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REMEMBRANCE.
4 wind-swept moor, and fair pale skies,
Sheep on the hills’ soft breast,
A thatch-roofed house beyond (he trees,
Home that my heart loved best.
A boy who pulled the yellow furze,
Wanton with sheer delight,
Itoaming the heath till dewy eve,
From lark's awakening flight.
'Tis half a century ago !
Would gold such peace could buy.
The little lad upon the moor,
The lark that sang on high.
—Pall Mall Gazette.
The
Fulchritudonium.
I suppose you do not know what a
pulchritudonium is. Nor did I until
quite recently; but I am better in
formed now, and, indeed, am quite an
authority on the instrument —or imple
ment? It was Delia’s inquisitive mind
that effected my instruction. Delia
reads the newspapers, after a fashion
—I should say, after the fashions. And
the part of the paper on which her at
tention and interest are concentrated
contains suitable advertisements to
catch the unwary eye. Here it was
that she came upon this pulchritudon
ium. The pulchritudonium beautifies
you; it renders you (according to ad
vertisement) proof against increasing
years. It keeps the figure fine and the
complexion fresh; and it only needs
using for ten minutes every day. Al
so it only costs—but that is of no con
sequence, save that it started the pul
chritudonium between Delia and my
self.
“I suppose you couldn’t let me have
a small sum on my week’s check?” in
quired Delia affably.
I said I thought it might be man
aged, and thinking a certain interest
edness might be expected of me, asked
why. .
“Oh, I don’t know,” said Delia cas
ually. ‘‘l thought perhaps I might
buy—Edward, how do you pronounce
pulchritudonium?” She spelled it out
from her paper with pains, but I had
forgotten what the first part was be
fore we reached the end. However,
at last we got at it.
“It seems a wonderful thing,” she
remarked, in a disinterested tone of
voice.
“What, may I ask, is this wonderful
thing?” I inquired, seeing that I was
expected to do so.
At that, Delia, having achieved her
introduction, began to talk glibly and
with enthusiasm. ,
“You" see, dear, it’s on scientific
principles, just discovered, and it de
velops you all over just properly, and
no more. It gets riA of all super
fluous fat, you know and makes you a
perfect figure, besides sending the
blood through the body and maintain
ing a perfect complexion by means
of circulation. Oh, here it is. This
is what it says.” She had been hastily
turning over the paper in search of
the advertisement, and she now be
gan to read impressively. “ ‘Beauty
and symmetry are dependent upon the
proper adjustment of the internal and
external forces in an organism. If
this adjustment he obtained, beauty
naturally follows. In the case of the
human being, nature has so arranged
it that a nice balance between the
muscles, nerves and ligaments’ ”—De
lia stumbled over that —“ ‘of the body
secures the desired effect. This is
obtained by suitable exercise, and this
is the purpose for which the pulchri
tudonium was designed. No woman
need despair of acquiring grace and
lissomeness if she will systemmatie
ally use the pulchritudonium.’ ”
Delia ceased, and looked at me eag
erly. Perhaps it was not a case for
frankness, but I distrusted that show
of false science.
“I do not think it would be any use
at all,” I said.
Delia put down the paper suddenly,
and rose. “I see,” she said coldly.
“You don’t mind my growing fat. You
would like me Jo grow stout and lose
my figure.”
I explained that I was only question
ing the adequacy of the pulchritudon
ium to permit such a thing; at which
she relaxed.
“But ever so many people have used
it, and testify to its advantages,” she
protested. “There’s a whole list of
names here.”
“There always will be geese for
quacks,” I said, adding “I mean ducks,
of course.”
“I haven’t the faintest idea what you
do mean,” said Delia loftily, “and I
think that that cynical way you’ve got
into is simply beastly. I suppose you
think it’s becoming, but it isn’t. It’s
only vulgar.”
“All right,” said I, cheerfully. “If
ynu think the pulch?what’s-it’s-name
will make you more becoming, by all
means have it.”
Now I had conceded the point, and
Delia had got what she wanted; and
she ought to have been satisfied. But
she was not. She did not even thank
mg. *
“You used to admire me once,” she
said, after a pause.
“I know I did, my dear,” I said
lightly. “Why shouldn’t I?”
“Os course,” she said rather warm-
ly, “if you think I’m not becoming, and
that I’m getting too stout, please say
so at once, and let me know. I al
ways like to know the truth, however
unpleasant.”
“Great Scot!” I protested at this re
markable instance of feminine perver
sity. “You wanted the thing for that
very reason, and I said you could have
it.”
“I didn’t like your tone,” said Delia,
face to face with her own inconsis
tency, and somewhat primly she left
the room, still without a word of
thanks.
