Newspaper Page Text
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Chatty Letters About New Books.
THE BEST AND NEWEST THINGS.
CHARCOALJSKETCHES.
The Wild Beast of Chaire’s Island.
JOHN H. SE.4ES. Editor ami Proprietor.
Wm. B. SEAES. Proprietor anil for. Editor.
MRS. MART E. BRYAS.(*) Associate Editor
ATLANTA. GEORGIA, OCT. 18th, .879.
“Little Sada anil The Doctor."—We begin
an interesting story in this issue under the above
title and invite attention to the opening chapter.
“Lee’s East Recruit.We call special atten
tion to the poem on the 3rd page from the pen of
Mr. Shaler Hillyer, the author of “Sundown" and
the“Marable Family." It will bring tears to your
eyes to read it.
f State Treasurer Renfroe Acquitted.—The
impeachment trial of our State Treasurer J. W. Ren-
roe has been the exciting and all absorbing matter
of both Houses of our Legislature and the people of
the State for the past two or three weeks. On Tut s-
day evening last after a great many able and elo
quent speeches had been made on both sides, the
vote was reached on the articles of impeachment,
and he was acquitted upon all of them. The sensa
tion was great and the congratulations general. We
believe everybody was pleased at the result. He has
been a faith/ul treasurer and the people were not
prepareu to seelhim punished for doing what all his
predecessors in office had done, and as the State
had not only lost nothing but gained by his excel
lent management of her fund*, the people were ar
rayed on his side in the long and tedious trial. We
heartily congratulate him on his good fortune.
II Might be Worse lor Ihe General.-The
San Francisco papers call upon us to commiserate
Gen. Grant. He is suffering a species of dislocation
from too much handshaking. His right arm is so
much injured as to make the act of signing his
name painiul and difficult. We are told that what
aggravated the bad effect of the hand shaking was
that fact of its “taking place from a height. How is
that? Is Cea6ar already practicing upon the impe
rial seat, or do they roll him around, on an elevated
dais as they do similar wooden idols in Burmah?
The fact of his being incapacitated forsigning his
name is bad, but we console ourselves by reflecting
that it might be worse. One cannot well sign an I.
O. U. with the left hand, but one can use that mem
ber for performing the operation “called crooking
the elbow," an operation more familiar to the Gen
eral and more necessary to his daily delectation
than affixing his signature. M. E. B.
The Reform Spelilita Gonc into Effect.
Let Webster stir under his weight of granite; the
latter day progressionists whoso organ Of reverence
is a depression, have practically inaugurated the
improved and really sensible modes of spelling.—
The New York Home Journal, the Independent,
the Chicago Tribune, Utica Herald and others ex
hibit the changes in their columns and declare
their intention to abide by them. The uc is dropped
in dialogue, epilogue, etc., the final c left off in such
words as opposite, definite, hypocrite, etc. The fi
nal me is dropped in programme, oriflamme, etc.,
and ph is charged to/ in words like phantom, tele
graph, phrase, philosophy', alphabet, etc.
The Home Journal says the innovation Is wel
comed by the compositors and generally liked by
readers. We think it sensible, and rejoice that the
days when the “old field” schoolmaster, could re
venge himself on a mischievous class by a course of
phthysic, pneumonia, etc., are numbered with the
past, M. E. B.
Advice to! Young Entiles.—Somebody’ hand
somely says: Ladles—caged birds of beautiful plu
mage, but sickly looks—pale pets of the parlor, who
vegetate in unhealthy atmosphere, like the potato
germinating in a dark cellar, why do you not go
into the open air and warm sunshine, and add lus
ter to your eyes, bloom to your cheeks elasticity to
your steps, and vigor to your frames? Ta*<e exer
cise, run up the hill on a wager, and down again for
fun; roam the fields, climb the fences, leap the
ditches, wade the brooks, and after a day of exhil-
erating exercise and unrestiained liberty, go home
with an appetite acquired by healthy enjoyment.
The beautiful and blooming young lady—rosy*
cheeked and bright-eved—who can darn a stocking,
mend her own frock, [command a regiment of pots
and kettles, and be a lady' when required, Is a girj
that youug men are in quest of lor a wife. But you
pining, screwed-up, wasp-wasted, doll-dressed
consumption-mortgaged, music-murdering and
novel-devouring daughters of fashion and idleness
are no more ' t for matrimony than a pullet is to
look after a brood of fourteen chickens. The truth
is, dear girls, you want less fashionable restraint
and more liberty of action; more kitchen and less
parlor; more leg exercise and less sofa; more frank
ness and less mock modesty’ Loosen your waist-
strings, and breathe pure atmosphere, and become
somethin g as good and beautiful as nature designed.
