The seventy miles between Colombo and Galle is traversed the first

third of the way by rail, and the remaining two-thirds by a somewhat

primitive stage coach. Natives are in front and in the rear, but we

have the whole interior to ourselves, the horn sounds its inspiriting

strains, and we are off at good speed over excellent roads. We are

never far from the sea. Sometimes we drive on the shore in sight of

the rolling surges, again we see the gleaming blue water through the

palms, and whenever we pause we hear the deep undertone of its mighty

voice. The plantain, the mangrove, the dark, glossy, broad leaf of

the breadfruit are almost the only varieties of foliage we have in

contrast with the ever-present cocoanut, which casts its shadow on the

ground with a central stem of light, instead of shade, running through

the immense frond. The population of Ceylon is twelve times as dense

in the western as in the eastern provinces, and all the inhabitants

of the coast are supported by the cocoanut. The natives have a saying

that the cocoanut palm loves the sound of the human voice, and, like

the magpie and robin, will not flourish away from the habitations of

men. Like the palmyra palm in the north of Ceylon, the cocoanut in the

south yields most of the necessaries of life. Its fruit furnishes food,

its shell drinking vessels, its juice palm wine and sugar, its stem

materials for building, its leaves roofs, matting, baskets and paper.

The number of these trees in the island is estimated to be twenty

millions, which yield from seven to eight hundred million cocoanuts

annually, and are worth ten million dollars. These trees are carefully

guarded at night when the fruit is ready to pick. The natives climb

these tall, smooth trunks with great agility, partly by the aid of

bamboo ladders, and oftener with the help of a short band of cocoanut

fibre between the feet or around the loins. Along the route we passed

half a dozen or more school houses, admirably constructed for the

climate, with a substantial roof, wooden walls about six feet high,

and the upper portion left open to all the winds of heaven. We could

see the blackboards and the teacher and the pupils as we dashed by. On

the summit of Richmond Hill, two miles from the town of Galle, where

the Wesleyan mission is situated, we can not do better than pause and

await the steamer which is to bear us to Hong Kong and Yokohama. A

broad verandah, furnished with tables, rattan couches and easy chairs,

commands a magnificent outlook. A waving sea of palms leads up to

distant mountains on the one side, while on the other a sea of palms

stretches away to that far-flashing ocean which is soon to bear us on

its bosom.

[To be continued.]

ART OF CONVERSATION.

The art of conversation so essential to every one who wishes to mingle

in society, can only be perfected by frequent intercourse with the

polite, yet great assistance may be derived by an intelligent person

from the observations below, and no important blunders can possibly be

made if the rules here given be attended to.

Under favorable circumstances, and among persons who know how to train

a conversation, there are few if any amusements more grateful to the

human mind. Every one knows something which he is willing to tell, and

which any other that he is in company with wishes to know, or which if

known to him, would be amusing or useful.

To be a skilful conversationist, one’s eyes and ears should be busy;

nothing should escape his observation. His memory should be a good

one, and he should have a good-natured willingness to please and to be

pleased.

It follows that all matter of offense in conversation should be

avoided. The self-love of others is to be respected. Therefore, no one

is tolerated who makes himself the subject of his own commendation, nor

who disregards the feelings of those whom he addresses.

There is as much demand for politeness and civility in conversation

as in any other department of social intercourse. One who rudely

interrupts another, does much the same thing as though he should,

when walking with another, impertinently thrust himself before his

companion, and stop his progress.

It was one of the maxims of a French philosopher, that “in

conversation, confidence has a greater share than wit.” The maxim is

erroneous, although it is true that a fashionable fool may attain

to the small talk of which much of the conversation of society is

composed, and his glib confidence may so impose upon the superficial as

to make this pass for wit; but it will not be received as such by that

portion of society whose esteem is desirable. Good sense, sound and

varied information, are as necessary as confidence to enable a man to

converse well.

In addition, then, to the ordinary routine of education, make yourself

acquainted with the passing circumstances of the day—its politics, its

parties, its amusements, its foibles, its customs, its literature, and

at the present time I must also say its science. Some of these subjects

may be the parent of much gossip and scandal; still, a man moving in

society as a gentleman, must be ignorant of nothing which relates

thereto, or if he is, he must not appear to be.

Avoid a loud tone, particularly in speaking to ladies. By observing

men of the world, you will perceive that their voices, as it were,

involuntarily assume a softness as they address the sex; this is one of

the most obvious proofs of an intimacy with good society.

Never attempt to occupy the attention of a company for a long time;

unless your conversation is very brilliant it must become very tiresome.

The object of conversation is to entertain and amuse. To be agreeable,

you must learn to be a good listener. A man who monopolizes a

conversation is a bore, no matter how great his knowledge.

Never get into a dispute. State your opinions, but do not argue them.

Do not contradict, and above all, never offend by correcting mistakes

or inaccuracies of fact or expression.

Never lose temper—never notice a slight—never seem conscious of an

affront, unless it is of a gross character, and then punish it at once.

You can never quarrel in presence of ladies, but a personal indignity

may be avenged _anywhere_.

Never talk of people by hints, slurs, innuendoes, and such mean

devices. If you have anything to say, out with it. Nothing charms more

than candor, when united with good breeding.

Do not call people by their names in speaking to them. In speaking of

your own children, never “Master” and “Miss” them—in speaking to other

people of theirs, never neglect to do so.

It is very vulgar to talk in a loud tone, and indulge in horse-laughs.

Be very careful in speaking of subjects upon which you are not

acquainted. Much is to be learned by confessing your ignorance—nothing

can be by pretending to knowledge which you do not possess.

Never tell long stories. Avoid all common slang phrases and pet words.

Of all things, don’t attempt to be too fine. Use good honest

English—and common words for common things. If you speak of breeches,

shirts, or petticoats, call them by their right names. The vulgarity is

in avoiding them.

Be not partial to theorizing, or your conversation will assume the

style of speech-making, which is intolerable.

CHEERFULNESS TAUGHT BY REASON.

By ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING.

I think we are too ready with complaint

In this fair world of God’s. Had we no hope

Indeed beyond the zenith and the slope

Of yon grey blank of sky, we might grow faint

To muse upon eternity’s constraint

Round our aspirant souls; but since the scope

Must widen early, is it well to droop,

For a few days consumed in loss and taint?

O pusillanimous heart, be comforted

And like a cheerful traveler, take the road,

Singing beside the hedge. What if the bread

Be bitter in thine inn and thou unshod

To meet the flints? At least it may be said,

“Because thy way is _short_, I thank thee, God.”

TALES FROM SHAKSPERE.

By CHARLES LAMB.

ALL’S WELL THAT ENDS WELL.

Bertram, Count of Rossilion, had newly come to his title and estate,

by the death of his father. The King of France loved the father of

Bertram, and when he heard of his death, he sent for his son to come

immediately to his royal court in Paris; intending, for the friendship

he bore the late count, to grace young Bertram with his especial favor

and protection.

Bertram was living with his mother, the widowed countess, when Lafeu,

an old lord of the French court, came to conduct Bertram to the king.

The King of France was an absolute monarch, and the invitation to court

was in the form of a royal mandate, or positive command, which no

subject, of what high dignity soever, might disobey; therefore though

the countess, in parting with this dear son, seemed a second time to

bury her husband, whose loss she had so lately mourned, yet she dared

not keep him a single day, but gave instant orders for his departure.

Lafeu, who came to fetch him, tried to comfort the countess for the

loss of her late lord, and her son’s sudden absence: and he said, in a

courtier’s flattering manner, that the king was so kind a prince, she

would find in his majesty a husband, and that he would be a father to

her son: meaning only that the good king would befriend the fortunes of

Bertram. Lafeu told the countess that the king had fallen into a sad

malady, which was pronounced by his physicians to be incurable. The

lady expressed great sorrow on hearing this account of the king’s ill

health, and said, she wished the father of Helena (a young gentlewoman

who was present in attendance upon her), were living, for that she

doubted not he could have cured his majesty of his disease. And she

told Lafeu something of the history of Helena, saying she was the only

daughter of the famous physician Gerard de Narbon, and that he had

recommended his daughter to her care when he was dying, so that since

his death she had taken Helena under her protection; then the countess

praised the virtuous disposition and excellent qualities of Helena,

saying she inherited these virtues from her worthy father. While she

was speaking, Helena wept in sad and mournful silence, which made the

countess gently reprove her for too much grieving for her father’s

death.

Bertram now bade his mother farewell. The countess parted with this

dear son with tears and many blessings, and commended him to the care

of Lafeu, saying, “Good, my lord, advise him, for he is an unseasoned

courtier.” Bertram’s last words were spoken to Helena, but they were

words of mere civility, wishing her happiness; and he concluded his

short farewell to her with saying, “Be comfortable to my mother, your

mistress, and make much of her.” Helena had long loved Bertram, and

when she wept in sad and mournful silence, the tears she shed were

not for Gerard de Narbon. Helena loved her father, but in the present

feeling of a deeper love, the object of which she was about to lose,

she had forgotten the very form and features of her dead father, her

imagination presenting no image to her mind but Bertram’s.

Helena had long loved Bertram, yet she always remembered that he

was the Count of Rossilion, descended from the most ancient family

in France. She of humble birth. Her parents of no note at all. His

ancestors all noble. And therefore she looked up to the high-born

Bertram, as to her master and to her dear lord, and dared not form any

wish but to live his servant, and so loving to die his vassal. So great

the distance seemed to her between his height of dignity and her lowly

fortunes, she would say, “It were all one that I should love a bright

peculiar star, and think to wed it, Bertram is so far above me.”

Bertram’s absence filled her eyes with tears, and her heart with

sorrow; for though she loved without hope, yet it was a pretty comfort

to her to see him every hour, and Helena would sit and look upon his

dark eye, his arched brow, and the curls of his fine hair, till she

seemed to draw his portrait on the tablet of her heart, that heart too

capable of retaining the memory of every line in the features of that

loved face. Gerard de Narbon, when he died, left her no other portion

than some prescriptions of rare and well-proved virtue, which by deep

study and long experience in medicine, he had collected as sovereign

and almost infallible remedies. Among the rest was one set down as an

approved medicine for the disease under which Lafeu said the king at

that time languished; and when Helena heard of the king’s complaint,

she, who till now had been so humble and so hopeless, formed an

ambitious project in her mind to go herself to Paris, and undertake the

cure of the king. But though Helena was the possessor of this choice

prescription, it was unlikely, as the king as well as his physicians

were of opinion that his disease was incurable, that they would give

credit to a poor unlearned virgin, if she should offer to perform a

cure. The firm hopes that Helena had of succeeding, if she might be

permitted to make the trial, seemed more than even her father’s skill

warranted, though he was the most famous physician of his time; for

she felt a strong faith that this good medicine was sanctified by all

the lucky stars in heaven, to be the legacy that should advance her

fortune, even to the high dignity of being Count Rossilion’s wife.

