  And King Ladislaus grew old. His helmet seemed to him more heavy. His sleep seemed to him more coy. But he had little care, for he had a loving wife, and he had healthy, noble sons and daughters, who loved God, and who told the truth, and who were not afraid to die. But one day, in his happy prosperity, there came to him a messenger running, who said in the Council, "Your Grace, the Red Russians have crossed the Red River of the north, and they are marching with their wives and their children with their men of arms in front, and their wagons behind, and they say they will find a land nearer the sun, and to this land are they coming." And the armorers mended the old armor, and the young men girded on swords which had never been tried in fight, and the pennons that they bore were embroidered by their sweethearts and sisters as in the old days of the Crusades, and with the same device of a sky-lark in mid-heaven, and the motto, "Nearer, my God, to Thee." And there came from the great Cathedral the wise men who had come from all the lands. They found the King, and they said to him, "Your Grace, we know how to build the new defences for the land, and we will guard the river ways, that the barbarians shall never enter them." And when the people knew that the Red Russians were on the way, they met in the square and marched to the palace, and Robert the Smith mounted the steps of the palace and called the King. And he said, "The people And the King took from his wife's neck the blue ribbon that she wore, with a golden sky-lark on it, and bound it round the blacksmith's arm, and he said, "If I die, it is nothing; if I live, it is nothing; that is in God's hand. But whether we live or die, let us draw as near Him as we may." And the Blacksmith Robert turned to the people, and with his loud voice, told what the King had said. And the people answered in the shout which the Hungarians shout to this day, "Let us die for our king! Let us die for our king!" And the King called the Queen hastily, and they and their children led the host to the great Cathedral. And the old priest Stephen, who was ninety years old, stood at the altar, and he read the gospel where it says, "Fear not, little flock, it is your Father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom." And he read the other gospel where the Lord says, "And I, if I be lifted up, will draw all And fifty thousand men, with one heart and one voice, joined with him. And the King joined, and the Queen to sing, "The Lord is my rock, my fortress, and my deliverer." And they marched from the Cathedral, singing in the language of the country, "Propior Deo," which is to say in our tongue, "Nearer, my God, to Thee." And the aged braves who had fought with Godfrey, and the younger men who had learned of arms in the University, went among the people and divided them into companies for the war. And Robert the Blacksmith, and all the guild of the blacksmiths, and of the braziers, and of the coppersmiths, and of the whitesmiths, even the goldsmiths, and the silversmiths, made weapons for the war; and the masons and the carpenters, and the ditchers and delvers marched out with the cathedral builders to the narrow passes of the river, and built new the fortresses. And the Lady Constance and her daughters, And when the Red Russians came in their host, there was not a man, or woman, or child in all Hungary but was in the place to which God had called him, and was doing his best in his place for his God, for the Church of Christ, and for his brothers and sisters of the land. And the host of the Red Russians was turned aside, as at the street corner you have seen the dirty water of a gutter turned aside by the curbstone. They fought one battle against the Hungarian host, and were driven as the blackbirds are driven by the falcons. And they gathered themselves and swept westward; and came down upon the passes to Bohemia. And there were no fortresses at the entrance to Bohemia; for King Bela had no learned men who loved him. And there was no army in the plains of Bohemia; for his people had been swept away in the pestilence. And there were no brave men who had fought with Godfrey, and knew the art of arms, for in those old days So the Red Russians, who call themselves the Szechs, took his land from him; and they live there till this day. And the King, without a battle, fled from the back-door of his palace, in the disguise of a charcoal-man; and he left his queen and his daughters to be cinder-girls in the service of the Chief of the Red Russians. And the false charcoal-man walked by day, and walked by night, till he found refuge in the castle of the King Ladislaus; and he met him in the old school-room where they read the fables together. And he remembered how the water-rat came to the home of the beavers. And he said to King Ladislaus,— "Ah, me! do you remember when we were boys together? Do you remember the fable of the Sky-lark, and the fable of the Water-rat?" "I remember both," said the King. And he was silent. "God has been very kind to you," said the beggar; "and He has been very hard to me." And the King said nothing. But the old priest Stephen, said,— "God is always kind. But God will not give Then King Ladislaus ordered that in the old school-room a bed should be spread for Bela; and that every day his breakfast and his dinner and his supper should be served to him; and he lived there till he died.
ONCE upon a time there was a young girl, who had the pretty name of Oello. I say, once upon a time, because I do not know when the time was,—nor do I know what the place was,—though my story, in the main, is a true story. I do not mean that I sat by and saw Oello when she wove and when she spun. But I know she did weave and did spin. I do not mean that I heard her speak the word I tell of; for it was many, many hundred years ago. But I do know that she must have said some such words; for I know many of the things which she did, and much of what kind of girl she was. She grew up like other girls in her country. She did not know how to read. None of them knew how to read. But she knew how to braid straw, and to make fish-nets and to catch Oello was very young when she married a young kinsman, with whom she had grown up since they were babies. Nobody knows much about him. But he loved her and she loved him. And when morning came they were not afraid to pray to God together,—and when night came she asked her husband to forgive her There is a bad gap in the beginning of their history. I do not know how it happened. But the first I knew of them, they had left their old home and were wandering alone on foot toward the South. Sometimes I have thought a great earthquake had wrecked their old happy home. Sometimes I have thought there was some horrid pestilence, or fire. No matter what happened, something happened,—so that Oello and her husband, of a hot, very hot day, were alone under a forest of laurels mixed with palms, with bright flowering orchids on them, looking like a hundred butterflies; ferns, half as high as the church is, tossing over them; nettles as large as trees, and tangled vines, threading through the whole. They were tired, oh, how tired! hungry, oh, how hungry! and hot and foot-sore. "I wish so we were out of this hole," said he to her, "and yet I am afraid of the people we shall find when we come down to the lake side." "I do not know why they should want to," said he, "but I am afraid they will hurt us." "But we do not want to hurt them," said she. "For my part, all I want is a shelter to live under; and I will help them take care of their children, and 'I will spin their flax, And weave their thread, And pound their corn, And bake their bread.'" "How will you tell them that you will do this?" said he. "I will do it," said Oello, "and that will be better than telling them." "But do not you just wish," said he, "that you could speak five little words of their Oello laughed very heartily. "Enemies," said she, "terrible enemies, who have two sticks for their weapons, two old bags for their stores, and cotton clothes for their armor. I do not believe more than half the army will turn out against us." So Oello pulled out the potatoes The same evening they came cautiously down on the beautiful meadow land which surrounded the lake they had seen. It is one of the most beautiful countries in the world. It was an hour before sunset,—the hour, I suppose, when all countries are most beautiful. Oello and her husband came joyfully down the hill, through a little track the llamas had made toward the water, wondering at the growth of the wild grasses, and, indeed, the freshness of all the green; when they were startled by meeting a horde of the poor, naked, half-starved Indians, who were just as much alarmed to meet with them. I do not think that the most stupid of them could have supposed Oello an enemy, nor her husband. For they stepped cheerfully down the path, waving boughs of fresh cinchona as tokens of peace, and looking kindly and pleasantly But the two young people came down so kindly and quickly, that the Indian women could not well run away. And when Oello caught one of the