However, she bought the pulchritu
donium, and it began at once to figura
in our lives. It was for use before
breakfast, and it had to be nailed to
a wall. Delia had it nailed to her
bedroom door, where she was using
it, it resisted the efforts of any of her
family to enter. It consisted of cords
and pieces of wood to hold by, and
when Delia was at work in her airy
morning costume she looked like a
dangerous Amazon. She stood upright
with a set expression on her face, then
suddenly plunged out at you with fe
rocity, stopped, made a sally in an
other direction, recovered herself, and
then dived for her toes. It was an in
teresting but alarming performance.
The first time she went through it
in strict privacy, but after one or two
trials she got confidence, and invited
me to witness it. It was unfortunate
that the nails should have given on
that particular occasion, because it
was, as I have said, interesting, and I
should like to have seen more of it.
But Delia was so strenuous and fierce
that they aid give, and she went into
the cold tub which she had already
used some time before.
As I picked her out I comforted her
with the thought that it was a good
thing she had not been fully dressed,
but she was very cross, and seemed to
think it w’as my fault.
“You ought to have tested them,”
she told me, as she wrung out her gar
ments; and when I asked if she were
going to resume she called me horrid,
and told me to go.
Nothing daunted, Delia went on with
her exercises next morning, (the nails
having been replaced), but I was not
admitted. From time to time all that
week I heard the door of her room
going, as it creaked and rattled and
groaned behind her exertions. Once in
passing on the landing I gathered that
our rattu*- deaf cook, mistaking the
groaning, no doubt for a permissable
answer to her knock, had opened the
door and caused a mishap. I heard
Delia’s voice crossly. “The door —my
leg,” and on that cook’s “Yes’m, the
leg has just come.”
On another occasion the shrill
screams of our pug summoned me in
hot haste and soma anxiety to the up
per regions, when I found he had
been indistreetly curious enough to
venture too close to his mistress in
the abandon of her exercitations. The
result was a severe blow on what
ought to have been his nose.
But the work was kept up with
ruthless conscientiousness, and at the
end of a fortnight I was once more
called in, not this time to watch, but
to report on results. It was at once
obvious to me that reports were ex
pected to be favorable.
“Do you know, Edward, that my
waist is distinctly smaller?” I was
told triumphantly. “My dress is quite
loose.”
I did not see the object of having a
loose dress, but I didn’t dare to say
so. “Feel my muscles,” she urged. I
felt her beautifully rounded arm, but
frankly I did not feel for muscles.
'Don't you think they’ve improved?”
she asked, observing them critically.
“Much,” said I, in a cowardly man
ner. She cast a glance of suspicion at
me, but my face was very serious.
“Much!” she repeated coldly, “I sup
pose you thought me skinny before.”
“Oh, dear no,” said I hastily. “I
thought you were perfection.”
She looked mollified. “Then I could
not have improved much,” she re
marked.
“Well, a little is a lot in the case
of beauty,” I explained.
She was still contemplating herself
in the glass. “I can distinctly see
signs of improvement,” she said. “You
see, as they say in the advertisement,
it fills you out where you ought to be
filled, and it takes you down where
you oughtn’t to be filled out.”
“Yes, it’s a wonderful thing,” I
agreed.
“Where do you think it’s affected me
most?” she inquired.
“Well, from the necessarily limited
nature of my inspection, I am hardly
in a position to judge,” I said hesitat
ingly. “But I should hazard a guess
that your complexion had improved
most.”
“I always had a good complexion, as*
you ought to know,” she remarked de
cidedly.
“I know,” I explained with acidity.
“But it’s the exercise that gives you
color, perhaps.”
Delia was silent, thoughtfully. “Do
you mean I’m getting blowzy?” she
asked anxiously. “I should just hate
to be like a bouncing milkmaid.”
“There is no danger of that,” I as
sured her; hut I left her peering into
the glass.
The next morning Delia sought me
in my study with a determined expres
sion on her face. “Edward,” said she,
“I want your honest opinion. “Is the
pulchritudonium making my nosa
red?”
I was tired of the pulchritudonium;
but I was very gentle.
“Well —er —no,” I said hesitatingly.
Delia’s chin stiffened. “Please don’t
stammer like that,” she said sharply.
“I want a plain answer.”'
“No,” I said firmly.
She looked at me. “I think I’ll
give it up,’ she said next, rather
abruptly.
“Do,” said I, eagerly. “Frankly. I
don’t think it has improved you, be
cause it couldn’t improve you.”
A charming smile started on Delia’s
face. “I’m so glad,” she said eagerly.
“I’ll give it up. I never did believe
in it. Besides, I never needed it, did
it?”—H. B. Mariott Watson in the
Sketch.
MOTHER TONGUE.
Comparison of English Spoken in
England and in America.
