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often met with. They belong to people who are, if not unnaturally, at least uncommonly, consistent. It has been said by a novelist, who is a noted student of character, that there is "a curiously mistaken tendency to look for logical consistency in human motives and human actions," but palmistry presents human nature in its inherent inconsistencies and self-contradictions in its intricate mixture of good and evil, of great and small.

M. Desbarrolles adopts all that is here set down of M. d'Arpentigny's system, adding to it the study of the palm, in which the principal lines are the line of life, which runs round the base of the thumb; the line of the head, which begins beside the line of life, between the thumb and the first finger, and crosses the middle of the palm; and the line of the heart, which goes from one side of the hand to the other at the base of the fingers. An unbroken and well-defined line of life signifies good health. A breakage in the line reveals impending sickness, if it be in years to come, or sickness passed, if it be in years gone by. The date can be easily ascertained, as the line of life is divided into portions that represent different ages. Thus a line is drawn from the middle of the base of the third finger towards the second joint of the thumb, and the point at which it intersects the line of life will mark the age of ten. If the breakage occurs in a grown person's hand at that point, it shows that that person was ill, or met with an accident, when ten years old. If the fault in the line is a little before the point which marks ten years old, then the illness came at the age of nine or eight, and so on, according to the distance from the point. A line parallel to this one, starting from between the third and last finger, will touch the line of life at the point called twenty. Another parallel line, starting from the middle of the base of the little finger, takes you to thirty. The next line goes from the outer edge of the same finger, and gives forty. The line to find fifty starts from a little above the line of the heart. No dot or cross belonging to a by-gone time, warns or menaces, but such signs would do so if seen in prospect. Palmistry, by forewarning, forearms. There are indications elsewhere, showing what kind of danger to apprehend, and M. Desbarrolles is fond of repeating the old saying, " Homo sapiens dominabitur astris."

ristics always associated with certain forms of finger. e divides hands into three sorts: the first sort have finrs with pointed tops; the second, square tops; the third, ade-shaped tops. (By " spade-shaped" is meant fingers at are thick at the end, having a little pad of flesh at ach side of the nail.) The first type of finger belongs to maracters possessed of rapid insight into things; to extransitive people; to pious people, whose piety is of the ontemplative kind; to the impulsive; and to all poets and rtists in whom ideality is a prominent trait. The second pe belongs to scientific people; to sensible, self-contained haracters; to most of our professional men, who steer beween the wholly practical course that they of the spadehaped fingers take, and the too visionary bent of the peole with pointed fingers. The third type pertains to those those instincts are material; to people who have a genius or commerce, and a high appreciation of everything that ends to bodily ease and comfort; also to people of great etivity. Each finger, no matter what the kind of hand, as one joint representing each of these types. Thus, the livision of the finger which is nearest the palm stands for he body (and corresponds with the spade-shaped type), he middle division represents mind (the square-topped), he top, soul (the pointed). If the top joint of the finger be long, it denotes a character with much imagination, or ideality, and a leaning towards the theoretical rather than the practical. The middle part of the finger being large promises a logical, calculating mind - a common-sense person. The remaining joint long and thick denotes a nature that clings more to the luxuries than to the refinements of life. Things will present themselves to such a nature under a lower aspect, and utility will be accounted before beauty. The above description of the types of hands is far from exhaustive, for each type affords indications of many qualities not even mentioned here. This sketch aims merely at giving a rough idea of this part of chirognomony. It is well to remember that there are "good hands" to be found in each type-hands that are equal to a letter of recommendation for their owners (only, unfortunately, few can read them!); hands -spade-shaped, square, or pointed -that denote splendid qualities of head and heart; but the highest and best hand of the pointed type will be something better than the best that the other kinds can boast. It must not be supposed that M. d'Arpentigny found no artists with any but pointed fingers, and no men of science with pointed fingers; but it is observable that those with pointed fingers who take to science invest their chosen subjects with a certain poetical charm; and in the same way, an artist with spade-shaped fingers will be found to vulgarize art, or, at least, to treat his subjects in a realistic manner, and to see things from a somewhat commonplace stand-point. Some time and experience will be needed by a beginner to construct the idea of the average proportions of a hand. Only departures from this average hand are really characteristic and significant. A hand conforming itself exactly to the representative hand would portend a being without any individuality-a nonentity. The size of the hand should be in proportion to the rest of the person. The length of the fingers should equal the length of the palm. The palm longer than the fingers would indicate a preponderance of matter over mind: the fingers much longer than the palm a want of ballast- of common-sense: the palm and fingers equal, or nearly equal, shows a proper balance between the spiritual and the ma