Bertram had not been long gone, when the countess was informed by her

steward that he had overheard Helena talking to herself, and that he

understood from some words she uttered, that she was in love with

Bertram, and had thought of following him to Paris. The countess

dismissed the steward with thanks, and desired him to tell Helena she

wished to speak with her. What she had just heard of Helena brought

the remembrance of days long past into the mind of the countess, those

days probably when her love for Bertram’s father first began; and she

said to herself, “Even so it was with me when I was young. Love is a

thorn that belongs to the rose of youth; for in the season of youth,

if ever we are nature’s children, these faults are ours, though then

we think not they are faults.” While the countess was thus meditating

on the loving errors of her own youth, Helena entered, and she said

to her, “Helena, you know I am a mother to you.” Helena replied, “You

are my honorable mistress.” “You are my daughter,” said the countess

again; “I say I am your mother. Why do you start and look pale at

my words?” With looks of alarm and confused thoughts, fearing the

countess suspected her love, Helena still replied, “Pardon me, madam,

you are not my mother; the Count Rossilion can not be my brother, nor

I your daughter.” “Yet, Helena,” said the countess, “you might be my

daughter-in-law; and I am afraid that is what you mean to be, the words

mother and daughter so disturb you. Helena, do you love my son?” “Good

madam, pardon me,” said the affrighted Helena. Again the countess

repeated her question, “Do you love my son?” “Do you not love him,

madam?” said Helena. The countess replied, “Give me not this evasive

answer, Helena. Come, come, disclose the state of your affections,

for your love has to the full appeared.” Helena on her knees now

owned her love, and with shame and terror implored the pardon of her

noble mistress; and with words expressive of the sense she had of the

inequality between their fortunes, she protested Bertram did not know

she loved him, comparing her humble unaspiring love to a poor Indian,

who adores the sun, that looks upon his worshiper but knows of him no

more. The countess asked Helena if she had lately an intent to go to

Paris? Helena owned the intent she had formed in her mind, when she

heard Lafeu speak of the king’s illness. “That was your motive for

wishing to go to Paris,” said the countess, “was it? Speak truly.”

Helena honestly answered, “My lord your son made me to think of this;

else Paris, and the medicine, and the king, had from the conversation

of my thoughts been absent then.” The countess heard the whole of this

confession without saying a word either of approval or of blame, but

she strictly questioned Helena as to the probability of the medicine

being useful to the king. She found that it was most prized by Gerard

de Narbon of all he possessed, and that he had given it to his daughter

on his death-bed; and remembering the solemn promise she had made

at that awful hour in regard to this young maid, whose destiny, and

the life of the king himself, seemed to depend on the execution of a

project (which, though conceived by the fond suggestions of a loving

maiden’s thoughts, the countess knew not but it might be the unseen

workings of Providence to bring to pass the recovery of the king, and

to lay the foundation of the future fortunes of Gerard de Narbon’s

daughter), free leave she gave to Helena to pursue her own way, and

generously furnished her with ample means and suitable attendants, and

Helena set out for Paris, with the blessings of the countess, and her

kindest wishes.

Helena arrived in Paris, and by the assistance of her friend the old

lord Lafeu, she obtained an audience of the king. She had still many

difficulties to encounter, for the king was not easily prevailed on

to try the medicine offered him by this fair young doctor. But she

told him she was Gerard de Narbon’s daughter (with whose fame the king

was well acquainted), and she offered the precious medicine as the

darling treasure which contained the essence of all her father’s long

experience and skill, and she boldly engaged to forfeit her life, if

it failed to restore his majesty to perfect health in the space of two

days. The king at length consented to try it, and in two days’ time

Helena was to lose her life if the king did not recover; but if she

succeeded he promised to give her the choice of any man throughout all

France (the princes only excepted) whom she could like for a husband;

the choice of a husband being the fee Helena demanded, if she cured the

king of his disease.

Helena did not deceive herself in the hope she conceived of the

efficacy of her father’s medicine. Before two days were at an end, the

king was restored to perfect health, and he assembled all the young

noblemen of his court together, in order to confer the promised reward

of a husband upon his fair physician; and he desired Helena to look

around on this youthful parcel of noble bachelors, and choose her

husband. Helena was not slow to make her choice, for among these young

lords she saw the Count Rossilion, and turning to Bertram, she said,

“This is the man. I dare not say, my lord, I take you, but I give me

and my service ever whilst I live into your guiding power.” “Why then,”

said the king, “young Bertram, take her; she is your wife.” Bertram did

not hesitate to declare his dislike to this present of the king’s of

the self-offered Helena, who, he said, was a poor physician’s daughter,

bred at his father’s charge, and now living dependent on his mother’s

bounty. Helena heard him speak these words of rejection and of scorn,

and she said to the king, “That you are well, my lord, I am glad. Let

the rest go.” But the king would not suffer his royal command to be

so slighted; for the power of bestowing their nobles in marriage was

one of the many privileges of the kings of France; and that same day

Bertram was married to Helena, a forced and uneasy marriage to Bertram,

and of no promising hope to the poor lady, who, though she gained the

noble husband she had hazarded her life to obtain, seemed to have won

but a splendid blank, her husband’s love not being a gift in the power

of the king of France to bestow.

Helena was no sooner married, than she was desired by Bertram to apply

to the king for him for a leave of absence from court; and when she

brought him the king’s permission for his departure, Bertram told her

that as he was not prepared for this sudden marriage, it had much

unsettled him, and therefore she must not wonder at the course he

should pursue. If Helena wondered not, she grieved, when she found

it was his intention to leave her. He ordered her to go home to his

mother. When Helena heard this unkind command, she replied, “I can

nothing say to this, but that I am your most obedient servant, and

shall ever with true observance seek to eke out that desert, wherein my

homely stars have failed to equal my great fortunes.” But this humble

speech of Helena’s did not at all move the haughty Bertram to pity his

gentle wife, and he parted from her without even the common civility of

a kind farewell.

Back to the countess then Helena returned. She had accomplished the

purport of her journey, she had preserved the life of the king, and

she had wedded her heart’s dear lord, the Count Rossilion; but she

returned back a dejected lady to her noble mother-in-law, and as soon

as she entered the house, she received a letter from Bertram which

almost broke her heart. The good countess received her with cordial

welcome, as if she had been her son’s own choice, and a lady of a

high degree, and she spoke kind words, to comfort her for the unkind

neglect of Bertram in sending his wife home on her bridal day alone.

But this gracious reception failed to cheer the sad mind of Helena,

and she said, “Madam, my lord is gone, for ever gone.” She then read

these words out of Bertram’s letter: “When you can get the ring from

my finger which never shall come off, then call me husband, but in

such a _then_ I write a _never_.” “This is a dreadful sentence!”

said Helena. The countess begged her to have patience, and said now

Bertram was gone, she could be her child, and that she deserved a lord,

that twenty such rude boys as Bertram might tend upon, and hourly

call her mistress. But in vain by respectful condescension and kind

flattery this matchless mother tried to soothe the sorrows of her

daughter-in-law. Helena still kept her eyes fixed upon the letter, and

cried out in an agony of grief, “Till I have no wife, I have nothing in

France.” The countess asked her if she found these words in the letter?

“Yes, madam,” was all poor Helena could answer.

The next morning Helena was missing. She left a letter to be delivered

to the countess after she was gone, to acquaint her with the reason of

her sudden absence; in this letter she informed her that she was so

much grieved at having driven Bertram from his native country and his

home, that to atone for her offense she had undertaken a pilgrimage to

the shrine of St. Jaques le Grand, and concluded with requesting the

countess to inform her son that the wife he so hated had left his house

forever.

Bertram, when he left Paris, went to Florence, and there became an

officer in the Duke of Florence’s army, and after a successful war,

in which he distinguished himself by many brave actions, Bertram

received letters from his mother, containing the acceptable tidings

that Helena would no more disturb him; and he was preparing to return

home, when Helena herself, clad in her pilgrim’s weeds, arrived at the

city of Florence. Florence was a city through which the pilgrims used

to pass on their way to St. Jaques le Grand; and when Helena arrived

at this city, she heard that a hospitable widow dwelt there, who used

to receive into her house the female pilgrims that were going to visit

the shrine of that saint, giving them lodging and kind entertainment.

To this good lady therefore Helena went, and the widow gave her a

courteous welcome, and invited her to see whatever was curious in that

famous city, and told her that if she would like to see the duke’s

army, she would take her where she might have a full view of it. “And

you will see a countryman of yours,” said the widow; “his name is Count

Rossilion, who has done worthy service in the duke’s wars.” Helena

wanted no second invitation, when she found Bertram was to make part

of the show. She accompanied her hostess; and a sad mournful pleasure

it was to her to look once more upon her dear husband’s face. “Is he

not a handsome man?” said the widow. “I like him well,” replied Helena

with great truth. All the way they walked, the talkative widow’s

discourse was all of Bertram; she told Helena the story of Bertram’s

marriage, and how he had deserted the poor lady his wife and entered

into the duke’s army to avoid living with her. To this account of her

own misfortunes Helena patiently listened, and when it was ended the

history of Bertram was not yet done, for then the widow began another

tale, every word of which sank deep into the mind of Helena; for the

story she now told was of Bertram’s love for her daughter.

Though Bertram did not like the marriage forced on him by the king, it

seems he was not insensible to love, for since he had been stationed

with the army at Florence, he had fallen in love with Diana, a fair

young gentlewoman, the daughter of this widow who was Helena’s hostess:

and every night, with music of all sorts, and songs composed in praise

of Diana’s beauty, he would come under her window, and solicit her

love: and all his suit to her was that she would permit him to visit

her by stealth after the family were retired to rest; but Diana would

by no means be persuaded to grant this improper request, nor give any

encouragement to his suit, knowing him to be a married man: for Diana

had been brought up under the counsels of a prudent mother, who, though

she was now in reduced circumstances, was well-born, and descended from

the noble family of the Capulets.