little babies up, and tossed it in her arms, and fondled it, and made it laugh, the little girl's mother laughed too. And when they had all once laughed together, peace was made among them all, and Oello saw where the Indian women had been lying, and what their poor little shelters were, and she led the way there, and sat down on a log that had fallen there, and called the children round her, and began teaching them a funny game with a bit of crimson cord. Nothing pleases savage people or tame people more than attention to their "Like battle target red,— He rushes to his burning bed, Dyes the whole wave with ruddy light, Then sinks at once, and all is night." The savage people showed the strangers a poor little booth to sleep in, and went away to their own lairs, with many prostrations, for they really thought them "children of the sun." Oello and her husband laughed very heartily when they knew they were alone. Oello made He had cut with his copper knife a little groove in some soft palm-wood, and he had fitted in it a round piece of iron-wood, and round the iron-wood had bound a bow-string, and while Oello held the palm-wood firm, he made the iron-wood fly round and round and round, till the pith of the palm smoked, and smoked, and at last a flake of the pith caught fire, and then another and another, and Oello dropped other flakes upon these, and blew them gently, and fed them with dry leaves, till they were all in a blaze. And when they were ready, Oello coaxed some of the children to come back, and next their mothers came and next the men. But still they said, "They are children of the sun." And when they ate of the food that had been cooked for them, they said it was the food of the immortals. Now, in Oello's home, this work of making the fire from wood had been called menial work, and was left to servants only. But even the princes of that land were taught never to order another to do what they could not do themselves. And thus it happened that the two young travellers could do it so well. And thus it was, that, because they did what they could, the savage people honored them with such exceeding honor, and because they did the work of servants they called them gods. As it is And this was much the story of that day and many days. While her husband went off with the men, taught them how he caught the fish, and how they could catch huanacos, Oello sat in the shade with the children, who were never tired of pulling at the crimson cord around her waist, and at the tassels of her head-dress. All savage children are curious about the dress of their visitors. So it was easy for Oello to persuade them to go with her and pick tufts of wild cotton, till they had quite a store of it, and then to teach them to spin it on distaffs she made for them from laurel-wood, and at last to braid it and to knit it,—till at last one night, when the men came home, Oello led out thirty of the children in quite a grand procession, dressed all of them in pretty cotton suits they had knit for themselves, instead of the filthy, greasy skins they had always worn before. This was a great triumph for Oello; but when the people would gladly have worshipped her, she only said, "I did what I could,—I did what I could,—say no more, say no more." And as the year passed by, she and her husband It was from the truth and steadiness of those two people, Manco and Oello, that the great nation of Peru was raised up from a horde of savages, starving in the mountains, to one of the most civilized and happy nations of their times. Unfortunately for their descendants, they did not learn the use of iron or gunpowder, They did not know much. But what they knew they could do. They were not, so far as we know, skilful in talking. But they were cheerful in acting. They did not hide their light under a bushel. They made it shine on all that came around. Their duties were the humblest, only making a fire in the morning, cleaning potatoes and cooking them, spinning, braiding, twisting, and weaving. This was the best Oello could do. She did that, and in doing it she reared an empire. We can contrast her life with that of the savages around her. As we can see a drop of blood when it falls into a cup of water, we can see how that one life swayed theirs. If she had lived among her kindred, and done at home these simple things, we should never have heard her name. But none the less would she have done them. None the less, year in and year out, century in and century out, would that sweet, Forgotten! do not ever think that anything is forgotten!
A STORY FOR CHILDREN. THIS is a story about some children who were living together in a Western State, in a little house on the prairie, nearly two miles from any other. There were three boys and three girls; the oldest girl was seventeen, and her oldest brother a year younger. Their mother had died two or three years before, and now their father grew sick,—more sick and more, and died also. The children were taking the best care they could of him, wondering and watching. But no care could do much, and so he told them. He told them all that he should not live long; but that when he died he should not be far from them, and should be with their dear mother. "Remember," he said, "to love each other. Be kind to each other. Stick together, if you can. Or, if you separate, love I have no idea that the children, in the midst of their grief and loneliness, took in his meaning. But afterwards they remembered it again and again, and found out why he said it to them. Any of you would have thought it a queer little house. It was not a log cabin. They had not many logs there. But it was no larger than the log cabin which General Grant is building in the picture. There was a little entry-way at one end, and two rooms opening on the right as you went. A flight of steps went up into the loft, and in the loft the boys slept in two beds. This was all. But if they had no rooms for servants, on the other hand they had no servants for rooms. If they had no hot-water pipes, on the other hand a large kettle hung on the crane above the kitchen fire, and there was but a very short period of any day Their father was buried, and the children were left alone. The first night after the funeral they stole to their beds as soon as they could, after the mock supper was over. The next morning George and Fanny found themselves the first to meet at the kitchen hearth. Each had tried to anticipate the other in making the morning fire. Each confessed to the other that there had been but little sleep, and that the night had seemed hopelessly long. "But I have thought it all over," said the brave, stout boy. "Father told us to stick together as long as we can. And I know I can manage it. The children will all do their best "George," said Fanny, "I know we can get along if you say so. I know it will be very hard upon you. There are so many things the other young men do which you will not be able to do; and so many things which they have which you might have. But none of them has a sister who loves them as I love you. And, as he said, 'Love is the whole.'" I suppose those words over the hearth were almost the only words of sentiment which ever passed between those two about their plans. But from that moment those plans went forward more perfectly than if they had been talked over at every turn, and amended every day. That is the way with all true stories of hearth and home. For instance, it was only that evening, when the day's work of all the six was done—and for boys and girls, it was hard work, too—Fanny "What shall we do to-night that we can all do together? Let us have something that we have never had before. Let us try what Mrs. Chisholm told us about. Let us act a ballad." Of course the children were delighted with acting. George knew that, and Fanny looked across so gratefully to him, and laid her book away also; and, in a minute, Ethan, the young carpenter of the family, was putting up sconces for tallow candles to light the scenes, and Fanny had Sarah and Alice out in the wood-house, with the shawls, and the old ribbons, and strips The children had a happy evening. They were frightened when they went to bed—the little ones—because they had been so merry. They came together with George and Fanny, and read their Bible as they had been used to do with their father, and the last text they read was, "Love is the fulfilling of the law." So the little ones went to bed, and left George and Fanny again together. "Pretty hard, was it not?" said she, smiling through her tears. "But it is so much best for them that home should be the happiest place of all for them. After all, 'Love is the whole.'" And that night's sacrifice, which the two older children made to the younger brothers and sisters as it were over their father's grave, was the beginning of many such nights, and of many other joint amusements which the children Far from finding themselves a lonely and forsaken family, these boys and girls soon found that they were surrounded with friends. George was quite right in assuming that he could manage the team, and could keep the little farm up, not to its full