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Humors of the Academy.
“The Academy," sajs d’Alembert,
“is the object of the secret or avowed
ambition of all men or letters, 01 tho-e
even who have made good or bad epi
grams at its expense, epigrams of
which it would be deprived if a place
in it was less sought after.” M. Max-
ime du Camp, now a member of the
Academy, is a living example of the
truth of this statement, for no one
has more bitterly satirized the Immor
tals than he Formerly the Academy
used to offer its auteuils to distin
guished persons, but at present mem
bership is granted only after a formal
demand has been made by the candi
date, and even then he has to run the
chances of a. ballot. This change dates
from the publication of the translation
of the “Confessions of St Augustin,”
by Arnauld d’Andilly. The Academy
charmed by the beauty of the work,
offered the translator a seat in their
midst. He thanked them, and smi
lingly remarked: “Have we not an
academy at Port Royal ?” The mem
bers of the Academy after tha made a
rule that they would never again so
licit anyone, but must be solicited
themselves. That rule’has excluded
many a remarkable man from the il
lustrious body. Louis Blanc is a liv
ing instance, and Mahly a dead one.
Tbe latter, when asked why he did
not become a candidate, replied: “If
I were in the Academy, people might
ask: ‘ vVhy is he in it?’ I prefer that
they should ask : ‘Why is he not in
it’ ?” The epigrams made against the
Academy are numberless. Pavilion,
in a letter to Furetiere, writes : “I was
taken, incognito, to the Academy, by
M. Racine. I saw eleven persons
there. One was listening, another
sleeping, three others were quarrelling,
another three went away without
speaking one word.” After his recep
tion at the Academy, Fontenelle re
marked: “Tuerearenow only thirty-
nine persons in France who have more
wit that I.” It was the same Fonte-
nelle who observed : “If we are thirty-
nine in number, people go on their
knees to us ; when ws are forty they
make game of us.”
It was a bon mot which excluded
the Abbe Raynal from the Academy.
He was pushing his way into the
Palais de l’Institut amidst a dense
crowd, to be present at the reception of
a very mediocre author. “It strikes
me,” he cried, “that it is more diffl-
cult to get into this place than to be
received in it.” Piron also was kept
out for his famous premature epitaph :
Ci-gil Piron, qui ne fui rien,
Pas meme Academicien.
On another occasion, Piron, passing
in front of the Institut, remarked to a
friend: “There are forty of them in
there, qui ont de V esprit comme qua-
treV it was Piron, too, who main
tained that a newly received Academi
cian’s discourse should consist of no
more than three words: “Messieurs,
grand merci.” Whereupon the Di
rector ought to reply : “/ l n'y a pas
de quoi.”
At£cotch Graves.
Everybody knows that tliert is no
service at the grave in Scotland, al
though the clergyman under whom
the deceased “sat” is often, indeed
usually, present. The hats of those in
attendance may be taken off the mo
ment after they have lowered the
coffin into the grave just for an instant
but even this is not always the case.
This habit of dispensing with religious
exercises had its origin, no doubt, In
the Scotch horror of doing anything
that might give a color to th# charge
of following the Roman Catholio
fashion of praying for the dead. The
reading of a chapter of the Bible and a
short prayer in the house before the
cortege sets out for the church yard is
the sole religious service, and the pre
liminaries to this are sometimes of a
kind to raise the idea that care is
taken to disconnect it from the peculiar
circumstances of the occasion. T wenty
years ago I was at a funeral in the
country at which the minister an 1 his
colleague of the church to which the
deceased belonged attended. After
the company had assembled some de
canters of wine and a tray with cake
were brought in and set upon the
table. The daughter of the deceased,
herself a clergyman’s wife, then sug
gested that the senior minister
“should ask a blessing.” The request
served as an excuse for a long prayer
appropriate to the circumstances of
the occasion which had brought us
together, and after it was over cake
and wine were handed round. Then
a request was made that the junior
clergyman “should return thanks,”
and he readily enough indulged in a
prayer, in whioh he gathered up the
fragments suitable to the circum
stances which his colleague had omit
ted, and that was the whole religious
service—simply a grace before and
after meat.
