Chapter IV: Front Matter (4)

The second book of the _Iliad_ furnished the staple of school education, giving the history and geography of ancient Greece with the most wonderful of literary forms. The _Odyssey_ extended the education in the same direction, and gave under a thin veil of allegory, the Greek moral code.

The general character of Greek education may be said to be æsthetic—a cultivation of the sense of the beautiful, and a training of the body into symmetry and grace. Gymnastics, music, and grammatical art were the staples of their pedagogy. By music they meant not only a sense of rhythm and measure, but spiritual culture in general—including the several branches over which the Nine Muses presided—whence its name “music.” Poetry and music and mathematics were all included under this designation. Grammatical training included reading, writing, and language studies.

In the development of individuality, the mutual independence of the Greek States and difference in their races or stocks were both causes and results. The Æolian, Dorian, and Ionian stocks manifested different tendencies, the Æolians preferring ear-culture, or music; the Dorians, bodily culture; the Ionians, poetry. The Dorians at Sparta educated boys and girls in the same way, although in separate institutions. There was, indeed, in Sparta, a tendency toward the Persian form of education, with important differences in regard to truth-speaking and honesty. The child was educated solely for the needs of the State, being trained to endure heat and cold and fatigue, and every year being obliged to conform to a more severe discipline, until at thirty years he had become a complete Spartan veteran soldier. Nevertheless the Spartan preserved his Greek individuality even under his Oriental forms of despotism.

The Spartans, though agreeing with the Athenians in certain general characteristics, were in sharp contrast to the latter in the spirit of their education. It was their aim to produce able warriors that led them to train their youth carefully in bodily strength and agility, capacity of endurance, personal bravery, and patriotism. Up to the seventh year the boy was educated in the family; after that time in public, and fed at the common table, and trained with other youth in the disciplines above mentioned, as well as in the art of skillful theft. Every year there was a general public flogging in order to test their strength of endurance and sense of honor. He who bore all the pain without uttering a cry was crowned with garlands. Spartan youth sometimes died under these tortures without uttering a sound. From year to year the discipline became more and more severe. The Spartan girls were trained to be companions of heroes, and had their own gymnasia wherein they learned to run, to wrestle, to jump, and ride the chariot.

At Athens, the chief seat of the Ionian stock, we find the purest type of Greek nationality.

The education of Spartans was designed, as has been said, to fit youth for citizens that could defend the State. That of Athens was for free individuality. The laws of Solon enjoined upon each father in Athens to teach his son a trade, whereby he could earn his living. If the father neglected this the son was absolved from the duty of supporting him in old age. The law of Solon decreed that the boy, before all else, should learn how to read and how to swim. It was a maritime State, and the Greek lived much upon the water. The son of poor parents should be taught music, horsemanship, and gymnastics, hunting and philosophy. It was left to the father to decide whether these higher studies should be undertaken or not. But public opinion was so strong that no father dared to refuse a higher education to his son if his means allowed it. For the first seven years the Athenian boy was under the care of the women. During this period he played with rattles, balls, wooden horses, dice and tops, the skipping of stones in the water, etc. The games and plays of Greek children are interesting, when we study the development of his individuality,—interesting also in hints as to the modern experiment of the kindergarten.

At seven years began the school time of the Athenian boy. An old superannuated slave was assigned to the work, and called in the Greek language _pædagogos_, pedagogue, (_boy-driver_) who accompanied him everywhere as supervisor. In the _pedagogium_ the boy learned to read and write. Later came the music teacher, who taught him to play the Cithæra and sing. At last he took up gymnastics and continued it till his eighteenth year. Then he took up his trade selected by the father, and at the age of twenty his education was considered complete.

In the famous funeral oration which Thucydides puts into the mouth of Pericles he congratulates the Athenians on the fact that their fatherland was a great educational center, a sort of school for all Greece. Their temples and works of art were objects of study to all enterprising strangers. Their artists, and poets, and philosophers were sought for the education of all who aspired to culture. The Sophists formed a guild of professional teachers. After Plato and Aristotle, Athens remained a university for many hundred years, or until Justinian closed her schools because of their hostility to the State religion.

The period of the Sophists is of great interest. As teachers of dialectic and rhetoric, they endeavored to fit the Athenian youth for skillful and effective pleas in the courts or persuasive harangues before the people. They taught how to debate and how to make the worse appear the better reason. They pushed their speculations beyond rhetorical forms into the realms of philosophy, and in the end questioned all principles of conviction, and even the bases of morality. All faith was undermined. At this juncture rose Socrates, the greatest character of his age, who showed up by a keener dialectic the firm foundations of virtue and truth, under the shifting sands of opinion and prejudice. Plato has preserved for us in his dialogues the beautiful picture of Socrates in his knight-errant exploits against the Sophists, and finally his tragic but heroic end. Plato’s works have been for more than two thousand years a liberal education into sound and deep philosophy, and, with the works of Aristotle, his pupil and successor, form the canonical books of philosophy. They have furnished the philosophical forms used by the Christian fathers in building up the great structure of Christian theology.