production under his father, but to a crop large enough to make them comfortable. Every little while there had to be a consultation. Mr. Snyder came down one day to offer him forty dollars a month and his board, if he would go off on a surveying party and carry chain for the engineers. It would be in a good line for promotion. Forty dollars a Then, as a few years passed by, after another long council, in which another pine-knot was sacrificed on the hearth, and in which Walter assisted with George and Fanny, it was agreed that Walter should "hire out." He had "a chance," as they said, to go over to the Stacy Brothers, in the next county. Now the Stacy Brothers had the greatest stock farm in all that part of Illinois. They had to hire a great deal of help, and it was a great question to George and Fanny whether poor Walter might not get more harm than good there. But they told Walter perfectly frankly their doubts and their hopes. And he said boldly, "Never you fear Yes, and he went. The Stacys' great establishment was different indeed from the little cabin he had left. But the other boys there, and the men he met, Norwegians, Welshmen, Germans, Yankees, all sorts of people, all had hearts just like his heart. And a helpful boy, honest as a clock and brave as St. Paul, who really tried to serve every one as he found opportunity, made friends on the great stock farm just as he had in the corn-room at the end of the wood-house. And once a month, when their wages were paid, he was able to send home the lion's share of his to Fanny, in letters which every month were written a little better, and seemed a little more easy for him to write. And when Thanksgiving came, Mr. George Stacy sent him home for a fortnight, with a special message to his sister, "that he could not do without him, and he wished she would send him a dozen of such boys. He knew how to raise oxen, he said; but would Miss Fanny tell him how she brought up boys like Walter?" And that story of Walter is only the story of the way in which Ethan also kept up the home tie, and came back, when he got a chance, from his voyages. His voyages were not on the sea. He "hired out" with a canal-boatman. Sometimes they went to the lake, and once they set sail there and came as far as Cleveland. Ethan made a great deal of fun in pretending to tell great sea-stories, like Swiss Family Robinson and Sinbad the Sailor. Fresh-water voyaging has its funny side, as has the deep-sea sailing. But Ethan did not hold to it long. His experience with grain brought him at last to Chicago, and he engaged there in the work of an elevator. But he lived always the old home life. There were three other boys he got acquainted with, one at Mr. Eggleston's church, one at the Custom House, and one at the place where he got his dinner, and they used to come up to his little room in the seventh story of the McKenzie House, and sit on his bed and in his chairs, just as the boys from the blacksmith's came into the corn-room. These four boys made a literary Central in all his life was the little cabin of two rooms and a loft over it. There is no day of his life, from that time to this, of which Fanny cannot tell you the story from his weekly letters home. For though she does not live in the cabin now, she keeps the old letters filed and in order, and once a week steadily Ethan has written to her, and the letters are all sealed now with his own seal-ring, and on the seal-ring is carved the inscription, "Love is the whole." I must not try to tell you the story of Alice's fortunes, or Sarah's. Every day of their lives was a romance, as is every day of yours and mine. Every day was a love-story, as may be And in that little church he gathered the boys and girls of the neighborhood every Sunday afternoon, and told them stories and they sang together. And on the week days he got up children's parties there, which all the children thought rather the best experiences of the They told all these stories, and a hundred more, at a great Thanksgiving party after the war. Walter and his wife and his children came from Sangamon County; and the General and all his family came down from Winetka; and Fanny and the Governor and all their seven came all the way from Minnesota; and Alice and her husband and all her little ones came up the river, and so across from Quincy; and Sarah and Gilbert, with the twins and the babies, came in their own carriage all the way from Horace. So there was a Thanksgiving dinner set for all the six, and the six husbands and wives, and the twenty-seven children. In twenty years, since their father died, those brothers and sisters had lived for each other. They had had separate houses, but they had
THE first Christmas this in which a Roman Senate has sat in Rome since the old-fashioned Roman Senates went under,—or since they "went up," if we take the expressive language of our Chicago friends. And Pius IX. is celebrating Christmas with an uncomfortable look backward, and an uncomfortable look forward, and an uncomfortable look all around. It is a suggestive matter, this Italian Parliament sitting in Rome. It suggests a good deal of history and a good deal of prophecy. "They say" (whoever they may be) that somewhere in Rome there is a range of portraits of popes, running down from never so far back; that only one niche was left in the architecture, which received the portrait of Pius IX., and that then that place was full. Maybe it is so. So this particular Christmas sets one careering back a little, to look at that mysterious connection of Rome with Christianity, which has held on so steadily since the first Christmas got itself put on historical record by a Roman census-maker. Humanly speaking, it was nothing more nor less than a Roman census which makes the word Bethlehem to be a sacred word over all the world to-day. To any person who sees the humorous contrasts of history there is reason for a bit of a smile when he thinks of the way this census came into being, and then remembers what came of it. Here was a consummate movement of Augustus, who would fain have the statistics of his empire. Such excellent things are statistics! "You can prove anything by statistics," says Mr. Canning, "except—the I always liked to think that some day when Augustus CÆsar was on a state visit to the Temple of Fortune some attentive clerk handed him down the roll which had just come in and said, "From Syria, your Highness!" that he might have a chance to say something to the Emperor; that the Emperor thanked him, and, in his courtly way, opened the roll so as to seem interested; that his eye caught the words "Bethlehem—village near Jerusalem," and the figures which showed the number of the people and of the children and of all the infants there. Perhaps. No matter if not. Sixty years after, Augustus' successor, Nero, set fire to Rome in a drunken fit. The Temple of Fortune caught the flames, and our roll, with Bethlehem and the count of Joseph's possessions twisted and crackled like any common rag, turned to smoke and ashes, and was gone. That is what such statistics come to! Five hundred years after, the whole scene is A few years more and this monk is Bishop of Rome. True to the promise of the market-place, So far has the star of the baby of Bethlehem risen in a little more than five centuries. A Christian dominion has laid its foundations in the Eternal City. And you and I, gentle reader, are what we are and are where we are because that monk of St. Andrew saw those angel boys that day in a Roman market-place.
FORTUNATELY we were with our wives. It is in general an excellent custom, as I will explain if opportunity is given. First, you are thus sure of good company. For four mortal hours we had ground along, and stopped and waited and started again, in the drifts between Westfield and Springfield. We had shrieked out our woes by the voices of fire-engines. Brave men had dug. Patient men had sate inside, and waited for the results of the digging. At last, in triumph, at eleven and three-quarters, as they say in Cinderella, we entered the Springfield station. It was Christmas eve! Leaving the train to its devices, Blatchford and his wife (her name was Sarah), and I with mine (her name was Phebe), walked quickly with our little sacks out of the station, ploughed Bed followed; and I am a graceless dog that I do not write a sonnet here on the unbroken slumber that followed. Breakfast, by arrangement of us four, at nine. At 9.30, to us enter Bertha, Dick, Hosanna, and Wolfgang, to name them in alphabetical order. Four chairs had been turned down for them. Four chops, four omelettes, and four small oval dishes of fried potatoes had been ordered, and now appeared. Immense shouting, immense kissing among those who had that privilege, general wondering, and great congratulating that our wives were there. Solid resolution that we would advance no farther. Here, and here only, in Springfield itself, would we celebrate our Christmas day. It may be remarked in parenthesis that we had learned already that no train had entered the town since eleven and a quarter; and it was known by telegraph that none was within thirty-four miles and a half of the spot, at the moment the vow was made. We waded and ploughed our way through the snow to church. I think Mr. Rumfry, if For people who have their wives with them, it is not difficult to provide entertainment on such an occasion. "Bertha," said Wolfgang, "could you not entertain us with one of your native dances?" "Ho! slave," said Dick to Hosanna, "play upon the virginals." And Hosanna played a lively Arab air on the tavern piano, while the fair Bertha danced with a spirit unusual. Was it indeed in memory of the Christmas of her own dear home in Circassia? "Do you tell me, CÆsar," said Dick, "that they have doors in your country?"