terial.

There may

be

The three types are varied almost infinitely by the combination of two or more kinds of hands in one hand. square fingers in the pointed hand, or some spade-shaped. A hand may even contain the three types. Again, there are some hands where none of the fingers are quite square-topped, or quite pointed, or quite spadeshaped; where there are squarish points, or pointed squares, and no fingers of the pure type. These transitional hands are called "mixed," and they denote the possession of a portion of the gifts of both of the types repThe hands in which all the fingers

resented in them.

belong to one type, "pure and unadulterated," are not

meanness.

A long and well-defined line of the head promises intellectual power. If the line be so long as to go to the edge of the hand, it indicates too much calculation It should start from the side of the line of life, between the first finger and the thumb, and cross the palm nearly horizontally, losing itself below the third finger, or thereabouts. If the line ends under the second finger, that is to say, about the centre of the palm, it denotes stupidity. If the line be formed of a series of small lines, like a chain, instead of one clear mark, it is a sign of want of concentration of the ideas. A pale line of the head means indecision. If it turn downwards at the wrist, it indicates a mind that takes a too imaginative view of things. If it be bifurcated at the end, half going downwards, and half continuing in the same direction as the major part of the line, it denotes deceit - double-dealing. This line supplies a great many other indications, but we will now pass on to the line of the heart. If this line be well marked and if it go from the edge of the hand below the little finger, across the roots of the fingers to the base of the first finger, it promises an affectionate disposition and a good memory. Many mental qualities are promised us by a good line of the heart: it does not merely supply indications regarding the affections. The poetical, or the artistic, or the imaginative, may be inferred as a part of the character foreshadowed by a well-defined, well-colored line of the heart. A good line of the heart also augurs well for the happiness of its possessor; the gypsies say it is a "good omen." If this line sends down short lines towards the line of the head, it may be taken to signify that the love of the person will only be given to those who have already earned that person's respect- that affection will wait upon esteem. If, on the contrary, the small lines go upwards, towards the fingers, then the likings will be

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impulsive, and instinctive. A line of the heart with a great many breakages foretells inconstancy.

It is well to remember that a single sign ought not to make us come to a conclusion about any quality, or any trait of character. A great many indications ought to coincide before we come to a decision. A number of different, and even contradictory signs have to be weighed and studied, and a balance arrived at, after giving a proper attention to each. The two hands rarely correspond in every particular. Of the two, the left hand is the more important, but due consideration should be given to each, after both have been thoroughly examined. Lines, if pale and wide, announce the absence of the quality attributed to the particular line, or else, the presence of the defect which is the opposite of the quality. For instance, a pale wide line of the heart may indicate the absence of affection, coldness, or it may denote cruelty. To come to a right conclusion as to the precise significance of any particular mark, or indication, reference must be made to the other parts of the hand, and especially to the type to which the hand belongs. No sign should be overlooked.