The Greek people have given to the world the two great elements of art and science—the æsthetic and theoretic forms of culture. Their defect is found in their exclusive devotion to those two phases. We must find in the Roman civilization the forms of the will which civilization has needed in order to form political and social institutions—the Greeks were weak on this side.

Above all, the deep spirituality, the communion with God as the one Infinite Person, creator of heaven and earth, is not to be found in Greek education, although it is the most important, nay, the all-essential point in our modern education.

After the time of Aristotle the Greek intellect dissipated itself in Stoicism and skepticism, and a cloud of darkness settled down gradually over the country, when Rome conquered its last armies, and reduced it to obedience to an alien principle. At a few centers like Alexandria and Athens, art and science were cultivated to a very high degree, but Greece had nothing new to contribute to the world, and its labors henceforth were for Roman hire, or frequently the work of bondmen. The wealthy Roman owned Greek slaves, who acted as tutors to his children and producers of art for his amusement. But as nurses and tutors the Greek soon spread his Greek education over the mighty nation that had conquered the world.

DAFFODILS AT SEA.

By J. S. HOWSON.

Fair daffodils I took across the western sea away,
To cheer my lonely cabin and to talk to me of home.
Not double daffodils I took, but single—freshly come
From wintry village fields. I hate the dowager display,
That spoils sweet nature’s manner, and with bold and stately stare
Arrays in artificial pomp the fashionable square.

Not for me only were those gifts. I marked where children clung,
Warm and close-pressed, around a mother seeking distant lands.
One flower I chose apart and placed in tiny baby hands,
When soon it lay in fragments, on the wet deck torn and flung.
Dear child! she only broke her latest toy. What should she know
Of hopes and memories that in those yellow petals grow?

Another to a woman lone, with sorrow worn and spent,
I gave: she took it tearfully; and when I next passed by,
She held it tenderly, and watched it with a serious eye,
As loth that it should fade. Perchance her quickened fancy went,
Where once her footsteps strayed, by mountain stream and copse and glen,
And neighbor-cottages, which now she will not see again.

Fair daffodils, what power lives for us in your gentle mood!
Sure promise of bright spring beyond the changeful stormy ways;
Lessons of quiet love, that bind our last and earliest days;
Of patience, and of humble hope to be not great but good.
Then let me learn what ye would calmly teach, here by my side,
In pensive dignity and grace and modest queenly pride.

* * * * *

There is no uprightness of intention that can justify calumny; nor even though the question were the conversion of the whole earth to the belief of revealed truth, would it be allowable to blacken the innocent, because we must not do the least evil even to bring about the greatest good, for “the truth of God requires not the assistance of our untruths,” as the Scripture says (Job xiii:7).—_Pascal._

THE WORTH OF FRESH AIR.

[Concluded.]

A very large quantity of fresh air is spoiled and rendered foul by the act of breathing. You, yourself, spoil not less than a gallon every minute. In eight hours’ breathing a full-grown man spoils as much fresh air as seventeen three-bushel sacks could hold! If you were shut up in a room seven feet broad, seven feet long, and seven feet high, the door and windows fitting so tightly that no air could pass through, you would die, poisoned by your own breath, in a very few hours; in twenty-four hours you would have spoiled all the air contained in the room, and have converted it into poison, provided you could have lived therein so long.

One hundred years ago the English were allowed by the Great Mogul or Emperor of India, to build warehouses and dwellings in certain parts of his Empire. One of these mercantile settlements or factories, as they were called, was planted on the bank of a large river just where Calcutta, the capital city of Bengal, now stands.

In the year 1756, the nabob, or tributary king of the province of Bengal died, and was succeeded by a very young man, who bore the outlandish looking title of Surajah Dowlah. This young barbarian cast a covetous eye on the neighboring British factory, and one summer day attacked the place suddenly with a large army. The small party of English who were in the factory, despairing of their ability to effect any successful defense, tried to make their escape to some ships which were lying in the river.

Several of the fugitives reached the vessels in safety. But in the confusion of the flight, one hundred and forty-six individuals fell into the hands of the victorious nabob. These, his officers thrust for the night into a small cell, which was used as the prison of the fortress, and was known under the dismal name of the Black Hole of Calcutta. This cell had but two small square holes for windows, and was only eighteen feet long and fourteen feet wide, so that the last person of the one hundred and forty-six had to be crushed in upon the rest with violence, as the door was closed and locked. The anguish of the crowded captives soon became so great, in this vile hole, that the neighborhood resounded with the noise of their struggles and cries. As the night wore on, these sounds, however, gradually sunk into silence. When the morning came, and the door of the prison was opened, the reason of this silence became sadly apparent. In the place of the one hundred and forty-six prisoners who were shut up on the previous day, they took out one hundred and twenty-three corpses, and, twenty-three miserable beings, who looked more like ghastly spectres than men, and who could hardly be said to be alive. This occurrence furnished one remarkable instance of the deadly power of the poison vapors which are poured out from the inside of living beings. Now I will tell you about another case of a similar kind.

