The sunny South. (Atlanta, Ga.) 1875-1907, October 16, 1875, Image 2

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water was at the top of the opening. She heard it swashing around in the cave, and half an hour after taking a seat on the shelf, it washed her shoes. Was nature to be less merciful than the savages ? Up came the water around her ankles, and it swashed across the cave until the rocks trembled. Callie had kept a brave heart even after being driven to the shelf, but when it seemed as if she must be drowned, her courage gave way, and she tearfully lamented the fact that she had not trusted herself to the current before the waters entered the cave. There would have been at least a chance of life in that—she had no chance now. She felt the wall on all sides, but it was cold apd smooth, and there was no such thing as climbing higher. (TO BE CONTINUED.) [For The Sunny South.] LITERARY MOSAIC. BY KENNETH Q. There is nothing new under the sun. How many times has that been said? Trite, is it? Truisms are generally so. If it be a truism, I may as well use it; for if I were to cudgel my brains for some other form in which to express the same idea, I might succeed in coining some thing apparently from my own mint, stamped with my own originality. I might then congrat ulate myself as an inventor, a producer. Such, in reality, I should be, provided my coin be not a re-issue of one of an older date, which I have some time previously picked up, laid aside, and forgotten. Still, although I should not recognize it as an old acquaintance, there may be others who would, and immediately call it a counter feit. Such, many contend, is the origin of nu merous apparent “plagiarisms”—what the pres ent refined age sometimes styles literary trans fer work. It seems very probable—very certain, in truth—to those who have studied man’s pecu liar psychological organization, that an idea once imbibed from some external source, should be retained unconsciously, perhaps for years, and finally reproduced through the operation of the laws of association or redintegration, as the legit imate offspring of one’s own faculties. But this will not account for all the seeming literary forgeries. Leaving out of consideration genuine, intentional plagiarisms, you will find another class of works which critics have branded with this pitiless judgment. It is for these tar gets of unjust criticism—these victims of insa tiate vampirism—that I sympathize most deeply. Tell me that the honest work of an honorable man is spurious because, forsooth, some part of it resembles that of a predecessor. Is the re storer of a “lost art” any the less praiseworthy than the first originator? Assuredly, circum stances being equal, the one is as great a discov erer or inventor as the other. Is a man to be stigmatized as a thief because he gives birth to a sentiment which another has uttered a thousan4 years before ? Preposterous ! As well forget a be- gloried Columbus, because the adventurous Scan dinavians, in all probability, reached our conti nent five hundred years before he did. True, there are many minds, but their fundamental laws are the same. This principle of unity in diversity, which resulted in the enthronement language, the first authors had the advantage in priority in time to their successors. Few in num ber, they stepped upon the shores of a new and unexplored land, teeming with a thousand treas ures. mountains and valleys, rich acres and great rivers, hitherto unseen by human eye, but now discovered and claimed for the first time by the pioneers. Since then, this land of letters has become densely populated, and is fast assuming the character of an old, settled country. There are comparatively few undiscovered and unap propriated regions—a very small field for new ex plorations. The majority of the writers of to-day must content themselves in preserving and refin ing the work of our predecessors: in rounding off the angles; in elevating our taste: in popular izing a purer, stronger standard. Undoubtedly, though there are rich domains, new continents in tbe literary world hitherto unheard of, un dream pt of, equaling, surpassing any yet found, awaiting the time and the man. But these Eldo- rados are not for the multitude. Take the work of the modern tale writers. It is very difficult to create anything new in this department. Sift all modern tales; throw out circumstances and individual coloring, and you will scarcely have more than a dozen distinct models, which have been turned and twisted, moulded and remoulded over and over again,— a perfectly legitimate procedure, however, and one which offers a fine field for the exercise of genius. The mere mention of blonde and brunette will call vividly to the mind of the reader the stereotyped description of tbe different styles of beauty. When our heroine speaks, her voice is “silvery,” or like “falling waters;” when she walks, it is the poetry of motion; when she thrums the piano, it is the music of the spheres. She trembles like an aspen leaf, sings like a night ingale. She clings to her king as the vine to the oak, and hand in hand they glide down the stream of time into the ocean of eternity. (I re frain from using quotation marks). When one dies, he launches his barque, or goes