M. Desbarrolles counsels chiromancers (or palmists) to take hints wherever they are given. With Lavater, he says that voice, and gait, and dress, and handwriting, are not without their significance, but he adds that the signs are more legible in the hands than elsewhere. He is an Eclectic, gladly picking up crumbs of knowledge wherever he can find them, but professing to reap a larger harvest in the hand than in the face, or on the skull, or, in fact, anywhere. A clever hypocrite will deceive even the keenest physiognomist by facial tricks and impostures; but the hands, if not uncontrollable, are, at least, generally uncontrolled. Sir Arthur Helps makes one of his characters say that some of the leading men in the House of Commons can so divest themselves of expression, that no one can tell, from looking at their faces, whether or no a remark has "struck home." They never wince. But watch their hands! the fingers wrap themselves round each other; they twist and twine: or else, the hands are clenched tightly, as may be seen by the white look about the knuckles. They will be gradually relaxed, and the rigid stiffness will disappear, as the debate glides into smoother channels. Some impassive-looking people banish every outward trace of emotion except one; that is, the reddening, or paling of their nails, as the fingers are pressed more or less strongly against anything that may be under their hand. As for obliterating lines or marks, or fashioning the hand with any hypocritical intent - no one thinks of so doing, if even it be possible.

Each finger, and the mount at the base of it, is named from a planet. In the normal hand the second finger is the longest, the third the next longest, the first nearly as long as the third, and much longer than the fourth, or little finger. Jupiter is the first finger. If it be long and not ill-shapen, and if the mount at its base be well developed, it indicates a noble and lofty character, and a religious-minded person. If disproportionately long it will mean different things according to the type of hand in which it may be found, or according to the type of that particular finger: in the first type, an over-long first finger would denote an inclination to the fantastic or the exaggerated in religious matters; or it might, perhaps, mean religious madness; or, if other signs in the hand favored this view, it could be taken to denote pride. Pride is a form of worship- the cult of self. In the second type of hand, the excessive development of Jupiter might mean ambition, or, if it were in a hand that was eminently unselfish, it would stand for a something puritanical in manners and morals—a too great severity. In the third type, a very long first finger would probably signify vanity. The second finger is Saturn. If too prominent it announces melancholy, or misanthropy, or downright cruelty, according to the type of hand; but if the finger be within due proportions, this sadness may take the form of pity for others, or it may mean merely a becoming gravity. The third finger is Apollo, and belongs to the arts. In a "pointed" hand Apollo will give poetry and music (com

position); in a "square" hand, painting, sculpture (ber art leaves the domain of the purely contemplative; it be comes partly active from the combination of manual skil with what is only imaginative); and in a "spade-shaped hand, Apollo will give histrionic power, an aptitude acting, or a love of theatrical amusements. On the stag

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art is joined in the closest manner to motion. The fourth finger is Mercury. If well proportioned it promises scientific turn of mind, resourcefulness, and diplomacytact. The thumb is Venus. Chirognomony and palmistr agree in almost all particulars about the thumb. In bot systems it is treated as the most important part of the hand. The upper joint, that with the nail, stands for the will; the second division, the reasoning faculties; the base the animal instincts.

As far as he can do so, M. Desbarrolles strives to estab lish the analogy between the hand, as an instrument, and our spiritual nature. For instance, in the act of grasping anything, the fingers turn towards the thumb; when gi ing anything the fingers and thumb separate; and he says when laid on any flat surface, a miser's hand will show all the fingers inclining towards the thumb, and an extrava gant person's running away from it. It is noteworthy that we use the words "generosity" and "open-handedness as synonymous. Again, a quarrelsome hand has nails that turn upwards; a timid hand has nails that shield the ex tremities of the fingers. For the action of seizing with the nails the latter form would be useless, the former essential Small lines have their significance, and sometimes a very great significance. A horizontal line on the mount of Mercury announces a marriage, if very deeply marked and an attachment, or a flirtation, if the line be less well defined. Lines at right angles with the marriage-line, round the corner of the hand-that is to say, on the flat surface made by the thickness of the hand, the edge of the hand just below the little finger-announce the number of a person's family: how many children they have, or will have.