A few years ago, a vessel started from Cork in Ireland, to take a large number of emigrants to a ship just about to sail from Liverpool. A violent storm sprung up in the night, as the vessel was crossing the Irish Channel, and the captain, fearing that the alarmed passengers would interfere with the sailors, and render it difficult to work the ship, sent them all below into the hold, and covered them closely down with the hatches. The imprisoned passengers soon found that they were suffocating, and called and knocked loudly for help, but their cries either were unheard or disregarded. In the morning the hatches were removed, and to the horror of the captain and his crew, the hold was found half full of dead bodies and dying people, instead of containing living men and women. Such are the fearful consequences which follow, when human beings are forced to breathe the same air over and over again.

You are very much shocked, both at the savage cruelty of the Indian tyrant, and at the carelessness and ignorance of the Irish captain. But what will you think of yourself if I now show that you do, in a small degree, every night, what they did on so large a scale? What was it that caused the closeness of this room before we opened the window? It was the presence of precisely the same kind of poison, as that which killed the prisoners at Calcutta, and the passengers in the hold of the ship. That poison did not destroy you in a single night, only because it had not gathered in sufficient strength to do so. Your room was not more than half as large as the Black Hole of Calcutta, but there were only two of you shut up in it instead of one hundred and forty-six. The air of your room was merely hurtful instead of being deadly. But the fact still remains. _When you rose in the morning, that air was not fit for a human creature to breathe._

When you rise to-morrow morning, just go out of doors for five minutes, and observe carefully the freshness of the air. That air is in the state in which God keeps it for breathing. Then come back suddenly into your close room, and your own senses will at once make you feel how very far the air of your chamber is from being in the same wholesome and serviceable condition.

This is one way, then, in which people produce derangement in their bodies, and cause their works, or organs, to get choked up and clogged. They are not careful always to keep fresh air immediately around them. They suffocate themselves slowly; taking, perhaps, a long time to complete their task, but, nevertheless, accomplishing it none the less surely. Individuals who dwell in crowded towns, and, therefore, have to live by day as well as by night in close, impure apartments, go down to their graves, even before they have reached their prime; and their thin pale faces, dull sunk eyes, and languid movements, tell they are doing so, with painful clearness. It is well known that people who dwell in towns and work in close rooms, as a rule, die seventeen years earlier than men who dwell in the country, and work in the fields by day.

Country folks escape this severe penalty, because even when they half smother themselves by night, the thoroughly fresh air in which they spend the day goes a great way toward the removal of the mischief. Still they are by no means free from all penalty. You yourself have suffered from breathing bad air. Do you remember last autumn, when I came to see you sick in bed with the fever? Do you recollect how your limbs ached, and your skin burned then, and how you tossed restlessly from side to side, without being able to sleep, your mouth and tongue being brown and parched with dryness which water could not moisten? You could not raise your head from the pillow; and once when I asked you how you felt, you answered me by telling me something about the corn stacks and the last harvest, being quite unconscious of what you were saying. What do you think was the matter with you then? Your body and blood were full of poisonous vapor. And what do you think had made them so? Why, fresh air had not done its work of purification as it ought. You had been breathing a great deal of impure air, and were paying the penalty for having done so. If you had seen the prisoners in the Black Hole of Calcutta an hour or two before they died, you would have found them exactly in the same state.

The term “fever” is taken from a Latin word which signifies “to burn.” The skin and the body feel burning hot in fever, because impure poisonous blood is flowing everywhere through their vessels, in the place of pure blood, and the blood is poisonous because it has not been freed from its poison-vapors as fast as they have been bred in, or thrown into its streams. In the worst forms of fever the blood gets so impure that it steams out, through the breath, vapors which are able to produce the same kind of disease in other people, and which are, under these circumstances, termed _infection_. The infectious poison-vapors of fever get so strong when they are received into close rooms, and are not allowed to be blown away, that they often kill persons who breathe them in that state, very quickly.

But you want me to explain how all the mischief, which results from breathing foul air, may be prevented. Come down with me into the garden, and creatures that you believe to be of far inferior powers to yourself, shall give you a lesson.

You keep bees. Here is a hive, I see, crowded with the busy insects. By the numbers that I observe clustering about the low arched door, and bustling out and in so incessantly, I learn that the industrious little fellows must be very closely packed together in their straw house. There must be many thousands of them dwelling together in a place that can not, at the most, equal more than a couple of square feet; and there is not a single window in the straw wall; no opening of any kind but the low, and half-choked entrance. Really, if those bees need to breathe, you who have furnished them with their dwelling must be nearly as bad as the cruel nabob, who shut up his prisoners in the Indian Black Hole!