down into the valley of the shadow, or the soul is freed from prison, or the body has become food for worms, etc. In parting, a chain is generally broken. Fame is a bubble, or a mountain, or a scroll with letters of fire. Adversity is a cloud, prosperity the sun. Hope is a star or an angel; despair is an abyss or demon. So many winters have frosted the locks of the aged; so many sum mers have passed over the heads of the youthful. Wrinkles on the face are furrows or footprints. Care is cankering or corroding. Houses are stately mansions, vineland cottages, or humble hovels. Ivy always covers crumbling ruins. Mountains kiss the skies; valleys nestle between; rivers wind like a silver thread; frozen streams are bound by winter’s icy chain, or kissed by ‘ his breath. Spring sits in the lap of winter, or dons her robes of green. The world is cold and cruel. A ship walks the water like a thing of life; a railroad engine is an iron horse, or a fiery monster. The best laid plans are frequently nipped in the bud. No one ever heard of the devouring element, the fire-fiend, flood-gates of heaven, fiends in human shape, hellish designs, etc. No one of us has ever been reminded that jealousy is a green-eyed monster; that flowers ! waste their sweetness on the desert air; that Margaret is always rare and pale; that cannons [For The.Sunny South.] WAITING. BY MBS. SALLIE E. BARNARD MAYNARD. I am weary, so weary of waiting For joys that may never be mine— For moments rich freighted with blessings, And suns that for me may not shine. Oh! sad. long withholding of pleasure, Whose cup sparkles near to the lips! Oh! fair, shining stars in the distance, That shadows will surely eclipse! That mirage of beauty. To-morrow, That lures me on life's desert way, Will as fadingly greet my faint vision And melt in the light of To-day. From the hope-bounded isle of the future, The siren song steals to my ear; But tho’ the bright waves wander shoreward, They bear not my frail shallop near. How long, oh! how long ere the promise With lovely fruition shall mate? Thus questions my soul in its sadness, And Faith whispers tenderly, “Wait!” How long, oh! how long must I wrestle With dark and unpitying Fate ? Hope points my glance still to the future, And smilingly bids me to “ Wait!” THE [For The Sunny South.] END UK A .11 NE DAY. BY FAITH MILLS. Dying '. That was the pathetic verdict of the face resting in dreamful quiet on a low sofa in the library between the windows that looked to wards the sea at Vallambrosa, the stately heri tage and home of a stately gentleman, Paul Gra ham. The truth was bitter and palpable even to him—the man who had battled with death for the young life so long—who loved her, his fragile, gifted wife, with supreme, unspeakable tender ness, and to whom the consciousness that she must die came now weighted with an anguish too deep for any words or fall of tears, and so he sat by her side with the little cold hands gath ered in his strong clasp, silently waiting for the end. Outside, the sunshine lay warm and bright on the terrace slopes; the brooding peace of a summer day filled the vast grounds in the dis tance; tbe smile of the sea, the white glory of blossoming meadows, and the beryl gloom of woodlands—a landscape that the artist eye, so soon to close, dwelt on wistfully, the sadness of a great regret in the gaze —the regret of an eter nal farewell. “Paul,” the young wife said, with a sudden brightening of the sensitive, thoughtful face, “I have had my wish,—I have lived to be happy a year. And yesterday, while you were away, I finished the last chapter of my book; my work is all ended.” “And now?” he questioned, in grave tender ness. “I only hope,” she answered, with a glance of wistful meaning, “that there are some lives in the great world, which has praised me so much, who have been lifted, through my agency, out of the grossness of absolute materialism. If I of Reason in the German philosophy, is essen- ; belch; that the sun is the day-god, or king of o tially a correct one. Then, is it not the absurdity ' day; that the moon is pale and fair, or silver; have learned one to aspire, I should be satisfied; " ies to affirm that one intellect can- | .at night broods over the world, or hangs over [f j have awakened in anyayei of all absurdities not independently arrive at the same result that another has reached before it? It is impossible that it frequently should not. Beware, then, how you recklessly call such creations bastards. To do so is, to say the least, an evidence of lament able thoughtlessness, and a virtual affirmation it like a pall, or is wrapped in a sable robe, and pinned back with a star. The season of “commencements”—of school girl essays and collegian’s orations—has just- passed. Being young and inexperienced, they naturally incline to those forms of expression, tfcstra ywtfr,'totally thej^ithjh^pr^n } he l litnrofnrp pnnlfl nnf wif limit frrnco tVondnlotiott Will De literature, could not, without gross fraudulency, compare the cheeks of a lady to sea-shells, or her teeth to pearls. It thus seems to me that there are three classes of literary productions liable to be called trans fer work, viz: intentional plagiarisms, uninten tional plagiarisms, and genuine, original work, similar to, yet