There are two mounts opposite the thumb. That nearest the wrist is the Moon, giving imagination, an inclination to gentle reverie, and harmony in music (Venus gives love of melody); and Mars, immediately above the mount of the Moon. Mars is also represented by a hollow in the centre of the hand. The mount stands for active courage, or, if too strongly developed, for pugnacity; and the hollow, if not too deep, indicates passive courage-patience, endurance. If all the lines are very bright, it denotes a hot-tempered person; if of a deep red, a violent disposition; and if very pale, a cold, selfish character. A soft, fat hand belongs almost invariably to an indolent person, and a hard, firm hand promises an active, energetic, persevering disposition.

Of M. Desbarrolles' theory it is hard to say anything laudatory, except that it is ingenious. His reasons why a given division of a finger, a mount, or a line, should represent some qualities, and not any others, appear obscure and unsatisfactory; but we cannot allege any reasons for our reliance upon physiognomical signs and indications, yet we attach importance to them. We all accept a good countenance as a letter of recommendation in a stranger; although we can hardly tell what constitutes its goodness, or what the connection is between particular features, or a particular expression, and a likable disposition. We may say that experience teaches us that they are never met with apart; that no bad man ever had a benevolent face, and no good man a malevolent. If this be a valid plea for physiognomy, then it ought to be equally so for palmistry; for experience speaks, at least, as well for the latter as for the former. If it be given a fair trial, palmistry will prove itself a trustworthy guide in the study of character. When phrenology was brought forward, its advocates demanded that it should be put to the test of practice; and thousands were willing to study it, and to attempt to make application of the art. It is not too much to hope that palmistry, which is better deserving of a trial, will be taken up and studied as phrenology was taken up and studied, that is to say, perseveringly, enthusiasti

y. It seems very arbitrary to say that the top joint of thumb stands for a strong will; and it is unsatisfactory ay this without being able to explain why it should be but it is equally arbitrary to say that a large chin denotes tinacy (and although no one tells us why this is, almost ry one is ready to vouch for the accuracy of this physiomical maxim), or to tell us that a certain development the frontal bone near the eyebrow, indicates an orderly position: but people very generally believe in "the ap of order."

requires some industry and courage to wade through Desbarrolles' chapters on "Man in connection with the nets," or "Kabbala," and kindred topics, which have a ong flavor of what is called the "Black Art," and of at modern mystics tell us about the lore of the Alexanan Platonists. There is a most unprepossessing air of cial pleading running through the theoretical part of book; an unpleasant and (seemingly) an uncandid te about it. The author prides himself on the empirical ture of his system, using the term as representing knowlge gained by experience; but it is a temptation, when ding "The Mysteries of the Hand," to apply "empiri" in its more common sense (quack) to his system. of those who peruse the book would ever think of iromancy as other than an ingenious fiction, were it not the surprising manner in which the art verifies itself ben tested practically. Even the foregoing brief and inmplete sketch of it will, if properly applied, enable peoe to guess very shrewdly at the tastes and pursuits of by strangers with whom they may happen to be thrown; ad a fragmentary acquaintance with palmistry places us a position to afford ourselves and our neighbors a good eal of harmless amusement, while a more thorough knowldge of the subject would prove really useful. One of the hief merits of the art is the means it puts at our command or deciding on the disposition and capabilities of children, nd of young people past childhood. Many mistakes now made with regard to education, technical and elementary, might be avoided by a careful study of a child's tastes and matural gifts.

COMETS.

--

Of all the objects with which astronomers have to deal, Comets are the most mysterious. Their eccentric paths, their marvellous dimensions, the strange changes to which they are subject, have long been among the most striking of the wonders of astronomy. There is something specially awe-inspiring, too, in the thought of the gloomy domains of space through which the comet that visits our system for a brief time has for countless ages been travelling. Ordinary modes of measuring space and time fail us, indeed, in speaking of these wonders, or at least convey no real meaning to the mind. If the comet, for instance, which is now a conspicuous object in our northern skies be of this order if, as our comet-tracker Hind begins to suspect, its path in our neighborhood is parabolic, so that either it has an enormously long period of revolution, or has come to us across the interstellar spaces themselves, how seless it is to set down the array of numbers representing the extension of its path, or the years during which the comet has been voyaging through desert space! The comets indeed which come from the star-depths - and observation renders it all but certain that some have done so cannot in any case have pursued a voyage less than twenty billions of miles in length, and cannot have been less than tight million years upon the road. That, too, was but their latest journey. From the last sun they visited to our own sun, such was their voyage; but who shall say how many such voyages they had pursued, or how many they will complete after leaving our sun's neighborhood, before the time comes when some chance brings them near enough to a disturbing planet to cause their path to become a elosed one? And even those comets which are now known to follow a closed path, returning again and again to the