All this the good lady related to Helena, highly praising the virtuous

principles of her discreet daughter, which she said were entirely owing

to the excellent education and good advice she had given her; and she

further said, that Bertram had been particularly importunate with Diana

to admit him to the visit he so much desired that night, because he

was going to leave Florence early the next morning. Though it grieved

Helena to hear of Bertram’s love for the widow’s daughter, yet from

this story the ardent mind of Helena conceived a project (nothing

discouraged at the ill success of her former one) to recover her truant

lord. She disclosed to the widow that she was Helena, the deserted

wife of Bertram, and requested that her kind hostess and her daughter

would suffer this visit from Bertram to take place, and allow her to

pass herself upon Bertram for Diana; telling them her chief motive for

desiring to have this secret meeting with her husband, was to get a

ring from him, which he said if ever she was in possession of, he would

acknowledge her as his wife.

The widow and her daughter promised to assist her in this affair,

partly moved by pity for this unhappy forsaken wife, and partly won

over to her interest by the promise of reward which Helena made them,

giving them a purse of money in earnest of her future favor. In the

course of that day Helena caused information to be sent to Bertram,

that she was dead, hoping that when he thought himself free to make a

second choice by the news of her death, he would offer marriage to her

in her feigned character of Diana. And if she could obtain the ring

and this promise too she doubted not she could make some future good

come of it. In the evening after it was dark, Bertram was admitted

into Diana’s chamber, and Helena was there ready to receive him. The

flattering compliments and love discourse he addressed to Helena were

precious sounds to her, though she knew they were meant for Diana; and

Bertram was so well pleased with her, that he made her a solemn promise

to be her husband, and to love her forever; which she hoped would be

prophetic of a real affection, when he should know it was his own wife,

the despised Helena, whose conversation had so delighted him.

Bertram never knew how sensible a lady Helena was, else perhaps he

would not have been so regardless of her; and seeing her every day, he

had entirely overlooked her beauty, a face we are accustomed to see

constantly losing the effect which is caused by the first sight either

of beauty or of plainness; and of her understanding it was impossible

he should judge, because she felt such reverence, mixed with her love

for him, that she was always silent in his presence; but now that her

future fate, and the happy ending of all her love projects, seemed to

depend on her leaving a favorable impression on the mind of Bertram

from this night’s interview, she exerted all her wit to please him;

and the simple graces of her lively conversation and the endearing

sweetness of her manners so charmed Bertram, that he vowed she should

be his wife. Helena begged the ring from off his finger as a token of

his regard, and he gave it to her; and in return for this ring, which

it was of such importance to her to possess, she gave him another ring,

which was one the king had made her a present of. Before it was light

in the morning, she sent Bertram away; and he immediately set out on

his journey toward his mother’s house.

Helena prevailed on the widow and Diana to accompany her to Paris,

their further assistance being necessary to the full accomplishment of

the plan she had formed. When they arrived there, they found the king

was gone upon a visit to the countess of Rossilion, and Helena followed

the king with all the speed she could make.

The king was still in perfect health, and his gratitude to her who had

been the means of his recovery was so lively in his mind, that the

moment he saw the countess of Rossilion, he began to talk of Helena,

calling her a precious jewel that was lost by the folly of her son; but

seeing the subject distressed the countess, who sincerely lamented the

death of Helena, he said, “My good lady, I have forgiven and forgotten

all.” But the good-natured old Lafeu, who was present, and could not

bear that the memory of his favorite Helena should be so lightly passed

over, said, “This I must say, the young lord did great offense to his

majesty, his mother, and his lady; but to himself he did the greatest

wrong of all, for he has lost a wife whose beauty astonished all eyes,

whose words took all ears captive, whose deep perfection made all

hearts wish to serve her.” The king said, “Praising what is lost makes

the remembrance dear. Well—call him hither;” meaning Bertram, who now

presented himself before the king: and, on his expressing deep sorrow

for the injuries he had done to Helena, the king, for his dead father’s

and his admirable mother’s sake, pardoned him, and restored him once

more to his favor. But the gracious countenance of the king was soon

changed towards him, for he perceived that Bertram wore the very ring

upon his finger which he had given to Helena; and he well remembered

that Helena had called all the saints in heaven to witness that she

would never part with that ring, unless she sent it to the king himself

upon some great disaster befalling her; and Bertram, on the king’s

questioning him how he came by the ring, told an improbable story of a

lady throwing it to him out of a window, and denied ever having seen

Helena since the day of their marriage. The king, knowing Bertram’s

dislike to his wife, feared he had destroyed her; and he ordered his

guards to seize Bertram, saying, “I am wrapt in dismal thinking, for I

fear the life of Helena was foully snatched.” At this moment Diana and

her mother entered, and presented a petition to the king, wherein they

begged his majesty to exert his royal power to compel Bertram to marry

Diana, he having made her a solemn promise of marriage. Bertram fearing

the king’s anger, denied he had made any such promise, and then Diana

produced the ring (which Helena had put into her hands) to confirm the

truth of her words; and she said that she had given Bertram the ring he

then wore, in exchange for that, at the time he vowed to marry her. On

hearing this, the king ordered the guards to seize her also; and her

account of the ring differing from Bertram’s, the king’s suspicions

were confirmed; and he said, if they did not confess how they came by

this ring of Helena’s they should both be put to death. Diana requested

her mother might be permitted to fetch the jeweler of whom she bought

the ring, which being granted, the widow went out, and presently

returned, leading in Helena herself.

The good countess, who in silent grief had beheld her son’s danger, and

had even dreaded that the suspicion of his having destroyed his wife

might possibly be true, finding her dear Helena, whom she loved with

even a maternal affection, was still living, felt a delight she was

hardly able to support; and the king, scarce believing for joy that

it was Helena, said, “Is this indeed the wife of Bertram that I see?”

Helena, feeling herself yet an unacknowledged wife, replied, “No, my

good lord, it is but the shadow of a wife you see, the name and not the

thing.” Bertram cried out, “Both, both! O pardon!” “O, my lord,” said

Helena, “when I personated this fair maid, I found you wondrous kind;

and look, here is your letter!” reading to him in a joyful tone those

words, which she had once repeated so sorrowfully, _When from my finger

you can get this ring_—“This is done, it was to me you gave the ring.

Will you be mine, now you are doubly won?” Bertram replied, “If you can

make it plain that you are the lady I talked with that night, I will

love you dearly, ever, ever dearly.” This was no difficult task, for

the widow and Diana came with Helena purposely to prove this fact; and

the king was so well pleased with Diana, for the friendly assistance

she had rendered the dear lady he so truly valued for the service she

had done him, that he promised her also a noble husband: Helena’s

history giving him a hint that it was a suitable reward for kings to

bestow upon fair ladies when they perform notable services.

Thus Helena at last found that her father’s legacy was indeed

sanctified by the luckiest stars in heaven; for she was now the beloved

wife of her dear Bertram, the daughter-in-law of her noble mistress,

and herself the countess of Rossilion.

THE LAST SNOW OF WINTER.

By SARAH DOUDNEY.

Soft snow still rests within this wayside cleft,

Veiling the primrose buds not yet unfurled;

Last trace of dreary winter, idly left

On beds of moss, and sere leaves crisply curled;

Why does it linger while the violets blow,

And sweet things grow?

A relic of long nights and weary days,

When all fair things were hidden from my sight;

A chill reminder of those mournful ways

I traversed when the fields were cold and white;

My life was dim, my hopes lay still and low

Beneath the snow.

Now spring is coming, and my buried love

Breaks fresh and strong and living through the sod;

The lark sings loudly in the blue above,

The budding earth must magnify her God;

Let the old sorrows and old errors go

With the last snow!

CONJURORS.

By THOMAS FROST.

A French conjuror of the first of the present century, was Comte, who

was as famous for his ventriloquil powers as for his legerdemain. Many

anecdotes are current among continental conjurors of the consternation

which Comte created on various occasions by the exercise of his powers

as a ventriloquist off the boards. He once overtook near Nevers a

man who was beating an overladen ass, and, throwing his voice in the

direction of the poor brute’s head, reproached the fellow for his

cruelty, causing him to stare at the ass for a moment in mingled

surprise and awe, and then take to his heels. On another occasion,

being in the marketplace of Mâcon, he inquired the price of a pig which

a peasant woman had for sale, and pronounced it extortionate, a charge

which the owner, with much volubility, denied.

“I will ask the pig,” said Comte, gravely. “Piggy, is the good woman

asking a fair price for you?”

“Too much by half,” the pig seemed to reply. “I am measled, and she

knows it.”

The woman gasped and stared, but she was equal to the occasion.

“Oh! the villain,” she exclaimed. “He has bewitched my pig! Police,

seize the sorcerer!”

The bystanders rushed to the spot, but Comte slipped away as quickly as

he could, and left the affair to the intelligence of the police.

On one occasion the possession of this strange power was the means of

saving Comte’s life. He was denounced by some ignorant Swiss peasants

in the neighborhood of Friburg, as a sorcerer, set upon and beaten with

sticks, and was about to be thrown into a limekiln, when he raised such

a horrible yell, which appeared to proceed from the kiln, that the

fellows dropped him, and fled precipitately from the spot.

Miller, whose strange adventures and vicissitudes were related

by himself in his “Life of a Sowman,” was a conjuror of the

fair-frequenting class during the greater part of his varied life. He

relates an amusing anecdote of a failure he once had in performing the

common trick of cooking a pancake in a hat. He was performing before a

private party at Kelso, and among the company was an elderly gentleman,

who sat close to the operating table, and caused some discomposure to

Miller and his attendant by the closeness of his observation of their

motions, and the grimaces and chucklings in which he indulged whenever

he discovered, or thought he had discovered, the mode in which any

of the tricks were performed. The pancake trick is done by secretly

introducing into the hat a ready cooked and hot pancake in a tin dish,

and above this a gallipot. The batter is prepared, in sight of the

spectators, in a similar gallipot, just as much smaller than the other

as to fit closely into it. The contents of the smaller gallipot are

poured into the larger one, and both are withdrawn together; and the

conjuror, after pretending to cook the pancake over a lamp or candle,

presents it on the tin dish.

Miller’s attendant was so much confused by the watching, grimacing, and

chuckling of the old gentleman that he omitted to place the gallipot

in the hat which a gentleman of the party had lent for the purpose,

and Miller poured the batter upon the pancake before he discovered the

omission. He was not so ready-witted as Robert-Houdin showed himself

on similar occasions, nor was his attendant so equal to the emergency

as the French conjuror’s ministering imp proved in the face of such

a disaster. They could only stare in bewilderment at the spoiled hat

until Miller, recovering from his confusion, confessed his failure,

explained the manner in which the trick is done, and threw the blame

upon the inquisitive and chuckling old gentleman.