—"Sartin, they do," said poor CÆsar, flurried. "Boy," said I, "the gentlemen are making fun of you. They want to know if you ever keep Christmas in your country without a dance." "Never, sar," said poor CÆsar. "Do they dance without music?" "No, sar; never." The black boy went, and returned with his violin. And as the light grew gray, and crept into the darkness, and as the darkness gathered more thick and more, he played for us and he played for us, tune after tune; and we danced,—first with precision, then in sport, then in wild holiday frenzy. We began with waltzes,—so great is the convenience of travelling with your wives,—where should we have been, had we been all sole alone, four men? Probably playing whist or euchre. And now we began with waltzes, which passed into polkas, which subsided into round dances; and then in very exhaustion we fell back in a grave quadrille. I danced with Hosanna; Wolfgang and Sarah were our vis-À-vis. We went through the same set that Noah and his three boys danced in the ark with their four wives, and which has been danced ever since, in every moment, on one or another spot of the dry earth, going round it with the sun, like the drumbeat of England,—right and left, first two forward, right hand across, pastorale,—the whole series of them; All this last, since the sentence after "Circassia," is a mistake. There was not any bell, nor any barber, and we did not dance at all. This was all a slip of my memory. What we really did was this:— John Blatchford said,—"Let us all tell stories." It was growing dark and he had put more logs on the fire. Bertha said, "Heap on more wood, the wind is chill; But let it whistle as it will, We'll keep our merry Christmas still." She said that because it was in "Bertha's Visit," a very stupid book which she remembered. Then Wolfgang told THE PENNY-A-LINER'S STORY. [Wolfgang is a reporter, or was then, on the staff of the "Star."] When I was on the "Tribune" (he never was on the "Tribune" an hour, unless he calls selling the "Tribune" at Fort Plains being on the "Tribune"). But I tell the story as he told it. He said,— When I was on the "Tribune," I was despatched to report Mr. Webster's great reply to Hayne. This was in the days of stages. We had to ride from Baltimore to Washington early in the morning to get there in time. I found my boots were gone from my room when the stage-man called me, and I reported that speech in worsted slippers my wife had given me the week before. As we came into Bladensburg it grew light, and I recognized my boots on the I said I liked the idea, but the expression seemed involved. "And it is involved," said Webster; "but I can't improve it." "How would this do?" said I. "'Liberty and Union, now and forever, one and inseparable!'" "Capital!" he said, "capital! write that All of us applauded the story. Phebe then told THE SCHOOLMISTRESS'S STORY. You remind me of the impression that very speech made on me, as I heard Henry Chapin deliver it at an exhibition at Leicester Academy. I resolved then that I would free the slave, or perish in the attempt. But how? I, a woman,—disfranchised by the law? Ha! I saw! I went to Arkansas. I opened a "Normal College, or Academy for Teachers." We had balls every second night, to make it popular. Immense numbers came. Half the teachers of the Southern States were trained there. I had admirable instructors in Oil Painting and Music,—the most essential studies. The Arithmetic I taught myself. I taught it well. I achieved fame. I achieved wealth; invested in Arkansas Five per Cents. Only one secret device I persevered in. To all,—old and young, innocent girls and sturdy men,—I so taught the multiplication-table, Then was hushed the harp of Phebe, and Dick told his story. THE INSPECTOR OF GAS-METERS' STORY. Mine is a tale of the ingratitude of republics. It is well-nigh thirty years since I was walking by the Owego and Ithaca Railroad,—a crooked road, not then adapted to high speed. Of a sudden I saw that a long cross timber, on a trestle, high above a swamp, had sprung up from its ties. I looked for a spike with which to secure it. I found a stone with which to hammer the spike. But, at this moment, a train approached, down hill. I screamed. They heard! But the engine had no power to stop the heavy train. With the presence of mind of a poet, and the courage of a hero, I flung my own weight on the fatal timber. I would hold it down, or perish. The engine came. The elasticity of the pine timber whirled In that train was the young U. S. Grant, on his way to West Point for examination. But for me the armies of the Republic would have had no leader. I pressed my claim, when I asked to be appointed to England. Although no one else wished to go, I alone was forgotten. Such is gratitude with republics! He ceased. Then Sarah Blatchford told THE WHEELER AND WILSON'S OPERATIVE'S STORY. My father had left the anchorage of Sorrento for a short voyage, if voyage it may be called. Life was young, and this world seemed heaven. The yacht bowled on under close-reefed stay-sails, and all was happy. Suddenly the corsairs seized us: all were slain in my defence; but I,—this fatal gift of beauty bade them spare my life! Why linger on my tale! In the Zenana of the Shah of Persia I found my home. "How escape his eye?" I said; and, fortunately, I remembered that in my reticule I carried one box of F. Kidder's indelible ink. Instantly I applied the liquid in the large bottle to one cheek. Soon as it was dry, I applied that in the small bottle, and sat in the sun one hour. My head ached with the sunlight, but what of that? I was a fright, and I knew all would be well. I was consigned, so soon as my hideous deficiencies were known, to the sewing-room. Then how I sighed for my machine! Alas! it was not there; but I constructed an imitation from I also vowed revenge. Nor did I doubt one instant how; for in my youth I had read Lucretia Borgia's memoirs, and I had a certain rule for slowly slaying a tyrant at a distance. I was in charge of the shah's own linen. Every week, I set back the buttons on his shirt collars by the width of one thread; or, by arts known to me, I shrunk the binding of the collar by a like proportion. Tighter and tighter with each week did the vice close around his larynx. Week by week, at the high religious festivals, I could see his face was blacker and blacker. At length the hated tyrant died. The leeches called it apoplexy. I did not undeceive them. His guards sacked the palace. I bagged the diamonds, fled with them to Trebizond, and sailed thence in a caÏque to South Boston. No more! such memories oppress me. Her voice was hushed. I told my tale in turn. THE CONDUCTOR'S STORY. I was poor. Let this be my excuse, or rather my apology. I entered a Third Avenue car at I threw the hated badge into the river. I bought a palace on Murray Hill, and led an upright and honorable life. But since that night of terror the sound of the horse-cars oppresses me. Always since, to go up town or down, I order my own coupÉ, with George to drive me; and never have I entered the cleanly, sweet, I said no more. A moment's pause, a few natural tears, and a single sigh hushed the assembly; then Bertha, with her siren voice, told— THE WIFE OF BIDDEFORD'S STORY. At the time you speak of, I was the private governess of two lovely boys, Julius and Pompey,—Pompey the senior of the two. The black-eyed darling! I see him now. I also see, hanging to his neck, his blue-eyed brother, who had given Pompey his black eye the day before. Pompey was generous to a fault; Julius, parsimonious beyond virtue. I therefore instructed them in two different rooms. To Pompey, I read the story of "Waste not, want not." To Julius, on the other hand, I spoke of the All-love of his great Mother Nature, and her profuse gifts to her children. Leaving him with grapes and oranges, I stepped back to Pompey, and taught him how to untie parcels so as to save the string. Leaving him winding the string neatly, I went back to Julius, and gave to him "I thought you were going to say in a hotter place," said John Blatchford; and he told his story:— THE STOKER'S STORY. We were crossing the Atlantic in a Cunarder. I was second stoker on the starboard watch. In that horrible gale we spoke of before dinner, the coal was exhausted, and I, as the best-dressed man, was sent up to the captain to ask what we should do. I found him himself at the wheel. He almost cursed me and bade me say nothing of coal, at a