The Contributors' Club

IT is October, and Paris is full of foreigners. The King of Dress holds a levee daily from two until five p. m., No. 7 Rue do la Paix, first story above the entresol. He is the only absolute monarch left in Europe, and his: court is the most cosmopolitan. There is no need of minister or master of ceremonies to present you, however: you push open a double swinging glass door at the head of the staircase, — through which, for once, you see yourself as others see you in a long looking-glass facing the entrance, which surprises you, on your first visit, with the vision of a familiar stranger about to go out as you come in, — and you find yourself in a long, light corridor, lined with settees. At the end, to the right, are rooms for fitting dresses, inspecting colors by gaslight, private consultations, afternoon tea, very likely ; at, the opposite end, to the left, are the show-rooms, the sovereign’s audience and antechambers. There are four in open communication, well lighted by long windows on the Rue de la Paix, not large, and blocked in various directions by counters covered with goods, wall-cupboards with doors ajar and goods ranged on shelves, chests of drawers half open, revealing more goods. On a door-post is pinned a bunch of scraps of every color and stuff, like a secret signal ; above it is a card covered with figures and letters intelligible only to the initiated. There are very few chairs, as people who go to Mr. Worth’s are not expected to sit down ; but there is not much standing room, either. If you were there about the middle of the afternoon, one bright day in the early autumn, 1883, this is what you saw and heard : — Mr. Worth himself is the centre of constantly changing groups of men and women, American, English, French, Russian, Spanish, and unclassified. They are not all speaking or listening to him, — only those who understand English or can guess at his French do that ; the others are waited upon by underlings, who address them in their native language. But the majority cluster round Mr. Worth. He is dressed in a blue flannel sack-coat, buttoned across his burly person, brown trousers, a turn-down collar, and crimson scarf, all shabby. The immediate object of his attention is a single lady of great wealth, from New York ; gray-haired, quiet in dress and demeanor, but with something about her which marks her as being somebody, as distinguished from anybody. The interview is drawing to an end. “ Then you ’ll be sure to let me have it to-morrow ? ” she asks. “Yes, yes. I don’t like to see you going about in that tiling. You look like an undertaker.” They laugh, and she departs. A pretty Frenchwoman, who has been waiting her turn, advances for inspection in a dress which has just been tried on. Mr. Worth steps aside to an inner room, in full sight of the rest, where there are a few feet of polished floor clear, seats himself on the only chair, and motions her to turn round. She obeys : turns right, left, advances, retreats, crosses her arms, throws back her head, walks off a few paces, then returns. Mr. Worth makes a criticism to the fitter, — a slender damsel dressed in green silk and brocade, with a deep, square linen collar edged with point-lace, like the pictures of Queen Henrietta Maria of England, — and dismisses Madame la Baronne. The next in order is an English family. The father is rubicund, clever looking, well dressed, and alert; he has the air of a new, rich M. P. The mother is gentle and staid ; the daughter so pretty and elegant that she might pass for an American but for the silver dog collar she wears outside her jacket. Worth summons a shopman, and they begin discussing the merits of various black silks. But you find it impossible to fix your attention on one group ; it is distracted at this moment by a charming French girl, who is exhibiting herself to her handsome mother in a bewitching little mantle. An imposing shopwoman of fifty or upwards, with a pearl-powdered face and hair dyed blonde, in an amber and gold Medicis costume (the fashions are of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, at present), is abetting the young lady in overriding her mamma’s objections to the extravagance in buying a garment which will be out of season in three weeks. The daughter tosses her pretty head, and looks appealingly at her mother over her graceful shoulders, with a movement and expression instinct with natural coquetry and desire to please. Before the question is decided a loud, inarticulate sound, between a yawn, a groan, and a grumble, issues from the breast of a sharp, good looking American, in a rough coat and felt hat, who is walking to and fro as if he had been doing it for a long time; looking out of the window, into the boxes of dry goods, and at the slim shop-girls in their fine clothes with the same wideawake, uninterested glance. “ My dear,” he says, stopping short by a knot of beautifully dressed women, who are in close council over heaps of shiny stuffs, creamy satin with bouquets of tea-roses, silvery brocade with velvety bunches of begonia leaves, and other blooming fabrics as lovely as flower - paintings,— “ Julia, my dear, I can’t hold on any longer. You don’t want me. Have you got all the money you want ? If you don’t know what the figure will be, I ’ll send a check. I guess that’s the best plan, any way. Good-by, girls. I suppose you ’ll all turn up about dinner-time.” Off he goes. The shopwoman who is waiting on his wife and daughters has a pale, faded, handsome, refined face, and is dressed with severe simplicity in black silk, with a white fichu. She has been part of the establishment longer than any one else, except the head of it. She bestows a discreet smile upon the ladies, as if to say that one may well be tolerant of the oddities of such a man as that. Her eye, following him to the door, rests upon a lady who has been wandering about the rooms in a rather purposeless way for some time. “ Is any one waiting upon you, madame? " The lady, a slight, attractive person of thirty, replies carelessly, in French, that they have gone to look for the cloak she is to try on ; and after lingering and looking about for another minute, she disappears through a door, followed by a young man carrying a cloak on his arm. " Well, name a figure,” Mr. Worth is heard to say. “ Will you say two thousand francs ? ” “ That you won’t,” interposes the English husband. “ Let us see something reasonable.” “ A thousand francs, if you like,” returns Worth : “ one must fix a sum to begin.” The pale, sympathetic shopwoman tells the American ladies that she knows exactly what will suit them. Mademoiselle 舒is to marry Prince Radziwill next week, and they shall see some of her dresses ; and she gives an order to a man in livery. Just then a very well-bred, good-looking, middle-aged Frenchman, dressed for the afternoon with extreme care and correctness, looks in from the antechamber, hat in hand, and after running his eye keenly over the room inquires of the principal shopwoman, in a civil, good-humored tone, if the Countess has been there yet. “ No, Monsieur le Comte, Madame la Comtesse has not been here to-day. If she comes later, shall I say that Monsieur le Comte is looking for her ? ” “ No, thank you ; not worth while,” he replies. “ She has probably changed her mind, and gone home.” As he withdraws, the lady who went to try on her cloak opens the door, and comes out hastily, meeting M. le Comte in the antechamber. He bows ; they exchange half a dozen words which no one else can hear; he bows again and goes out. She comes back into the show-room, turns over some patterns for a little while, and then goes away, saying to a clerk who is not waiting upon her that she will call again about the cloak. As she leaves the room glances of intelligence pass between several of the employees. “ That would make a good gown, I should say,” observes the Englishman. “ Of course it would. There ’s nothing here that would n’t make a good gown,” Mr. Worth responds; “but for my part, I don’t like to put fine wine in dirty glasses.” The mother and daughter giggle; the father observes, don’t quite understand.” “ Why, I like to see a fine bust in a handsome dress, and I should n’t like to put that young lady’s form in a second-rate silk.”