neighborhood of the sun, need only be studied thoughtfully to present similarly startling conceptions. No matter what theory of their origin we adopt, we are brought face to face with the thought of time-intervals so enormous that practically they must be viewed as infinite. If we take the assumption that a comet of this order had been travelling on a path of parabolic or hyperbolic nature towards our sun, had been captured by the disturbing attraction of a planet, and compelled thenceforth to circuit on an oval path of greater or less extent, yet according to all laws of probability, how many times must it have flitted from star to star before it was thus captured! For the chances are millions to one against so near an approach to a planet as would ensure capture. But if, appalled by the enormous time-intervals thus revealed to us, we turn from that assumption, and find within the solar system itself the origin of the periodic comets, how strange are the theories to which we are led! Those comets which come very near to the sun may have had a solar origin; and those which approach very near the path of one of the giant planets may have been propelled from out of such a planet when in its sun-like youth. Even then, however, other comets remain which are not thus to be accounted for, unless we regard them as derived from planets outside Neptune, hitherto undetected, and perhaps detectable in no other way. And when we have taken such theories of cometary origin, not, indeed, for acceptance, but to be weighed amongst possibilities, how stupendous are the conceptions to which we are thus introduced! Suns (for what is true of our sun may be regarded as probable of others) vomiting forth cometic matter, so violently as to communicate velocities capable of bearing such matter to the limits, or beyond the limits of the solar system: planets now passing through later stages of their existence, but presented to us, according to such theories, as once in a sun-like condition, and at that time capable of emulating the comet expelling feats of the great central sun.

Are these thoughts too wild and fanciful to be entertained? They may appear so; yet where are we to find others less amazing? The comets of the various orders — short-period, long-period, and non-periodic are there. Their existence has to be in some way accounted for; or if such explanation is at present impossible, as seems likely, we may yet follow the various lines of reasoning which present themselves. And we have very little choice. Take a comet of long period passing near the orbit, let us say, of Uranus, even as Tempel's comet, the parent of the November meteors, is known to do. Either that comet has been gathered in from some outer space by the sun, and compelled to follow its present path by the disturbing influence of Uranus, or else what? Only two other theories are available. Trace back the comet's path in imagination, round and round that oval path, which carries it across the paths of Uranus and the earth, but nowhere else brings it within millions of miles of any possible disturbing influences. Rejecting the earth as insufficient in attractive might (or, at least, so inferior to Uranus as to leave us in no doubt in selecting between the two), we have only during the past of the comet, as so traced, the planet Uranus to which we can refer it. We have rejected the attractive influence of Uranus; but two other influences remain. Eruptive action in a former sun-like state, an action corresponding to the eruptive processes known to be taking place in the sun, is one possible origin. The mind of man, unapt though it is to deal with time-intervals so enormous as are required to transmute a giant orb from the sun-like to the planetary condition, may yet accept this interpretation, if no other present itself which is not still more appalling. Only one other, as it seems to us, remains, and this compels us to contemplate time-intervals compared with which those required to change Uranus from sun to planet seem insignificant. If, as we are taught by the nebular hypothesis of the solar system, or, in fact, by any theory of its evolution whatever, the planet Uranus was once in a vaporous condition, extending as a mighty rotating disc far beyond its present sphere, and probably far beyond the path of its outermost satellite, we may conceive a comet

arriving from outer space to be captured by the resistance of the once vaporous planet, not by its mere attractive force. But to what a result have we thus been led! If we accepted this view, rather than the theory that Uranus had expelled the comet, we should have first to carry our thoughts back almost to the very beginning of our solar system, and then to recognize at that inconceivably distant epoch, comets travelling from sun to sun, and some of them coming from other suns towards ours, to be captured from time to time by the resistance of the vaporous masses out of which the planets of our system were one day to be evolved.