A young woman applying for the situation as
teacher to a village school, being questioned by the
trustee as to her qualifications, replied: “I ain’t
much of an arithmeticker, but I’m an elegant
grammarist.”
Somebody calls into question the slang word
“bully." It must be confessed that it is what
Polonius would have called a “vile phrase,” but it
is by no means of recent origin. In his “Lady of
the Lake" (Canto VI, ‘The Soldier's Song'), Sir
Walter Scott wrote this three-quarters of a cen
tury ago:
Yet whoop, bully hoys ! off with the liquor.
Sweet Marine's the word, and a fig for the Vicar.
A correspondent makes an inquiry that tempts us
into an answer too long for the Correspondent’s
Column. The question is concerning the were-
abouts of Mrs Brooks—“tbe butter sculptor." says
the writer, “whose ‘Dreaming Iolanthe' I saw an
admired at the centennial. By the way, can you
tell me who was the original of the sculpture, and
why she was called the dreaming Tolanthi ?"
Mrs. Brooks hassetup her studio in NewAork
and is studying modeling and supporting herself by
chance wor?, often mere drudgery—as so many ar
tists have to do. The Iolanthe, that her “butter
head represents, is a character in a lyric drama
written by the Danisn poet. Henrik Hertz, called
“KiDg Rene's Daughter," and so exquisite in con
ception and management that we cannot resist the
impulse to give our correspondent a peep at the
framework which the poet's delicate, yet luxuriant
imagination has covered with such art as to con
ceal art, as the trellis opposite my window is hid
by the abundant feathery leaves and star-flowers ol
the cypress vine.
King Rene is an historical personage, who lived
in the fifteenth century, and who betrothed his
daughter tolande, or Io anthe, toa Count of Vaud-
mont, by way of sealing a compromise of a long dis
pute concerning the Province of Lorraine that King
Rene claimed of the Vaudemont count, through
his wife Isabella ol Lorraine. The Danish poet
makes the contract to have taken place when the
betrothed princess was an infant and the young’count
was in his ninth year. Shortly afterwards, aceident
deprived the Infant princess of her sight and the fa
ther is in despair; not alone, because the misfortune
is a deathblow to his diplomatic compact, but be
cause he loved his daughter with passionate fond
ness. A Moorish physician, half mesmerist, ha;
astrologer, consults the stirs and finds a h'ipe that
in her sixteenth year, the princess may recover her
sight-
Her father determines to keep her blindness
profound secret from all, even from herself.
No sense of her loss shall ever cloud her cheerful
spirit. She shall never know that she is less blessed
than others. She is removed 1 o a valley, shut in by
jofty mountains: there awal’ of rocks, surmounted
by a thick hedge, incloses a little arcadia of tropical
trees, blooming plants, flashing waters and singing
birds. And in its midst, in a dwelling overgrown
witlj vines and moss, Iolanthe lives from infancy
to girlhood, seeing only her two devoted attendants
her father and her tutor and physician, the Moor
ish doctor. She has no idea that she is blind; all
reference to .ight, or the sense of seeing having been
avoided by her companions, and she grows up in
her fair rose garden, pure as its dew and joyous as
its birds, with whom she sings, her own lovely im
provised songs to the music|of her cithern. A creat
ure of poetry and nature, who doesn't know her rank
pr her destiny, or anything of the world outside the
bush-grown wall that shuts her in and the moun
tains that rise beyond. As her sixteenth birthday
approaches, the Moorish doctor redoubles his ef
forts to wake the sense that lies dormant in her
deep blue eyes, she, meanwhile, not comprehendiDi
why he presses his fingers on her brow while elec
tric lorce flows frqm his nerves into hers, nor why
he throws her each day into a magnetic sleep.
The day of hope, foretold by the stars, dawns at
last, and still a difficulty has not been overcome.