The Farm.
Now is the time to exterminate the
weed crop. Pull it all out btfore it
goe^ to seed.
Why Burn the Brush?—Some
men burn all their brush from the
trimmings of orchards, lawn trees,
and shrubs. Brush cut up fine and
put beneath shrubs and trees will add
rapidly to their growth as it rots.
Thf Value of Foduer Corn.—
A correspondent of a Maine journal
says: Three years ago this summer I
fed thirty cows on one and one-half
acres of fodder corn for two months.
They were all giving milk and I was
making from thirty to forty caus of
eight and one half quarts daily. I fed
four quarts of meal per head per day.
Of course you will expect they had a
pasture to run in. They did have a
^pasture; the thirty cows had about
forty acres of brush pasture, not five of
which was high enough to bear Eng
lish grasses. The cows all looked well;
in fact, they seemed to thrive on that
feed, and for a dairy of native cows
picked up in the country, the yield of
milk was at least an average with
other herds. But this is not all. I
planted twenty five acres of field corn,
and on the fodder wintered forty-five
cows with the help of about fifteen tons
of meadow hay and green oats, and by
adding two quarts of cottonseed meal
and two quarts of shorts, I got about
the same amount of milk and
milked about the same number of
cows. In January I bought some new
milkers and sold fourteen dry or
nearly dry cows to the butcher. Our
nalk was all sold to one man and at
an advance above others; first, because
we made so much, and second, because
of quality. Five acres of the coin were
planted on fertilizers, the balance on
manure in the hill. That cn fertilizers
was nothing but fodder. It was all
old pasture, planted the summer be
fore, and sowed with rye and cut green
for soiling. I raised about 1,800 bush
els of ears of corn. I consider the fod
der paid for all the labor on the corn,
or the corn paid for the fodder, which
ever way you like. Now, as to raising
your clover or other fine grasses, how
much land will it take to keep that
stock ? As to Hungarian, it takes good
land to raise two tons of dried fodder
per acre, and for soiling I had rather
have oats, rye or corn to feed green.
Common Sense ^bout the
Piano.
Little girls fear the piano, and long
for the time when, having at last mas
tered its difficulties, they will not be
called upon to play upon it any more;
while numberless great girls regard it
as one of the many nuisances which
they must put up with until they get
married. Once, however, libejate
young women from that piano to
whioh like serfs they have so long
been “assigned” but not “attached”
and some of them will take to cultiva
ting it for its own sake ; while the re
mainder will at least spare both them
selves and their friends a considerable
amount of annoyance.
The enormous difficulty of modern
pianoforte music constitutes in itself a
reason why in the education of young
girls the piano should not, like “danc
ing and deportment,” be made obliga
tory. A woman can get through life
so well without playing the piano;
and for a few shillings, or even in
extreme cases for a single shilling, she
can, if her lot happens to be cast in
London, hear from time to time the
finest players that this great piano
forte-playing age has ever produced.
It is not because the piano is unworthy
of her attention that woman shmld
be liberated from the task work im
posed upon her in connection with it.
It is because music, like every other
art, demands from its votaries special
gifts and inclinations, and because
among women who are thus endowed
it is a mistake to suppose that the
piano is the only instrument suitable
to them.
Let it be understood in the first place
that it is no more a disgraoe for a
young lady not to play the piano than
it is a disgrace for her not to draw, to
paint, or to model; and in the second
place, that if she does mean to play
some instrument it is a mistake for
her to restrict herself as a matter of
course to the piano. Next to the or
gan, the piano is, thanks to the or
chestral effects which it can be made
produce, the finest instrument in the
world ; and it is the only instrument
for which every great composer writes
as a matter of course, and for which
every great composer’s orchestral
works are arranged in reduced form.