Anderson, a juggler widely known in Europe as the “Wizard of the

North,” during a provincial tour met with a strange adventure. One day,

toward the conclusion of an engagement at Elgin, he visited Forres,

a town twelve miles distant, to make arrangements for repeating his

performance there, in the vicinity of the “blasted heath,” on which,

according to tradition, Macbeth met the witches. Having made the

requisite arrangements, he was directed by the printer to the residence

of an elderly widow, who had apartments to let, which, proving

suitable, were taken for one week.

“You’ll excuse me, sir,” said the widow when he was about to depart,

“but I maun tell ye I’m a puir widow, and a’ that I hae to live by is

what I get by lettin’ my apartments. Ither folk hae engaged ’em, saying

I might expect ’em on a certain day; but they didna come, sae I was

disappointed. It’s an old sayin’, that ‘burnt bairns dreed the fire.’

Ye are a stranger, although a decent lookin’ man, and ye may do the

same; sae I hope ye winna object to pay half o’ the rent aforehand.”

Anderson made no objection, but at once handed four half-crowns to the

old lady. At that moment he remembered that he must see the printer

again before he left Forres, and, as the day, which had threatened to

be a wet one, was fine, he left his umbrella with the widow, whose good

opinion the payment in advance of one moiety of the week’s rent had

quite secured. But, unfortunately, the widow read the words, _Great

Wizard of the North_, on the handle of the umbrella when Anderson had

left her; and he observed, on his return, that she trembled and changed

color as she regarded him intently from head to foot, without venturing

to approach him.

“Save us!” she faintly ejaculated. “Wha are ye?”

“I am a rather notorious character,” Anderson replied, with a smile,

“and I have no doubt, although you have never seen me before, that you

have heard of me. My name is Anderson, and I am known as the Wizard of

the North.”

“A weezard, are ye?” said the affrighted widow. “Then, for the love o’

guideness, gang oot o’ my house! I wadna lodge ye for ae night under my

roof nae for a’ the world. For the love o’ heaven, gang awa, and tak

your umbrella alang wi’ ye.”

As the Elgin coach was shortly to pass the house, Anderson did not

pause to explain or remonstrate, but stepped at once toward the door,

when the widow cried, “Stap! Dinna leave ought belanging to ye wi’ me;

tak your siller wi’ ye, and never let me see your face again.”

Hastily taking the four half-crowns from her purse, she threw them upon

the floor, screaming that they burned her fingers, and immediately

fell back in a swoon of terror. In her fall, her head struck a stool,

slightly lacerating her cheek; and on several of the neighbors hurrying

in, on hearing her scream and fall, they found her bleeding, and

apparently lifeless. The women cried out that the stranger had murdered

the widow, and the men seized Anderson’s arms, to prevent his escape.

At that moment the coach was driven up, and the driver, seeing a crowd

about the widow’s house, pulled up, and inquired the cause of the

commotion.

On being told that a murder had been committed, the guard leaped down,

and, looking through the window, recognized Anderson, whom he had seen

several times in Elgin. The coach started again, and Anderson, finding

he was in an awkward position, as the old lady gave no signs of life,

demanded to be taken before a magistrate at once. This, he was told,

was impossible, as there was no magistrate within seven miles, and all

that could be done was to lodge him in the town jail until the next day.

To the jail the conjuror was taken, therefore, between a couple of

constables, who were commendably prompt in making their appearance.

The coach went on to Elgin, where the guard lost no time in spreading

the news of the wizard’s arrest, and, going to the Assembly Rooms,

told the audience, who were just growing impatient at the conjuror’s

non-appearance, that “they might conjure for themselves that night, for

there would be no wizard, as he was where he would not get out with all

his magic; he was in Forres jail, for murdering an old woman.” A thrill

of horror ran through the crowded auditory; then a murmur arose, and

loud demands were made for the return of the money paid at the doors.

This was done; and nothing was talked of at Elgin that night but the

horrible murder at Forres.

On the following morning, Anderson was conducted to the residence of

the magistrate, where the widow, who had recovered in the course of

the night, told as much of the tragi-comical story as she knew. The

gentleman who administered justice in that remote district smiled at

the old lady’s narrative, reproved the witnesses for their hastiness,

and at once discharged Anderson, with an expression of regret for

the inconvenience and loss to which his detention had subjected him.

The news of the _dénouement_ of the affair reached Elgin as soon as

Anderson, for whom it proved an excellent advertisement, bringing

crowds to the Assembly Rooms, and inducing him to prolong his stay in

that town several nights beyond the term he had intended.

THE INFLUENCE OF WHOLESOME DRINK.

Three-quarters of that staunch body which you bring with you to the

task of perusing these pages, my firmly-knit friend, notwithstanding

substantial appearances, are nothing but thin water. If without your

clothes you weigh one hundred and fifty pounds, one hundred and

thirteen of those pounds are mere liquid, which could be poured through

the spout of a tea-pot, or even the channel of a tobacco pipe. Are you

surprised to find yourself of so watery a nature? If you are so, you

have no good ground for your wonder, for I can tell you that liquid has

plenty of work to perform for your good.

Water is continually being drained away out of the supply-pipes of your

body, and therefore requires to be as constantly restored to them,

unless the blood is to be allowed to get so thick that it can no longer

flow freely through their channels. The Great Architect of your body

purposed that this should never happen, because if it did, all the

powers of your frame, which are sustained by the blood-movement, would

suffer and flag. Therefore he has contrived a plan to prevent such

thickening of the life-stream.

So soon as your blood has begun to grow thick and to flow slowly, it

moves unwillingly and lazily through the structures of your throat, as

well as through all other parts. The thick lazily moving blood there

causes that unpleasant feeling which you call thirst; a feeling which

is so disagreeable that the instant you are conscious of it, you seek

to get rid of it by swallowing drink.

When you drink water to quench your thirst, the thin liquid goes down

into your digesting bag, and is then directly sucked up into the

supply-pipes which run about all over its inside. There it thins the

thickened blood, goes with it to the heart, and is thence pumped out

through the channels of supply, taking its part in all the operations

of life, diluting and changing here, and carrying and cleansing

everywhere. There are various outlets through which the waste is poured

away, but the principal of these lie upon the skin and in the kidneys.

Before it is poured away, however, it actually forms part and parcel

of all the structures of your frame; is for the time a portion of your

life! It runs not merely through the digesting-canal of your body to

the outlets for waste, but actually through the blood, and heart,

and brain. Hence you see good drink may carry health, and vigor, and

activity to all these internal and delicate parts; but bad drink may at

once introduce mischief there, and danger, and disease.

The best possible drink is, of course, that which has the most power to

fulfil the main office for which it is required; that is, the keeping

the blood duly thin, for easy and ready flow. In its capability to do

this, Nature’s own liquid, pure water, stands altogether alone. No

other fluid is at once so incorruptibly impartial, and so generously

free; so ready to dissolve, so willing to carry, and so frank to return

what is entrusted to it. When healthy people drink freely of pure

water, the solid substance of their frames is actually washed and worn

away, in consequence, more quickly; but this is directly made up to

them by their getting stronger appetites, and eating more solid food.

The food replaces the wear, and they do not waste, although their

structure is more quickly consumed. The wear and tear goes to work,

instead of to waste.

People do not, however, drink only pure water, perfect as that liquid

is for the performance of the service for which it is swallowed.

An immense amount of ingenuity and industry is spent in preparing

beverages which are commonly preferred to plain water, because they

have very agreeable flavors, and because it is believed that they are

nourishing as well as thirst-quenching. These agreeable artificial

beverages are principally prepared by the agency of boiling water, and

the leaves and seeds of certain vegetables, which are cultivated for

the purpose very extensively in various quarters of the globe.

Of these vegetable-furnished beverages, some are swallowed as soon as

they have been prepared, and even while the warmth of the water is in a

certain degree retained. Others are kept for some time, and allowed to

pass into a condition of half decay, before they are used. The former

class consist of the tea, coffee, and cocoa, so familiarly known in

most households, besides being employed daily in a greater or less

degree, by more than seven hundred millions of human beings.

Few persons undervalue the fragrant drink, which pours forth its

pleasant leafy smell upon almost every table, from the cottage to the

palace, once or twice in the day. Tea-drinkers are not, however, aware

how enormous is the quantity of the fragrant leaf that is required

every year for their supply, although only distributed to them by small

spoonfuls.

Upon the hillsides, in the remote land of China, there are thousands

of acres of gardens filled with rows of plants, that look from a

distance something like large gooseberry bushes, but which upon closer

inspection more nearly resemble stunted japonica shrubs. Almost as soon

as these shrubs have fully put forth their young leaves, men and women

come round, and strip their twigs and branches bare. They then carry

away the leaves, and dry them with much care, partly by exposure to the

sunshine and air, and partly by the heat of fires of charcoal, until

two-thirds of their weight have been steamed away. When the leaves are

dried quickly, the shrunk and crisped foliage is of a green color. When

they are left moist for a longer period, and are dried more slowly,

they turn of a dull black hue. In either case, the crisped and curled

leaves form the tea, portions of which are sent over the sea for the

use of English tea-tables. The ground which is devoted to the growth

of the tea plant, in China, would, if all joined together, form a farm

nearly as large as Wales! Three millions and a half of acres are there

covered with tea-bushes; and the entire produce of these acres in tea,

is fifty times as large as the amount which is consumed in England.

Fifty monster ships, like the Great Eastern, would not hold therefore

the tea produce of a single year. Of tea, and of its allies, coffee and

cocoa, the earth yields yearly not less than three thousand millions

of pounds; a quantity which it would take a grocer a hundred years to

weigh out, if he worked at the rate of a pound every second. More than

half the inhabitants of the earth are daily engaged in the occupation

of consuming this vast amount.

Although these favorite beverages are now so extensively used, this

has not been very long the case. In the year 1664 the East India

Company made a present to the Queen of England of two pounds of tea,

considering it a very rare and choice gift. The Chinese themselves

do not seem to have drunk tea generally before the seventh century.

Cocoa was brought from Mexico to Spain in the middle of the sixteenth

century for the first time; and coffee was not seen in London until the

seventeenth century. Hence it appears that these drinks are at least

not actually necessary to human beings. The forefathers of the present

generation did without them for centuries.