Iolanthe must.flrst be Informed that she is blind,
in order that the inner craving for sight may meet
and quicken the perceptive power of the eye. Her
father cannot give his consent to this. He shrinks
froth inflicting the dreadful knowledge on Iolanthe,
now so happily unconscious. The oracle is vague
and the doctor may not ucceed. In the meantime,
the Count Tristam of Vaudemont with his attend
ant, accidentally comes into this valley and finds
his way into the arcadian retreat of his betrothed,
whom he has never beheld, but thinks is pursuing
her studies in a Spanish convent, for blindness has
been an unsuspected state secret. The Count sees
Iolanthe in her vine-covered rock dwelling where
she lies alone in the deep magnetic sleep. He suc
ceeds in waking her, she talks to him, sings to him,
brings him wine and gathers fruit for him. Not
till she plucks a white rose for him, insteadofthe
red he has asked for, does he discern that she is
blind. In his surprise, he utters words that fill her
with wonder, words that intimate to her there is a
sense she does no', possess. When a; last he leaves
the rose garden, he ’ as conceived such an exalted
love for the isolated, gifted, and strangely beautiful
blind girl, that when he meets King Rene, he refu
ses to marry his daughter. Then he discovers that
the blind girl is the princess, his betrothed. In the
same hour, thepale rose light of the after-glow fills
the valley; it is the moment foretold by the stars,
and the Moorish doctorleads out Iolanthe restored to
sight. The story is nure and perfect as a lily that
the sun has never touched. Mrs. Brooks’ famous
butter-work represents Iolanthe in the magn'tic
sleep in which the Count first sees her, when peep
ing through the vines of the window, he exclaims
to his attendant:
“She sleeps; her breathing heaves
Her bosom gently—gently sinks it down,
See now, a smile is hove ing on her lips
As though she dreampt of our bewilderment,"
BY MRS. F. A. REYNOLDS.
Dear Sunny South:
It is raining ! Has been raining nearly all day:
a dismal, pattering, weeping rain, and this even
ing it seems real cozy to sit by a cheerful light and
talk to you on paper, notwithstanding the accom
paniment of ‘rain on the roof !’
We had company last evening, so unexpected it
it was a real surprise party. Nellie and Harry
v, ere in the kitchen merrily husking sweet-corn.to
dry, and I was in the sitting-room coaxing baby to
sleep. All at once five young people made their
way into the kitchen, attracted to the back door
by the only licht visible, surprising Nellie with her
lip full of corn, and silks adorning her brown dress
in picturesque confusion. As quickly as possible
we took them into the parlor, where, with books,
pictures, mus'c and conversation, we passed a very
pleasant evening. One of the gentlemen broke one
of the commandments, for he openly expressed his
de-ire to possess my books, which all had been ad
miring. I lent one of the ladies one of my choicest
treasures, “Between the Gates,” by Benj. F. Tay
lor, a lovely book, externally, with its tasteful
binding, firm, white paper and beautifully clear
type. But the outside is only a hint of the feast of
good things, for it is certainly the most poeiical
prose I ever read It is a vivid description of the
trip between the Garden Gate and the Golden Gate
and of Califordia, with its natural wonders.
The book opens with a poem, a moving picture of
the whole, given more in detail in the prose de
scription following. The poem begins
“From Hell Gate to Gold Gate
And the Sabbath unbroken;
A sweep continental,
And the Saxon yet spoken !
By seas with no tears in them,
Fresh and sweet as spring rains,
By seas with no fears in them,
God's garmented plains !”
The whole poem is real poetry, strong and fanci
ful—like B. F. Taylor and no one else, but the prose
is a series of the most beautiful word paintings !
Grand as are the subjects his pen describes, his
fancy paints them in such glowing colors as to jus
tify the thought, ‘after all, the mind of genius is
the grandest work of God.’ And, indeed, it is the
height of genius to be able to picture by mean? of
meager words, tbe most picturesque scenery in the
world, so that with the author tve can gaze on
mountains capped in ‘eternal snow; 1 shudder on the
verge of awful precipices, with him glide around
‘on the world’s very edge ’ and exultantly exclaim,
‘Grand Pacific, Good-mom !’ And then the excur
sions to the ‘big trees,’ to the ‘Yosemite,’ and to all
the other places of note ! The visits to the mint
and other public buildings, and the sail across the
bay to Oakland, the suburban home of San Fran
cisco’s princes ! Ail these descriptions in the au
thor's own humorous, as well as fanciful style, ren
der the book a gem not easilv surpassed, and sel
dom equalled.
Another book daintily dressed in bright green by
the same publishing house (S. C. Griggs & Co., of
Chicago), is, ‘Hours With Men and Books,’by Prof.
Wm. Mathews, one of the most popular and finish
ed of American writers. The first chapter is about
Thomas De Quincy, and we are made acquainted
with the extraordinary character and genius of the
great opium-eat-r. H e are introduce^ to Ins home
life and to his inner self, and we appreciate better
the peculiarities of this very peculiar man. We
even learn to love tbe gentle, inoffensive little man
and sympathize with all his griefs and rejoice in
his quiet joys.
