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The Bojn and Girls Paper.—It ww no
Mistake.—We have received a number of leiters
from Sunny Soulh patrons stating that no Runny
South came to hand last week, but in its stead a
copy of the Boys and Girls of the South, which they
supposed was a mistake. But we beg to say again
that It was not a mistake, but the bright, little paper
wae sent intentionally and our object teas to show you
* copy, hoping you might be sufficiently pleased to
subscribe for it for your children.
Notice to Our Exehanges.-In revising our
very large exchange list for 1879. all papers which
felled to publish ourcheap club rates during Decem
ber were cut off. This was a special request, and we
proposed to club with all our exchanges at a very
low rate. After December it was too We to insert
it. Should any have been overlooked which pub
lished it, they will please send us a marked copy.
Why Women love Itrcss.—Miss Austin—than
whom no female writer has ever more fully under
stood her own sex—says that women love dress, not
as is sometimes supposed, from a desire to appear
well in the sight of men, and still less that they may
please the eyes of other women. For they are aware
that men, while they may admire the general, rare
ly scrutinize the details of a lady's outfit. and they
have wit enough to know that to appear faultless in
attire is far from being the best means of propitia
ting the favor of their own sex. They like to dress^
says she, simply from the pleasure realized from
having on fine clothes. We can hardly accept this
stntament as wholly true. Many styles of dress are
uncomfortable: some are actually torturing. There
must be some stronger motive than a mere childish
ondness for finery to make one wi ling to endure
the agony of a compressed chest and tightly pinch
ed feet. We suspect that in this, as in some o'lier
things in life, there is a mixture of many motives—
a mixture so complicated that the person herself
could not analyzethem.
Behoof Hoy Vows.—We suspect there were few
boys in the days when the rod was an important
and indispensable article of school-room furniture,
who did not register vows of vengeance for wroiyrs
which they supposed themselves to have suffered -
Solomon, when liis wisdom had attained its utmost
growth, would hardly have admitted that he ran a
fearful risk of being spoiled by the failure of chas
tisement for any ofVence, and we do not know but
he looked eagerly forwanl to the days of manhood
that he might enjoy the pleasure of wallopping his
tyrant preceptor.
But happily we grow, if not more wise, as leist
more charitable as we grow older. The sharp edge
of resentment wears off. We can tell with genuine
heartiness of our school-boy frolics and feel no ris-
ingof anger as we come to the sound drubbings
which we received when caught. The old teacher
who caned us into a. knowledge of Caesar’s Com
mentaries isjremembered with reverence, and if it
be our lot to mee1 him now and then, no hand is
grasped more cordially. t —j» .
Fiction is Power.—:‘Truth Is Power,” says a
time-honored proverb, the correctness of which we
will not now call in question. But beside it we
would place theseemingly contradictory assertion
that "Fiction is power." The things whicliare most
potent among men are so through the magical in
fluence of the imagination. What is that Divinity
that doth hedge a king save the glamor which the
fancy throws around the sceptre and the crown ? To
the rude swain of Somerset or Cornwall, her majes
ty, the queen, is hardly less than a goddess, at whose
behest he would gladly labor or die. Enter the
private chambers of Buckingham Palace or Bal
moral and you will see a plain, lumpish Dutch wo
man whom splendid trappings cannot make pretty,
and the best society nftlie world bas not made in
telligent. The simple layman whose heart is swell
ing with emotion as he listens to the sublime peals
oftlie organ, looks upon his Priest as he comes
forth from his oratory in the gorgeous robes of of
fice, as one lifted far above the stains and weak
nesses of humanity. But let him look in upon his
Reverence at his home and behold him eating cab
bage and quarreling with his laundress and he will
perceive that he is but an ordinary mortal. Many
regard our legislators as men of far-seeing views,
who with a profound sense of the responsibili'y of
their ,-ow weigh with conscientious care each vote
ere H enc|. and whose first thought in all things
is the public weal. Butlethim be placed where he
can see them as they are, and he will perceive them
wasting the time for which they receive the peo-
ple’smoney in orackingjokes'and muncliingground
peas, while their only busy hours are devoted to
scheme* of personal aggrandizement. So in most
things there Is a reality, and a seeming which our
Imaginations snpply and in most instances is this
latter the more powerful. We do homage to the
King, reverence the priest, and support with voice
and vote the politician without admitting that in
each Instance the qualities which call forth these
emotions are purely fictitious—merely the creation
ofour fancy. ‘‘Truth Is stranger than fiction” be-
causeit Is more rare.