Those bees certainly do need to breathe every bit as much as men and women; and what is more, they manage to breathe ten times better than you do at night. Notwithstanding all the crowding there is within their close dwelling, the air never gets there into the poisonous state in which the air of your sleeping room is by the morning. The bees take care that it shall not do so. Just bend down your ear and listen near the hive for a minute. Do you hear that incessant low humming? That is the bees hard at work, making an artificial wind. It is the sound of a couple of score of broad, stiff fans, flapping to and fro with great rapidity. Look, I drop this piece of light thistle-down near the door of the hive, and you see it is at once blown away from it by a steady draught. If you could see through the straw walls, you would notice twenty little sturdy fellows holding on to the floor of the hive with their feet, just within the door, and flapping their wings backwards and forwards without a moment’s pause. Now and then one or two tired insects drop out from the line of the fanners, but their places are immediately filled by fresh recruits, who lay hold of the floor and fall vigorously to work with their wings. This is the appointed band of air-purifiers, plying their business for the good of the entire community, and wafting a fresh breeze continuously through the hive. The bees take it by turns to carry on this necessary labor, and some of them are always at it. The humming caused by the rapid vibrations of their fans, scarcely ever ceases. It has been ascertained that air taken from the inside of a hive, is quite as pure as the fresh air that floats in the open space around; so perfectly do these little earnest workmen perform their purifying task.

The industrious bees, then, are an example to mankind. If people dwell in close rooms, they must cause an artificial breeze of fresh air to blow through them. Having shut out the great wind, that it may not chill too much by its uncontrollable currents, they must introduce such a little wind as they can keep thoroughly under control, but which nevertheless is sufficient to perform the office of purification as far as it is required. This process of causing an artificial wind to blow through the inside of a dwelling is called _ventilation_, from a Latin word which signifies “to blow” or fan with the wind.

In very hot climates where dwellings need to be ventilated for the sake of coolness, as well as for purification, men follow precisely the example set by the bees. They hang up broad and stiff canvas fans, which they call _punkas_, near the ceiling, and cause these to flap backwards and forwards constantly, by pulling them to and fro with ropes. In more temperate climates, it is rarely found necessary to take all this trouble, for the air readily makes currents of its own accord inside of rooms, if only allowed to do so. All that is necessary is the furnishing of a free passage into the room, and a free passage out, and it will then make a clear march through. One opening will not do, when fans are not kept going, because then the entering and departing air would meet face to face and obstruct each other. There must be “in” and “out” doors, just as one sees in much frequented offices and banks, in great towns.

A very effectual plan for securing the ventilation of a dwelling room consists in carrying a pipe of perforated zinc across the house, from outside wall to outside wall, just beneath the ceiling, allowing the ends to pass through the walls quite into the open air; then whichever end of the pipe chances to be most towards the quarter of the heavens from which the wind is blowing, should be closed with a plug, a free passage being left for the escape of the heated air through the opposite end. A number of holes should also be made through the door, near its bottom, until altogether they afford as much room to passing air as the inside bore of the zinc pipe. If you cannot manage to fix such a zinc pipe across the ceiling, why take out one or two of the panes of the window, and put into their place, plates of what is called _perforated zinc_ (zinc plates pierced full of holes), such as you may buy for a trifle at any ironmongers. That is the next best thing you can do.

As soon as some arrangement of this kind has been completed, you will find that the air begins to move gently through the room, cold fresh air coming in through the holes in the door, and warm impure air being pressed out before it through the perforated zinc tubes or plates. This takes place partly because the external wind rushes, in its hasty way, against the openings through which the air is intended to enter, and forces itself in; but also, and more particularly, because the inside air gets warmer than the outside, and is then compelled to shift its quarters on that account.

The air contained inside of inhabited rooms gets warmed by the bodies and breaths of the persons living there. Then it is lighter, bulk for bulk, than the colder air outside, for warmth stretches and lightens everything. But as heavy things fall or press down to the earth more strongly than light ones, the cold air always squeezes into the room through the lower openings, and pushes the warm impure air out before it, through the upper ones.

When you light a fire in your room during cold weather, it makes a quick and strong draught through the room, for the same reason. Fires, indeed, are among the most powerful ventilators that can be brought into play. Let your fire out, and go on sitting in the room with two or three of your neighbors, and you will find the air of the room will be close and foul in half-an-hour, although it was quite fresh before. While the fire is burning, the chimney takes upon itself the office of the holes in the zinc tube or zinc plate fixed in the window, and the heated air of the room is pushed up through it by the fresh cold air which rushes in through all other openings and crevices. It is only in rooms where no fires are burning—as for instance, in your sleeping room—that holes through the walls and windows can serve as outlets for impure air.