A louder buzz of voices drowns the rejoinder ; then there is a momentary hush, and a line of porters in livery make their way into the room, each holding a magnificent dress skirt, followed by a frowzy little girl bearing the train. It looks as if the Princess Radziwill’s clothes were going to court without her. Everybody draws back with involuntary respect, as the splendid array sweeps by. The American ladies burst into rapturous exclamations, and at once order similar dresses.

Meanwhile people have been coming and going, but the rooms are now full. There is not room enough; there is not air enough ; there are not hands enough to wait upon the customers. There are loud calls for Miss Mary, Miss Ella, Madame Bouillon, Madame Emile, Mademoiselle Helene. There is an incessant subdued slamming of the swingdoors. Untidy minxes of twelve or thirteen, with pert London faces, dressed in threadbare stuff gowns, run in and out on errands among the elegantly dressed shopwomen and purchasers. The clerks dash about, running against the women of the house, in their costumes of Charles II.’s time, catch them in their arms, dodge, laugh, and rush onwards. Incessant questions assail the forewoman : " here shall Mrs. S. try on her dress ? ” “ When is the Duchesse de B. to call again ? ” “ Who is to fit the Queen of Bohemia to-morrow ? ” “ Which are Miss L.’s patterns?” “How much will you make my costume for ? ” “ Why has my coat not been sent home ? ” The answers come as clear and prompt as if read from a book : “ Mrs. S. to the second dressing-closet. The Duchesse can call the day after tomorrow, at eleven o’clock. Madame Emile is to fit the Queen to-day, at five o’clock. Miss L.’s patterns went this morning by post. The lowest we can make you that dinner-dress for, madam, is fifteen hundred francs; if you use your own lace, it will be fourteen hundred and seventy-five. Your coat is only waiting for the buttons, miss. Those you desired had to be made to order.” The speaker is an Englishwoman, tall and thin, but well made and graceful, with a small head, sharp little features, and a bold, intelligent, irritable face ; in all the hubbub and confusion she keeps her head, her temper, and her civility. There is not a pretense of order, quiet, decorum, — what the French call terme. Mr. Worth sets the example. “ Here, Ella ! ” he shouts from the inner room to a girl who is in the act of showing goods to a lady. The slender Ella drops the silk, leaves the customer, and flies ; in a minute more she is to be seen gliding about in a flamecolored satin mantle, which Mr. Worth is recommending to an immensely stout, swarthy, elderly woman, whom he addresses as “ Altesse ” (your highness). The clerks laugh and talk with each other, leaning against the counters, in the brief breathing spaces of their attendance on purchasers. “ How, Alfonso ! You a Spaniard, and not gone to pay your respects to your king to-day ? ” “ Well, Danicheff, has your grand duchess sent for you yet? She must need some new clothes, as the Nihilists blew up her old ones.” The principal male personages are an ugly, common-looking, shabby little man of fifty or thereabouts, with a clever, cynical face, and a great gift for remembering people whom he has once seen, and a supple, sinuous young fellow, with a delicately cut Jewish profile and extremely long, dark eyes and slender eyebrows, marking an almond-shaped outline on his ivorytinted complexion, hair and beard worn very close, in the Venetian fashion of the sixteenth century ; he is extremely civil and capable, but the chief direction evidently lies with the women.