The shafts launched at Henry
James during a meeting of the Mod
ern Language association of America,
at Haverford college, were barbed
with wit and not a little justice. They
do not, nevertheless, destroy the un
fortunate vitality of the contention
that the speech of Americans is in
ferior to that of Englishmen.
It is not a matter cf the compara
tive merits of the different English
and American standards. In the par
ticularities of usuage our own rule is
as frequently as not to be preferred.
“Different from” is as good as “differ
ent to;” “in accord with” as “in ac
cord to;” “under the circumstances”
as “in the circumstances;” “as soon
as he came” as “directly he came.”
The Englishman’s failure to distin
guish in pronunciation between the
verb and the noun “prophecy” is la
mentable; his hard “genesis” and his
soft “schedule” are, to our ear, an in
version of propriety, and his enmity
toward the Italian u in “figure” is a
national horror. We may say “vanil
ler,” but we couldn’t possibly he guil
ty of “figger.”
But the speech of England is im
measurably superior to that of Amer
ican gentlemen of the Modern Lan
guage association will not deny it —in
this—namely, that whereas Ameri
cans, even educated Americans, are
careless in both grammar and pro
nunciation, slip-shod, easy going, and
prone to every colloquial short cut,
the vast majority of Englishmen
speak with precision, according to a
well-established national standard.
The meat of the matter is in the
fact that we of America have no
pride in or care for correctness of
speech. We never dream of judging
a mauls education or culture from the
manner in which he speaks. We are
not surprised to find the same verbal
faults upon the lips of college presi
dents, men of letters or of affairs,
that we have heard from the un
taught. There even lingers among us
a suspicion of too great elegance of
speech, as if heartiness and vigor
should not comport with refinement.
And so we go on torturing all for
eign ears and wronging our own souls
with the drawl, the slur, the clipped
syllable, the flattened vowel, the stri
dent voice and slovenly enunciation.
We snub our labials, we torture our
mid-syllables and we massacre our
vowels, until in our homes, streets
and even lecture halls, churches and
theatres, the stately tongue of
Shakespeare and Milton is become in
glorious, shabby, well-nigh infamous.
In England how different is the
case. There his manner of speech is
an index of a man’s education. Os
the unlettered little may be expected,
but in the graduate or in the man or
woman of respectable breeding a ver
bal fault is a social crime. Careless
ness is not excused. Vigor is not held
to be a thing opposed to accuracy, or
power to be necessarily uncouth; on
the contrary, a clear head is expected
to express itself in correct sentences,
cleanly enunicated. It is expected to
do so, and it does so —to the pleasure
of the listening ear, the delight of the
answering mind and the promotion of
social understanding, amiability and
efficiency.
To establish the same happy condi
tions in America, it would be neces
sary only for the educated to persuade
themselves of the desirability of cor
rect utterance, and in particular for
all such organizations as the Modern
Language association to rebuke at
every opportunity such pointless pet
tifogging pleas as that which formed
the climax of one delegate’s address
yesterday. “Power is more (sic) to
be preferred than (sic) more breed
ing.”—Philadelphia Ledger.
Shifting the Blame.
It is the custom of the Khonds in
the Madras Presidency to offer a buf
falo in sacrifice in substitution far
the human victim, but in doing so
they make long apologies to the
Deity, explaining that they them
selves would willingly make the cus
tomary sacrifice, but are prevented
by the British government, on whose
head they pray that any anger at their
neglect of duty may be visited. —Cal-
cutta Englishman.
The total number of letters, papers,
etc., forwarded by post in the German
Empire last year was 6,986.000,00 ft.
Heredity
Sp And Environment
5 ■ {
f Acquired Characteristics Only the Heritage |
A Previous Environment. A
By F. Loco us h, M. D.
S MAINTAIN that of all the questions of the present day wait
ing to be solved, none is of greater importance to civilization
than that of the relative importance of heredity or environ
ment in human progress. The theory held by most scien
ists —the outcome of Darwin’s theory of natural selection —
is that we are it, the grip of heredity from which we cannot
escape. It is this aspect of the question which led Prof.
Karl Pearson, in his Huxley lecture a short time ago, tq
take such a gloomy view of the British race, and it is this
which induces so many laymen, as well as physicians, to predict the gradual
deterioration of the human race.
Believers in the all-powerful influence of heredity fail to see that we have
in our own hands the power, through improved environment, to mold for the
better our race. They fail to see That acquired characters are inherited, i. e„
that the effects of improved training of the young are in varying degree in
herited by the offspring, so that they start in life with better conditions
through improved heredity.
In considering the question of heredity and environment we should un
derstand that there are two and only two factors at work, viz., the organism
and the environment. Now, the organism has no inherent power to change it
self. It is wholly and solely plastic in the power of environment. As to the
part played by the two in organic life, none has ever put the fact more clearly
and tersely than Luther Burbank, when he says, “Heredity is the sum of all
past environment.” So important is the question that I hold that the man of
wealth who devotes a part of his means to a settlement of the question will
ever live in memory as one of the greatest benefactors of the human race,
when all men and women come to believe that the proper and best training of
their children will be for the best, not only for their children, but for the race.