To praise at the expense cf the piano
the violin, whioh—except when tourd
de force are indulged in—yields like
the human voice but a single note, is
a very common f iling, but it is one
that we should not ourselves care to
undertake. The violin to be effective
in a truly musical sense must, like the
human voice, be accompanied either
by the orchestra or by the pianoforte,
or by other members of the violin
family. The pianoforte is (putting
aside, of course, the too colossal organ)
the only instrument whicn, tor har
monic as well arf melodic purposes, is
complete in itself and which is really
an orchestra in little.
There are good reapons, then, why
all who care much for music should
study the piano but no reason why
they should study the piano exclu
sively. Often in the same family there
are two, three, and even four pianists.
How much and how advantageously
the musical domain of such a family
would be increased if, with or with
out neglect of the piano, the in
strumeuts of the violin family were
taken up, with a view not necessarily
to stdng q lartets, but at least to the
numerous pieces written by great
composers foi violin or violincello.and
piano. “The violin—I include always
the viola and violincello —is no
doubt,” says Mr. Hullah in hi- excel
lent little work on ‘ Music in the
House,” “a difficult instrument; but
the difficulty ofacq firing a serviceable
amount of skill on it has been exagger
ated. To become a Joachim, a Holmes,
or a Piatti, is the woik of a lifetime,
even for men gifted with equal apti
tude and perseverance to these, turned
to account under skilful guidance and
at the right time of life, and supple
mented and encouraged by a thousand
circumstances as impossible to take
account of as to bring about aud fore
see. But there is an amount of skill
below—very much balow—that of art
ists of this class which, if accompa
nied by feeling taste, and intelligence,
may contribute largely to the variety
and agreeableness of music in the
house.” It may be hoped that in a
few years, without the number of our
domestio pianists being too much di
minished, that of our d omestic violin
ists will be considerably increased.
Some half-dozen lady violinists have
appeared this season in London, at
public concerts, who possess the very
highest merit; and at a half-private,
half-public concert given rec ntly at
Stafford H >use for the benefit of a
charity, the chief attraction was a
string band consisting of no fewer
than twenty-four lady executants,
The diversion, then, of feminine talent
from the piano toward* the violin, is
not a movement which has to be orig
inated ; it needs only to be encouraged.
Madame Ste. Hilaire’s Neck-
lace.
The wife of the great French natu
ralist, M. Geoffroy Ste. Hilaire, once
lost a handsome diamond necklace,
and the house was in an uproar in
consequence of the vanished bauble.
Incidentally the naturalist mentioned
th.it a favorite baboon, which he kept
upstairs, had been pi lying f »r some
days past with a necklace precisely
similar to the one described. He was
indignantly asked why he had not
taken the necklace from the animal,
“I thought that it belonged to him,”
calmly made answer M. Geoffroy Ste.
Hilaire. The naturalist had lived so
long with animals, he had become so
thoroughly absorbed in their habits
and idiosyncrasies, that he could see
no kind of incongruity in a monkey
possessing a diamond necklace. Thus
Fransham, the Norwich polytheisf,
when somebody left him a legacy to
£25, proposed to buy a pony with the
money. It was notorious that he could
not ride, and he was asked what he
wanted a horse for. “To walk about
with and talk to,” was his reply.
A Welsh Cure for the Ague.
Being in the new church of Aber,
Carnarvonshire, lately, I was looking
at the old font, brought from the
ancient church there when it was
demolished to make room for the
present new edifice, and noticing four
circular hollows on the rim, suggested
that the ancient cover or canopy of the
font probably sprang from them or
fitted into them. “ Nay,” said the
venerable rector; “my people say
that they were caused by scraping
away the stone; dust from the ohurch
font mixed in water and drunk early
in the morning being considered a
cure fo^tbe ague.”
For Sprain.—Bathe with arnica di
luted with water, and bandage with
soft flannel moistened with the same.
A sprained wrist thus treated will
grow well and strong in a few days.