Mr. Worth has become invisible, but is audible, haranguing a new party: “That’s the dress you want; it sets off a good figure. When a lady rises and comes forward to receive, her skirt must take a graceful sweep, — so. This new silk falls into the right folds. I made one like it. for a rich Philadelphia lady. Philadelphia ladies are very particular. I ’ll make yours blue. Like this brocade? I made it up last spring for Mrs. B., of Boston. She wanted something else, but I said, ’ Now, Mrs. B., I know what ’ll suit you better than you do yourself. You leave it to me, and I know you ’ll be satisfied.’ But Mrs. B. thought she knew better, and we had a difference, and she went off to somebody else.” “ Where did she go?” asks a listener. “ Lord, how do I know ? To the Bon Marché, I suppose, ha, ha, ha ! But she came back in a week or two, and said she, ’ Well, Mr. Worth, you do suit me better than anybody else, and I’m going to let you make me that dress. What will you make it for ? ’ I said, ‘ Mrs. B., if you want cheap stuff, you go somewhere else ; but if you ’ll trust me, I ’ll make you the handsomest dress yon ever had on your back, and not charge you too much, either.’ So I made the dress and sent it home; and Mrs. B. came and said to me, ‘Mr. Worth, you’ve been better than your word ’ ” — Here the din drowns the remainder of the story, if there is any. The rooms overflow into the corridor. “ There is M. Carolus Duran,” says a showwoman to a group of foreign customers. They hasten to the door to see the celebrated painter, a tall, thin figure, with a dark, rather handsome face, though a little of the Mephistophelic type, attired with an artist’s privileged carelessness. He is inspecting the dress of one of his fair sitters, made according to his order, to see whether it meets his views, and will be worthy of the portrait he is to make of her. An erect, bulky, high-colored woman, with regular features and an auburn wig, wearing a round straw hat and a cloak made of an India shawl, lays her hand on the shoulder of a young woman who is showing patterns to a lady who has been waiting half an hour for her turn : “Just a moment, mademoiselle.” “I beg your pardon, milady, but this lady has been waiting a long while.” “ I must speak to you for a moment. I ‘m in a hurry,” returns milady imperiously. “ Go,” says the other customer to the embarrassed girl, who obeys with a gesture of apology; the Englishwoman giving no sign that there is another person concerned. At that moment, however, Mr. Worth emerges from his concealment, elbowing his way unceremoniously through the crowd. “ Oh, see here, Mr. Worth ! ” cries milady, tapping him on the arm. “Oh, it’s you, Lady C. How d’ye do, milady?” They draw close together : she lays one of her hands on his wrist, he lays one of his on hers, then the other, as if they are going to play what children call Carry my lady to London. Their words are lost amid the other voices, but they remain in this confidential attitude for several minutes. Then she releases herself, emphasizing her parting orders by a light blow of her forefinger on his chest. “ All right, milady,” he replies, and she goes away. Worth himself gazes slowly about the rooms, as if to ascertain if there be anybody left deserving his attention, meets a lady coming in who is apparently unknown to him, stares at her deliberately from head to foot, and then from foot to head, before moving aside to let her pass, and then saunters down the corridor, and disappears.

