pleasure to your husband to enter," even if to the wife herself it should be "redolent of a certain mysterious charm."

no difficulty in filling her rooms with old
oak, just out of the manufacturer's hands,
and eighteenth-century marquetry, inlaid
to order yesterday. In this way she may Considering the financial catastrophe
easily succeed in making her rooms very which by this time is probably impending,
different from those of an ordinary Eng- it is prudent perhaps to tell the young
lish house. Unfortunately, if the educa- housewife never to talk to her husband
tion of her taste goes on, a time is sure about domestic economy. He may, as
to come when her one desire will be to the writer forebodes, "be too much in-
see her rooms something very different clined to fidget about details," and for the
from what she has made them. Even if present, at all events, "be the better for
the furniture is already bought, the young being led to think of other subjects."
housewife is bidden not to despair. She "Trifling gossip" is not, however, abso-
must make her drawing-room as pretty as lutely prohibited between husband and
she can, and, above all, she must make it wife. He is allowed to interest himself
the living expression of herself. Every- in "baby's new tooth, the purchase of a
where there are to be signs of occupation. piano or a carriage, or my sister's engage-
The writing-table must display "its ment." There is something highly in-
pretty knickdnacks," a brightly-coloured genious in the way in which an outlay of
skein of wool is to peer out of the work-fifty or a hundred pounds is slipped in
basket, and the tables must be strewn sandwich-fashion between two subjects
"with novels, periodicals, brochnres, and so little exciting to a man as a first tooth
books of poetry." It is a little neglectful and a family love-affair. But gossip is
of the writer not to have supplied a list of not to form the staple of a wife's talk.
appropriate "brochures." Novels, maga- She is to make herself a companion of
zines, and even poetry, the young house- her husband's mind, and to this end she
wife may be able to compass, but we must set before herself two solemn du-
suspect that her notion of a "brochure" ties. The first is to read the newspaper
will hardly go beyond the price-list of every day "not the fashionable intelli-
a co-operative store. If she has not gence, but the political information."
ruined her husband with bills for artistic The young housewife must not expect to
furniture, she has still a chance left her like this at first, but if she perseveres she
of ruining him at the nurseryman's and will reap the do. ble reward of interesting
the print-shop. The flower-vases are her husband and being interested herself.
never to be left empty, because even in She will soon "discuss eagerly the
London flowers "can be procured at a chances of Empire or Republic in France,
small expense, growing in pots, or freshly or the passing of any important Bill in
gathered." Next she is told to avoid the Parliament." It is paying a great but, we
cold look of uncovered walls by having fear, an undeserved, compliment to the
plenty of good water-colour engravings superior sex thus to take for granted the
or photographs." It is true there is a man's interest in these subjects. What
saving clause, "if you can procure them;" is a young housewife to do if, after she
and it may be hoped that young house- has qualified herself to discuss the
wives will understand this to mean "if chances of Empire or Republic in France,
you have money to pay the bill for them she finds that she has to instruct her hus-
when they are sent home." Even then band as well as to converse with him?
the advice has its dangers. Good photo- If she does not feel able to do this, she
graphs are cheap enough, but a wall had better make sure what it is in the
rashly covered with photographs chosen newspaper that her husband reads. It
at random by a young lady whose taste would be vexatious if it were to turn out,
down to the time of her marriage has after she had got up the political informa-
been chiefly developed by the study of tion diligently for a month, that the
her friends' photographic albums may only part that her husband knows any-
soon drive the husband to regretting the thing about is the sporting intelligence
despised wall-paper. By that time, how-or the city article. It is the more im-
ever, the mischief will be done. Nails
will have been driven in in every direc-
tion, and the advice to hide as much as
possible of the wall-paper may have to be
strictly followed because there is so little
of it left fit to be seen. In that case the
drawing-room will hardly "be a real

66

portant that she should not waste any
time upon unnecessary work because the
improvement of her mind is not over
when she has read the newspaper. She
is also to read as a matter of duty
one good periodical, such as the Edin-
burgh, Quarterly, or Fortnightly." This,