When articles, which were scarcely known to be in existence three

centuries ago, have so rapidly spread themselves through the world,

that they are now viewed almost in the light of daily requisites by

the larger half of mankind, it may very safely be concluded that there

is some strong reason for the result. The reason may be a good one,

or a bad one; the articles may be found to be of great service when

employed, or they may be merely felt to produce agreeable feelings

not necessarily serviceable. Is it possible to determine in which of

these predicaments tea and its allies stand? As a first step towards

the formation of an opinion in this matter, it will be quite worth any

interested person’s while to satisfy himself by a very easy experiment

that there is something in tea, which careless notice and common use

would never discover. Let him simply rub a teaspoonful of dry tea

leaves to powder, and place it in a flat watch-glass, standing on the

hot hob of a fire-place, a piece of stiff white paper being twisted

up into the form of a sugar-loaf, and covered over the watch-glass

and powdered tea. So soon as the tea has become very hot, a white

steam-like vapor will rise from it, and be entangled in the paper, and

if the paper cap be removed after a few minutes and be unfolded, its

surface will be found to be sprinkled with a white glittering powder,

something like pounded glass, or very fine salt. The powder is the

vapor, turned into the powdery state, after it has been entangled by

the paper. There is so much of this white powder in tea, that three

grains can be procured from half an ounce of the leaves. Fifty pounds

of good tea would furnish a pound of the white powder.

Having found out the existence of this white powder, hidden away in

the black or green leaves of tea, the next thing we have to do is to

discover, if possible, what its nature and character are. The chemists

have given it a learned name—_that_ will not help us much in our

present proceedings, still it may be convenient to know the curious

substance by the title it bears among learned men. The chemical name of

the white powder is _theine_. This means nothing more than the white

powder contained in tea. There is another really helpful consideration,

however, which naturally occurs while we look at this substance. “Where

did the white powder come from?” How did it get into the tea-leaf?

The white powder of tea was formed in the leaf, when that leaf was

stretched out in the Chinese sunshine, as the plant grew on the side

of the warm Chinese hills. It was made out of the food which the plant

sucked in from its native soil and its native winds, in the little

chambers of its living structure, at a great expense of wise effort

and skill. No human artist can make a grain of that white powder, if

he spend a lifetime in the trial. In the little tea-leaf, as it grows

on its sunshiny hillsides, the most subtle and cunning powers are set

to work by the wisdom which knows everything, and by the hand which

holds and directs all things in man’s wonderful world. The result is,

that out of coarse earth, and thin vapors, and fostering sunshine,

the ingredients of the white powder are gathered together, and mixed,

each in its proper proportions, and in the right manner, in the hidden

recesses of the growing plant. God, in his own sublime language, says

to the Chinese soil, and atmosphere, and sunshine, “_Let the white

powder of the tea plant be_,” and there it is.

In a world that is so overflowing with perfect contrivance as this

one, which serves as man’s dwelling place, it is not at all likely

that this curious white powder is made by the tea plant in such

abundance—twenty-five thousand tons of it at least turned out on the

Chinese hills every year, and scattered thence to the four corners of

the world—without having some very good work appointed it to do. You

will not wonder, therefore, that inquiring men, who know that all these

thousands of tons get mixed in the ordinary course of ordered events

with the flesh and blood of human bodies, should be very curious to

find out what they are capable of doing there. Another very surprising

fact also tends greatly to strengthen this curiosity. The coffee

tree grows not in China, but in Ceylon, in Arabia, and in the West

Indies. The cocoa tree flourishes on the other side of the American

continent, in Mexico and Peru. Yet the coffee and cocoa plants make

out of the East and West Indian, the Arabian, and the South American

soils, vapors, and sunshine, exactly the same kind of white powder that

the tea plant manufactures on the Chinese hills. Plants so unlike in

external appearance, and living in districts so remote from each other,

first get to be used in similar ways in the preparation of beverages

for millions of the human race. Then curious and prying inquirers find

that there is one principle present in all these beverage-yielding

plants. The common-sense inference is plain. It is most likely that it

is this one substance present in all the three different plants, which

has led to their being employed so generally in the preparation of

drink.

The experiments which the chemists have tried with this white powder,

with a view to the discovery of the action it may be able to exert

upon living bodies when taken into them, appear to prove simply this.

When swallowed in proper quantities it has a most wonderful sustaining

power. It seems as if it enabled food which is taken with it to go

one-fourth part as far again in supporting the strength of the body,

as it would without the addition; and if it does this, it is certainly

not because it adds an equal amount of bulk to the food, for a trifling

pinch of three or four grains of the powder, as much as could be laid

on a silver four-penny piece, is enough for the purpose during one day.

If a healthy man has half a pound of bread taken from his daily meals,

and three grains of the white powder of tea added in its stead, his

body does not miss the bread. The white salt of tea, coffee, and cocoa,

seems to possess the power of relieving the body from the effects of

wear and waste, and so of decreasing its requirement of food.

This extraordinary substance also produces another very remarkable

effect on the living body, when it is swallowed in these small

quantities. It cheers and enlivens, at the same time that it aids in

supporting the bulk and strength of the frame. The chemist finds, when

he examines its precise composition, that it is even more adapted to

supply the substance which the nerves and brain lose by wear and tear,

than to diminish the loss the flesh undergoes from the same cause.

The white powdery ingredient of coffee and tea is most probably a

rich and strong nerve-food, provided for the support of the nervous

structure and brain, rather than for the nourishment of the flesh; it

is nerve-making substance rather than flesh-making substance; and it

exerts some mysterious and very extraordinary influence of lessening

the waste of wear and tear in the structures of the living frame,

without stopping their useful activity in the same degree.

In order that the nature and suspected action of this white powder

of tea, coffee, and cocoa may be kept fairly in the mind, it may be

well, instead of speaking of it by its learned name, to call it the

nerve-food ingredient of these beverages. Some further remark might

very well be made touching the probable reason why these beverages,

thus rich in a nerve-strengthening food, should have come into such

general use in modern times, although scarcely employed in remote ages.

But it may, on the whole, be best merely to say that it is quite in

accordance with the general management of the Gracious Providence who

rules over man’s world, that the additional wear and tear of nerve and

brain, which of necessity follows from the increase in numbers in the

human race, and from the advance of the arts and civilization, should

have had some counteracting compensation provided for its relief.

The best foods and the most valuable medicines are all as injurious as

poisons, when they are taken in great excess. Every blessing which God

has furnished to man is intended to be _used_, and not to be _abused_.

Men are expected to learn how to employ them well, and how to avoid

applying them improperly. The nerve-food ingredient of tea and coffee

is no exception to this universal rule. When three or four grains of it

are taken in the day, it refreshes and sustains; but if as much as ten

grains are taken in the same time, it makes the blood flow with great

rapidity through the supply-pipes of the body, and produces an uneasy

feeling in the head, continued watchfulness, and trembling in the

limbs. These effects, however, it must be remembered, are the results

not of use, but of the abuse of the substance. The Chinese account for

the sleep-banishing power of tea, when taken in excess, in this way:

They say that many centuries ago there lived in the Flowery Land a holy

man, who desired to spend his entire life in watching and prayer, but

who was constantly catching himself napping in spite of every effort to

keep himself awake. Getting at last to be very angry with the eyelids,

which would not keep open, he one day determined that he would settle

the business effectually by cutting them off. He put his shrewd plan

into effect, and cast the offending eyelids aside upon the ground. The

eyelids, however, directly took root, and grew up into two fine plants,

which bore leaves, having the form of eyelids, and being fringed with

hairs, like eyelashes, round their borders. The plants proved to be

tea plants, and the leaves of the descendants of those plants now make

amends for the offenses of their first parents, the holy man’s eyelids,

by furnishing a drink which keeps sleepy people awake.

Tea contains several other ingredients besides the nerve-food just now

described. It has in it something which gives it the very fragrant

smell, and delicate agreeable flavor, tea drinkers learn to value

so highly. This fragrant principle, however, does not exist in the

fresh tea-leaf. It is produced by a new sorting and arranging of the

ingredients held in the fresh leaf, during the process of drying and

roasting. The more carefully the tea is dried, the more delicious its

taste and scent become. But tea has also an astringent matter in it,

something like the astringency of the mouth-drawing sloe-leaf;—this is

not very easily dissolved from it by boiling water. It is only taken

up from it after it has remained in hot water for a very long time.

Tea contains too a large amount of a true flesh-making substance, of

a nature very closely resembling that of the meal of beans or peas.

This is not at all dissolved in boiling water. It has been related that

when the Queen of England first received her present of the precious

tea, the royal cook, not quite understanding what ought to be done

with it, boiled it well, and then dished it up on the dinner table, in

the same way as spinach and other vegetables. If it be true that the

queen’s cook did treat the tea in this way, the plan was not altogether

so absurd as it seems. Tea leaves, well cooked, and eaten after this

fashion, would prove quite as wholesome and nutritious as beans and

peas, the excess of the more active ingredients being removed by the

boiling water, and the nourishing meal being principally left behind.

Not more than a fourth part of this valuable production, tea, is really

unnourishing wood and ash.

When a beverage is prepared from tea, if it be the object to get

their finest qualities from the leaves, without regard to expense,

the best method of proceeding is to use a large proportion of tea,

pouring on as much boiling water at once as will make us the quantity

required, and taking it off again after the tea has been standing

about ten minutes. The water then dissolves principally the nerve

food ingredient and fragrant flavors, and leaves behind the coarser

meal and astringent parts. When, on the other hand, the object is to

get all the nourishment out of the tea which it can be made to yield,

about a quarter of a small teaspoonful of carbonate of soda should be

put into the water with the leaves, and the whole should be allowed

to stand, covered up closely in a warm place, for a longer time. By

this management, the nutritious meal and other coarser ingredients are

partially dissolved into the water, as well as the finer parts. The

addition of sugar and milk to the beverage of course increases its

directly nourishing powers.

Half an ounce of good tea contains about three grains of the active

nerve-food ingredient. This therefore is quite as much as any

individual should use for the preparation of beverage for a single

day. It is also somewhat important how even this moderate quantity

is employed. Much of the bad effect which has been attributed to

tea, really has been due to the way in which the tea has been drunk,

rather than to the direct influence of the leaf. People commonly

swallow many cups of it in rapid succession, and pour it down their

throats as hot as they can bear it. This is all very unreasonable and

wrong. As a rule, never more than a couple of small cups of tea, made

from about two drachms of the leaf, should be taken at one time, and

even these should not be drunk until the beverage is so far cooled

as to cease to give an impression of actual heat to the palate and

stomach. The stomach itself makes things warm that are submitted to

its influence; there can, therefore, be no harm in warmth. Warm things

are not weakening to the stomach, as some people conceive. It is only

hot things that are weakening, because they force and over-goad the

activity of the organ, and then leave it weary and exhausted from the

forced work it has been made to perform.