Specimens of his beautiful English prose are quot
ed, and we wonder that such gems of literature
should be so little known, while a complete analy-.
zation of his writings prepares us to admire and
seek to obtain them.
^ Next, we are treated to a chapter on Robert
South, again we see the eccentricities of genius,
for Sout.i was an able and powerful preacher, full
of vehement expression, just to the point.
Charles H. Spurgeon, the great preacher of this
age. and totally different in style from South, is
next treated of and our former'admiration turns
to reverence as Ve are made more fully acquaihted
with the earnest man and eloquent SDeaker.
A chapter on the ‘Recollectionsof .mdge Storey,’
is full of anecdotes of interest relating to that
pleasant and learned gem leman.
‘The Illusions of History,’ is a chapter crowded
with information and interest, but before we finish
we doubt if we have a right to believe the evi-
BY MART E. BRYAN.
SO. V.
dence of our own senses. ’The Morality of Good
Living,’ is a plea for good living well sustained.
‘Literary Trifles,’ makes us acquainted with liter
ary men and their writings, old styles, &c. I might
go on noticing the wealth of literature contained
between the two pretty covers, but as I can’t begin
to give an idea of its value, I refer vou to the book
itself: it is a string of rare pearls, each one beauti
ful and complete - Au revoir. Urbana, 111.
Dickens’ London,
The Hemmed-in Churchyard where Lady Dead
lock Was Found Dead,
NAMES OF COUNTRIES.
If Dr, Holland cannot write a good novel, as his
critics declare, he can pen a shrewd commentary on
literature of politics: that is if he writes the “Topics
of the Times" in his magazine, or is Mr. Roswell
Smith the writer of these papers? In the October
Scribner the leading “Topic” is the “Wisdom of the
People ” of which the writer has no very high opin
ion. As an illustration of the ignorance, narrowness,
and blindness to their real interests ol the people
in general, the writer gives—“Congress." He calls
Congress a •'standing menace to national prosperi
ty "a “stench and an abomination, more to be
dreaded tlia . the pestilence.” Thffik of this, ye
who pav taxes to kee; this “stench” in our nostrils
during so many months in each year. The writer
of “Topics” says if Congress would not m et again
in five years every class and interest In the country
would be benefited thereby. But he throws the
blame altogether on the people. It is the people
who have created Congress as ii is. Its action is The
i expression of their opinion. It is the people—so we
gather fiom the writer's long disquisition—the ig
norant, ill-formed, bigoted people who send their
representatives, surcharged with then own ideas of
o-overnment an i committed to carry out their own
Ihort-sight d views of political economy. He in
stances the money question and the false notions ol
the people thereupon—their vague idea that by
some hocus pocus, money can be made cheap, so
Europe signifies a country of white complex- I that a poor man can get hold ol it without paying
ion; so named because the inhabitants were of a , value ™'n
lighter complexion than those of Asia and Af- i pc, acquired wi bout paying for it—the difficulty
rica. Asia signifies between or in the middle, ! they have in percelvingthat a good dollar will buy
from the fact that the Geographers placed it be- just as much more of the commodities of life, as it
Africa Afric- sionifies a i is dearertlian a . heap dollar; though they have only
Ainca. Olgniuco n ; a fpw vpars to ji limp whpn alt.honcrH
tween Europe and Africa. Africa signifies
land ot corn or ears. It was celebrated for its
abundance of corn and all sorts of grain. Sibe
ria signifies thirsty or dry—very appropriate.
Spain, a country of rabbits or conies. It was
once so infested with the animals that it sued
Augustus for an army to destroy them. Italy, a
country of pitch, from its yielding great quan
to look hack a few years to a time when, although
their labor commanded a nominally larger price,
their rent was twice wha it is now and their food
and clothing proportionately dearer than now.
The same ign-.rance on the part of the people, our
topic-discusser finds In their estimate and treat
ment of the silver question—their persistent belief
In the magical benefit that silver money was to
have u. on the laboring interests, which being acted
upon congre-sionallv, resulted in the inconvenient
-y; , r,—r '7T : , •>. , ° •* upon congre-sionauy, resuuea in tne inconvenient
tities of black pitch. Calabria, also, tor the same j ,j 0 j ar> w hose coinage was an expense to the na-
reason Gaul, modern France, signified yellow i tion, and put nothing in the poor man’s purse, since
hair characterized its inhabitants. The English asilver dollar bought no more than a paper one and
unn - ! is troublesome to handle, b side. So the dollars are
mountainous province in Scotland. Hibernia . treasur—a testimony to the people's ignorance
is utmost or last habitation, for beyond this the I of financial matters. All such schemes having their
„ Ticvor their vov- ! birth in the ill-informed, papular i brain and
western Phanicians ne er ex ten J being transmitted through elected representatives,
ages. Britain the country ot tin, great qnanti- lres b f rom the instruction and sworn to*he service
ties being found on it and adjacent islands. The ! of their constituents.