But if you live with several companions, in small rooms, as some workpeople are compelled to do by their occupation, those rooms cannot get properly ventilated, even although fires are burning. Some of the poison-vapors, poured out from your living bodies with the breath, are so light that they are at once driven up to the top of the room, and collect there gradually, spreading lower and lower as they become more abundant. They can not get out through holes made in the walls or windows because, as we have seen, the fire causes streams of cold air to press in there.

A plan has been contrived, however, to ensure perfect ventilation even in small and crowded rooms, provided fires be burning. This plan consists in making an opening into the inside of the chimney, near to the ceiling, and fixing a balanced valve in it in such a way that the valve-plate is opened by outward draughts, but immediately closed by inward ones. Then the impure vapors lurking near the ceiling are continually being swept away, into the current of the chimney, through this valve.

You are sure you have no money to spare to buy valves, and zinc tubes and plates, or to pay to workmen for making holes in your walls, and in your doors and windows. I admit that properly these trifling things should be done at the expense of the landlord to whom the house belongs. It should be as much his duty to make a house fit to live in, so far as due ventilation is concerned, as it is to keep it dry by covering it with a roof of tiles or slate. As landlords, however, are commonly themselves ignorant about these matters, you must learn to look to the affair for yourself. You will be the sufferer if the right thing be not done, therefore it is alike your interest and your duty to see that it is done.

Suppose then that you have a hard landlord who will do nothing for you, and that you are so poor you can not spare a shilling or two for the purchase of metal tubes or plates. Then I will tell you what I would do, if I were in your shoes. I would borrow a large gimlet of the carpenter, and I would bore a row of holes through the upper part of the window frame in my bedroom, just above the glass, sloping them downwards a little, so that the rain may not be able to run in; next I would never quite shut the door of the chamber, and I would bore other holes through the frames of the windows down stairs, to act as channels of inlet. A few rough pegs of wood would serve to close some of the holes, if at any time too much air entered the room in consequence of a strong wind blowing outside. This is what I would do, rather than I would submit to be poisoned at night because I was poor.

A single round hole, a little more than half an inch across, would allow as much air to pass through it, as would be sufficient to supply the breathing of one person, provided the air were driven along by the movements of a fan, or by other mechanical contrivance, with the force of a very gentle breeze. Generally, however, it does not move so fast as this through rooms, when only caused to do so by the greater pressure of external colder air. It is, therefore, better that the ventilating openings, both for inlet and departure, should altogether make up much more than a hole half an inch across.

It is not possible to have too much fresh air in a room, provided only an uncomfortable and chilling draught is not allowed to blow upon the body of the inhabitant. You may easily prevent any discomfort or mischief from draught, even where a great abundance of air is admitted, by hanging a curtain to catch it and turn it aside. You will find, however, that there is very little chance of any troublesome draught when no fire is burning in the room, to make the air rush in with increased power, for it is fires, as you will remember, which cause quick and strong currents.

The warmer and stiller the external air is, the more difficult it becomes to secure free ventilation through the inside of rooms. In the calm hot nights of summer, the windows of sleeping rooms should on this account be left partly open all night long. It is better to breathe air moistened with night dew than it is to breathe air laden with poison vapors.

But if it be important when people are well that they shall have an abundance of fresh air moving through their dwellings, it is of far greater consequence that there shall be a thorough ventilation kept up in rooms where there is sickness. In all kinds of fevers the blood is overloaded with poison vapors, and these can not get out of the body unless they are blown away by pure air. The sick person can not be freed from the poison vapors that are clogging up his vital organs until fresh air is supplied abundantly. Do you remember what it was that first made you better, when you had the fever last year? Can you not recall to mind how all the doors and windows of your room were kept constantly open, and how angry I was whenever I came to your chamber and found them fast closed! Have you forgotten how delicious the fresh air felt to your parched and poisoned frame, and what luxury there was in the clean linen when supplied to your body and to the bed, and in the cold water when it was sponged over your skin?

If ever you are called upon to attend a neighbor or a relation who has to suffer from infectious fever, as you then did, be sure you furnish to that sick person the same comfort and alleviation which were provided for yourself.

Let this be your plan for nursing the sick: Open wide the doors and windows of your chamber. Keep the body of the patient and the room very clean. Change the linen both of the person and the bed very often. Allow only the very simplest kinds of food and drink to be given, and that in small quantities at a time. Prevent all noise and confusion around the bed. There are very few persons indeed who will not recover speedily from attacks of even the worst kinds of fever, if this simple and prudent plan of treatment is steadily pursued.

The poison-vapors of fever and other infectious diseases are very deadly when in their greatest strength, but remain so for a very short time when left to the influences and operations of nature. They can not bear the presence of fresh air. If they are mixed with a great abundance of it as they come out of the mouths of sick people, they directly cease to be dangerous poisons. All that is necessary to prevent infectious fevers from being communicated from person to person, by means of the breath, is to take care that fresh air is continually passing through the sick room. Attendants and visitors may remain with perfect safety in rooms where even the worst kinds of fever are prevailing, if they keep all the doors and windows of the chamber open, and are careful not to catch the breath of the patients until it has passed through some two yards of space, where there is perfectly pure air.