66

some

it is promised, will keep her " au courant|" wage a never-ceasing war," to "speak of the opinions, controversies, and dis- with a never-ending protest,' against coveries of the age." Here again the ad- cruelty and oppression; the reason being vice stands in need of some qualification. that "all through the world arises the What if the young housewife chooses the cry of suffering humanity," and great Fortnightly, and retails the opinions and nations "groan and travail in cruel wars discoveries she there meets with to a hus- and terrible convulsions." It seems a band who alike in politics and in theology little hard that the husband who is not is a stanch Conservative? No doubt responsible for these wars and convulthere will be no stagnation in the house- sions should be condemned to listen to a hold, but we fear that peace will hardly never-ending protest against them. Of brood over the moving waters. The hus- the two, Mr. Ruskin's suggestion that all band may resent being told that he was the ladies of Europe should wear mournonce a lump of protoplasm, or that even ing in time of war seems the less unnow he is only an automaton. Or, sup- pleasant. We have heard of a lady who posing the tables to be turned, it is quite went up-stairs and sat in the cold rather possible that a husband who takes his than remain in the room with an old belief from "Literature and Dogma" may friend who took the wrong side in the be inclined to snub a wife who retails as French and German war, and if young her own the opinion expressed in the housewives can persuade themselves to Quarterly article on "Modern Culture." be satisfied with a silent protest, we comPerhaps, however, if the young housewife mend this mode of offering it to their best has thoroughly learnt her lesson, her hus-attention. It will at least save husbands, band will be glad to accept any opinions when their wives lament that they cannot she may give him at secondhand, as at all themselves " fight in the arena of the events an agreeable change from the world," from being tempted to reply, "I opinions she is bidden to form for her heartily wish you could; I might then self. Married women are bidden to have peace at home."

THE ash of the better coals of the American carboniferous age appears to be derived wholly from the plants which formed them. According to analyses by many chemists (quoted by Prof. Dana, in the last edition of his " Geology"), made on lycopods, ferns, equiseta, mosses, conifera, &c., there is in them an average quantity of silica and alumina, such that if the plants were converted into coal it would amount to 4 per cent. of the whole, and the whole ash would be 4'75. Many analyses of bituminous coal show but 3 per cent. of ash and 4'5 is an average. Hence it follows: :- (1) That the whole of the impurity in the best coals may have been derived from the plants; (2) the amount of ash in the plants was less than the average of modern species of the same tribes; (3) the winds and waters for long periods contributed almost no dust or detritus to the marshes. In that era of moist climate and universal forests there was hardly any chance for the winds to gather dust or sand for transportation.

Nature.

THE production of opium in Asia Minor, which in former years averaged annually from 2,000 to 3,000 baskets or cases, each contain

ing 150 lbs., has of late years much increased, and the crop now averages from 4,000 to 6,000 baskets. Out of this quantity, which is shipped at Smyrna, the United States take above 2,000 cases. England at one time consumed a large proportion. The Dutch East India Company also for many years have purchased large quantities annually to send to the islands of Java, Batavia, and Sumatra, and of late years the consumption generally has largely increased, especially for North and South America and the West Indies. Turkey opium is always preferred in England before that of India, as it contains a much higher percentage of morphia than either Indian or Persian; it is on this account that the greater portion of the opium used for medicinal purposes both in Europe and America is the production of Asia Minor. The price of this opium in the market has advanced much of late; fifteen years ago the average price was about 15s. per lb., and it now realizes about 1. per lb., though the fair character even of this product has been tarnished by a system of adulteration which has prevailed during the past two years. About 300 cases of this adulterated opium have been sold in the period mentioned, so that purchasers are now very careful from whom they obtain the drug.

Nature.

Fifth Series,
Volume IX.

No. 1598.- January 23, 1875.

{From Beginning

Vol. OXXIV.

III. INTERNATIONAL VANITIES. VIII. — Glory, Blackwood's Magazine,
IV. ISMAILIA. By Thos. Hughes,

V. THE STORY OF VALENTINE; AND HIS
BROTHER. Part XX.,.

VI. SAXON STUDIES.

Contemporary Review,
Spectator,

Economist,

Pall Mall Gazette,

Macmillan's Magazine,

By Julian Hawthorne.