wholly independent of, some thing created by others. I have thought it due to those concerned to make these remarks before as'TTS'SMrt'ttfe - themselves—which impression, by the way, is not wholly unwarrantable. The young orator—and the average public speaker may be classed with him—rises, makes an exquisite bow, and regrets that some one more competent than he has not been selected to fill his responsible position. He informs us that he is totally unprepared, and, after a lengthy pro logue, principally apologetic, proceeds to his subject. Ten to one he does not get through a earning for a higher life, I am content.” • The weariness of that which was coming to her was in her voice, but the powerful intellect still held the sovereignty of its sway in the frail form, and the beautiful heroism which had dis tinguished her through all her youth did not de sert her now. face. The translation of the look'was, the mind to the last asserts its rule. “And, Philip, don’t you remember,” the silver tones falter a little, and then went on. “when we used to study together, how often we have paused when troubled by the abstruseness of a thought or a theory, and looking into each other's eyes, have said, ‘Ah ! if we only knew?’ My brother, there will be no need that I should say it ever again after to-night." He took her hand in his at her words, the rev erence of a great regard in his eyes, and he an swered her with a gentleness as supreme and sweet as a woman’s: “Little sister, the memory of those days shall be my inspiration in the future that. I must live without you, and whether I go down in the bat tle of life crowned or crownless, I shall always remember to do my duty because ”—his voice al most failed him in the confession—“I have known you.” An expression of intense gladness came into her face at his words, and with a look he never forgot, she lifted one white hand toward the sun set and said, with pleading earnestness: "Promise, then, that you will meet me beyond earth. ” His creed was very different from hers, and she knew it; but the haughty head went down at last in acquiescence to her wish. For her sake he would try .to go back to the faith of his youth. His friendship was too great for her to allow him to fail her now in any sense, however small; and there was that in his pure, platonic regard which any woman might have found sweet, since he was what he was,—a kingly gentleman who held “the flower of a blameless life ” un challenged before the world. The end was nearer now, and in the luminous sunset silence that filled the room, the two watchers sat by the low couch and waited for it in unspeakable anguish, seeing the dew of death gather on the fair, fine face, its dark gloom in the lustrous eyes, the sensitive mouth quivering now and then with the pain it would not utter. That proud and quiet endurance of suffering was a part of the noble development of her wo manhood—one of the lessons she had taught herself in her lonely youth. Hope Graham had been denied the beautiful boon that is the birth right of all, parental love. Her father was a memory, her mother a dream, and the slight, all-eloquent story of her childhood was orphan age. She had been left to herself, and so she had grown up to be a scholarly, exclusive girl; and there had been no one in the world to whom she could tell the thoughts impersonal and sub lime that came to her—none to whom she could impart the fervid conceptions of her genius, no one to whom the artist soul could turn for com prehension; and so the great, sensitive tide of life had beat and surged within itself “until soon the wound was large enough for death.” Philip’s friendship and Paul’s love had both come too late to save her. For an hour there had been no word spoken in the chamber of death, but now the eyes of the young girl opened in yearning appeal, And dwelt on her husband’s face. “Oh, Paul, the world is nothing to leave; but you—in the dark grave I cannot see you smile.” Her voice was so low and faint that they who heard her thought that she would never speak again. But an instant later the small hands were lifted pleadingly upward, and the words came choked in their utterance from the ashen lips: [For The Sunny South.) LULA’S MARRIAGE. AN EVERY-DAY STORY. ‘Oh! Christ, come tenderly! By thy forsaken sonship in the red, Drear wine-press—by the wilderness outspread, And the lone garden where thine agony Fell from thy brow—by all of those Permitted desolations, comfort mine!*’ And Paul Graham, holding her in the close, softlyJxi dbo still- tender clasp of his arms, looked down on her i V j _ it . J 7 t' in liiai <1 nan mentioning any particular instances, not attempt- Aen . ° ne n fT es a ing, however, to decide to which of the above halt dozen sentent ‘ es before he rolls back the classes they may belong. All will perhaps recognize this in some form: “God no sooner builds a church than the devil puts up a chapel.” Its authorship is attributed by some to the voluminous Defoe, who puts it thus: “ Wherever God creates a house of prayer, The devil is sure to build a chapel there; And 'twill be found, upon examination, The latter has the largest congregation.” Robert Burton, tlieauthor of the quaint” Anat omy of Melancholy,” expressed the very same thought about a hundred