We do not know how the questions raised by such thoughts should be answered, although, as has been elsewhere shown, there is more evidence in favor of the theory of expulsion than of the other two theories just sketched. But we have reason to feel assured, as we contemplate a comet like that which now adorns our skies, that could we learn its history, a practical infinity of time would be brought before us as the aggregate of the time-intervals we should have to deal with. Nor is the marvel of the comet diminished by what we have learned from observation or from mathematical analysis. We have found that the tracks of comets are followed by countless millions of meteoric bodies, and thus the strangest thoughts of infinity of space occupied by infinite numbers of cosmical bodies, aggregating towards multitudinous centres during infinity of time - -are suggested to us. The telescope has shown us wonderful processes taking place during the comet's approach to the sun, and, most wonderful process of all, the repulsion of the vaporous matter in the tail, as though to assure us that the expelling power of suns is even more than matched by the repelling power they exert on portions of cometic matter brought in certain conditions under their influence. Analysis by the spectroscope, that wonderful instrument which astronomy owes to Kirchhoff, has taught us much respecting cometic structure, showing that the light of the nucleus is that of a glowing solid or liquid (or of matter reflecting sunlight), the light of the coma, that mainly of glowing vapor, while in the tail these two forms of light are combined. And polariscopic analysis speaks with equal clearness of the composite nature of cometic structure. But when all this has been said, we are little nearer to the solution of the mysterious problems which comets present to us. They still teach us, as they have so long taught, that "there are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamed of in our philosophy."

FOREIGN NOTES.

M. OFFENBACHI's nearly completed new opera is called "Madame l'Archiduc."

THE London Academy commends to its readers the American translation (Mr. Willard Small's) of Coulanges' "Ancient City," published by Messrs. Lee and Shepard.

PROFESSOR J. E. CAIRNES is engaged in writing a reply for Macmillan's Magazine, to Mr. Goldwin Smith's article on "Female Suffrage," which recently appeared in that periodical.

"I FEAR," said an Aberdeen minister to his flock," whe I explained to you in my last charity sermon, that philas thropy was the love of our species, you must have under stood me to say specie, which may account for the sma ness of the collection. You will now prove, I hope, your present contribution, that you are no longer laborin under the same mistake."

LOUIS AUGUStin Mulleret, who died a short tim ago in Paris, at the age of seventy, was one of the fa modern artists in metal whose works can be compared wit those of the Renaissance period. He was employed for years in England, but returned to Paris in 1854, and tered the manufactory at Sèvres, where he continued unti 1872. To the end of his life he remained devoted to favorite art, and even in his last agony his son saw hand working as though with a chisel and mallet.

THE Rev. John E. B. Mayor, of St. John's College, Cam bridge, has undertaken to edit, for the Extra Series of Early English Text Society, Bishop Fisher's funeral mons on Lady Margaret and Henry VII., with the Bishop letters, and his Sermon preached in London when Marti Luther's books were burnt. This last sermon has neve been reprinted in English. All the documents have bi torical value as well as philological, and Mr. Mayor wil add to them an introduction, notes, and a glossary.

DR. SCHLIEMANN has solicited and obtained from the Greek Government permission to demolish at his own er pense the great square tower in the Acropolis, known as the Venetian Tower, which seems to have been built in the fourteenth century. It occupies 1600 square feet of the Propylæa, and consists of large square slabs of marble or common stone from various ancient monuments of the Acropolis and the theatre of Herodes Atticus; it measures eighty feet in height, and its walls are five feet thick. By the demolition of this tower, which costs him about two thousand dollars, Dr. Schliemann renders a great service to science, for he brings to light the most interesting parts of the Propylæa, and is certain to find a vast number of interesting inscriptions, of which he has for three years the right of publication. The work began on the 2d of July, to the great delight of the Athenians, but to the grief of the thousands of owls by which the tower is inhabited. "But it is impossible," adds Dr. Schliemann, "to please every one in this world."