PUBLISHED EVERY SATURDAY BY

LITTELL & GAY, BOSTON.

TERMS OF SUBSCRIPTION.

For EIGHT DOLLARS, remitted directly to the Publishers, the LIVING AGE will be punctually forwarded for a year, free of postage.

An extra copy of THE LIVING AGE is sent gratis to any one getting up a club of Five New Subscribers. Remittances should be made by bank draft or check, or by post-office money-order, if possible. If neither of these can be procured, the money should be sent in a registered letter. All postmasters are obliged to register letters when requested to do so. Drafts, checks and money-orders should be made payable to the order of LITTELL & GAY.

You, standing there, so warm with life and I would have loved you- but words have

You would go hence, out of the glowing sun- Then there is silence in the sunny garden,

"Hush! oh, hush, my So human love, and death by faith unshaken,

From The Westminster Review.

CHARLES AND MARY LAMB: THEIR ED-
ITORS AND BIOGRAPHERS.

Particulars of time and place, niceties of thought and action, historical accuracies even, are of little consequence in the first conception of a character or epoch; representative truth, that will by-and-by expand and thicken into substantial truth, is all that is required; and precisely this is supplied by the "Essays of Elia." The shadowy author of these well-nigh insoluble compounds of jest and earnest whom the reader summons to his side as Elia, is in every sense an honest ghost, and whoever reads no further may assure himself that he has seen a true phantom of the "gentle Charles." Further researches, even extending to the last scrap

IN 1823 were published, in a small octavo volume, "Elia: Essays which have appeared under that signature in the London Magazine." This attempt to denote both the author and his essays by the word Elia failed. The readers of these delightful compositions found their main charm to consist in a peculiar and fascinating vein of egotism. Neither Addison nor Montaigne had given indications of so novel and interesting a personality. Each essay clung to a centre as petals enfold the calyx, and for that centre a symbol must be found. Hence, of Lamb's published remains, well as they in later editions, Charles Lamb's first reward the searcher, only fill in the outvolume of essays became the "Essays line, as the features in a sun-picture grow of Elia," and the familiar signature re-distinct under exposure. Popular acsumed its old place, though it could quaintance is with the Elia of the essays, hardly have been foreseen by the author. and Lamb's fame has benefited more by This twofold division of Lamb into his this than if he were principally known proper self and the visionary Elia has through any other of his works, through proved a fortunate chance for Lamb's his biographers, or even through his corliterary fame, and for the posterity to respondence. whom he left the rich bequest of his life and his writings.

In literature, as elsewhere, first impressions count for much; and whether the most prominent of an author's productions, the one by which he is admitted, as it were, into the confidence of the general reader, is one-sided or manysided, has one characteristic excellence or many, and reflects a part or the whole of the writer's mind, are weighty alternatives in the determination of literary fame. The most powerful of a man's books does not necessarily give a true picture of his character in its most multifarious aspect; and yet the majority of desultory readers is apt to form its literary judgment on a solitary specimen of the author's genius, and that the most striking one, having neither time nor inclination to collate it with the rest. This is a hazard which all authors more or less incur; few escape it so fortunately as Charles Lamb. Lamb's essays are by far the most popularly read of his works, and they present on the whole the best portrait it would be possible to have of him within the compass of one book.

And readers of Lamb profit no less from this precession of his shadow. Most of them owe their first knowledge of him to the attraction of his shadow, and these reap a decided advantage from having approached the man through his maturest work. Even the highest lessons of his life, far outstepping any mere literary interest, become more eloquent when viewed as the stern parents of those dream-children, the essays. For Lamb's intimate associates for acquaintance with him is something closer than converse with the dead almost every sentence in the essays carries a meaning, so that in reading them one conjures up, and that not only in the essentially autobiographical essays, the figure of the author in one or other of his many haunts, giving birth to just such a creature of the fancy, and linking it by the queerest chain of conceits to incidents and passages in his own life.

But though the shadow Elia has a consistency, truth, and value of its own beyond the consistency, truth, and value of most first conceptions, everything is to be gained by tracking the shadow back