Greeks called it Albion, which signifies in the The corollary to this is that the people ought not
Y, . ,.i * l:.u mman : t ■> be trusted to take care of themselves; that their
Phoenician tongue either white or big j average knowledge of oliticai economy is small
tains, or the high rocks on the western coast, indeed, that the massing of ignorauce will not pro-
Corsica a woody place. Sardinia signifies the ] duce wisd*m. and lhat the largest-brained and
footsteps of men which it resembles. Syracuse most cultured men of a nation are the ones to be
louieiepB ui uiru „ , , ,, „ entrusted with the science of government. Such
bad flavor, so called from the unwholesome
marsh on which it stood, Rhodes, serpents.
Siciiy, the country of grapes. Scylla, the whirl
pool of destruction. *£tna signifies a furnace,
or dark and smoky.
utterances are straws on the tide which show the
setting of the currents towards monarchy and cen
tralization. Is such a tending pro bono publico* A
people weary of the wear and tear of elections, the
strife of parties, and the burden of government,
might say “aye" to the question.
J. R. G. Hazzard, in New York Tribune;
I have spoken of the story of the pursuit of Lady
Deadlock in tbe “Bleak House.” The climax of
that remarkable narrative is the finding of the
fugitive cold and dead, with one arm around a
ail of the dark little graveyard where they buried
the mysterious law-copyist, “Nemo,” and where
poor Jo, the cross-sweeper, came at night and
swept the stones as his last tribute to the friei d
who “was very good” to him. There are three
striking descriptions of this place in the novel. “A
hemmed-in churchyard, pestiferous and obscene—
a beastly scrap of ground which a Turk would re>
ject as a sa. age abomination and a Caffre would
shudder at. With houses looking on on every side,
save where a reeking little tunnel of a court gives
access to the iron gate—with every villainy of life
in action close on death, and ever}’ poisonous ele
ment of death in action on life: 1 ere they lower
our dear brother down a footer two: here sow him
in corruption; an avenging ghost at many a sick
bedside: a shameful testimony to future ages, how-
civilization and barbarism walk this boastful island
together. ”
The exact situation of the graveyard is not de
fined in tbe novel, but it is evident tbat it cannot
have been very far from Lincoln’s Inn, and I have
been told that it was in the neighborhood of Drury
Lane. So strangely hidden away is it among close
and dirty houses that it was only after three long
searches through all the courts thereabouts that I
found the “reeking little tunnel,” and twice I
passed the entrance without observing it. Open
iug out of Drury Lane, at the back and side of the
theatre, is a network of narrow flag passages built
up with tall tenements. There are rag and wastes
paper shops in this retreat, two or three dreadful
little greengrocers’ stalls, a paw nbroker’s, a surpris
ing number of cobblers, and in the heart of the
place, where the alley widens into the semblance
of a dwarfed court, a colony of dealers in. paste
board rounds of beef and cutlets, stage army, and
second-hand play-books. Between .i/arquis court
on the one hand, Russell court on the other, and a
miserable alley called Cross wourt which connects
them, is what appears at first sight to be a solid
block of tenements.
Tne door of one of these houses stood open, and
through a barred staircase window at the back of
the entry I caught a glimpse of a patch of grass—a
sight so strange in this part of London that I went
around to the other side of the block to examine
further. There I found the “reeking little tunnel."
It is merely a stone-paved passageway about four
feet wide through the ground floor of a tenement.
House doors open into it. A rusty iron gate closed
it at the further end. Here is the ‘pestife; ous and
obscene church-yard,’ completely hemmed in by
the habitations of the living. Tombstones are set
up against the walls of houses and most of the
graves seem to have been made without any such
memorial. Perhaps a church stood there once, but
there is none now. TUheu the people of the block
shut their doors at night they shut the dead in with
them. Inside the gate lay various rubbish—a wo
man's boot, a broken coaNseuttle, the foot of a tin
candle-stick, fragments of paper, sticks, bones,
straw—unmentionable abominations. Burials are
no longer allowed there, but the dishonoring of the
old graves seems to go on briskly. A dark and
smoke-laden, fog-dripped moisfUre hung over the
city as I turned away from the black and muddy
cemetery and picked my way through the foul
courts into the mists of Chancery lane.