Such, then, is the “worth of fresh air.” It keeps the body healthy and strong. It blows away and destroys the invisible and dangerous poisons which are steamed forth from putrid and decaying matters, and which are to the delicate organs of the living frame much worse than dust and dirt are to clock-work. In disease it is nature’s chief remedy; the best medicine of the best Physician, furnished gratis, because he is full of bounty, as well as of great skill. Never let it any longer be a reproach to you, that you ungraciously turn away such a precious gift and priceless boon from your doors. Rather open wide your windows, as well as your doors, and welcome it with all your heart. Go to the bee, consider its ways, and be wise!

* * * * *

Flattering pleasures, fountain of delights, fertile in miseries, what do you wish with me? Shameful lusts of the flesh and of the world, why do you not quit me when I have quitted you? Begone honors, pleasures, which war against me; all your happiness, subject to change, falls to the ground in a moment of time; and as it has the brilliancy of glass, it has also its brittleness.—_Corneille._

But pleasures are like poppies spread,
You seize the flower, its bloom is shed;
Or, like the snow-fall in the river,
A moment white, then melts forever.—_Burns._

STREET MANNERS.

The knowledge of being able to do exactly what is done in good society puts its possessor entirely at ease in whatever sphere he may happen to move. Tact and innate refinement do much to assist one unused to society, but do not suffice; a thorough acquaintance with the social observances in force is necessary. If the etiquette of walking and driving contains few rules, they are none the less important; indeed we are very prone to form our opinions of the breeding of persons by their bearing and manners on the street. One of the first rules for everyone in walking is quietness. Loud talking and laughing are never less in good form than on the street. When and where to walk must be decided by the customs of the locality where one lives. In general it may be said that ladies should not walk unattended after nightfall in city or village, and it is not considered good taste for a lady to appear alone, in daylight, in crowded thoroughfares, fashionable promenades, or in parks and other public resorts. In short, a public place is no place for a lady if unaccompanied.

As regards the recognition of friends and acquaintances, it is the privilege of a lady to take the initiative by being the first to bow; a gentleman would not, as a rule, raise his hat to a lady until she had accorded him this mark of recognition, although the act of bowing is a simultaneous action on the part of both lady and gentleman, as a lady would hardly bestow a bow on a gentleman not prepared to return it. It has lately become the fashion for ladies to nod rather than bow to their male acquaintances; making a short decisive movement of the head only, instead of bending the neck. The nod is not in such good taste as the bow. To bow well, cordially, yet with dignity, kindly yet quietly, is a real accomplishment. Some one says, “The salutation is the touchstone of good breeding.” The bow which is perfect in welcome, and bears just enough dignity and just enough ease, is certainly effective. It is a compliment to you. You feel happy at meeting the person so accomplished.

A not uncommon rudeness is the failing to speak to people whom one has met, because they are lower in social position or, perhaps, working people. It is well, then, for us to remember the example of George Washington and George IV., who took off their hats to their servants. Bow to everyone whom you know, is the rule.

A gentleman returning the bow of a lady with whom he is but slightly acquainted, would do so with a deferential air, but slightly raising his hat from his head; but if he were an intimate acquaintance or friend, he would raise his hat with far more freedom of action, thus consequently raising his hat considerably higher; for a gentleman to bow otherwise would appear too distant. In France and on the Continent, the rule of bowing is reversed, and the gentleman is the first to bow to the lady.

Between ladies but slightly acquainted, the lady of the higher rank would bow first.

Gentlemen do not raise their hats in recognition of each other, but simply nod. When a gentleman meets an acquaintance walking with ladies, he would then, in compliment to the ladies, raise his hat to his friend instead of simply nodding. Introductions on the street are not imperative, but rather a matter of inclination. For instance: a lady walking with a friend whom she was visiting, would introduce any person whom she might happen to meet, to her hostess; and her hostess would do likewise to her guest, unless there should be some reason for not making the introduction—if so, explanations could be offered afterward.

In public promenades and watering places it is usual for gentlemen to join ladies with whom they are acquainted, and walk with them. If a lady stop a gentleman on the street he should turn and walk with her. In no case should they stand for any length of time. An important point, not always observed, is keeping to the right hand of the passer. It is never allowable to take the left unless a gentleman be guiding a lady through a crowd, when, to save her from being jostled, he may turn to the left, but under ordinary circumstances this is not “good form.”