When, I say, this fact takes possession of and influences them, then shall
we begin to see true progress. Much, I grant, is now being done by other
means for race improvement, but these means are only indirect ones; tha
working out of progress through improved environment and training will ha
the direct means, being based on a fundamental law of nature.
P-"'*— ** Give the
Farm Boy a Chance t
* By W. D. Neale.
• IVE the boy on the farm a chance. Don’t make him a slave,
Gbut make him your partner. It will pay any father in the
long run, and save the boy. Remember, a boy is human and
must have incentives to work. He desires to gather some
- fruit of his own labor. If he is not permitted to do so the
._ _ work will be obnoxious, because it yields him nothing but
what he eats and wears. Give the boy an interest in a calf,
pig, horse or crop of corn, and life for him will take on new
color, and he will take on new energy. He may not realize
a large sum of money in the end, but the pleasure and interest will come in
the pursuit rather than the possession. Otherwise, the boy begins to think
he’s nothing but a slave to drudge for his parents, and when he is half grown
—the very time he heeds the care of a loving mother and the admonition of a
wise father —he drifts away from the farm.
Then, too, put responsibility on the farm boy and he will not shirk it. He
needs to be taught self-reliance. Lot him strike out for himse’f at times by
putting in a patch of potatoes or a few acres of corn. This will teach him to
depend on his own resources. If his ideas are crude, suggest to him the best
plans and methods. He will learn by experience that your opinion is worth
more than his. Let him bump up against the business world. He will like it.
If he does get cheated in a calf trade or the sale of his crop it will put him on
his guard for the next time. Take him to market when you sell your stock.
The boy has helped you to fatten them and it is natural that he should want
to know what they will weigh and how much they will bring. Give him a
chance to figure out the profit.
Let your boy go with you when you purchase the farming implements. Ask
his advice about them whether you take it or not. If he sees you knock up
against the business men he will soon learn how to do the same.
Above all, broaden the farm boy intellectually. Don’t starve his mind, es
pecially if he is eager for knowledge. Give him all the schooling you can. if
that isn’t much, then put good books and papers in his way. Encourage him
to read your farm journals, weekly and religious papers. If he’s got anything
behind him, he’ll make a man.
I Should Short Stories j
k Have Introductions?
By Henry M. JHden. **J\r~***J\r~*s
Mmmmmm* AKING due allowance for the delightful relaxations of prose,
and conceding that the imaginative appeal of the artist is
M through indirection rather than by the straight and narrow
way, it yet remains true that all circumlocuton is a mistake
and is abhorrent to genius. Hence it usually happens that
the poorer the story is, the longer and more irrelevant the
introduction, which at its best is a senseless traditional rite
handed down to us from a cruder period of the art. Good
writers dispense with the rite altogether.
We all remember the old conventional formula: “We were sitting around
the camp-fire,” or perhaps it was “by the fireside.” In either case, the circum
stance, which had no relation whatever to the story, was irresistibly seductive
to the feeble imagination of the narrator, and we were treated to all the ac
cessories—what kind of a night it was, the individual characteristics of each
of the group of listeners, as fondly and elaboraetly described as if they were
the actors in the indefinitely postponed drama; then, perhaps, a little conver
sation, and, more than likely, a few stories leading up—if they so happened
to —to the one almost hopelessly-deferred. We use the past tense, but the ed
itor comes upon this sort of thing every day, though his readers are spared
the infliction. —Harper’s Magazine.
The Fault of the Clock.
Pat and Mike were playing a game j
of cards in a saloon, and Pat kept [
looking at the clock. Mike said, “And
faith ,what are you looking at the
clock for?” “Every time that clock
ticks,” Pat replied, “J. D. Rockefel
ler makes ?10.” Mike dropped his
cards and jumped on the table.
“What in faith are you going to do?”
asked Pat. “I am going to stop the
clock,” answered Mike. —Daily Tele
graph.
The clock at the entrance to Lord j
Ellesmere’s estate at Worsley strikes
thirteen at one o’clock.
The Shrewd Son.
“Here!” roared the old lawyer to
| his son, studying law with him, “you
told me you had read this work on
Evidence, and yet the leaves are not
cut.”
“Used X-rays,” yawned the versa
tile son; and the father chuckled with
delight as he thought what a lawyer
the boy would make. —Punch.
Fearing that he would be punished
for spending 7 pence on sweets instead
jof buying fruit for his mother, a
| schoolboy at Adorf. Saxony, threw
himself in front of a train and was
killed.