moment when he must keep her head to the wind with her full power, or we were lost. He On the third day the captain came down himself into the engine-room, where I had never seen him before, called me aside, and told me that by mistake he had given me the wrong key; asking me if I had used it. I pointed to him the empty room: not a leaf was left. He turned pale with fright. As I saw his emotion he confided to me the truth. The books were the evidences or accounts of the British national debt; of what is familiarly known as the Consolidated Fund, or the "Consols." They had been secretly sent to New York for the examination of James Fiske, who had been asked to advance a few millions on this security to the English Exchequer, and now all evidence of indebtedness was gone! The captain was about to leap into the sea. But I dissuaded him. I told him to say nothing; I would keep his secret; no man else knew it. The Government would never utter it. It was Only on the first quarter-day which followed, I obtained leave of absence, and visited the Bank of England, to see what happened. At the door was this placard,—"Applicants for dividends will file a written application, with name and amount, at desk A, and proceed in turn to the Paying Teller's Office." I saw their ingenuity. They were making out new books, certain that none would apply but those who were accustomed to. So skilfully do men of Government study human nature. I stepped lightly to one of the public desks. I took one of the blanks. I filled it out, "John Blatchford, £1747 6s. 8d.," and handed it in at the open trap. I took my place in the queue in the teller's room. After an agreeable hour, a pile, not thick, of Bank of England notes was given to me; and since that day I have quarterly drawn that amount from the maternal government of that country. As I left the teller's room, I observed the captain in the queue. He was the seventh man from the window, and I have never seen him more. We then asked Hosanna for her story. "My story," said she, "will take us far back into the past. It will be necessary for me to dwell on some incidents in the first settlement of this country, and I propose that we first prepare and enjoy the Christmas-tree. After this, if your courage holds, you shall hear an over-true tale." Pretty creature, how little she knew what was before us! As we had sat listening to the stories, we had been preparing for the tree. Shopping being out of the question, we were fain from our own stores to make up our presents, while the women were arranging nuts, and blown egg-shells, and pop-corn strings from the stores of the "Eagle and Star." The popping of corn in two corn-poppers had gone on through the whole of the story-telling. All being so nearly ready, I called the drowsy boy again, and, showing him a very large stick in the wood-box, asked him to bring me a hatchet. To my great joy he brought the axe of the establishment, and I bade him farewell. How little did he think what was before him! So soon as he had gone I went stealthily down the stairs, and stepping out into the deep With swift fingers did our wives adorn it. I should have said above, that we travelled with our wives, and that I would recommend that custom to others. It was impossible, under the circumstances, to maintain much secrecy; but it had been agreed that all who wished to turn their backs to the circle, in the preparation of presents, might do so without offence to the others. As the presents were wrapped, one by one, in paper of different colors, they were marked with the names of giver and receiver, and placed in a large clothes-basket. At last I see my story hurries to its close. Dick, who is the tallest, mounted a step-ladder, and called us by name to receive our presents. I had a nice gold watch-key from Hosanna, a knife from Steele, a letter-case from Phebe, and a pretty pencil-case from Bertha. Dick had given me his watch-chain, which he knew I fancied; Sarah Blatchford, a little toy of a Geneva watch she wore; and her husband, a handsome seal ring, a present to him from the Czar, I believe; Phebe, that is my wife,—for we were travelling with our wives,—had a The first I was conscious of was the angry hiss of steam. In a moment I perceived that the steam-boiler, from which the tavern was warmed, had exploded. The floor beneath us rose, and we were driven with it through the ceiling and the rooms above,—through an opening in the roof into the still night. Around us in the air were flying all the other contents and occupants of the Star and Eagle. How bitterly was I reminded of Dick's flight from the railroad track of the Ithaca & Owego Railroad! But I could not hope such an escape as his. Still my flight was in a parabola; and, in a period not longer than it has taken to describe Tender hands lifted me and assuaged me. Tender teams carried me to the City Hospital. Tender eyes brooded over me. Tender science cared for me. It proved necessary, before I recovered, to amputate my two legs at the hips. My right arm was wholly removed, by a delicate and curious operation, from the socket. We saved the stump of my left arm, which was amputated just below the shoulder. I am still in the hospital to recruit my strength. The doctor does not like to have me occupy my mind at all; but he says there is no harm in my compiling my memoirs, or writing magazine stories. My faithful nurse has laid me on my breast on a pillow, has put a camel's-hair pencil in my mouth, and, feeling almost personally acquainted with John Carter, the artist, I have written out for you, in his method, the story of my last Christmas. I am sorry to say that the others have never been found.
THE first Christmas in New England was celebrated by some people who tried as hard as they could not to celebrate it at all. But looking back on that year 1620, the first year when Christmas was celebrated in New England, I cannot find that anybody got up a better fÊte than did these Lincolnshire weavers and ploughmen who had got a little taste of Dutch firmness, and resolved on that particular day, that, whatever else happened to them, they would not celebrate Christmas at all. Here is the story as William Bradford tells it: "Ye 16. day ye winde came faire, and they arrived safe in this harbor. And after wards tooke better view of ye place, and resolved wher to pitch their dwelling; and ye 25. day begane You see, dear reader, that when on any 21st or 22d of December you give the children parched corn, and let them pull candy and swim candles in nut-shells in honor of the "landing of the Forefathers"—if by good luck you be of Yankee blood, and do either of these praiseworthy things—you are not celebrating the anniversary of the day when the women and children landed, wrapped up in water-proofs, with the dog and John Carver in headpiece, and morion, as you have seen in many pictures. That all came afterward. Be cool and self-possessed, and I will guide you through the whole chronology safely—Old Style and New Style, first landing and second landing, Sabbaths and Sundays, Carver's landing and Mary Chilton's landing, so that you shall know as much as if you had fifteen ancestors, a cradle, a tankard, and an oak chest in the Mayflower, and you shall come out safely and happily at the first Christmas day. Know then, that when the poor Mayflower at last got across the Atlantic, Massachusetts stretched out her right arm to welcome her, and "After we had called on God for direction, we came to this resolution, to go presently ashore again, and to take a better view of two places, which we thought most fitting for us; for we could not now take time for further search or consideration, our victuals being much spent, especially our beer." Observe, this is the Pilgrims' or Forefathers' beer, and not the beer of the ship, of which there was still some store. Acting on this resolution they went ashore again, and concluded by "most voices" to build Plymouth where Plymouth now is. One recommendation seems They did their best to desecrate Christmas, and they did it by laying one of the cornerstones of an empire. Now, if the reader wants to imagine the scene,—the Christmas celebration or the Christmas desecration, he shall call it which he will, according as he is Roman or Puritan himself,—I cannot give him much material to spin his thread from. Here is the little story in the language of the time: "Munday the 25. day, we went on shore, some to fell tymber, some to saw, some to riue, and some to carry, so no man rested all that day, but towards night some as they were at worke, heard a noyse of some Indians, which caused vs all to goe to our Muskets, but we "Munday the 25. being Christmas day, we began to drinke water aboord, but at night the Master caused vs to have some Beere, and so on board we had diverse times now and then some Beere, but on shore none at all." There is the story as it is told by the only man who chose to write it down. Let us not at this moment go into an excursus to inquire who he was and who he was not. Only diligent investigation has shown beside that this first house was about twenty feet square, and that it was