Ladies and gentlemen, whether related or not, never walk arm in arm in promenades or public places unless the lady be an elderly one, or require support. In driving in an open or close carriage, no particular place is reserved for the owner of the carriage. When accompanied by friends, guests always enter the carriage before the host or hostess. Were there two guests, and one of them a young lady, she would naturally seat herself with her back to the horses, leaving the other seat for the married ladies. This, however, is a matter of courtesy on her part. A gentleman takes the forward seat, if two ladies are present, and a gentleman should dismount first with a view of assisting the ladies out. As a rule the hostess should descend after her guest and not before her; if necessary to do so, she should make some polite remark in excuse. If a lady were merely calling on an acquaintance to take her for a drive she would not descend from her carriage for the purpose of allowing her to enter it before her.

These are the rules, but rules of etiquette, unless seasoned with common sense, are dangerously stiff and unbecoming. It is wrong to suppose that they form the basis of good manners. Principles, not rules, do that, and the principles of high breeding may be reduced to two: consideration for others’ feelings, and familiarity with the fitness and beauty of things.

SATISFIED.

By J. C. A.

Day of softest, fairest beauty,
Summer’s breath o’er land and sea,
While the sunshine’s golden quiver,
Falls on hill, and wood, and river,
Far as the eye can see,

Every wandering breeze comes laden
With the scent of dewy flowers,
And all Nature’s heart rejoices,
With her sweet and heaven-taught voices,
Throughout the glowing hours.

In this grey old world not often
Such a day to us is sent,
Yet amidst its purest gladness
Comes a thrill of yearning sadness
To mar our sweet content.

And when life’s full cup o’erflowing
With the love which makes our gain,
And the rapture surely given
As a foretaste of God’s heaven,—
’Tis bliss akin to pain.

So in hours of love and sunshine,
As in days when storms beat high,
We have still a sure voice teaching,
Far beyond earth’s wisest preaching,
Our immortality.

Not until we reach that city
Where our loved and lost abide,
When Christ greets us at the portal,
And we taste the life immortal,
We shall be satisfied.

TALES FROM SHAKSPERE.

By CHARLES LAMB.

AS YOU LIKE IT.

During the time that France was divided into provinces (or dukedoms, as they were called), there reigned in one of these provinces an usurper, who had deposed and banished his elder brother, the lawful duke.

The duke, who was thus driven from his dominions, retired with a few faithful followers to the forest of Arden; and here the good duke lived with his loving friends, who had put themselves into a voluntary exile for his sake, while their lands and revenues enriched the false usurper. And custom soon made the life of careless ease they led here more sweet to them than the pomp and uneasy splendor of a courtier’s life. Here they lived like the old Robin Hood of England, and to this forest many noble youths daily resorted from the court, and did fleet the time carelessly, as they did who lived in the golden age. In the summer they lay along under the fine shade of the large forest trees, marking the playful sports of the wild deer; and so fond were they of these poor dappled fools, who seemed to be the native inhabitants of the forest, that it grieved them to be forced to kill them to supply themselves with venison for their food. When the cold winds of winter made the duke feel the change of his adverse fortune, he would endure it patiently, and say, “These chilling winds which blow upon my body, are true counselors; they do not flatter, but represent truly to me my condition; and though they bite sharply, their tooth is nothing like so keen as that of unkindness and ingratitude. I find that, however men speak against adversity, yet some sweet uses are to be extracted from it, like the jewel, precious for medicine, which is taken from the head of the venomous and despised toad.” In this manner did the patient duke draw an useful moral from everything that he saw; and by the help of this moralizing turn in that life of his, remote from public haunts, he could find tongues in trees, books in the running brooks, sermons in stones, and good in everything.

The banished duke had an only daughter, named Rosalind, whom the usurper, Duke Frederick, when he banished her father, still retained in his court as a companion for his own daughter Celia. A strict friendship subsisted between these ladies, which the disagreement between their fathers did not in the least interrupt, Celia striving by every kindness in her power to make amends to Rosalind for the injustice of her own father in deposing the father of Rosalind; and whenever the thoughts of her father’s banishment, and her own dependence on the false usurper, made Rosalind melancholy, Celia’s whole care was to comfort and console her.

One day when Celia was talking in her usual kind manner to Rosalind, saying, “I pray you, Rosalind, my sweet cousin, be merry,” a messenger entered from the duke, to tell them that if they wished to see a wrestling match, which was just going to begin, they must come instantly to the court before the palace; and Celia, thinking it would amuse Rosalind, agreed to go and see it. In those times wrestling was a favorite sport even in the courts of princes, and before fair ladies and princesses. To this wrestling match therefore Celia and Rosalind went. They found that it was likely to prove a very tragical sight; for a large and powerful man who had long been practiced in the art of wrestling, and had slain many men in contests of this kind, was just going to wrestle with a very young man, who, from his extreme youth and inexperience in the art, the beholders all thought would certainly be killed.