Communism In America.—We are not sure
but America is the land where Communism is to
shock high Heaven with its most fantastic deeds.
They err much who supposo that the spirit of med
dlesomeness which destroyed the best adjustment
of capital and labor that lias ever been known and
devastated the finest country on the globe, is either
dead or asleep. It is still alive and active, keen'y
on the alert for other opportunities of mischief.
In this new ism it recognizes a welcome ally and a
kindred spirit. With the ballot in the hand of ev
ery man, however Ignorant or debased he may be.
it is possible here to subvert the whole frame-work
of society under the forms of law. So far as the
South Is concerned, this would already have been
done had not the wealth and intelligence of the
land risen in one desperate effort to preserve our
civilization. Nothing shortof the worstevils which
Communism can inflict would have satisfied those
fierce fanatics who deem it a part of righteousness
to hale our section. We have been saved, we trust
lastingly. But the people of the North may yet
learn that universal suffrare is a most dangerous
experiment. That the half-fed and half-clothed
may come from all the dens of vice and misery and
with votes in their hands, insist upon an equal dis
tribution of wealth, is b> no means improbable.
Those who have given the ballot to the ignorant
and depraved in order to wreak their purposes of
vengeance on a helpless people may find when too
late that they havo to reap the whirlwind for the
wind they have sown.
Kongr Writers.—Assuredly songs are not so
high an order of literary composition as epics—yet
there have been almost as many great epic poets as
there have been great song writers. To make a
song which shall take hold of the popular heart and
live in the affections of the multitude requires tal
ents of a very peculiar order. In the first place, the
theme chosen must be one of deep and last inter
est. Then it must be expressed in words so simple
that there will be no difficulty about understanding
their meaning. It will all the more likely to suc
ceed if the rhythm be such as to fix the words in
the memory readily. Then the thoughts must be
such ns appeal directly to the heart. The intellect
may approve of the words, thesontiments, the mel
ody of a poem, but if the heart commend it not, it
will not be a success. The song writer must feel
the thoughts which he puts into verse and throw
into every word that magnetism which will make
others feel them. It is this power of awakening
sympathy with the sentiments which he utters
that renders the song-writer more powerful than
sthe warrior or the legislator. But it is a question
which we cannot determine, whether the preva
lence of a sentiment calls for the song or whether
tiie song awakens the sentiment. The rather silly
but immensely popular songs of Liliebulero drove
James from his throne and his kingdom, but it 1,
quite sure that no such power would have been pos
sessed by the song bad it not been for the previous
■date of feeling.
Still More Worlds.—Some time ago it was an
nounced that astronomers had availed themselves
of the last solar eclipse to “yield the lyre of Heaven
another string” by satisfying themselves of the ex
istence of the planet Vulcan. It is a small, fiery
world, revolving at less than twsnty millions of
miles from the sun, and entirely too hot for one to
think lor a moment of Us being the abode of sen
tient beings. Small as it Is, however, it is thought
another planet whirls around in its small orbit still
nearer the sun* Year by year, as the construction
of telescopic instruments become perfect, we learn
more and more of our system; yet all that we know
seems as nothing to what we do not and may never
know.
Paper Brielts.—It was long ago supposed that
when cotton had assumed the term of paper and
had thereby becomo a means of disseminating iu-
telligence over the earth that its utility in that di
rection was spent. Since that time however, many
things have been manufactured from paper,
which would have been termed highly improba
ble. The latest Ihing in this way is the manufac
ture of bricks from paper—and of course of cotton.
What the process may be by which the soft linty
fleece is converted into a substance that resists the
wind and rain, we do not know. But certainly it
will seem less paradoxical now when chemists as
sure us that cyttou and marble are ain^st the sanv
substance, since they may be both used for the
same purpose. A man may now produce in his
fields the material for his house. But the walls of
our houses wouid be rather costly even with the
cotton at seven cents per pound.