Without him the show-rooms have not half their life, so you go upstairs. On the story above there are several rooms, with waxed floors, velvet sofas, and carved walnut clothes-presses, through the half-open doors of which you see gleams of satin, velvet, or fur, ready-made garments, for sale or as models. In these rooms there are few people, and it is quiet. On one of the sofas sit an elderly French couple : she is a hard-favored, intelligent-looking, aristocratic woman, and is choosing a wrap for driving ; he has gray hair and mustache, and a superb Bonaparte profile, although from their simple dress and distinction of manner both he and his wife probably belong to the Legitimist society of the Faubourg St. Germain (which does not patronize Mr. Worth), a supposition which is strengthened by their being in the slight conventional mourning, such as is being worn by that set for the Comte de Chambord. In the same room an American lady is looking at opera-cloaks, which are displayed to her by a tall, undulating creature, with warm brown hair and half-shut eyes of the same color, a creamy face, and a mouth like a large crimson blot upon it. She drapes herself in the plush and cashmere, and advances and recedes to show the effect, unconscious, to all appearance, of the presence of anybody except her special customer. The French gentleman watches her out of the corner of one eye, without turning his head half an inch; but the French lady keeps a sharp lookout, in the midst of her canny bargaining. At length their showman says that if Madame la Marquise will take the trouble to step into the next room she can see the gray wrap to better advantage, as there are more windows and the light is fading. “Yes, the light is fading,” says the Marquise, rising briskly and about to follow him ; but on the threshold she turns sharply round to her marquis, who sits fast: “ Venez, mon ami,” and whisks him off from the dangerous propinquity. The light is fading, and it is time to go.

— When Mr. Grant White brings words and their abusers into court he is always entertaining, and his judgments are nearly always just. It is rarely that he makes a slip of the memory or of the pen like one or two which attracted my attention in reading his paper on Some Alleged Americanisms, in the December Atlantic (1883). In criticising the language which an English writer puts into the mouth of one of his “ American ” characters, Hannah Coffin, he says of her exclamation “ Laws ! ” that it would be more naturally “ Law suz !” and remarks of a certain speech of hers, “This passage contains a blunder which spots all this worthy but unhappily monstrous female’s speeches: ‘ There ain’t no one here as knows,’ etc. This preservation of the old English use of ‘ as ’ in constructions where modern English requires ‘ that,’ ” he goes on to say, “ is unheard and unknown in New England, where fairly ‘ good grammar ’ is spoken even by those who have received only a few winters’ district-schooling, and who will use queer, uncouth phrases, pronounce grotesquely, and speak in a sharp, nasal tone that sets one’s teeth on edge.”

First, as to “ laws ” and “ law suz.” In my opinion they are two separate expressions, and among old-fashioned up-country people I have found one about as common us the other. “ Laws ” appears to be an abbreviated form of the oath “ By the laws ! ” which one may occasionally hear pronounced with stern emphasis by respectable magistrates and deacons who like to swear without being profane. “ Law suz ” is most likely a contraction of “ Lord save us.” “ Lor’ ” is also a mild form of Yankee oath.

“There ain’t no one here as knows” is certainly a kind of expression never used by a native of New England. People who say “ ain’t ” would drop the connective word altogether, and say, “There ain’t no one here knows.” But when Mr. White tells us that the use of “ as ” for “ that ” is “ unheard and unknown in New England,” he states a general rule, indeed, but one to which there are marked exceptions. No Yankee will ever say, “ The man as I was talking with,” any more than he will say, with Rawdon Crawley, “ The pistols which I shot Markham.” But not only “ those who have received a few winters’ district-schooling,” but, alas, too many who are to-day giving instruction even in grammar schools, and high schools, say constantly, “ I don’t know as ” and “I don’t remember as,” where “that” is clearly the necessary word. When, according to the newspapers, Salmon, the Laconia murderer, was asked, the other day, if he made any calls at a certain time, he replied, “ I can’t tell as I did.” “ I ain’t certain as I did ” and “ I ain’t sure as I did ” are also New England expressions. “ I told him as how ” is not common, but it is sometimes heard.