They who have lived among the mountains, it is
said, carry with them wherever thev go, a love for
the rugged slopes and granite peaks, that drank the
red blood of sunsets, and a longing to return and
dwell among them.
"The hills draw like heaven;”
said Mrs. Browning. The sea ha th< same charm.
It takes hold of us with a deeper and more weird
fascination. One who has known and loved the sea
can never stifle the yearning to come back and
stand again by the murmuring Mystery, whose face
lie has watched in storm and calm. The feeling is
strong on a day like this, at the death of the Indian
Sun mer, when the sky is shrouded m gray, and the
wind in the swaying pines has the sound of wavs.
[ On such a day I can see the wild, gray sea. streaked
here and there with foam. I can see the white
shore , and hazy, green background of the island
that was so long a tantalizing mystery to me—the
island I had watched so often when the-ilvery mists
lifted to reveal it, tnd dreamed that it held snch un
speakable enchantments; that the realities of ou r
Summer bivouac on the bay shore, seemed poor and
mean in comparison. And these realities were in
deed rather barren, for the shore was a level waste
of sea-grass with here and there an oasis of palmet
to; the water was brackish and wine-colored: sharks
haunted the bay and kept us in constant fear while
bathing, and the house :n which we had camped
was infested by a species of creature as rapacious in
their way as the sharks,and t wice as active—the in
destructible pest, called roaches. They were every,
where; they got imo your food, they ran over you
in bed, t ey peered at yon over the brim of your
coffee cup, they sipped the nectar of your lips by
night, in kisses more pungent than those indulged
in by Swinburne’s biting lovers. Horny of back-
long of legs and cruel of eye, they defied extermina
tion!
After awhile our hearts ' ere made glad by the
news that we were to break up camp and go over
to the island. Everything was packed in one large
sized boat, but as we had to be careful that we
packed away no roaches, it was late in the after,
noon before we pushed off. Before we were half
way across, it was discovered that the boat had be
gun to leak, and that it was too heavily loaded. In
the midst of our perplexity, a little boat shot to
ward ns pcopel.ed by asinewy arm ofa red-bearded,
eagle-eyed athlete whom we knew as Rufus Tuck
er—a dweller in the “Sopchoppy” country and a
famous hunter of the fat deer of that region. He
was a man of swift decision. A tew minutes alter he
came alongside, he had transferred into the boat
the three white females of our party and three of
our black servants—the old cook,aunt Nanny, and
a couple of imps of mischief who helped about the
house; also a water bucket and some cooking uten
sils. The other boat was to put back for repairs:
whi e we went on to the island.
T he sun was setting as we stepped out upon the
enchante i shores, and made an eager procession in
the rear of Mr, Tucker, who bore the bed on his
shoulder, while aunt Nanny and [the little darkies
carried the other things up to the house which
was to be our new abode. It was a rough, but
ample structure of logs, two rooms with a wide pas
sage between; It was one of a cluster of similar
hoases grouped in the side of the island fronting the
mainland, built for summer habitations, and occa
sionally occupied by gay parties, # u o came here to
fish, hunt, and bathe. (Chatre's island was named fo
a famous Florida belle, now a sedate matron of At
lanta, who could swim like a shark, and throw a
net over a school of mullet equal to a professional
fisherman. But the island was uno-cupied now;
not a Soul upon its length and breadtb. Said Mr.
Tucker, “You’ll have it all to yourself, fori at goin’
back to help with the other boat. You needn’t get
scared, for there’s not so much;as a cat upon Chaire’s
bit.”
We did not thi'kof being scared, we were in a
rapture of delight, and imagined ourselves a batch
of Robinson Crusoes, as we ran about exploring the
wonders of the island, peeping over broken fences
at the plot within, matted with melon and tomato
vines of voluntary growth; peering down the neg
lected well with its fern-grown sides, and into th?
pole hen-house from whose black interior a great
horned owl flew out, as we opened the door, with a
whirr and a epulchral croak that sent us startled
back to the house, where a more nerve-trying ad
venture awaited us. It was now nearly dusk; old
aunt Nanny, standing on the gallery, called out to
Rufus Tucker was showing Aunt Nanny how to fry
a flounder while the coffee pot sent forth a fr gra nt
steam close by.
“And you came last night after all, and the pan
ther never * aught you?” I cried starting up.