years previously, in these words: “Where God hath a temple, the devil will have a chapel.” The Jacula Prudentum contains the same sentiment. Campbell has been accused of plagiarizing in his beautiful lines: “ ’Tis the sunset of life gives us.mvstical lore, • And coming events cast their shadows before.” The foundation for the accusation is in a sen tence of Shelly’s: “Poets are the hierophants of an unappreliended inspiration; the mirrors of the gigantic shadows which futurity casts upon the present.” One writer thinks the poet re ceived the idea from Hebrews x:l—“For the law having the shadow of good things to come, and not the very image of the things,” etc. We can hardly pick up a modern writer without reading this aphorism of Longfellow’s: “Though the mills of God grind slowly, yet they grind ex ceeding small. ” It is said to be a translation from Frederick von Logan, a German. It may also be found in Padre delsla’s Friar Gerund, and so on, perhaps, ad infinitum. “When nature made thee, she broke the mould,” is an Italian proverb. “ Sighing that nature formed but one such man, And broke the die in moulding Sheridan,” is from Byron. Campbell wrote, “Like angel visits, few and far between.” Robert Blair, before him, had it, “Like angel visits, short and far between.” But earlier still, Norris said, “Like angels’ visits, short and bright.” Probably there is no question as to what Frank lin should be called when he copied an allegory from Jeremy Taylor into one of his own works, which, by the way, was quoted by Kairnes and credited to Poor Richard. Innumerable examples might be cited from Shakspeare. In truth, the Bard of Avon was not over conscientious in this matter. “ Man wants but little here below nor, wants that little long,” is from Goldsmith? Young has it, “Man wants but little, nor that little long.” Milton, Dryden, Pope, Moore, not to mention English lesser lights, or American poets, come in for a liberal share of such charges. Only one more. How that diligent detective must have crowed when he succeeded in nail ing the label to Swinburne as the author of this: “ I dare not always touch her, lest the kiss Leave my lips charred.” Wonderful ingenuity ! rare erudition ! He knew then and there the idea was stolen from the de scription of the monkey which “ Married the baboon's sister, Smacked his lips, and then he kissed her Kissed so hard he raised a blister.” But enough of this. It is ridiculous to what an extreme monomaniacs have carried this sub ject. What appears fun to a healthy mind, is to them but foul corruption. It must be admitted, however, that the crea- billowy tide of time, or looks through the dim vista of the ages, to the glorious days of Greece and Rome. He never tires of invoking their heroes, historic and legendary. Their history and mythology are inexhaustible sources of illus tration, and the deeper he draws from them, the abler, in his opinion, is his effort. More recent history is laid under contribution also. Bruce, of spider notoriety, and Cromwell are favorites. Napoleon and Wellington and the sea-girt isle are never forgotten; nor Washington, first in war, etc., the father of his country, which, by the way, is the grandest system of human gov ernment the sun ever shone on. He inevitably steers something through Scylla and Charybdis, probably the ship of state. The Augean stables, the tortures of Tantalus, the sword of Damas cus, the tub of Diogenes, the wealth of Croesus and the gems of Golconda are generally success ful candidates for notice. Some one leaves the plow in the field, shoulders the musket, and swears by several things that the banner which floats above him shall never trail in the dust; that the tyrant must bite the dust; that the shackles of oppression must be broken; and that liberty, the precious heir-loom which our forefathers purchased with their blood, must be transmitted to latest posterity. And when at last the white banners of peace wave from every hill and tower in our broad land, the battle-scarred veteran returns to his home and converts his sword into a plough-share; while the bird of freedom flaps his wings fearlessly over a smiling land, from the Atlantic to the Pacific, from the Androscoggin to the Rio Grande. The speaker will propose to permit any one to make the laws of a people provided he may write its ballads. The lightning must be chained; steam must be harnessed; the course of empire must take its way westward; music must sooth the savage breast; somebody must leave foot-prints on the sands of time, etc., etc. The newspapers set before us the same dish of hash day after day—the seasoning being varied now and then. There is generally no necessity ness, “what you have been to others, the world has told you in its applause; to me”— He hesi tated, and bending forward, took a full-blown white rose from a vase that stood on the low window-sill, and placing it within the palm of the transparent hand he held, he went on speak ing, oh ! how tenderly: “As fair in soul as it is in blossom—as perfect, and pure, and fragrant, your life has been in my home.” This great appreciation of a great nature had always been sweeter than anything else in the world to -this woman of warm, poetic tempera ment; and even now she thanked him with a smile of