[To be concluded.]

* * * * *

The men most to be pitied are those who have no command over

themselves, who can not do what they would, and who, even whilst they

are performing virtuous deeds, do so from mean motives, from regard

to happiness and mental satisfaction, fear of the reproaches of

conscience, or else of future punishment. This is all very well and

useful, supposing that the man can not be kept in the straight path by

any other motives, but he who looks inwardly to the heart and soul can

derive no satisfaction from such conduct. True nobility only exists

when the good is sought for its own sake, either as a recognized law of

pure duty, or from the feeling of the lofty dignity and constraining

beauty of virtue. It is only these motives that show the disposition to

be great and noble, and these alone react upon the character.—_Wilhelm

von Humboldt._

C. L. S. C. WORK.

By J. H. VINCENT, D. D., SUPERINTENDENT OF INSTRUCTION, C. L. S. C.

The studies for June are, in addition to the Required Readings of THE

CHAUTAUQUAN in English, Russian, Scandinavian, Religious, Chinese, and

Japanese history and literature, the little Chautauqua Text-Book on

China, Corea, and Japan.

* * * * *

There are no memorial days for June.

* * * * *

Finish the required readings for June as early as possible; fill out

the memoranda promptly; and report to Miss K. F. Kimball, Plainfield,

N. J.

* * * * *

Practice the Chautauqua songs at home; with them sing baby to sleep;

with them fight the blues; from them gather new inspiration.

* * * * *

Whitaker’s English Almanac has an especially full astronomical

department. It contains an immense amount of British information,

in three hundred and twenty closely packed pages. It is on sale at

Brentano’s, New York.

* * * * *

S. Pease, 64 Summer Street, Lynn, Mass., would like to purchase the

first volume of THE CHAUTAUQUAN.

* * * * *

Members of the Class of 1883 taking the White Seal course for this

year, are not required to re-read Chautauqua Library, volume one.

* * * * *

Members of the C. L. S. C. may wear their badges at any time, and in

any place.

* * * * *

A special seal may be won by members of the Class of 1882 who will

re-read with care the following books. There are members of this class

who have expressed the desire to review that year’s work, and to do

it with greater thoroughness: Green’s Short History of the English

People; Stopford Brooke’s Primer of English Literature; Chautauqua

Library of English History and Literature, volumes one, two, and three;

Mackenzie’s Nineteenth Century; Justin McCarthy’s History of our own

Times; three historical plays of Shakspere.

* * * * *

“Can the author of our Greek history give information as to the time

of the settlement of the Doric colonists of Spain and Ireland?”

Answer: Concerning the Doric colonies of Spain and Ireland, Prof.

Timayenis says: No movement ever occurred in any section or tribe in

Greece for the purpose of establishing any colony in Ireland, or any

part of the world beyond the pillars of Hercules. A few, very few,

daring Greeks, especially from the coasts of Ionia, and belonging to

the Ionic, not the Doric tribe, led by a spirit of adventure, sailed

beyond the pillars of Hercules, and are supposed to have reached Albion

(England). Then, fearing the return voyage, a few of these daring

adventurers remained in Albion, and thus crossed into the continent, i.

e., passed into Europe proper from the narrow sea-passage separating

England from Europe. “Sporadic settlements” may have taken place, but

no colonization of Ireland ever took place. These sporadic, commercial

movements occurred about 700 B. C., and even earlier. As the Greeks

had founded several cities on the coast of Africa, in Carthagenia, and

these cities flourished in a most wonderful manner, a large number

of these Greeks passed to the south of Spain. They belonged to the

Doric, Ionic, and Æolic tribes. But very probably the Doric element

predominated. The number of Greeks who settled in Spain was not large,

and very many reasons can be brought to substantiate this statement.

These settlements in Spain, according to the best authorities,

commenced 600 B. C., and again a few hundred of Greeks found their way

to Spain about 600 A. D.

* * * * *

A New York graduate of 1882, a counselor at law, writes to Mrs. M.

Bailey, of Jamestown, as follows: “As a graduate of the C. L. S. C. of

’82 I enclose one dollar, voluntary contribution to the memorial bell.

I think the idea a good one, but why have I heard so little about it?

The committee should send a circular to every member of the class, and

see, too, that they receive a reply, not necessarily a contribution.

Many will neglect it from carelessness or lack of interest, unless the

matter is energetically pushed. As a member of ’82 I am interested in

this, as I wish the bell to do honor to the class. * * * There is one

thing I would especially like to see the class of 1882 do, and that is

to found a scholarship somewhere. Most of its members, I presume, like

myself, are not college graduates, but more or less self-educated, and

therefore prize, perhaps, all the more a thorough university course,

and would be glad to help some one to advantages of which they were

deprived.”

* * * * *

The second Commencement Day in the history of the C. L. S. C. will be

Saturday, August 18, 1883. Let the class of 1883 be present in person,

or by a word of salutation to the class, through the superintendent of

instruction. Address, after July 14, Dr. J. H. Vincent, Chautauqua, N.

Y.

* * * * *

C. L. S. C. “Recognition” Days:

At Ocean Grove, N. J., Tuesday, July 3.

At Monterey, Cal., between July 4 and 13.

At Monteagle, Tenn., Saturday, July 21.

At Lake Bluff, Ill., Wednesday, July 25.

At Monona Lake, Wis., Thursday, July 26.

At Lakeside, O., Monday, July 30.

At Framingham, Mass., Thursday, August 30.

* * * * *

At Mountain Lake Park, Md., under the direction of Rev. Dr. W. M.

Frysinger, there will be a C. L. S. C. Recognition Service.

* * * * *

“Would you allow a boy of nine years to read Shakspere? My

nine-year-old does this. He also reads the tales published in THE

CHAUTAUQUAN. I frequently hear him quoting Hamlet, and telling the

story to his sister. No one has encouraged or advised him to do this.”

Answer: Steadily, faithfully, prudently fill this little fellow’s mind

with Bible facts, reading to him its finest passages of poetry and

history; guiding him to the love of truth in every-day life; training

him regularly to attend worship; cultivating to its highest degree

conscientiousness in all little things; mix in with his Shaksperean

readings choicest selections from other classic writers, and you will

have nothing to fear from the youngster’s taste for Shakspere.

* * * * *

A lady writes: “My copy of Mrs. Alden’s ‘Hall in the Grove,’ has been

read by from twenty-five to thirty persons, and is still going.” A good

plan to help on the C. L. S. C. Let our readers take the hint.

* * * * *

Committee on Graduation at Monterey: President C. C. Stratton, D.D.; J.

H. Wythe, D.D.; Prof. H. B. Norton; Miss L. M. Washburn.

C. L. S. C. SONG.

EVENING PRAISE.

MARY A. LATHBURY. WM. F. SHERWIN, 1877.

[Illustration: Music]

QUARTET _or_ SEMI-CHORUS.

1 Day is dying in the West;

Heav’n is touching earth with rest:

Wait and worship while the night

Sets her evening lamps alight

Thro’ all the sky.

FULL CHORUS.

Holy, holy, holy Lord God of Hosts!

Heav’n and earth are full of Thee!

Heav’n and earth are praising Thee,

O Lord most high!

2 Lord of life, beneath the dome

Of the Universe, Thy home,

Gather us who seek Thy face

To the fold of Thy embrace,

For thou art nigh.—_Chorus._

Copyright, 1877, by J. H. Vincent.

* * * * *

Now that the Chautauqua University has its charter, signed by the

Governor of New York, it will be something to have on a C. L. S. C.

diploma, in one of the higher fraternities, the seal bearing this

legend: “The C. L. S. C. of the Chautauqua University.”

* * * * *

Let all graduates of 1883, who can not be present at Chautauqua, August

18, send to the president a simple word of salutation, with a short

sentiment, which may be read at the afternoon meeting. Do not neglect

this. A few words may have packed into them a forcible and encouraging

thought.

* * * * *

Will members of the C. L. S. C. who know of any graduates of the Class

of 1882 who have died during the past year, be kind enough to send to

the Superintendent of Instruction their names and residences, date of

death, and any items concerning their lives, illness, etc., which may

be suitable for enrollment in the archives of the C. L. S. C.

PACIFIC BRANCH C. L. S. C.

The especial attention of the members of the Pacific Branch is called

to the following announcement from the Plainfield office:

Members of the Pacific Branch should send their final reports to Miss

K. F. Kimball, Plainfield, N. J., immediately after finishing the June

reading, that she may be able to forward the list of graduates on the

Pacific coast to the Commencement Day Committee early in July. No names

can be reported at the Monterey Assembly as graduates whose report

blanks do not reach the Plainfield office by the 28th of June.

J. H. VINCENT,

Supt. of Instruction, C. L. S. C.

C. L. S. C. TESTIMONY.

_Massachusetts._—The arrangement of subjects seems to me so well

adapted to the requirements of such a class of readers, and suits my

own case so completely, that I can not say too much in its favor.

Sickness and death visited my home last year, and my reading lost

much of its interest, and brought me discouragement in one way—it was

so hard to read with a mind distracted by anxiety—but it was a great

comfort withal, and just what I had wanted, but not dared undertake for

some time. This winter it has been my privilege to meet regularly with

the local circle, and the subjects are exceedingly interesting.

* * * * *

_Massachusetts._—I am one of the “busy housekeepers,” and to me the

C. L. S. C. course has proved “a poem, and a picture, and a sermon

altogether.” I have not been to school for twenty years, but loved

study when I did attend. How often I have wished, even now, I could

attend some school or college, and lo! the college has come to me.

Last summer I read “The Hall in the Grove.” That book gave me a strong

desire to be numbered with the army of Chautauqua. There has been a

circle of a few young people in our town for two years. This year it

has greatly increased, and it has been my privilege to be numbered with

them. This course of study meets a want in thousands of hearts, not

unfelt, but unrecognized. It uplifts the soul and enlarges views of

life, and leads to a fuller appreciation of the power and love of God.