Billet-Doux.
Rousseau gives a rule for their com
position, which would make it appear
a matter of the utmost ease. “Begin
without knowing what you are going
to say ” advises he, “aud end without
knowing what you have said.” That
may be all very well, aud there are
tome who, no doubt, have been able
to do it. The theological John Knox
probably acted ou the first part of tbe
maxim. H % first love letter was a
composition that it is difficult to imag
ine any could have deliberately pre
meditated. It was enormously long,
reads for the most part like a very dull
sermon, and its first sentence—ad
dressed to his “Deirlibelovit sister”—
when afterward printed made eigh
teen lines of close type. Falstatf’s
letter, duplicate copies of which served
for tne two merry wives of Windsor,
may possibly have been an extempore
effusion, such as Rousseau recom
mends. It is just what the witty old
scape-grace might be imagined to sit
down and scribble off hand, feeling
q dte sure that almost anything in the
shape of a letter would answer his pur
pose. “Y m are not young, no more
am I; go to, then, there’s sympathy.
You are merry, so am I ; ha, ha ! then
there’s more sympathy. You love
sack, so do I; would you desire better
sympathy ?”
The ordinary billet-doux,however,is
a far more serious affair than auy thing
Falstatt was capable of writing, and
whether ponderously spun out in loDg
winded periods like Knox’s or con
centrated and condensed like Steele’s,
the love letter has probably always
been the occasion of a vast amount of
brain cudgelling. “Dear Mistress
Spurlock,” wrote Steele, “I am'tired
of calling you by that name; therefore
say a day when you will take that of,
nuadame, your devoted, humble ser
vant, Richard Steele.” Nothing looks
simpler than this; but how many
preliminary experiments Steele had
made, how many other forms of pro
posal he had concocted, aud through
how many various phases this crisp,
neat little billet had gradually devel
oped, who shall say ? Steele certainly
has sometimes been accredited with
rather remarkable aptftude in framing
correspondence of this sort, but his
reputation has been based on his
past matrimonial performances,which
were very curious, certainly, but can
not be regarded as any criterion of his
faculty In this line before marriage.
“Dear Prue,” he writes to his wife on
one occasion, “I am very sleepy and
tired, Wifi could not think of closing
■ny eyes till I nad told you I am, c ear
est creature, your most affectionate,
faithful husband, Richard Steele.”
There are so many of these singular
little billets-doux scattered here and
there in the published correspondence
of this writer that for a time one is in
clined to regard them as genuine man
ifestations of an uxorious disposition.
Steele seems always to have been
writing to “Dear Prue” these consider
ate, devoted little notes. “Djar Prue,
don’t be displeased that I do not come
home till 11 o’clock.—Yours ever.”
“Foreive me dining abroad, and let
Will carry the papers to Buckley’s.—
Y rnr fond, devoted R. 8.” Three or
four times a day he would be sending
offsueh dispatches as these : “I beg
of you not to be impatient, though it
be an hour before you see me.” There
is, however, one of these notes which
seems to show that such effusions were
not altogether spontaneous. “Dear
Prue: It is a strange thing because
you are handsome that you will no:
behave yourself with the obedience
that people of worse features do; but
that I must be always giving you an
acoount of every trifle and minute of
my time. I send you this to tell you
I am waiting to be sent for again when
my Lord Wharton is stirring.”
* Fashion.
Outside garments, if worn at all,
seem necessarily expensive this season
because they are of lace, and real lace
is and must be costly. Light imita
tions are not now considered good
style even by those who do not pretend
to the “real.” Spanish laces are the
rage of the hour, and if these are not
good they show their poverty so
plainly that few have the courage to
display them in a large way. In rioh
lace the large mantles are beautiful
and so daintily gathered up in grace
ful folds and ruched and ribboned that
it is difficult to tell what the precise
form is until they are arranged upon
the person, and then it is seen that
they have the mantle shape, and that
the folds fall naturally over and in to
the arm, and that the fronts are fre
quently shirred and finished with
more ribbons at the waist line; a revi
val, in fact, of tbe mantle fiuish of
many years ago. Smaller conceptions
are the most exquisite things
imaginable. Yet they are so
enriched by ruched lace and
trimmings, and the fabric of
which they are composed is so costly,
that a small garment represents a
high figure.