The Complaints Against the Greenback
Organ.—We have received complaints against the
New York Advocate from subscribers of ours in
nineteen States of the Union. They say they have
sent money for subscriptions, sewing machines,
microscopes, and other articles, and got no returns.
The Postmasters’ bills show that the proprietors re
ceived this money. The editor says that he dropped
his large list of country subscribers after the re
cent election because of a failure in one of his
presses. From .the letters and explanations we
glean the following information:
I.— That since the countT list of the Advocate has
been dropped the subscriptions of mndreds of new
country subscribers have been received and retain
ed. when the proprietors acknowledge that they
were unable to forward the newspapers. Foraught
we know the Advocate is still receiving such sub
scriptions.
II —That when subscribers called at the office and
asked why their papers were not sent, they were
told that it was owing to a mistake that should be
rectified, and not told that their names had been
dropped from the list.
III. —That, after the list was dropped, advertisers
were led to pay a dollar a line, imagining that 700.
000 copies of t lie newspaper were circulating weekly.
IV. —That on Oct. 9. When letters received at this
office show that the list was being dropped, the Ad-
vocatesent a letter toDahlgreen, III.,placingitscir
culation at nearly 1.(00,000.
V. —Tliat orders for sewieg machines have been
solicited on faithful promises of immediate atten
tion. and the money retained, when the concern
had no machines to fill such orders.
VI. —That the persons who sent subscriptions and
orders for machines and other articles have repeat
edly written to f’e Advocate, knowing that their
money had been received, yet could obtain no an
swer.
VII. —'That as long ago as last August, when Mr.
Shurpe acknowledges his receipts were nearly $22,.
000 a month, money was taken on such orders, and
no goods were forwarded. Nor was any explana
tion vouchsafed to those who had sent their money
and were asking what was the matter.
VIII —Tint in October a letter was sent from the
Advocate office to J. J. 8herman, asserting that tlie
delay in forwarding the sewing machines was the
fault of the Domestic Sewing Machine Company,
when inquiries show that the company did not and
never had supplied the Advocate with sewing ma
chines.
IX —That orders for tea. microscopes, and other
articles, for which themoney lias been received, re-
mum unfilled, without a word of explanation.
X.—That repeated applications from poor girls
and others to have their money returned receive no
attention.
XT.—That, though the Advocate has been pub
lished weekly since that time, not a word ot expla
nation has appeared in its columns.
XII.—That the ‘Co-operative Department’of the
Advocate is still in existence, and its proprietors
oiler to forward various articles at given prices
when scores of orders for which they have received
money are not filled
Is there anv rule of honesty by which such trans
actions can be measured?
The above is from the V. Y. Sun and shows wliat
an unblushing swindle that mushroom Advocate
was. Everybody should have had sense enough to
know it from the beginning. Papers cannot be pub
lished at any such prices. When they announced
their circulation at 600,000, we estimated that they
were losing $100,000 a year on the single item of pa
per. Will the people never learn ?