such deep meaning that he turned away. It was almost a torture that he could not bear, to know what she was to him, and to see her die. She saw his pain, and as if to divert the channel of his thoughts, asked quietly: “Have you telegraphed for Philip and Floyd?” “Yes; they will be here on the four o’clock train. Is there any one else ?” “No; none that I desire to see now. You know they made my world until I found you.” And after that the silence was long between them. But what need was there for words ? Those marvelous, brown, pathetic eyes had read his soul like an open book, and though he made no allusion to it, she felt that the greatness of his suffering was not less than her own—her re nunciation of all joy on earth no more complete and entire. “Ihaxe but one regret,” and now her voice was so low that he had to bend his head to hear, “and that is bitterer than the death which is coming to me. Look in my face, Paul, and tell me what that is. I want one last proof of how completely you understand me.” “That is leaving me.” “Yes; the thought has stabbed me through all the serenity of this hour. And yet, what more could I ask? I have lived to realize all my dreams, and it is sweet, very sweet, to die on a day like this, looking into your eyes. And you know, Paul, God never meant me to live long, because he gave that fatal, sensitive tempera ment ” She stopped, the tears in her eyes, and he knew that it was because of som| memory of how much she had suffered on account of that same temperament; and he thanked God that though the fineness of her nature unfitted her for earth, it fitted her for heaven. Later, when she seemed to sleep, the door opened, and in the perfect silence a man entered and knelt down by the low couch, reading with wistful eyes the mournful annunciation of com- (oftentimes no possibility) to say anything orig- ing death in the beautiful face. A sudden radi- inal, especially in their news columns. Year after year they print the same thing over and over, changed only in dates and circumstances. A re porter who can write a desreiption of a call or a public meeting, can sit in his office and “write up ” a dozen of them without even attending them. I once wanted to publish reports of the commencement exercises of two colleges, both of which oecured on the same evening. I visited one of the institutions and took notes of the pro ceedings. Next morning I procured a programme of the exercises of the other, and from my own knowledge of such entertainments wrote an elab orate report of the proceedings, which was es pecially complimented for its accuracy, fair crit icisms and originality. It would greatly surprise many readers if they knew how much of the matter of their journal was made up in just this manner. Many of our jokes, puns and arguments are but reflections and rehashes of those current a century or two ago. I can only mention the Christian ministry in this connection. Hdw much of originality is there in onr sermons? “ After all,” says George Wakeman, “there is a great deal of nonsense written about originality. The earnest man does not write to show his fel low creatures how great a genius he is, but to do the best he can to interest and reform the tive period in our literature seems rapidly nar- greatest number of his readers. His success in trowing in an inverse proportion to the inorease i this is the measure of the success due him.” Jof writers. In the rough, vigorous youth of our , But (if you can) be original. ance flashed into the room from the setting sun, and Hope awoke, smiling, when she saw the face bent down in grieved tenderness above her own. “Philip, my friend, you have come?” “Yes,” he returned, calmly; “and I should have been here earlier, but I waited for Floyd. She sent me word at the last moment that she could not come. Her father is dangerously ill; nothing less could have kept her from you. ” “Philip,” she said, after a time, a pathetic ring in the clear, sweet voice, “I am very near the infinite of which I used to talk so much in the old days, and I am not afraid.” He had no words with which to answer her, this man held great as an orator and statesman in the world. Proud and self-i. zsciplined as he was, his anguish mastered him. “ Ah ! why should you grieve ?” and while his heart ached under the soft rebuke of her voice, she held up to his glance the white rose which Paul had given her as a symbol of her own soil less existence on earth, and then continued, calmly: “In the blushless birth of this flower there is a secret as inviolable as there is any phase of that something we call life: to-day I cannot fathom it—to-morrow, what shall I not understand of all the mysteries of which time is so pathetically full ? Oh ! believe me, it is not sad, my friend, to die and find out all the mean ing there is in eternity for a soul.” a lid ans werUd her vitheut a falter in liisi deep, sweet-toned voice: “ ‘For I am persuaded that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall bt able to separate us from the love of God, which\is in 1 Christ Jesus our Lord.’” \ The mobile mouth quivered. \ “Enough,” she sighed; and in the dreamy dusk, Hope Graham lay dead in all her girlish grace and perfect loveliness, the kiss of eternity on her brow. AYords miss being