for their common use to receive them and their goods. The tradition says that it was on the south side of what is now Leyden street, near the declivity of the hill. What it was, I think no one pretends to say absolutely. I am of the mind of a dear friend of mine, who used to say that, in the hardships of those first struggles, these old forefathers of ours, as they gathered round the fires (which they did have—no Christian Registers for them to warm their cold hands by), used to pledge themselves To help myself in the matter, I sometimes group them on the bank there just above the brook,—you can see the place to-day, if it will do you any good—at some moment when the women have come ashore to see how the work goes on—and remembering that Mrs. Hemans says "they sang"—I throw the women all in a chorus of soprano and contralto voices on the left, Mrs. Winslow and Mrs. Carver at their head, Mrs. W. as prima assoluta soprano and Mrs. Carver as prima assoluta contralto,—I range on the right the men with W. Bradford and W. Brewster as leaders—and between, facing us, the audience,—who are lower down in the valley of the brook, I place Giovanni Carver (tenor) and Odoardo Winslow (basso) and have them sing in the English dialect of their day, Suoni la tromba, It would be an immense satisfaction, if by palimpsest under some old cash-book of that century, or by letters dug out from some family collection in England, one could just discover that "John Billington, having become weary with cutting down a small fir-tree which had been allotted to him, took his snaphance and shot with him, and calling a dog he had, to whom in the Low Countries the name Crab had been given, went after fowle. Crossing the brook and climbing up the bank to an open place which was there, he found what had been left by the savages of one of their gardens,—and on the ground, picking at the stalkes of the corne, a flocke of large blacke birds such as he I say it would have been very pleasant to have found this in some palimpsest, but if it is in the palimpsest, it has not yet been found. As the Arab proverb says, "There is news, but it has not yet come." I have failed, in just the same way, to find a letter from that rosy-cheeked little child you see in Sargent's picture, looking out of her great wondering eyes, under her warm hood, into the desert. I overhauled a good many of the Cotton manuscripts in the British Museum (Otho and Caligula, if anybody else wants to look), and Mr. Sainsbury let me look through all the portfolios I wanted in the State Paper Office, and I am sure the letter was not there then. If anybody has found it, it has been found since I was there. If it ever is found, I should like to have it contain the following statement:— "We got tired of playing by the fire, and so some of us ran down to the brook, and walked till we could find a place to cross it; and so came up to a meadow as large as the common But this letter, I am sorry to say, has not yet been found. Whether they had roast turkey for Christmas I do not know. I do know, thanks to the recent discovery of the old Bradford manuscript, It is a very short story, and yet it is the longest history of that Christmas that I have been able to find. I wanted to compare this Passing by Bethlem Gabor then, and the rest, from mere failure of their chronicles to make note of this Christmas as it passed, I returned to France in my quest. Louis XIII. was at this time reigning with the assistance of Luynes, the short-lived favorite who preceded Richelieu. Or it would, perhaps, be more proper to say that Luynes was reigning under the name of Louis XIII. Louis XIII. had been spending the year in great activity, deceiving, thwarting, and undoing the Protestants of France. He had made a rapid march into their country, and had spread terror before him. He had had mass celebrated in Navarreux, where it had not been seen or heard in fifty years. With Bethlem Gabor in the ablative,—with the Palatinate quite in the vocative,—these poor Huguenots here outwitted and outgeneralled, and Brewster and Carver freezing out there in America, the Reformed Religion seems in a bad way to one looking at that Christmas. From his triumphal and almost But I reckoned without my king. For this is all a mistake, and whatever else is certain, it seems to be certain that King Louis XIII. did not keep either Christmas in Paris, either the Christmas of the Old Style, or that of the New. Such, alas, is history, dear friend! When you read in to-night's "Evening Post" that your friend Dalrymple is appointed Minister to Russia, where he has been so anxious to go, do not suppose he will make you his Secretary of Legation. Alas! no; for you will read in to-morrow's "Times" that it was all a mistake of the telegraph, and that the dispatch should have read "O'Shaughnessy," where the dispatch looked like "Dalrymple." So here, as I whetted my pencil, wetted my lips, and drove the attentive "The King at the end of this year, visited the frontiers of Picardy. In this whole journey, which lasted from the 14th of December to the 12th of January (New Style), the weather was bad, and those in his Majesty's suite found the roads bad." Change the style back to the way our Puritans counted it, and observe that on the same days, the 5th of December to the 3d of January, Old Style, those in the suite of John Carver found the weather bad and the roads worse. Let us devoutly hope that his most Christian Majesty did not find the roads as bad as his suite did. "And the King," continues the Mercure, "sent an extraordinary Ambassador to the King of Great Britain, at London, the Marshal Cadenet" (brother of the favorite Luynes). "He departed from Calais on Friday, the first day of January, very well accompanied by noblesse. Be pleased to note, dear reader, that this Monday, when this Ambassador of a most Christian King departs from Dover, is on Monday the 25th day of December, of Old Style, or Protestant Style, when John Carver is learning wood-cutting, by way of encouraging the others. Let us leave the King of France to his bad roads, and follow the fortunes of the favorite's brother, for we must study an English Christmas after all. We have seen the Christmas holidays of men who had hard times for the reward of their faith in the Star of Bethlehem. Let us try the fortunes of the most Christian King's people, as they keep their second Christmas of the year among a Protestant people. Observe that a week after their own Christmas of New Style, they land in Old Style England, where Christmas has not yet begun. Here is the Mercure FranÇais's account of the Christmas holidays,—flattering and obsequious, as I said: "Marshal Cadenet did not depart from Dover till the Monday after" (Christmas day, O. S.). "The English Master of Ceremonies had sent twenty carriages and three hundred horses for "The following Sunday" (which we could not spend on shore), "he was conducted to an audience by the Marquis of Buckingham," (for shame, Jamie! an audience on Sunday! what would John Knox have said to that!) "where the French and English nobility were dressed as for a great feast day. The whole audience was conducted with great respect, honor, and ceremony. The same evening, the King of Great Britain sent for the Marshal by the Marquis of Buckingham and the Duke of Lennox; and his Majesty and the Ambassador remained alone for more than two hours, without any third person hearing what they said. The following days were all receptions, banquets, visits, and hunting-parties, till the embassy departed." That is the way history gets written by a flattering and obsequious court editor or organ at the time. That is the way, then, that the dread sovereign of John Carver and Edward Winslow spent his Christmas holidays, while they were Of this precious embassy, dear reader, there is not a word, I think, in Hume, or Lingard, or the "Pictorial"—still less, if possible, in the abridgments. Would you like, perhaps, after this truly elegant account thus given by a court editor, to look behind the canvas and see the rough ends of the worsted? I always like to. It helps me to understand my morning "Advertiser" or my "Evening Post," as I read the editorial history of to-day. If you please, we will begin in the Domestic State Papers of England, which the good sense of somebody, I believe kind Sir Francis Palgrave, has had opened for you and me and the rest of us. Here is the first notice of the embassy: Dec. 13. Letter from Sir Robert Naunton So they knew, it seems, ten days before we started, what we were coming for. Dec. 22. John Chamberlain to Sir Dudley Carleton. "In spite of penury, there is to be a masque at Court this Christmas. The King is coming in from Theobalds to receive the French Ambassador, Marshal Cadenet, who comes with a suite of 400 or 500." What was this masque? Could not Mr. Payne Collier find up the libretto, perhaps? Was it Faith, Valor, Hope, and Love, founding a kingdom, perhaps? Faith with a broadaxe, Valor and Hope with a two-handled saw, while Love dug post-holes and set up timbers? Or was it a less appropriate masque of King James' devising? Dec. 25. This is