THE Journal de Saint Pétersbourg states that the AustroHungarian Government is engaging in active researches to discover the fate of the Austrian Polar Expedition, which left Hamburg on board the Tegethoff about two years ago. MR. EDMUND YATES, the novelist, is editor of the new

In spite of all the efforts made by the Emperor Alexander to extend the advantages of education to his people, the prejudices of the lower classes threaten to frustrate his schemes for their intellectual emancipation, and hitherto the unfortunate district school teachers find themselves met in most of the rural parishes by the systematic opposition of the entire clerical body, including the wives and fam ilies of the priests. At Mariupal a teacher has lately been clerically denounced to the entire parish as unfit to teach children, owing to his habit of taking walks on the Steppe, conceivable abomination, and making these things objects and collecting useless grasses, disgusting insects, and every of public instruction, while he is regarded as a dangerous innovator on account of his aversion to the use of the rod, and the good old Russian practices of pulling out lumps of hair from the heads of refractory children, and making them kneel in the snow, or on stones, according to the season, when they excite the anger of their instructors. Truly the abrogation of serfdom has made a very small step on the road of national emancipation in Russia, and progress has a hard fight to encounter before it can establish itself in the dominions of the Czar of all the Russias! Alexander's weekly paper called The World. He seems to have lost neighbor and imperial brother, the Emperor Kung-tschi, has certainly not an equally well-grounded reason for lahis skill as a novelist, judging by his last work, "A Dan menting the unwillingness of his subjects to cultivate learngerous Game; we hope he will confine himself to jour-ing, if we may judge from the fact that when the young nalism. prince lately went to visit the tombs of his Mantschu anA NEW weekly paper has just been started in Paris un- cestors, the Chinese papers announce that he found on his der the title Les Echos de l'Alsace-Lorraine, and is under return to Peking as many as 7000 scholars assembled to the directorship of a committee, which, among others of take part in the trying examination known as Tsun-sz, similar views, includes the names of Messrs. Erckmann-which is required from all who intend to follow the profes Chatrian, Kaempfen, Mézières, and Lorédan-Larcher. sion of teachers or lawyers.

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THE REFUGE OF BOOKS.

DICKENS represents Mr. Jaggers and Wemmick, in Great Expectations," as having each his own way of learing himself from the unsavory associations which the aily business of a hard criminal lawyer brought upon him nd his confidential clerk. Mr. Wemmick retreats to his by castle, and in the morning, as he and Pip return to he city, Pip notices that the clerk's face contracts until he customary rigidity is fixed upon it when the office is eached. Mr. Jaggers has recourse to a great bowl of water, scented soap, and a jack towel, and when he emerges From the thorough rasping he has given his face, hands, and neck, the skulking clients that always lie in wait for him know that it is useless to approach the great man.

It is quite possible that Mr. Wemmick, in his suburban home, and Mr. Jaggers, off duty, met men and women whose lives contained all the possibilities of criminal error; it is most likely that their daily mental habits made them less unsuspicious than their neighbors who knew of crime only by hearsay; but external decency and comeliness afforded relief after steady contact with vice and misery, and the Aged Parent in his harmless dotage brought to Wemmick a sense of there being some innocence in the world, and made the daily work at least endurable.

The newspapers, constantly assailed by apparent selfinterest, and forced, as they persuade themselves, to collect and publish as a matter of news whatever happens to absorb public attention, make little distinction between things decent and indecent, and thus day after day for weeks, it may be, fill the eyes and ears of the community with facts, rumors, speculations, and opinions, which sift through and through the mind until one becomes desperate over the condition of his kind. Silently, people read and receive into their minds what at first they blush in the dark at recalling. The hideous unreality of wickedness is upon them. It is hateful, but something within them cries out that it is not nature, but un-nature, and there is a desire to escape into the truer atmosphere of real purity and rightness.