“Panther indeed!" said Mr. Tucker, rolling his
quid in his mouth as he turned the fish over with
a dexterous twirl. “’Twarnt no panther. The idee!
Nothin’ but a old fish basket and a pile of oyster
shells. You < an see ew yonder.”
“But it moved.”
“Oh, -on jes magmated that. Maginashun is
powerful strong in chillun and wimmin.”
But I was not convinced,I felt like reiterating with
Galileo (with a change of tense) “but it did move.’*
That we had all seen it move seemed too certain to
be referred to fancy, and thereafter, when I thought
of the “painter,” it was with sensations of perplexi
ty and doubt. Circumstances, shortly alter, settled
the donbt.
I was one day fishing in a little fresh water pond
in the middle of the island, a pond alive with fish
that bit hungrily. Iliad caught a respectable lot
and strung them on a forited stick, when I grew’
tired of holding a rod with one hand and battling
mosketoes with the other, and drawing in my line
sat down on a log to eat some lunch I had brought,
In the;intervals of ham and biscuit, I tried to call up
an alligator I saw moving about midway the pond
by imitating the yelping ofa hurt or disabled dog
as l had heard my father do. Intent upon watch
ing the gyrations of the alligator's ugly head upon
t he water, I did not notice what was going'on close
to me, until a noise drew my attention and I saw to
my consternation an alligator close tome. He had
crawled up noiselessly,possessed himself of my string
offish and was making for the water. To spring af
ter him and belabor him with the fishing rod was
the impotent act of the moment; but he lumbered
clumsily into the water, and left me looking after
him in blank dismay. Somebody not far off,
laughed out. I turneu and saw a man ragged, bare
foot and with a handkerchief tied on his head in
stead of a bat.
“You’ve worked all the morning to catch an alii*
gator his dinner, wont you give me a bite? I’m hun
gry to kill •’ he said coming to me.
“Why don't you catch fish and fry t hem yourself?”
I asked.
“I’m sick of fish; I’ve been living off them and
turtle egjs. Give me one of those biscuit I saw you
eating. I bav’nt tasted bread ;or weeks ”
I gave him all the biscuit in my calico hag, and
he ate them with famished enjoyment.
I felt a little skittish at his proximity, but in
spite of the haggard wildness of his sunburnt, un
shaved face, he had not a wicked look.
“I have seen you before,” be said as he.munched
the biscuit. “That first Dight you come, I was ly
ing on tbe beach and you all got scared at me. You
waved torches at me as if I was a wild beast.”
“We thought you was one. Why did’nt you come
to the house and tell us?”
“I was scared of you. Frightened for fear you
might he somebody that wanted me. You see I was
living a while back in one of Uncle Sam’s lree ho
tels. I went off unbeknown to them; and they
want me back; they liked me so well*”
“Who is it wants yon—your mother—your wife?’
“No” he said low and laid down the biscuit he
had begun eating. “I must go. I thank you ior my
dinner, which is better manners than the- alli
gator had,”
He w< nt, but came back to ask. “Don’t tell
you've seen me till after to-morrow.”
That night, one of our small boats disappeared
The next evening some men stopped on the island
and searched it over to fin-i an escaped criminal,
that had broked jail two weeks before. They did
not find him.
Sentiment and J'cnsc.
No rank can shie.d us fro— the impartiality of
death.
“Aintdata cow lyin’ d <wn yonder on de beach
I see eumpia white an’ black; an’ it move jes now.”
A cow was suggestive of milk and of supper for
which we nad begun to be ravenous. Down we ran
to the sea shore towards the indistinct shape point
ed out. Suddenly one of the little darkeys, who was
ahead, turned short about and ran back crying.
“It’s a beastis! It’s a painterI seed one like him
in de show. He’s a comin !”
Terrified we ran back, breathless with the dreadful
story that there was a “painter" here close to our
doors, and that he had started after us. My mother
tried to rally us. There was no panthev on the is-
Vi. tue is the safest helmet—the most secure de
fense.
The power of eloquence is sometimes superior to
military force.
It is in the power of the me anest to triumph over
fallen greatness.
Preserve the privacy of your house, marriage
state and heart from relatives and all the world.
He who refuses justice to the defenceless, will
trak’ every concession to the powerful.
We take lessons in art, literature,—a thousand
things, but. that high sense of honor, man’s obliga
tion to man, is forgotten.
If we would have powerful minds, we must think;
ifwew uld have faithful hearts, we must love; A
we would have strong muscles, we must labor.—
These include nearly all that is valuable in this
life.