our day. Francis Willisfourd, Governor of Dover Castle to Lord Zouch, Warden of the Cinque Ports. "A French Ambassador has landed with a great train. I have not fired a salute, having no instructions, Observe, we are a little surly. We do not like the French King very well, our own King's daughter being in such straits yonder in the Palatinate. What do these Papists here? That is the only letter written on Christmas day in the English "Domestic Archives" for that year! Christmas is for frolic here, not for letter-writing, nor house-building, if one's houses be only built already! But on the 27th, Wednesday, "Lord Arundel has gone to meet the French Ambassador at Gravesend." And a very pretty time it seems they had at Gravesend, when you look on the back of the embroidery. Arundel called on Cadenet at his lodgings, and Cadenet did not meet him till he came to the stair—head of his chamber-door—nor did he accompany him further when he left. But Arundel was even with him the next morning. He appointed his meeting for the return call in the street; and when the barges had come up to Somerset House, where the party was to stay, Arundel left the Ambassador, telling him that there were gentlemen who would show him his lodging. The The Domestic Archives give another glimpse: Dec. 30. Thomas Locke to Carleton: "The French Ambassador has arrived at Somerset House with a train so large that some of the seats at Westminster Hall had to be pulled down to make room at their audience." And in letters from the same to the same, of January 7, are accounts of entertainments given to the Ambassador at his first audience (on that Sunday), on the 4th at Parliament House, on the 6th at a masque at Whitehall, where none were allowed below the rank of a Baron—and at Lord Doncaster's entertainment—where "six thousand ounces of gold are set out as a present," says the letter, but this I do not believe. At the Hampton entertainment, and at the masque there were some disputes about precedency, says John Chamberlain in another letter. Dear John Chamberlain, where are there not such disputes? By the eleventh of January the embassy had gone, and Thomas Locke says Cadenet "received a round answer about the Protestants." Let us hope it was so, for it was nearly the last, as it was. Thomas Murray writes that he "proposed a match with France,—a confederation against Spanish power, and asked his Majesty to abandon the rebellious princes,—but he refused unless they might have toleration." The And so he vanishes from English history. His king made him Duke of Chaulnes and Peer of France, but his brother, the favorite died soon after, either of a purple fever or of a broken heart, and neither of them need trouble us more. At the moment the whole embassy seemed a failure in England,—and so it is spoken of by all the English writers of the time whom I have seen. "There is a flaunting French Ambassador come over lately," says Howel, "and I believe his errand is naught else but compliment.... He had an audience two days since, where he, with his train of ruffling long-haired Monsieurs, carried himself in such a light garb, that after the audience the king asked my Lord Keeper Bacon what he thought of the French Ambassador. He answered, that he was a tall, proper man. 'Aye,' his Majesty replied, 'but what think you of his head-piece? Is he a proper man for the office of an ambassador?' 'Sir,' said Bacon, 'tall men are like houses of Hard, this, on us poor six-footers. One need not turn to the biography after this, to guess that the philosopher was five feet four. I think there was a breeze, and a cold one, all the time, between the embassy and the English courtiers. I could tell you a good many stories to show this, but I would give them all for one anecdote of what Edward Winslow said to Madam Carver on Christmas evening. They thought it all naught because they did not know what would come of it. We do know. And I wish you to observe, all the time, beloved reader, whom I press to my heart for your steadiness in perusing so far, and to whom I would give a jewel had I one worthy to give, in token of my consideration (how you would like a Royalston beryl or an Attleboro topaz). On the one side Christmas is celebrated by fifty outcasts chopping wood for their fires—and out of the celebration springs an empire. On the other side it is celebrated by the noblesse of two nations and the pomp of two courts. And out of the celebration spring two civil wars, the execution of one king and the exile of another, the downfall twice repeated of the royal house, which came to the English throne You will not misunderstand the moral, dear reader, if, indeed, you exist; if at this point there be any reader beside him who corrects the proof! Sublime thought of the solemn silence in which these words may be spoken! You will not misunderstand the moral. It is not that it is better to work on Christmas than to play. It is not that masques turn out ill, and that those who will not celebrate the great anniversaries turn out well. God forbid! It is that these men builded better than they knew, because they did with all their heart and all their soul the best thing that they knew. They loved Christ and feared God, and on Christmas day did their best to express the love and the fear. And King James and Cadenet,—did they love Christ and fear God? I do not know. But I do not believe, nor do you, that the masque of the one, or the embassy of the other, expressed the love, or the hope, or the faith of either! So it was that John Carver and his men, trying And James and Cadenet trying to serve themselves—forgetful of the spirit of the day, as they pretended to honor it—were so successful that they destroyed a dynasty. There is moral enough for our truer Christmas holidays as 1867 leads in the new-born sister. Cambridge: Press of John Wilson and Son.ROBERTS BROTHERS' Superb Holiday Books for the Season of 1872–73. JEAN INGELOW'S POEMS. Embellished with more than one hundred Illustrations. A New Edition, with the addition of a new photographic likeness of Miss Ingelow from a recent sitting to Elliot and Fry, of London. 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With thirty-five Illustrations, from the Master's Compositions, a Portrait of Thorvaldsen by Horace Vernet, and a view of the Thorvaldsen Museum in Copenhagen, printed in Paris on India paper. One elegant 12mo volume, cloth, gilt, bevelled boards. Price $2.50. MIRÈIO. A Poem. By Frederic Mistral. Translated by Harriet W. Preston. With vignette title by Billings. One elegant red-line volume, cloth, gilt top. Price $2.00. Morocco antique, or calf, extra gilt. Price $5.50. MEMOIRS OF MADAME DESBORDES-VALMORE. By the late C. A. Sainte-Beuve. With a selection from her Poems. Translated by Harriet W. Preston. Square 16mo, cloth, bevelled boards, gilt top. Price $1.50. NILE SKETCHES. By Carl Werner. Second Series. With magnificent Chromo-Lithographs 18x25, mounted suitable for framing. Price $28.00. CHRISTMAS EVE AND CHRISTMAS DAY: Ten Christmas Stories. By Edward E. Hale. With Frontispiece by Darley. 16mo, cloth, gilt. Price $1.50. THE TALL STUDENT. From the German, by Charles T. Brooks. With fifteen grotesque Designs. Square 16mo, cloth, gilt, bevelled boards. Price 75 cts. HAPPY THOUGHT HALL. By F. C. Burnand, author of "Happy Thoughts." With Illustrations. Price $2.00. OFF THE SKELLIGS. A Novel. By Jean Ingelow. 16mo. 670 pages. Price SIX OF ONE BY HALF A DOZEN OF THE OTHER. A Novelette. By Mrs. Harriet Beecher Stowe, Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney, Miss Lucretia Hale, Rev. E. E. Hale, F. B. Perkins, and F. W. Loring. 16mo. Price $1.50. AUNT JO'S SCRAP-BAG. By Louisa M. Alcott, author of "Little Women," "An Old-Fashioned Girl," "Little Men." With Illustrations. Price $1.00. OUT OF TOWN. By F. C. Burnand, author of "Happy Thoughts." Price $1.25. OUTLINES TO SHAKESPEARE. Designed and Engraved by Moritz Retzsch. One Hundred and One Plates, with Explanatory Text. One volume, oblong folio, superbly bound in cloth, gilt and black-lettered. Price $9.00. Morocco antique. Price $15.00. THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT. Illuminated by W. and G. Hudsley. Illustrated by Charles Rolf. Chromo-lithographed by W. R. Tymms. One volume, folio, superbly bound in illuminated morocco-cloth, gilt. Price $12.00. FALSTAFF AND HIS COMPANIONS. Twenty Designs in Silhouette, by Paul Konewka. With an Introduction by Hermann Kurz, and Explanatory Text selected from Shakespeare. One volume, square 8vo, cloth, gilt. Price $3.00. Morocco antique Price $6.00. THE UNKNOWN RIVER: An Etcher's Voyage of Discovery. By P. G. Hamerton, author of "Thoughts about Art" and "A Painter's Camp." With 37 Illustrations etched from Nature by the author. One volume, 8vo, cloth, gilt. Price $6.00. Morocco antique. Price $9.00. GOOD NIGHT AND GOOD MORNING. A Poem. By Lord Houghton. With Illuminations and Etchings on copper, by Walter Severn. One volume, quarto, illuminated, cloth, gilt. Price $4.50. SING SONG: A Nursery Rhyme Book. By Christina THE NEW-YEAR'S BARGAIN. A Christmas Story for Children. By Susan Coolidge. With