No doubt the companionship of trusty friends, the familiar ways of the household, afford the best relief, yet there is a sense in which even these may be said to fail. The disagreeable emotions which have been fixed by much reading of the newspapers need a kind of exorcism more vigorous and active than the simple presence of innocent life can administer. It is here, then, that the ministry of strong and noble books comes into powerful use. The condensation of life, for example, in one of Turgénieff's novels, serves as a fit corrective of the pain which some single convulsing evil has inflicted. In "Lisa," witness the pure expanding into blessedness of the lives of the two principal characters. In "On the Eve," the existence of a noble passion of patriotism struggling against and then loftily agreeing with an equally noble love, leaves upon the mind the sense of dwelling amongst real and great spirits. The reality of a noble life, not of noble

sentiments - that is the rare gift of some books, and a gift which makes it possible for meanness and corruption to appear unreal and unlasting.

It is not only the literature of romance, but of poetry and the drama, that have the same effect. Browning's "The Ring and the Book," to those who can read it, is laden with this power to give real triumph to righteousness. No one who has followed the windings of the story but issues into the clear atmosphere of the Pope's verdict, spoken like the speech of God, with a sense that all the duplicity and cruelty of the real offenders are shattered by a blow of light. Intense evils, we have intimated, are corrected by intense goods. Beside that, the running brooks and fair fields of poetry and minor fiction supply refuges to the irritated soul that make one cry, "Blessed be Books!" Sancho Panza's sleep is a cure for some evils, but there are others that find the very time of sleep their favorite hour for stalking abroad, and nightmares require sometimes violent treatment before they will be driven forth. So then this refuge of noble books is another proof, if one were needed, of the right of way demanded by the men who write books that cannot be said to convey what is commonly regarded as useful information.

NOTES.

Bulletin No. 30, of the Boston Public Library, gives new evidence of the liberal spirit in which the library is conducted, the principle of the management being, as we have before said, to study the wants of those having recourse to the library, and not simply to preserve and catalogue the books. Thus, under Schweinfurth's "The Heart of Africa," the following excellent suggestive note is given :

Note. Dr. Schweinfurth, a German botanist, has, next to Sir Samuel Baker, made the most important explorations in Central Africa, taking a course somewhat westerly of Baker's. The work is provided with maps. Perhaps his most satisfactory result is the confirmation of previous rumors relative to the existence of a race of dwarfs, who seem to be ethnologically connected with the Bushmen of the Cape.

Since the note under Africa in the Lower Hall catalogue for History, etc., p. 9, was prepared, two new summaries for young readers of African exploration have been published: Kingston's "Great African Travellers," with map [1694.4], and Day's "African Adventure and Adventurers" [1697.5]. See also Bayard Taylor's popular compilation, “Lake Regions of Central Africa," issued 1873 [1697.3]. There is a popular summary of Schweinfurth's book in " A Naturalist in the Heart of Africa," in Harper's Monthly, May, 1874. Stanley's book on Livingstone has been epitomized by Tyler in his compilation "Livingstone and his Adventures," 1873 [3053.51], and in a similar anonymous compilation, l'hiladelphia, 1872 [1697.2]. Stanley has also of late embodied some of his African experiences in a popular tale, “My Kalulu" [1697.6], and has an article in Scribner's Magazine, May, 1873, called “Four Great African Travellers." An epitome of the African character is given in "Sons of Ham," in the Cornhill Magazine, 1873, or in No. 1515 of Living Age; and Jules Verne, in his "Five Weeks in a Balloon" [1743.13], has some rather entertaining satire on African Explorers.

A long and useful note is added to the title of Willshire's "Introduction to the Study and Collection of Ancient Prints," naming the works which one may take up after this book has been read, all the volumes named

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