Oue thing is to be observed, that all
garments (outside) that are successful
of late years outline the form more or
less by being cut to fit it or gathered
in to its shape. Attempts have been
made to revive the long scarf, straight
upon the back and hanging straight
down in front; but they have been
comparative failures. Shape, outline,
i* demanded, and the draped oostume
with more or less of modification will
probably last out this generation and
constitute the underlying principle in
whatever changes are introduced.
8ummer Cloaks.
Cloaks in summer seem a misnomer,
aud excepting as dust protectors,
useless. Yet they are not so. Oddly
enough, the caprice of the season in
outside garments Is for the two ex
tremes—very large, in fact, Mother
Hubbard cloaks, aud capes or fichus so
small that they do not reaih rhe line
of the waist. These summer Mother
Hubbards are extremely elegant.
They are made of outlined Spanish
lace, lined with silk and profusely
trimmed with lace and ribbons, and
are very expensive garments. But
they are very handsome and quaintly
graceful, and, though light and cool,
are perfectly protective and give an
air of distinction to the sum uer dress
of a middle-aged lady who h it very
seldom possesses. These leaks are
quite the novelty of the season, and
show that the “Mother Hubbard’*
idea was not so ephemeral as was at
first supposed. To be sure, it has been
greatly improved and modified. It is
still hideous in heavy cloths, but the
fine thin wools silk lined, the rich
laces lined with silk and the present
fashion of making, which has re
moved all the fulness from the shoul
der and drawn it closely in to the fig
ure, render it really becoming to slen
der women.
Brennan’s Torpedo.
A new torpedo has been invented in
Australia, and is thus described: Its
motive power is not compressed air,
neither is it contained in the body of
the torpedo. To propel the weapon
through the water at a speed of from
fifteen to twenty knots an hour for
1,000 yards, a separate engine, or at
least a special connection with an ex
isting one, is necessary. Tuis engine
drives two drums, about three feet in
diameter, with a velocity at their peri
pheries of 100 feet per second. Their
duty is to wind in two fine steel wires
No. 18 gauge, the same a3 used in the
deep-sea sounding apparatus of Sir
William Thompson. The rapid un
coiling of these wires from two small
corresponding reels in the belly of the
fish imp rts to them, as may readily
be conceived, an extremely high veloc
ity. The reels are connected with the
shafts of the two propellers which drive
the torpedo through the water. The
propellers work, as has long beer
known to be necessary to insure
straight running, in opposite diree
tions and both in one line, the shaft of
one being hollow and containing the
shaft of the other.
At first sight it would seem as if
hauling a torpedo backward by two
wires was a curious way speeding it
“full speed ahead,” but it is found in
practice that the amount of “drag” is
so small, as compared with the power
utilized in spinning the reels that
give motion to the propellers, that it
may be left out of calculation alto
gether. The steering-gear of the
Brennan is an ingenious contrivance
whereby the relative velocities of the
two driving drums, and consequently
of the two propellers, can be varied at
any moment. The perpendicular rud
der, whioh is very sensitive, is reacted
on by Ihe screws, and in this way the
torpedo may be made to follow as tor
tuous a path as a figure skater. The
course the torpedo is taking is indica
ted to the operator by a slight steel
telescopic mast carrying a pennon,
which, when not in use, is folded
along the back of the torpedo.
Melons, in their season, suggests the
■New England Farmer, ought to be
plenty on every farmer's table. They
require noacooking, mage an ever
weloorne dessert, and are not only bet
ter and cheaper, but more wholesome
than much of the pastry which they
would or might replaoe.