All things must change. Friends must he torn
asun der and swept along in the current of events,
to see eatch other seldom, and, perchance, no more
Forever and ever in the eddies of time and accident
we whirl away.
We all love pleasure and abhor srorow. No one
wii! choose a cloudy sky and a rough path; but these
evils nave their good parts, and those who really
long for peace and happiness will try to find out
and extract them, instead ol hurrying along resent-
laud, she said, there was no animal of any kind, un- J fully or with forced gayty.
less it might be the timid deer. It was our imagi-
nat on. She would have a torch got and go herself
and see what it was.
We would not permit her to go alone; with
thumping hearts in our breasts and lighted pine
splinters in our hands, we marched in a procession
headed by Aunt Nanny with a toren. But another
panic ensued.
“Oh! Lord!” cried Aunt Nanny, flinging her
torch to the winds, “De ting’s a gitten up to come
after us. I seed his paw.”
Back we ran ingloriously, scattering sparks and
lighted splinters in the flight. There was no doubt
it was a*’painter” or something mot e terribleeven.
One had seen its glaring ey es, another was sure she
had heard it growl.
We retreated -nto the best room, and barricaded
the door, (which had no lockj with an old table and
b?.by cradle, we U.und in the room, makirg this de
fense more secure by piling upon it the water duck
et. and the skillets and pots. Just as we had fin
ished and were breathing more easily one of the
black imps sung out
‘ He’ll clam over de logs.” We had forgotten tbe
unceiled room, and the log walls open at the top to
the passage and gallery outside.
There was nothing to he done, but to kindle a
blazing fire in the wide hearth, and keep watch all
night. This we prepared to do. At first we started
and clung together at every sound, but by degrees,
we grew calmer and listened to old Nanny's stories
of the wonderiul See Cow (the Manatee that came
bellowing up out ot the surf on Amelia Island one
day just after a storm, and was shot by my grand
father.
Mother meantime walked the floor o’ - sat listening
at a crack in the wall. She had a cause for anxiety^
we did not think of in the fate of the boat that had
not come, while the night had grown darker and
the waves beat more loudly on the shore. ‘How
slowly the hours dragged on !’ At length we could
no longer keep our lids from dropping, though we
propped them open with straws, after a fashion
taught by old Nanny. We slept and dreamed of
jungles full of glaring panthers.
The aroma of coffee and the sizzing of frying fish )
awoke me. I lay on a soft pile of quilts, the sun.
was shining through the chinks in the walls and i
When any great loss or sud en pain comes una
wares upon us we are apt to forgt t everything else
for the time but our intense suffering. The skies
may be as blue and the fields as green as ever, but
for us they wear a different hue. The brook, whose
bubble over the stones was once music to the ear,
has now a mournful sound. Nature sympathizes
with our moods, smiling with our joys and mourn
ing with our sorrows. .
WEAT THE MICROSCOPE REVEALS.
Lewinbock tells of an insect seen with a mi
croscope, of which 27,000,000 would only equal
a mite. Insects of various kinds maybe seen in
the cavities of a grain of sand. Mold is a forest
of beautiful trees, with branches, leaves and
fruit. Butterflies are fully feathered. Hairs
are hollow tubes. The surface of our bodies is
covered with scales like a fish; a single grain of
sand would cover 150 of these scales, and yet
each scale would cover 500 pores. Through the
narrow openings the perspiration forces itself
like water through a seive. The mites take 500
steps a second. Each drop of stagnant water
contains a world of animated beings, swimming
witb as much liberty as whales in the sea. Each
leaf has a colony of insects grazing on it like
cows in a meadow.
Good bye.
Some may laugh
Icy hearts are nev-
It is a hard word to speak,
that it should be, but let them,
er kind. It is a word that uas choked many an ut
terance, and started many a tear. The hand is
clasped, the word is spoken, we part and are upon
the great ocean of time—we meet—where ! God
only knows. It may be soon, it may be never.
Take care that your good-bye be not a cold one;
it may be the last you give. Ere you can meet
your friend again, death’s cold hand may have
closed his eyes and chained his lips forever. And
he may have died thinking that you loved him not.
It may be a long separation. Friends crowd on
ward and give you their hand. How can vou de
tect in each good-bye the love that lingers there:
and how you may bear away with you the memory
of those words many, many days. We must often
separate. Tear not yourself 'away with careless
bolduess that defies all love, but make your last
words linger—give the heart full utterance—and if
teal's fall, what of it! Tears are not unmanly.
INSTINCT PRINT
Nr