A Great American Novel.—The late Bayard
Taylor Is reported to have said that a great Ameri
can novel never had been written and never would
be. In regard to the first part of Ills proposition he
Is certainly correct. While we have a great many
Cleverly written novels from the pens of American
men and women, we hava not a single one of such
decided worth that it could be called great. Cooper
and Simms are not only our greatest novelists, but
they have done more than any other authors to
give to our literature a distinctive character—yet
•re they little read. Indeed, there are many per
sons who are familiar with the works of Bulwei,
Thackeray. Diekens. Wilkie Collins, Charlotte
Bronte, and many other novelists the other side of
the water, who never read a page of Coopor or Bry
ant. But. in regard to what is to he, we would fain
lione that he is mistaken. We would like to think
that In the coming time, when the national charac
ter shall have assumed an assure! type, the great
American novel will be written. We must howev
er, admit that many tilings conspire to render tills
improhable. In the first place, we cannot perceive
that as we grow older the preference for tlie sensa
tional over the solid grows less. Those who write
tor fame or bread—and in these classes are all who
are likely to write—will find a reward more assured
by nrodno.in? what is flashy than by aiming at that
which Is of lasting worth. Hence the best writing
ta'ent of the country is now and is likely to con
tinue to be employed on periodicals rather than on
works that shall live. At the same time, the appe
tite which demands fast writing springs from last
reading. Our people glance over hurriedly, per
haps enjoy for the moment and then hurry away
to answer the demands of business. Were* work
of trandseendant worth produced, we doubt itshnv-
lng a long life In this fast age. and it is not possible,
but extremely probable for ebook to be “all the
rage” in reading circles to-day and be quite for-
■ gotten a few months hence. |
The Mainspring.—Carlyle, whose admiration
for the unfaltering energy and success of Frederick
the Great, was almost boundless, says that while
that hero moved towards his aim by spiral paths,
he always kept it sun-clear in his sight. Jfthis
were true, he was indeed a wonderful man. Spiral
and tortuous enough was his course, but he had not
from the beginning made up his mind as to what
he most desired, nor did he always pursue the same
t hing. Life was with him as it is with most of us, a
tiling of circumstances. At one time Love capti
vates, then Pleasure illures. Anon we chase the
glittering bauble wealth and again we are inspired
by Ambition’s dream to seek reputation. Eacli
several phantom leads us for the time and seems
that which we should most covet. Many foolish
things we do while deeming ourselves wise andper-
liaps some things performed in the gropings of ig
norance lead to results which will cause the world
to pronounce us great. Some of the most success
ful strokes have been made about as designedly as
that shot of Winkle's which brought down his bird
though his eyes were closely shut. It may well be
questioned whether any ol those whom weare wont
to refer to as having made all things bend before
the steady persistence of their ambition were im
pelled by one controlling motive toward a fixed
aim. Csesarand Cromwell and Napoleon were am
bitious certainly— perhaps prominently so. But
the careers which they achieved were rather the re
sults of circumstances than of carefully planned
and diligently pursued intentions. Discusss it,
however, as much as we may, we can never know
how far men are controlled by events and how far
they control them. Certain we are that if tiie spir
its that have gone hence are permitted to look
back on the affairs of earth, they must be often sad
dened, often amused to see how historians censure
as blunders those deeds which they did by design
and commeud those which they performed in blind
ness.
Survival of tile Fittest.—Mr. Darwin's theory
that in tiie great struggle for existence in which he
represents all creation, animate and inanimate as
being engaged, the fittest survive has to be upheld
in tiie face of a multitude of opposing facts. To de
scend no lower than our own species, it is not a
fact that the stoutest and strongest individuals out
live the weaker, uor does it seem to be true of na
tions. Of tiie races that have dwelt upon tiie earth
since tiie historic period, none have exhibited a
higher degree of physical perfection than the red
man of the forest. Yet in a few years the last In
dian will look upon the land which his father’s
once possessed. While he is passing away, the. Af
rican and Mongolian races, which are certainly his
inferior in most respects, show no signs of decay
The former will remain for ages to come in undis
puted mastery over the vast continent which he in
habits, but does not develop, and even here in our
land where he is an exotic, he multiplies fully as
rapidly as the white race with whom he is com
mingled. The dusky races will, we expect, event
ually give place to the white man as the red one has
already don e;—but the yielding does not take place in
the order of their strength. Tiie first to disappear
will he the one which has stood second certainly
in physical strength and perhaps second also in in
tellectual power, while that which stands lowest
in the scales is likely to remain for many ages yet
a factor in the great problems which Time is to solve.
Special Mention.
THAT K r tPK! -T2s- i-
—No paper that was ever started on the earth ever
had such a run as that mushroom affair called the
Advocate and sent out from New York at 25 cents a
year. Everybody took it because it was cheap. The
clubs went in by thousands until within a remark
ably short time they were printing nearly a million
copies. No one considered the impossibility of
publishing a weekly paper at that price, nor the
fact that the more copies they printed the more
money they lost. When they announced that they
were publishing 600,0)0 copies we made a low esti
mate of the actual cost of each edition and found
that they could not be losing less than $100,000 a
year on the blank paper alone, without setting a
type or printing a sheet. This of course was based
upon tiie presumption that they paid for the paper,
which we now see was not done. In another col
umn we give from the Sun, the manner In which
they have swindled the dear, unsuspecting people.