When the duke saw Celia and Rosalind, he said, “How now, daughter and niece, are you crept hither to see the wrestling? You will take little delight in it, there is such odds in the men. In pity to this young man, I would wish to persuade him from wrestling. Speak to him, ladies, and see if you can move him.” The ladies were well pleased to perform this humane office, and first Celia entreated the young stranger that he would desist from the attempt; and then Rosalind spoke so kindly to him, and with such feeling consideration for the danger he was about to undergo, that instead of being persuaded by her gentle words to forego his purpose, all his thoughts were bent to distinguish himself by his courage in this lovely lady’s eyes. He refused the request of Celia and Rosalind in such graceful and modest words, that they felt still more concern for him; he concluding his refusal with saying, “I am sorry to deny such fair and excellent ladies anything. But let your fair eyes and gentle wishes go with me to my trial, wherein, if I be conquered, there is one shamed that was never gracious; if I am killed, there is one dead who is willing to die. I shall do my friends no wrong, for I have none to lament me; the world no injury, for in it I have nothing; for I only fill up a place in the world which may be better supplied when I have made it empty.”

And now the wrestling match began. Celia wished the young stranger might not be hurt; but Rosalind felt the most for him. The friendless state that he said he was in, and that he wished to die, made Rosalind think that he was, like herself, unfortunate; and she pitied him so much, and so deep an interest she took in his danger while he was wrestling, that she might almost be said at that moment to have fallen in love with him. The kindness shown this unknown youth by these fair and noble ladies gave him courage and strength, so that he performed wonders; and in the end completely conquered his antagonist, who was so much hurt, that for a while he was unable to speak or move.

The duke Frederick was much pleased with the courage and skill shown by the young stranger; and desired to know his name and parentage, meaning to take him under his protection. The stranger said his name was Orlando, and that he was the youngest son of Sir Rowland de Boys. Sir Roland de Boys, the father of Orlando, had been dead some years; but, when he was living, he had been a true subject and a dear friend of the banished duke: therefore when Frederick heard Orlando was the son of his banished brother’s friend, all his liking for this brave young man changed into displeasure, and he left the place in very ill humor. Hating to hear the very name of any of his brother’s friends, and yet still admiring the valor of the youth, he said, as he went out, that he wished Orlando had been the son of any other man.

Rosalind was delighted to hear that her new favorite was the son of her father’s old friend; and she said to Celia, “My father loved Sir Rowland de Boys, and if I had known this young man was his son, I would have added tears to my entreaties before he should have ventured.” The ladies then went up to him, and seeing him abashed by the sudden displeasure shown by the duke, they spoke kind and encouraging words to him, and Rosalind, when they were going away, turned back to speak some more civil things to the brave young son of her father’s old friend; and taking a chain off her neck, she said, “Gentleman, wear this for me. I am out of suits with fortune, or I would give you a more valuable present.” When the ladies were alone, Rosalind’s talk being still of Orlando, Celia began to perceive her cousin had fallen in love with the handsome young wrestler, and she said to Rosalind, “Is it possible you should fall in love so suddenly?” Rosalind replied, “The duke, my father, loved his father dearly.” “But,” said Celia, “does it therefore follow that you should love his son dearly? for then I ought to hate him, for my father hated his father; yet I do not hate Orlando.”

Frederick being enraged at the sight of Sir Rowland de Boys’ son, which reminded him of the many friends the banished duke had among the nobility, and having been for some time displeased with his niece, because the people praised her for her virtues, and pitied her for her good father’s sake, his malice suddenly broke out against her; and while Celia and Rosalind were talking of Orlando, Frederick entered the room, and with looks full of anger ordered Rosalind instantly to leave the palace, and follow her father into banishment; telling Celia, who in vain pleaded for her, that he had only suffered Rosalind to stay upon her account. “I did not then,” said Celia, “entreat you to let her stay, for I was too young at that time to value her; but now that I know her worth, and that we so long have slept together, rose at the same instant, learned, played, and eat together, I can not live out of her company.” Frederick replied, “She is too subtle for you; her smoothness, her very silence and her patience, speak to the people, and they pity her. You are a fool to plead for her, for you will seem more bright and virtuous when she is gone; therefore open not your lips in her favor, for the doom which I have passed upon her is irrevocable.”

When Celia found she could not prevail upon her father to let Rosalind remain with her, she generously resolved to accompany her; and, leaving her father’s palace that night, she went along with her friend to seek Rosalind’s father, the banished duke, in the forest of Arden. Before they set out, Celia considered that it would be unsafe for two young ladies to travel in the rich clothes they then wore; she therefore proposed that they should disguise their rank by dressing themselves like country maids. Rosalind said it would be a still greater protection if one of them was to be dressed like a man; and so it was quickly agreed on between them, that as Rosalind was the tallest, she should wear the dress of a young countryman, and Celia should be habited like a country lass, and that they should say they were brother and sister, and Rosalind said she would be called Ganimed, and Celia chose the name of Aliena. In this disguise, and taking their money and jewels to defray their expenses, these fair princesses set out on their long travel; for the forest of Arden was a long way off, beyond the boundaries of the duke’s dominions.