pathetic, and there are none with which to tell what this loss was to Paul Graham. His wife a year, and dead ! All the meaning there is in such a loss, of despair and bitterness, he realized as he knelt by the coffin that held his darling, white-robed and ready for i the grave. Every breath that came through his lips-was like a dagger stab of steel through the hurt consciousness of his spirit; and once when his eyes dwelt on the “haunting fairness” of the face sculptured in between folds of misty lace, a great sob shook him from head to foot, and he moaned: “Oh, God ! to lose you !” The one life that had comprehended his in all the unspeakable ways for which we have no words—that would have climbed with him with out faltering to any height—that had given to his very existence an intense, ideal charm—that life was lost to him forever ! His wife had had the genius of a Hypathia, and the world had given to uer its applause; and yet, there had been no law so supreme to her as his will—no joy but in his smile. Their union had been of God—they had felt their oneness—soul had an swered soul, for theirs had been that perfect un derstanding which never exists between any but great natures. Here, in this room, where she had dreamed and written the books that had given her name to the royalty of fame, was it possible she had died ?—here, where she had so often sat at his feet with her bright head leaned against the arm of his chair—silent, when his mood was too grave for conversation, but some times sharing his studies and talking about them with that perfect freedom which his love allowed— glad to follow his guidance into any realm of thought, and gladder still to be won from any opinion of her own by his imperious will and masterful eloquence. And now—oh, God !—the soul that had translated his selfhood so nobly, purely and tenderly, was lost to him forever ! The charm of her presence still lingered in his desolate home, but to-morrow she would be car ried across the threshold where she had so often waited, smiling, for his coming—to-morrow he would be alone in the old house which she had so brightened and left dark—in which she had bloomed out her youth and died. He had the noble strength of a noble nature; because he was a man he could live; and yet every memory of the past came to him like torture] every thought of the future without her bruised his heart like a hammer stroke. It was an anguish beyond words to see her dead under his eyes, and signless as a stone under the warmth of his caresses,—to know that millions of common women lived, while the only life that could understand the deeps and heights of his being was exiled from him forever, and the heart that had beat so nobly in unison with his had hushed its idyl of existence under the iron hand of death. And now, no more until God, who had joined them on earth, gave her back to him in eternity, should he find his wife. The June day had ended. Mrs. Hoge had 'hree pretty little girls of whom she was very proud, although it was her way to talk but little about them, and to dress them with sensible plainness in gingham and merino, with their faces and hands well protected from sun and wind by bonnets and gloves of her own manufacture. Such long sun-bonnets as they were! but when they were taken off it did one’s heart good to see the* fair, healthy skin, the bright eyes, and silky hair that had been sheltered under them. Lula was the oldest. She was four years older than her next sister, and by and by she bloomed unconsciously into lovely womanhood. She was not faultless, like a novel heroine, but as fresh, and fair, and modest-looking as a wild rose just opened under the skies of June. She was an in dustrious little mortal, bustling about daily in the performance of such duties as fall to the lot of farmers’ daughters, and busily plying herneedle in the intervals of time, for she delighted to dress her plump little figure as fashionably as the extent of her means and information would allow. Walter had often noticed the pretty sisters at church, or elsewhere, and once or twice, when he was visiting their father, they had shyly shaken hands with him and talked a little about their childish sports. But one day, while mak ing a business call on their father, he became suddenly conscious- that the young girl who opened the door and said in a lady-like way that “Pa was not at home, but would come in half an hour,” was no longer a child. The brown hair did not ripple about her face and neck as of old, but was put up in some simple way, and a shy, sweet, womanly dignity had taken the place of childish ways. She took him into their little parlor, and while waiting for her father, tried to entertain him with girlish talk about the weather, and other topics of common interest. Walter thought all she said very interesting, and afterwards recalled every word, remember ing especially the smile or look that had accom panied each remark she made. Well, after that, Walter’s visits were more fre quent, and he seemed to have more and more business with Mr. Hoge—nothing to be won dered at, when they followed the same calling, and had dealings with each other; but Walter sometimes made very trifling pretexts for com ing, and remained much longer than was neces sary when