Beware of cheap news papers.
ONE EIGHT.
BY MABY E. BBYAN,
A pale mist clang to the far-away hills, the
damp odor of decay filled the atmosphere, the
walks were sodden with yesterday's chill rain,
the frost-blighted flowers hang shriveled on their
limp stems, the large leaves of the paradise tree
drifted down to her feet, dead-pale. So bad
tbs years drifted to her in her latter life—jast
■o colorless and wan. She looked away beyond
the hills, beyond the pines where a tired wind
rocked itaelf to sleep. Her eyes seemed fixed
upon a clond that was Blowly drifting towards
the west—a clond shaped like a bird with a bro
ken wing. She watched it as though it were the
messenger that was bringing her the evil tidings
she had forboded all day.
A step sonnded on the wet walk behind her;
she turned, there stood the messenger with the
evil tidings in hisieyss, in his hand. Her fing
ers closed over the slip of paper he pat into
them. She read the words apon it: 'The hoar
iB near, come to me.’
She read it and gave no sign beyond growing
deathly pale—white ts the frost-touched white
rose that hang on its stem close to her. ‘The
hoar is near'—the one honr in which those tv o
could meet again—the hoar apon whose thres
hold stood death and the end of hoars and dayh
to one ot them. That had been their con pact
when they parted—these two whose sonls con’d
never be divided. Thsy would not meet aga ; n
until the hoar that ushered in the last. That
had come to him first. She had feared it would,
for she belonged to a long-lived race. Strength
of vitality was in the black hair, the dark eyes,
the firm-kint though Blender frame. Then wo
man’s power of endnrence is greater than man’. ;
so is her power of adaptation, of resignation.
Years Uy between the night of their last meet
ing—that glowing aaid-snmmer night-aad this
The Magazine of Art, Illnstratcd.—This is
tiie title of a monthly publication of great merit is
sued from the house of Cassells, Petter & Galpin o f
New York, in which the theme Art is enlarged upon
by presenting conceptions ol an higher order car
ried out by a more subtle skill. From month to
month are given the most attractive examples of
what art is doing for the world in the present day,
and what it has done in the past. Artists and
authors of the first rank supply tlio subjects, texts
and drawings. The price is very cheap, only S3.00 a
year. Address the House at 59G Broadway, New
York City.
The Life of Son. A. II. Stephens.—In our
last issue we began an able review, by Judge
Archer Cocke, of the interesting Life of Hon. A. H.
Stephens, by Johnson & Browne, and promised the
conclusion in this issue, but it lias been unavoida
bly left over because of the difficulty in reading the
MSS. The Judge, like most judges and lawyers,
does not write a handsome fist.
The Shorter College.—The inscription on the
corner stone of the building of this nourishing in
stitution is in these words: ‘‘A gift to Our Daugh
ters,” from “Alfred Shorter, 1877.” Our able and
worthy friend, R. D. Mallary and his accomplished
wife, daughter of the distinguished scholar, Rev. J
L. Dagg, D. D., are at the head of this college, and
we trust are having the success to which their great
merits entitle them.
Atlas Series.—A. S. Barnes & Co., have begun
the publication of a series of volume- with the title
Atlas,” in which they propose to bring out, at a
moderate price, and at various times, important
Essays, 8tories, etc., bearing upon contemporary
events of current interest and of permanent value.
The contents will be original and prepared by emi
nent writers on both sides of the Atlantic.
The northwestern farmers admit that the se
vere weather has killed their peaches, but they
rejoice in the fact that the deep snow is the best
possible protection of the winter wheat. They
antioipate an unexampled crop of wheat next
summer.
Shakespeare's Julius Caesar.—This grand
old play of the immortal Bard of Avon will be pre
sented to the people of our city on the 23rd of this
month by Mr. F. C. Bangs, the young Southerner
who has elicited great admiration wherever he has
appeared, supported by a troupe of great ability.
Mr. Bangs is a first class actor and we are assured
tliat lie renders this great part in a manner that
places him in the very front rank of actors. The
play of Julius Caesar abounds in line scenes and
splendid delineations, and no production of the
great dramatist lias been and continues to be more
popular. Mr. Paul E. Bleckley, son of Judge L. E.