May the blessing of the Father rest on the leaders and workers of the

C. L. S. C.

* * * * *

_Massachusetts._—The mails, which bring my own memoranda, etc., from

your office are also bringing similar copies to the address of my dear

sister, Lucy L. Bullock. With a heart full of sorrow I have to tell

you her name must be placed upon your starred list. She has passed on

before us. In a drawer, near her diploma and packages of examination

papers, I find a slip with these words, in her handwriting: “_Blessings

on the C. L. S. C._”

* * * * *

_Rhode Island._—I like the C. L. S. C. very much, and wish to join

it. I am sixteen years of age, a spinner in a woolen mill. I promise

if possible to complete the four years’ course, and also to give four

hours a week to study, if nothing should prevent. I hope to give three

hours a day more than the time specified.

* * * * *

_Maryland._—Although I have been much discouraged by last year’s work

overlapping this so much, I do not intend to give up. I teach at a

distance from home, and have little time except at night, and then am

often too tired for real study. Still, I have derived benefit from the

work so far, and hope next year to send more creditable memoranda.

* * * * *

_Ohio._—Continued ill-health and reading at night has so injured my

eyes that I can now only read what my business absolutely requires—I

find this a great affliction. The knowledge gained by the studies

during the four years is a source of great comfort and satisfaction to

me. The encouragement received from the addresses sent to students from

time to time carried me through places where I might have failed.

* * * * *

_Minnesota._—I did not begin my course of study for 1881-1882 until

about the last of April. It is rather hard work for a student to

“catch up” at any time; and if that student be a mother of four little

children, and at the head of a household, it is almost discouraging.

Still I have done it, and at the present time can say there is no back

study. I have thought several times I should like to write to the C. L.

S. C., but have hardly seen the time in which to do so. I was the first

to join the C. L. S. C. in this part of the country, it having been

recommended to me by a friend. Now there are several members. So you

see how your members are increasing. It is a grand work you are doing,

and you have many heart wishes for still greater success.

* * * * *

_Texas._—I am more and more pleased with the C. L. S. C. I do not

have as much time to study as I would like, but think I will catch up

by October. I am afraid that I will not be able to stand as good an

examination as I wish, but will do the best I can. I aim to start with

the reading next fall. I think the prospect is very good for a local

circle here. I shall do all I can for the C. L. S. C. cause.

* * * * *

_Micronesia._—I have decided to engage in a course of study with the C.

L. S. C., though the land of Micronesia is so far away I shall not be

able to obtain all the advantages of the school as I should at home.

But in this far away land we need something to incite to effort, or our

literary knowledge is likely to fall behind.

A LETTER FROM ENGLAND.

The following very interesting letter was received by the Arthington

C. L. S. C., of East End, Pittsburgh, Pa., from Robert Arthington,

Esq., a wealthy gentleman of Leeds, England, noted for his interest in

popular education, and especially for his methodical missionary work.

The letter was written in reply to a letter by the secretary, informing

him of the choice of “Arthington” as a name for their branch of the C.

L. S. C.

LEEDS, ENGLAND, January 20, 1883.

DEAR SIR:—On behalf of your association, accept the

expression of my interest as I peruse your letter and

enclosures. I am glad to know your circle is making

progress. The serious study of events in the history

of mankind, taken in their course and connection, in

parts of the world best known at various seasons, or

synoptically in successive periods of the past, the

course of every series traced to its present, the

panorama surveyed and examined, must be an exercise

exceedingly fruitful in the most instructive and

delightful contemplations, interesting and solemnizing

to the moral sense, yea, to the Christian heart. And

the pictures of natural scenery, simple or mingled with

art, in life or in ruins, in the various landscapes

drawn from different parts of the earth and presented

to the eye of the mind as in thought, we stand in the

midst of them as they arise, admiring them in their

own grandeur and loveliness, or finding in them a

fit place for reflection and prayerful meditation,

are well worth beholding, recalling, and gazing upon

with quickened and cultured powers and imagination,

extracting, combining and storing. I much admire the

picture of the academic grove and structure which the

engraving frontispiece of your pamphlets set forth. And

I am very much pleased with the choice of expression

observable in Dr. Vincent’s address, featured as it

is in the excellence and particularity of the advice

given to the students. I shall treasure your letter and

its enclosures. Whilst studying the soberest facts of

man’s history, and the creation of the earth and the

world, and great principles of physical creation and

natural science in their developments or capabilities,

let me hope ardently that you will be led to give your

most enjoyed and devoted thoughts and resolves, always

depending on the spirit of the Lord, to the need of man

in his heathen state, and command of Christ our Lord,

taking care that all the dark places of the globe, each

one carefully sought out, shall be illuminated with

the light of the Christian Scriptures, and the Word of

God. Some or many of you know the Lord. May the joy

of the Lord in faith of the Father and of Jesus be

your supporting power. To all I say: “Ask and ye shall

receive, seek and ye shall find, knock and it shall be

opened.” Yours faithfully,

ROBERT ARTHINGTON.

LOCAL CIRCLES.

[We request the president or secretary of every local

circle to send us reports of your work, or ask the

circle to elect a member to write up your method

of conducting the circle, together with reports of

lectures, concerts, entertainments, etc.—Editor THE

CHAUTAUQUAN, Meadville, Pa.]

=Maine (Norway).=—We have twenty members, sixteen of whom are regular

members of the C. L. S. C. We meet once in three weeks at the homes

of the members. The method of conducting our meetings varies. At our

next meeting we are to take up the questions on “Astronomy” in THE

CHAUTAUQUAN. We are behind in our reading, as we did not organize till

November, but hope to make it up before the end of the year.

* * * * *

=Vermont (Milton).=—Our local circle was organized in November last,

and at present we have a membership of nine. We meet weekly at the

homes of the members, and have several times met at the homes of those

(not members) interested in the C. L. S. C. Thus far a teacher has been

appointed weekly for each subject under consideration; but at our last

meeting a change was made, so that now, each member brings three or

four questions on each of the subjects read. At nearly every meeting

we have in addition to our regular work, abstracts, essays, select

readings, music and Chautauqua games; and these combined with our solid

work make our meetings very interesting and pleasing to our members.

* * * * *

=Massachusetts (Hyde Park).=—We have a flourishing circle. Hold

meetings once a fortnight. At our last meeting we had a delightful

and instructive talk from Prof. J. E. Shorpe, of Dorchester, on

“Gravitation, and the Wonders of the Pendulum;” also a paper on “The

Moon,” by one of our young ladies, forcibly illustrated. We follow

our honored Dr. Vincent’s advice, to move around and secure all the

local talent we can to help us. The high school principal gave us an

evening on “Geology,” and one of our school board promises us still

further aid in astronomy, and with the use of his telescope we hope to

become better acquainted with our neighbor, the moon, who has grown

wonderfully in our affections this last quarter. We can not refrain

from speaking of a visit last evening to the South Boston circle, with

a membership of 200. The exercises consisted of a blackboard review

lesson in astronomy by Mr. Oldham, of Boston University, and a chapter

in English history, conducted by the president, Rev. R. R. Meredith,

with his accustomed clearness and definiteness. Select music helped to

fill up the measure of a very enjoyable hour.

* * * * *

=Massachusetts (New Bedford).=—On October 6, 1882, a circle of members

and friends of the Pleasant Street M. E. Church was formed with

thirty-seven regular and twenty-nine local members, the organization

to be known as the New Bedford Pioneer Local C. L. S. C. It was voted

that a regular meeting be held at the church the last Thursday of every

month, at which some entertainment shall be provided for by a committee

chosen from the circle. We have had five lectures on Geology and two on

Astronomy by Rev. E. F. Clarke, pastor of the church, and a number of

evenings of Greek History, with readings and essays by members of the

club. The average attendance has been from one hundred to one hundred

and fifty.

* * * * *

=Massachusetts (Saxonville).=—A local circle of the C. L. S. C. was

organized in Saxonville, Monday evening, October 16. We have six

local members, and we hope to add many more to our list. Our method

of conducting our meetings, which we hold once in two weeks, is as

follows: Each member is requested to bring in six or more questions

covering points of difficulty met with in his or her reading; these

questions to constitute a question drawer to be conducted by the

Committee of Instruction; by the time these questions are answered the

required reading has been pretty thoroughly gone over and picked to

pieces.

* * * * *

=Rhode Island (Providence).=—Wayland Branch of the C. L. S. C. was

organized in October, 1882, and has a membership of sixteen, thirteen

of whom belong to the general circle and all of the Class of ’86. The

president appoints a committee of three to prepare the programme for

the succeeding meeting, and the exercises, like those of many other

local circles, consist of questions in THE CHAUTAUQUAN, or prepared,

short essays, abstracts and readings. We were very much interested in

Dr. Vincent’s “How to Conduct Local Circles,” given in the February

CHAUTAUQUAN. Glad to read his approval of _small_ circles. We are few

in number, but to express it as he does, we “take to” each other, and

spend our time very pleasantly and profitably.

* * * * *

=Connecticut (East Lyme).=—We, the Pleiades Circle, are enjoying our

third year. Are quite few in numbers but great in zeal. We have a

membership of twelve, seven of whom are members of the national class.

Our practice has been to read and discuss the lesson assigned for the

evening, always including a portion of questions and answers from THE

CHAUTAUQUAN, but we have now adopted the admirable plan suggested by

Dr. Vincent, viz: the reading aloud by one of the members of a page or

two of the required reading, the others listening; then each one in

turn repeating all he or she remembers of what has been read, and that,

we were surprised to find, would be nearly every thing of importance.

We think it an excellent discipline for our minds to learn to listen

attentively, and when this habit is acquired it is surprising to see

how much the mind readily retains. We have tried many plans, but none

that pleases and benefits us like this, and we heartily recommend it to

all Chautauquans. One of our rules is, for each member to come prepared

to state some important fact, either relative to the lesson or not;

these are stated the last thing before the meeting closes. We probably

shall never be able to report any great increase in numbers, as our

village is small and not a growing one, but we are fully conscious

that our individual improvement does not depend upon the greatness of

numbers, and so we struggle on, realizing a continued improvement of

our minds, and a constant pleasure derived from our labors.

* * * * *

=New York (Silver Creek).=—A local circle was organized here in

October, 1882, and we now have twenty-two members. We have a very

good attendance each evening. All seem very much interested, and the

interest seems to increase at each meeting. Our reading is done at

home, and we meet to review, recite, suggest, and encourage each other.

* * * * *

=New York (Brooklyn).=—The first meeting of this circle was held

Thursday evening, October 19, 1882, in the chapel of the New York

Avenue Methodist Episcopal Church. There were thirty-two persons

present. Our circle meets on the first and third Thursday evenings of

each month, in the chapel of the church mentioned. The C. L. S. C. is

not confined to the New York Avenue Church, but is representative of

at least seven different churches. We have now seventy-five members,

besides a large transient attendance. Great interest has been expressed

throughout. One large addition to our numbers—some ten names—comes from

the union of the Bedford local circle with ours.