Lula was at home. He was always welcome, however, for all the family liked the handsome, pleasant-spoken young man. By and by, people began to say that Walter was really visiting Lula — courting her, the bolder of the gossips proclaimed: and some of the brave ones among them openly assailed him on the subject, hoping to discover the truth; but the laughing glance of his clear eyes met theirs without wavering, as he answered that certainly he went to see Miss Lula—so pretty and inter esting a young lady was not to be passed by; 1 and then he launched out into praises of her younger sisters, and ended by declaring that if he wished to marry, he would think himself very happy to secure the hand of any one of Mr. Hoge’s pretty daughters. So people were left to surmise and talk, which they continued to do until they were quite tired of the subject. Mean while, Walter continued his visits without appa rently bringing matters any nearer to a crisis; and finally, those who were impatient to see the end began to say they did not believe he was courting, after all. But nobody outside of Lula’s home knew ' aught of what transpired there one clxilly even ing, late in autumn, when the young lovers were seated side by side before a blazing fire that cast a cheerful glow over the walls of the little parlor, looking into each other’s eyes, and making won derful discoveries of what was in each other’s hearts. Lula never would tell me just what was said at this interview—very wise in her, no doubt—but she confessed that they found out they loved each other, and were made very i happy by this knowledge; then Walter asked her to be his wife, and when she gave him a timid promise, they were still happier. But unexpected obstacles arose in the pathway of the lovers, who, in their joyous present, were forgetful of the long, care-burdened future. Their desire for a speedy union was remorse lessly frowned upon. Mama said, “too young.” Prudent papa had graver objections. Both said: “You must wait a few years; time will prove your affection.” “ We are young and can wait; we are willing to have our love proved,” answered the lovers; and they did not even think of an elopement, or of allowing their hearts to break. “They may soon forget all about it,” the parents said to each other. “I’ll win her yet,” AValtersaid to himself; and was more diligent in business than ever. “Pa and ma will let us get married some day,” Lula said; so she neither lost her appetite nor her color, nor shunned society, but set herself to learning how to become a true companion and help-mate for a husband; read books and sought friends that would improve her mind and en large her knowledge of life, and at the same time instructed herself in the mysteries of house hold economy. And Walter worked on, earning more and more money to invest in the home that was to be theirs, visiting Lula at home, but seldom offer ing her attention in public. So people said, by and by: “ They will not marry, after all.” Other beaux came around Lula, and she smiled so sweetly, and talked so gaily with them, as if her heart was her own, to give to whomso ever she pleased. Then another sister bloomed into lovely womanhood. She was more beautiful than Lula, and Walter sang her praises so often that the world began to say, .“It was not Lula, but her sister he would marry.” But there is an end to all things, and there came an end to this patient waiting. There came a day when Walter could again ask Mr. Hoge for the hand of his daughter, and receive a willing consent,—when all the clouds that had hung over the pathway of these two devoted lovers quietly rolled away, leaving visible the clear, blue sky. that all the time had smiled be hind them. Then the wedding-day soon came. There was a quiet little party of the nearest and dearest friends of the pretty bride and the hand some bridegroom, and everybody felt glad and happy. And the young couple have launched their boat upon life’s stream, better prepared to steer it through the eddying current because they have waited until their hearts are strong and their hands skillful to manage the oars. While a rag-money fiend was spouting finan cial heresy at a political meeting near Cleveland, Ohio, a burglar broke into his house and stole a bag of gold, which was secreted in an old trunk. Consistencv forbade him to inform the police of his loss, but he sits out upon his stoop of the back-yard, as if he meant to shun the The two men exchanged glances, a hint of society of his fellow-creatures for the balance of Me. Cboll, the celebrated geologist, in his new work on “Climate and Time,” declares that look ing back at the terrestrial phenomena through past ages, we are able to realize from the altered aspects of nature that a great change is in pro gress. At present, the eccentricity of the earth’s orbit is diminishing. In less than 24,000 years it will be as nearly circular as it can ever be. No cycles of extreme heat or cold will occur for the next 150,000 years. We are entering a pe riod of comparatively equable climate, arising from a more uniform distribution of solar heat over the globe. their pride in her flashing across each powerful ] the season. The earliest post-boy we know of is Cadmu3, who carried letters from Phoenicia into Greece.