Bleckley, holds a position in this troupe of Mr. Ford
and this fact will doubtless contribute to increase
the houses in our city.
■Portrait of Alexander H. Stephens.—By spe
cial request, Mrs. Gregory, who is making a fine rep
utation as an artist, has placed her admirable port
rait Of Hon. A, H. Stephens on exhibition in the li
brary. It is pronounced oue of the moat accurate
that has ever been painted of the distinguished
Georgian.
pale November day. A waste of years they had
stretched before her in appalling prospective on
that never-forgotton night. Bat they had not
been a waste; they had been crowded fall of da-
ties, progressive thonghts and sacrificing deed?,
compensations, happiness even, of a sirt—sat
isfaction in fullfflling her part in society and
in her home, in being trae to the claims apon
her, in having worked loyally and endured si
lently, cheerfully. If her life had lacked its
completeness, few gnessed it. She made it so
much a harmony that few bat herself knew that
the octave was not complete, that one chord,
sweeter than all the rest, was missing.
Bat all duties, all ties must give way now;
none mast hinder her obeying this summons—
the voice she had heard cailiDg to her all day—
across the wide distance—over hills and plains
and rivers. She must go to him.
She went. The night found her sleepless,
looking out at the dim stars and the fleetirg
panorama of woods and fields,lighted cities and
pine muffled mountains as she was borne away
toward the voice she had heard calling to her,
ere the wires had flashed to her the summons
‘Come.’
So tally has human art triumphed over space,
that before the morrow’s sunset, she was in a
land straDge in its climate and its aspect—a land
whose plains stretched wide and level under a
broader sky. The rustle of palms and the sound
of the sea were in her ears. She walked under
magnolias hung with hoar moss as she neared
the tall, dark, narrow structure, stained with
years and gloomy with shadow and solitude.
On either side of the long flight of stone steps
that led up to it, were hyderangea plants, tbeir
j?road leeyaa pale «od spotted with ter heir
great panicles of flowers faded, dry—the ghosts
of blossoms that had been bine as summer hea
vens. With trembling feet she ascended the
time-stained stair. A venerable black servitor
met her at the threshold and bent his gray head
be'ore ber.
‘Does he still live?' she found voice to ask.
'He lives,' was the answer, in tones so quiver
ing, from lips that trembled so with emotion
that she graspea the wrinkled black hand and
pressed it gratefully. She then followed him up
another flight of stairs in this tower-like struct
ure. At the landing, he paased and opened a
door.
‘She has come,’ he called out softly, and clos
ing the door behind him,left her standing there
in the room that was lit only with the twilight
and the dull, red glow of a smouldering fire.
There was silence, so deep she trembled lest
death should have preceded her coming; then a
deep voics said: ‘Margaret,’ and she saw him
sitting in the shadow, saw his arms extended to
her, went to him swiftly, knelt by him and laid
her head against the breast where it had rested
onoe, ODly ones before. She knelt there motion
less and silent, with his arms aronnd her and
her head against his faintly throbbing heart for
minntes; then he said, low:
‘Light the candles, Margaret.*
She rose and saw close to hor on the table a
bronze figure of Time that held up an hour glass
and a torch; both sconces for two tall wax can
dles, such as burn at the head and feet of the
Catholio dead. Margaret lit them and turned
to him. And the two who had not met for so
many years looked into each others faces. Wast
ed! Yes, he was wasted and wan, but bis eyes
were unchanged, they looked out from their
long lashes with the same deep,true,tender look;
and the brow was as broad and pure, and the
rings of brown hair clung to it as lovingly. And
ehe—the years that had left tbeir footprints
upon her face,had Btamped no ignoble meaning
there. Her eyes answered his sadly enough,but
clear and trne. And there was an added strength
about the mouth, always so sweet. He saw it
and was satisfied. In the old days he had been
the stronger. It was he who had upborne her
resolution, who had enconraged and strength
ened her, though to do it, he had put aside the
cup of a most sweet temptation. But when once
she saw the ideal he pointed her to, she climb
ed to it earnestly, steadily in the face of adverse
winds.
