
land, to say nothing of the school-books and the
newspapers.
No, there will be no sensible decay in letter
writing. Paper is cheap now-a-days, and will
become far cheaper in process of time. Postage
has long been no very alarming item of expense
to any but business men and the heads of large
families. The desire to hear and to tell some
new thing, or the old things in one’s own way,
has never been confined to the Athenians, and
seems to be as much a characteristic of man,
woman and child in our time as it ever was in
times past. If it he true that of the making of
books there is no end, it is no less true that of
the writing of letters there is none, nor indeed
ever will be.
Human nature will always he human nature,
and, in spite of telegrams and postal cards, let
ter-writing will not cease.
Shade of Charles Lamb! what would become
of us withont these welcome visitors, solace, as
they are, of many a weary, many a heart-sick
hour?
The following rules were made by a girl in
fashionable society when she went into company:
“To give away more than I spend on myself.
To do all I can for every one at home first, be
fore I go to walk or to parties. At every party
to make one forlorn girl happy, and introduce
her to some pleasant gentleman. To draw other
people out without trying to shine myself. As
soon as I feel that I am talking or acting in such
a way that I should hesitate from shame to pray
at that moment, to leave the room. ”
Peru may yet prove a paradise for the woman
suffrage agitators. A young lady of Cuzco, the
old capitol of Incas, has applied for permission
to study for the degree of doctor of laws. The
Peruvian Minister of Justice has replied that
the laws of the republic recognize no such dif
ference between the sexes as would prevent a
woman being a lawyer.
A missionary in India says that he regards the
conversion of one woman as equal to the con
version of twenty men, so far as their influence
in the propagation of Christianity in that coun
try is concerned.
The wife of MacMahon is very popular amon»
the poor of Paris, to whom she devotes much of
her time and a deal of her pin-money.