Illustrations by Addie Ledyard. One volume, square 16mo, cloth, gilt. Price $1.50. PAUL OF TARSUS: An Inquiry into the Times and the Gospel of the Apostle of the MY HEALTH. By F. C. Burnand, author of "Happy Thoughts." Volume X. Handy-volume Series. Red cloth. Price $1.00. ARABESQUES. Monare—Apollyona—Domitia—Ombra. Four Stories of the Supernatural. By Mrs. Richard S. Greenough. With Medallions and Initial Letters. Red-line border printed on heavy laid paper. One elegant 16mo volume, bound in cloth, gilt. Price $2.00. ENGLISH LESSONS FOR ENGLISH PEOPLE. By E. A. Abbott, M. A., and J. R. Seeley, M. A. (author of "Ecce Homo"). One volume, 16mo, cloth. Price $1.50. This little manual (reprinted from early sheets of the English edition by arrangement with the authors), intended not only for a text-book in advanced schools and colleges, but for the general reader, will be found to be an invaluable assistant to those acquiring a method of speaking and writing the English language correctly. Prof. Seeley, the author of "Ecce Homo," has the reputation of being one of the most perfect of English scholars. CUES FROM ALL QUARTERS; or, Literary Musings of a Clerical Recluse. By Francis Jacox. One volume, 16mo. Price $1.50. RADICAL PROBLEMS. By Rev. C. A. Bartol. One volume, 16mo. Price $2.00. THE TO-MORROW OF DEATH; or, The Future Life according to Science. By Louis Figuier. Translated by S. R. Crocker. Editor of the "Literary World." One volume, 16mo. Price $1.50. THE ROSE-GARDEN. A Novelette. By the author of "Unawares." 16mo. Price $1.50. UNAWARES. A Novelette. By Frances M. Peard. 16mo. Price $1.50. SAILING ON THE NILE. By Laurent Laporte. Translated by Virginia Vaughan. 16mo. Price $1.50. MIRÈIO: A Pastoral Poem. From the ProvenÇal of M. Mistral, by Miss Harriet W. Preston. Gilt top. Price $2.00. THE VICAR'S DAUGHTER. A Novel. By George Macdonald. With many original Illustrations. Price $1.50. AFTER ALL, NOT TO CREATE ONLY. Walt Whitman's American Institute Poem. 12mo, cloth, limped covers. Price 30 cents. MESSRS. ROBERTS BROTHERS' PUBLICATIONS. JEAN INGELOW. From the Literary World. "The first novel from the pen of one of the most popular poets of the age—written, too, in the author's maturity, when her name is almost exclusively associated with verse, so far as literature is concerned, and therefore to be regarded as a deliberate work, and one in which she challenges the decisive judgment of the public—will be read with universal and eager interest.... We have read this book with constantly increasing pleasure. It is a novel with a soul in it, that imparts to the reader an influence superior to mere momentary entertainment; it is not didactic, but it teaches; it is genuine, fresh, healthy, presents cheerful views of life, and exalts nobility of character without seeming to do so." Extract from a private letter,—not intended for publication,—the hearty opinion of one of the most popular and favorite writers of the present day:— "Thanks for the book. I sat up nearly all night to read it, and think it very charming.... I hope she will soon write again; for we need just such simple, pure, and cheerful stories here in America, where even the nursery songs are sensational, and the beautiful old books we used to love are now called dull and slow. I shall sing its praises loud and long, and set all my boys and girls to reading 'Off the Skelligs,' sure that they will learn to love it as well as they do her charming Songs. If I could reach so far, I should love to shake hands with Miss Ingelow, and thank her heartily for this delightful book." Sold everywhere. Mailed, postpaid, by the Publishers, ROBERTS BROTHERS, Boston. MESSRS. ROBERTS BROTHERS' PUBLICATIONS. Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag. From the London AthenÆum. A collection of fugitive tales and sketches which we should have been sorry to lose. Miss Alcott's boys and girls are always delightful in her hands. She throws a loving glamour over them; and she loves them herself so heartily that it is not possible for the reader to do otherwise. We have found the book very pleasant to read. From the New York Tribune. The large and increasing circle of juveniles who sit enchanted year in and out round the knees of Miss Alcott will hail with delight the publication of "Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag." The most taking of these taking tales is, to our fancy, "My Boys;" but all possess the quality which made "Little Women" so widely popular, and the book will be welcomed and read from Maine to Florida. Mrs. Hale, in Godey's Lady's Book. These little stories are in every way worthy of the author of "Little Women." They will be read with the sincerest pleasure by thousands of children, and in that pleasure there will not be a single forbidden ingredient. "My Boys," which, opening upon by chance, we read through at a sitting, is charming. Ladislas, the noble, sweet-tempered Pole, is the original of Laurie, ever to be remembered by all "Aunt Jo's" readers. From the Providence Press. Dear Aunt Jo! You are embalmed in the thoughts and loves of thousands of little men and little women. Your scrap-bag is rich in its stores of good things. Pray do not close and put it away quite yet. This is Louisa Alcott's Christmas tribute to the young people, and it is, like herself, good. In making selections, "Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag" must not be forgotten. There will be a vacant place where this little volume is not. Sold everywhere. Mailed, postpaid, by the Publishers, ROBERTS BROTHERS, Boston. MESSRS. ROBERTS BROTHERS' PUBLICATIONS. THE DOLL-WORLD SERIES. Three beautiful volumes, illustrated and bound in cloth, black and gilt lettered, and put up in a neat box. Price $3.00; or, separately, $1.00 each. From the Boston Daily Advertiser. One rarely meets with three so thoroughly charming and satisfactory books for children as the "Doll-World Series," by Mrs. Robert O'Reilly. Their author seems to possess—and in a high degree—every one of the very peculiar and varied characteristics which fit one to be a good writer for the young. She is humorous,—one ought perhaps to say funny, for that is the word which the children understand best; and Mrs. O'Reilly's wit is not the sly satire which appeals in a kind of aside to the adults present, but the bubbling merriment which is addressed directly to the ready risibles of her proper audience. She is pathetic also, with the keen, transitory pathos which belongs to childhood, a pathos never too much elaborated or too distressingly prolonged. She is abundantly dramatic. Her stories are full of action. Her incidents, though never forced or unnatural, are almost all picturesque, and they succeed one another rapidly. Nevertheless we have not yet noted Mrs. O'Reilly's chief excellence as a story-writer, nor is it easy to find a single word to express that admirable quality. We come nearest it, perhaps, when we say that her tales have absolute reality; there is in them no suggestion of being made up, no visible composition. The illusion of her pictures is so perfect that it is not illusion. This note of reality, which ought to be prevalent in any romance, is positively indispensable in a juvenile one, and it is perfectly delivered by one only of our native writers of children's books. That one is of course Miss Alcott. Her "Little Women" are as real as Daisy Grey and Bessie Somers; the "Little Men" very nearly so. We have other writers who approach Miss Alcott, more or less closely: Mrs. Walker, Aunt Fanny, Susan Coolidge in the more realistic parts of the "New Year's Bargain;" and indeed the latter writer comes so near truth, and is also so like the author of the "Doll World" stories in the quality of her talent, that one hopes her next essay may be absolutely successful in this regard. From the New York Tribune. The pretty edition of Mrs. Robert O'Reilly's works, just issued by Messrs. Roberts Brothers, will be welcome to a throng of juvenile readers as the first gift-book of the autumn. It is hard to say which of the three charming volumes comprised in this series will be most liked at the nursery hearth. We fancy "Doll World" appeals most tenderly to the affections of little matrons with baby-houses and families of wood and wax to care for; though "Deborah's Drawer," with its graceful interlinking of story with story, is sure to be the elected favorite of many. Our own preference is for "Daisy's Companions," and this for a reason less comprehensible to children than to older people; namely, that the story closes, leaving the characters in the midst of their childish lives, and without hint of further fate or development. There are few books for children which we can recommend so thoroughly and so heartily as hers. And as one of our wise men has told us that "there is a want of principle in making amusements for children dear," Messrs. Roberts Brothers deserve thanks for giving us these volumes in a form at once so tasteful and so inexpensive. Sold everywhere. Mailed, postpaid, by the Publishers, ROBERTS BROTHERS, Boston. Transcriber's Note
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