‘I am satisfied,’ he said after he had looked at
her in silence; and she felt that he knew she
had not only tried to be loyal to all onter, ap-
pearent claims upon her, hut faithful to an in
ner trust, a higher one, known only to them
selves and the Being who had made them. She
had not let the muddy current of time and change
sweep away or soil that royal lilly—that ideal
of lofty life and love—that had sprang from her
deep, fresh heart ot yonth,
‘I am satisfied.’
There was such living sweetness in his eyes
when he said the words that involuntarily she
stretched her hands towards him.
‘Oh, Albert, can it be that—?'
‘That I am dying?’ he said. ‘Yes, I shall not
live till morning. I think.’
‘And yoa will leave me alone?'
‘Not alone: I may be with yoa still.*
‘Then you have a hope,’ she cried eagerly,
•you believe—?’
‘I believe that we live after the change that we
call death. Once as yoa kaow, I had no such
hope, bat solitade and commune with oar own
Tjoaght tell as strange things. This hope has
come to me through the teachiog of no creed,
but from my own consciousness—the whisper
ol the God within me. It has come from the
fact that we aspire—we aspire always to tome-
thing thai is beyond ns, and we feel that this
bodily flesh is not the best of as, that it is of-
tenest a clog to thought. Such feelings are not
given in vain. Nothing is wasted by the Great
Economizer. Sach feelings point to a contin
uance of the Thought—point to its immortality
when the problems that torture it here shall have
answer, when its aspirations shall be satisfied.
This is the ray of hope that comes to me through
the darkness of mystery that else envelopes me.
For it is mystery, it is all mystery! It is mys
tery to me still though I have shut myself _ here
ia this solitade, and read and thought till it
seemed my brain would burst. Look at all
these books Margaret —books that represent ev
ery phase of thought—the thought of the scien
tific plodder and thepoetio dreamer; of him who
gets down to study patiently a faint footprint of
truth on the ground, and him, who boldly pro
jects from his imagination a Bhadow that he
dreams may entline the truth. _ I have gone
with modern Science searching in the dim laby
rinth of life for the beginning—aearching.till the
broken clues drop in the band and all beyond
is derkaess, as those deep thinkers own. Here
is a late ntteranoe of the boldest and) best spirit
among them; I had been reading it an boar
before yoa came.
•If asked to dedaoe from the physical inter
action of the brain moleonles, the least of the
pbenomena of thought, we mast acknowledge
oir helplessness. Between these there is a
fissure over whioh the ladder of physical reas
oning is incompetent to carry ns.” *To me this
is most pathetio. The mortal, dropped by an
unknown hand in the labyrinth of mystery,
bat groping for his Creator, reaching rever
ently, patiently, finding as he thinks a cine,
and having it fail him, mocking his eager
ness. Yet there are theologians who call this
reverent, earnest searching of the creature for
his Creator blasphemy; who class it with the
shallow infidelity of a superficial past They
shonld watoh and wait; it may put a lamp in
the hands of him who really seeks to show
God to man in his largest and noblest light
This little rash-light of trath, which science
holds in the hollow of its hand, blowing apon
it with the breath of earnest resear jh may barn
brightly, fanned by the breath of future gener
ations, may shine out with a light that shall
uveal the chain of life complete in all links,
fastened in tLe lowest earth, but reaching np
through inconceivable space and innnmerons
sU.rry links to the unapproachable Source of
Life. Yes. this rush light may be a revelation.
It may show* us the sublime system and order
of the great Architect. He makes man systema
tic; 3hall His work be less harmonious ? Shall
the Great Builder also not build from the ground
upward? I ceased trying to follow these
Thinkers who are searching for the low-sunk
foundations of the temple of the Universe. I
felt life growing too short, the shadow of death
crossed my path. I was fain to look up from
the foundation to the spire—the spire of aspira
tion, half hid in clouds but pointirg up—np to
the hope that life is immortal—that all these
yearnings and aspirations are not in vain ’
His voice that Lad been growing fainter, gave
way and a spasm of pain crossed his brow. The
next moment he smiled reassuringly into her
aaxioua face.