* * * * *

=New York (Chili Station).=—The Bryant Circle is now in its third year,

and numbers thirteen regular and six local members. We endeavor to meet

twice a month, at the home of some member, but, owing to the large

territory over which our circle is scattered, the attendance is often

small. The homes of some of our members are nearly ten miles distant

from each other. It would be difficult to give any “order of exercises”

as followed in our meetings, for we try to profit by the many good

hints given in the reports of other local circles, and our plan usually

varies with the receipt of each number of THE CHAUTAUQUAN. Indeed, I

think our meetings would compare favorably with Dr. Vincent’s idea of

a “model class-meeting.” We observed Milton’s day and Longfellow’s. We

think THE CHAUTAUQUAN better than ever, and all have been interested in

the study of astronomy. It seems as though the stars were brighter than

ever before, and twinkled especial encouragement to each C. L. S. C.

* * * * *

=New York (Accord).=—We can scarcely call ours a “local circle,” as

we are but a “triangle,” still we meet Friday afternoons, alternately

at each of our homes, and our meetings are most enjoyable as well as

profitable. In our home readings we follow the outline of C. L. S. C.

studies marked out in THE CHAUTAUQUAN, and underline certain passages

which particularly interest each, and at our weekly meetings we review

or talk over. All questions, discussions, or expressions of opinion are

always in order, as we are not at all formal. We learn the answers to

the questions in THE CHAUTAUQUAN and text-books, and if puzzled or can

not clearly understand subjects of study, why we ask questions about

it, of our minister, school teacher, or any one we think can help us.

We have found this a most excellent means of gaining information. We

think often of our class mottoes, and strive to “keep our Heavenly

Father in our midst.”

* * * * *

=New York (Gasport).=—We organized a local circle at Orangeport

the first week in October, 1882. We have a membership of nine. We

meet twice each month, using the questions in THE CHAUTAUQUAN at

our meetings. Each member also brings original questions, which are

answered during the meetings. We are much interested, and intend to

complete the course.

* * * * *

=New York (Danby).=—Last summer some six members of the Congregational

Church, including the pastor and his wife, visited Chautauqua. Some

took the Normal Course under Dr. Hurlbut, while others attended the

lectures and took a general view of things. All returned to their homes

delighted and profited. They were enthusiastic over the advantages

presented at Chautauqua. The pastor organized a class in the C. L.

S. C. Fourteen joined in the regular course and sixteen united as

local members. Thirty copies of THE CHAUTAUQUAN are taken in the

congregation. The meetings have been well attended during the year,

and the interest seems to increase. The circle meets every Tuesday

evening, and a round-table session is held on Friday evening. We are

now reviewing and preparing for the examination papers. We expect to

send a larger delegation to Chautauqua this year than last.

* * * * *

=New York (Darien).=—Our local circle was organized at the beginning

of the year, and now numbers twenty members. The chief studies, like

history, preparatory Greek, geology and astronomy, are reserved for

circle work, and are taken up in such a way that each one can readily

do a part. Each book is thoroughly discussed by topics in the form of

abstracts of the subject matter. For convenience the circle is divided

into three divisions. Each division is responsible for the topic of

its evening. Four or five of one division discuss a subject previously

assigned, while the remaining members of the division are appointed

as questioners. After they have completed their work the whole circle

have the privilege to ply questions and discuss. The diagrams have

made the study of geology of much interest, and afforded pleasure. The

Chautauqua game of Grecian history, together with the question-box,

have been auxiliaries of general interest, and helped to develop the

Chautauqua Idea.

* * * * *

=New York (Granville).=—We have seen no mention in THE CHAUTAUQUAN of

the circle formed in this place. A word from us may not be without

interest to your readers. About the first of October last the attention

of Dr. Tenny, one of our most skillful physicians, was called to the

Chautauqua course of reading. He, with a few other interested persons,

sent for the necessary documents, and soon had the pleasure of seeing

the Chautauqua Idea taking strong root in the community. Our circle

now numbers upward of thirty, including in its membership the Baptist

and Methodist pastors. Our president, Dr. Tenny, has greatly added to

the interest of our meetings by a series of reviews, assisted by our

geological charts. Regular meetings are held monthly, but of late we

have found it necessary to meet once in two weeks. Our circle takes

its name from the beautiful stream flowing through the village. The

Mettowee C. L. S. C. salutes sister circles and fellow-Chautauquans.

* * * * *

=New York (Troy).=—The Troy local circle sends us the following

interesting programme, neatly printed and, we infer, sent to the

members of the circle:

C. L. S. C.

Our sixth monthly meeting will be held in the North

Second Street Methodist Church, Thursday evening, April

5, 1883.

PROGRAM.

1. The Stellar System Miss Ida L. Miles

2. The Worlds and the Word Miss Mary A. Chilson

3. Telescopes—How Made. (Illustrated) R. D. Comstock

4. Questions on page 353 in March CHAUTAUQUAN.

5. Round Table.

6. Shakspere-a _conversazione_.

Our program is still astronomical. The importance

of the subject is our only apology. Astronomy is a

vast science. We master vast things by patient and

persistent work. Page after page, book after book, is

the method; “never be discouraged,” is the spirit.

Come to this monthly meeting. Bring something and get

something, and so be enriched. Read a little every day.

Work hard along your wisely adopted plan.

Prof. H. P. Judson of the High School, has kindly

consented to be present and answer all the astronomical

questions the circle may be pleased to ask. Use your

liberty.

* * * * *

=New York (Chautauqua).=—We have in this beautiful Chautauqua an

organized circle of the C. L. S. C. We meet on Tuesday evening of each

week. Open our meetings with Scripture quotations and prayer; close by

appropriate singing. We have an essay on each character and every point

of interest in each lesson. By so doing each one has something to do,

and thereby we get a rehearsal of our lessons with various views.

* * * * *

=Pennsylvania (Catasauqua).=—Our local circle was organized September

15, 1882, and numbers twenty-seven regular and twenty-five local

members. We have had two very interesting lectures so far, one upon

astronomy, by Bishop Warren, and another upon chemistry, by Prof.

Gayley, of Birdsboro, Pa. Several of our teachers take an active part

in our regular meetings, giving lectures upon the subjects of the

preceding month. We have the geological charts and find them very

useful in the study of geology. Our President, Rev. S. O. Garrison,

was the originator of the circle here, and throughout the winter has

done his best to make the meetings interesting and instructive. In

addition to the regular officers, we have a librarian. Our circle is

undenominational. All are welcome. Success attend all Chautauquans, is

the wish of our circle.

* * * * *

=Pennsylvania (Philadelphia).=—We are but seven in number, all much

interested and have been organized since November 28, 1882. But one

of our number is connected with the regular Circle. She is delighted,

and endeavors to persuade all others to join. Finding we could not

complete the entire course with any degree of thoroughness, we confined

our studies to two branches, geology and history of Greece. One member

made for our use a map of Greece. It is done with ink on muslin, and is

about 36×24 inches. We find our lesson much clearer and more enchanting

since we have had it. Altogether the winter has been very profitably

employed. Each member reads in turn, or as the teacher of the evening

may direct, and when we come to anything uncertain, we look it up in

dictionary or encyclopædia. All bad grammar and incorrect pronunciation

are immediately corrected, so that it is really a benefit to us.

* * * * *

=Pennsylvania (Berwick).=—Our circle was formed September 22, 1882,

with ten members. We have now twenty-eight members, and we meet

semi-monthly. Our exercises are exceedingly interesting, as we have

some live students among us. No subject is passed over without thorough

investigation and research. We are following the plan laid down for the

monthly studies, and will complete the course in the required time. We

can recommend the C. L. S. C. to those who are outside of its benign

and ennobling influence.

* * * * *

=Maryland (Cambridge).=—Last October we formed a C. L. S. Circle of

seven members. We call our circle “The Bird’s Nest Circle,” owing to

our place of meeting. We have members from sixteen to over seventy

years of age in our circle. We are all warm, personal friends, and

gather around our “round table” each month with earnest hearts and

words, each one feeling free to express his or her opinion, or to ask

any question. The good seed that has been sown here is springing up in

our hearts and minds.

* * * * *

=North Carolina (Charlotte).=—This vigorous young circle is not only

living but active. It embraces over twenty members, who are making good

progress, and are full of enthusiasm. The circle meets semi-monthly.

In addition to this it celebrated the centennial of the birth of

Washington Irving, on the evening of April 3. The exercises were full

of interest. They consisted of an original poem on Irving; a sketch of

the life and literary career of Irving; a fine rendering of “Ichabod

Crane.” Quotations from Irving’s works were called for, and many

beautiful thoughts and sentiments drawn from the writings of the great

author.

* * * * *

=Missouri (Carthage).=—Our twelve Chautauquans are still on the

advance, for we know all retrogression is considered treason in C. L.

S. C. eyes. The program of our weekly meetings is as follows: Roll

call; responses of select quotations; current events; papers by half

the circle on questions discussed in our work; the class exercise in

which all reading for the week is discussed. On last Wednesday evening

we observed the Shakspere and Addison memorial days. Mrs. Ruffin’s

spacious mansion was placed at our disposal. The life of Shakspere

and a most scholarly biography of Addison were read. After supper,

music, readings and recitations were given by members and visitors. The

evening closed leaving us all desirous of many such “memorials.”

* * * * *

=Ohio (Delta).=—This is the fourth year of the C. L. S. C. of Delta.

When we first started we had a large and enthusiastic circle of

seventeen members, regular and local. Death has taken two. A half dozen

or more have moved away. There are a faithful few left. We have quietly

read and studied, meeting once a week and discussing matter read. We

intend to finish the course and read for seals.

* * * * *

=Ohio (Springfield).=—The Seminary Circle of the C. L. S. C. was

organized in 1878. It is composed of six ladies, all members of “The

Hall in the Grove.” Our method of conducting the work has been varied

somewhat in reference to the subject presented, and has included

recitations, essays, papers, readings, CHAUTAUQUAN questions, and

annual reviews of memoranda, while conversations on the Greek history

are a marked feature of this year’s meetings. The memorial days are

especially interesting, Longfellow day having been observed with

increased interest. Our fifth “Shakspere” meeting was held on the 23d

of April. The program was full of interest.

* * * * *