•It is not yet come dearest,’ he said. ‘The
shadow steals over me gently, almost painless
ly. Suffering has almost ceased. Even when
Pain trad its power, Thought and Will conquer
ed it in part. Death could not triumph over
man, except that his Will is weak. You know
what dealf a blow to mine; what weakened my
life's hold. Thought preys on itself when it is
not fed from the heart—fed by love end happi
ness. I h' vo had only a solitary memory, sweet,
but barren as sands upon the shore, Life could
take but shallow root in such desolation. Yet
the memory was sweet. And this night! its
solemn sweetness compensates for much. See,
I have tried to have it graced with flowers—tie
flowers you leva—pale Egyptian lilies atid helic-
thrope, with ite celestial breath, and these vio
lets,’ lifting a bunch of them from the table and
the bad of damp green moss on which they lay.
‘Put it on your breast till my heart ceases to
beat, then lay it in my coffin and bnry it with
me Do not shudder dearest; do not think of
death as such a dread thing. Gome closer to me
her*. With my arm aronnd you and your face
to mine, I shall not fell the shadow fall so cold
and isolating. Your eyes have hope in them, is
is not so? Do you not believe that we live after
the death-change?’
‘I do believe it.’
‘And that we shall meet again ?—that a love
like onrs knows not an earthly knelling ?’
‘I believe it ?
‘It is well. That cheers me. Let ns believe
it dearest; let ns dare to believe it, atoms as we
are on the little island of time; believe it
though the great ocean of mystery murmurs
mockingly around us.’
He was silent a long time with his arm around
her and her face olese to his, as she sat motion
less on the low footstool close to the lounge,
against whose crimson pillow his face was out
lined, white and still as carven marble. In the
deep hush of the room, she could hear the moan
of the sea without and the sound of the with
ered oak-bongh, flapping like a vulture’s wing
against the pane.
He was silent for many minutes, when he
spoke it was so low, so spiritual in sound, that
his tenes seemed scarcely mortal, and his words
were strange and sweet, such as one might speak
in a wonderful and over-awiogvision. Nowand
then there was a word of tenderness, a clasp of
the fingers around her’s to tell that in this half
trance, she was nut forgotten—that her presence
sweetened the solemn mystery of the hour.
Time passed; the night changed, the sea had
withdrawn its complaining tide and was heard
no more, the dead bough rested motionless
against the pane, the wind slept. The white
fare on the pillow seemed to sleep also. Or wrs
he dead? The hand that held Margaret’s had
grown colder as the moments crept on, the
breathing to which she listened had grown
fainter. Suddenly his eyes opened; what a
light waB in them ! what a sweetness in the look
that rested on the anxious watcher, what a
radiance in his smile ! She bent her face close
to his.
‘Kiss me Margaret,’ he said, and her lips were
pressed to his that were already cold. In that
kiss bis breath passed from his mortal frame
for -ver.
When the venerable black servitor opened the
door an hour afterwards, the room was silent as
the grave. Tbe candies had burned down and
were expiring in their sconses. Tremblingly he
opened the shutters of the window, and the dim
chill dawn, streamed into the dusky room—
there lay a man’s white still face upon the pillow,
and a woman’s head bowed near, half veiling it
with her hair. ‘Are both dead,* he muttered
fearfully. But the woman lifted a pallid, tear
less face, rose and took a bunch of violets from
her bosom and laid it upon the breast of the
dead.
Miss Rosa Solomons, a beautiful Jewess of
Hopkinsville, Ken., while on a visit to some
friends in Nashville committed suicide by tak
ing strychnine.. She was impelled to this fatal
step by disappointment in love. The evening
before she received a letter from the vonng man
to whom she had long been engaged, saying that
he eould not marry her. She immediately left
the house, went to the drag store and purcbai* £
ed 20 grains of strychnine, and at nine o’clock 1 ^
that night wus fonnd in a dying condition, lied - >
ioal aid was summoned, bat failed to do any
good.
Mr. J. B. Goodwin succeeds, as Alderman at lafije,
Mr. O H. Jones who has to the deep regret of every
citizen, been long incapacitated bv sickness f* r oc
cupying his seat in the meetings of tiie General
Council. Mr. Goodwin has formerly been Counc l-
l.ian from the first wart . He is a lawyer by protes-
sion and an acknowledged leader in our municipal
politics. He is an industrious worker and a Wan
of brains.