I am here reminded of a slip of Mr. Lowell’s, who somewhere gives as a Yankee expression, “ I don’t know as I will, and I don’t know as I will.” This I see repeated by other writers, who find it convenient to make the Biglow Papers a quarry for their Yankeeisms. I am confident his imitators never heard it; I doubt that Mr. Lowell himself ever heard it. He was probably misled by an expression similar in sound, but having a logical construction which is wanting in the form he gives it, — an expression which I have heard myself many times : “ I don’t know but I will, and I don’t know as I will.” Here the “ as,” in opposition to “ but,” has force ; but put another “ as ” in the place of “ but,” and the sense is sprawling.

— The Woman Who Shuts her Eyes has been an interesting study to me since my childhood. I find that I do not, after long acquaintance, thoroughly understand her. Unknown to herself, there is a touch of abstraction and mysticism in her peculiar habit, which at once engages philosophic speculation. What I find phenomenal in her case is not the mere fact that she shuts her eyes, since once in twenty-four hours for purposes of sleep, and at least once a minute in winking, we all do the same; the singularity of her action is that she closes her eyes, and keeps them closed, upon occasions the least sleep-inducing, and, seemingly, the least suitable for reflection and self-communing. Often, in a conversation that apparently engages her whole attention, her eyelids will drop, smoothly curtaining the windows of her soul, and lending her countenance an expression of great placidity. At such times I do not imagine her to be sleeping, for though ocular communication is hindered, the exchange of ideas is not; her remarks are as relevant as ever, and show that her interest in the conversation remains unabated. Though aware that her condition is entirely normal, I cannot quite overcome the impression that I am talking with one who enjoys a state of reverie or exaltation into which I am not permitted to enter. Sometimes I am put in mind, not so very agreeably, of the trance-medium or the clairvoyant; then, perhaps for an instatit, I entertain the idea of asking her some of those well-considered questions usually put to spiritist seers.

Dropping all pretense of mystery, the Woman Who Shuts her Eyes — the particular one I am acquainted with — is as little like a sibyl as could well be imagined. The mother of many children, now a sedate, middle-aged matron, rosy, serene, soft-voiced, — I am more than half inclined to attribute her enviable preservation from the gnawing and embittering cares of life to the exercise of the placid habit which I have described. This habit, I have good reason to believe, played a large part in her maternal government, and, contrary to what might have been expected, was productive of sound results. Not only when rocking her children and singing them to sleep was she wont to close those gentle eyes, but also when dispensing reproof (which, like a good mother, she spared not). I have even heard that when obliged to administer corporal chastisement she would close her eyes during the fiercest of the struggle: very likely she would have closed her ears also, had they, like her eyes, possessed lids.

The defensive virtue of this simple practice is greater than at first appears. If it cannot cure an evil, it is at least a charming anæsthetic. Against the intemperate glare of the sun, against inconsiderate rough winds, against rain, hail, and snow, this good woman has only to drop her eyelids, when, if the expression of her face is to be trusted, all these weather ills are as though they were not. More than once I have seen her thus, — an image of imperturbable sweetness, — with her family, riding to church ; and at church, whenever the preached word became more denunciatory than usual, dealing with judgment rather than with mercy, I have seen those deprecating lids shut down between her mild eyes and the pulpit messenger of wrath divine. The same thing may be noted if, in her presence, a too searching inventory be made of the bad traits of an absent person. Surely, it would do one good who loves his fellowmortal to see such outward token of a disposition to connive or wink at the faults and follies of humanity : not always are we so well advised as in her case that our friends shut their eyes to our imperfections.

I was about to recommend the excellent practice, herein described, to such as are troubled by too keen and anxious prevision ; but I am not sure the practice can be acquired. From all I can gather of her history, it does not appear that the amiable subject of this sketch acquired the habit: it seems rather to have been a trait of temperament; not second, but first, nature with her. Doubtless, even in the cradle her face often assumed this look of peaceful introspection, causing her nurses to think that she enjoyed angelic confidences. There is, indeed, a tradition in her family, which affirms that, when her hand was sought in marriage, she signed her consent by merely dropping her eyes, and smiling. When she dies (may she long be spared to illustrate the virtue and beauty of composure) her death will, I think, be an example of euthanasy. As she has so often done before at any stern or doubtful prospect, she will but close her eyes and slip away from the contemplation of earthly things, and her friends shall not be able to say where reverie leaves off and eternal sleep begins.

— It is astonishing how easily we change our minds, and how impossible it is for us to regard the individual as we do the class to which it belongs. Perhaps the sum total of the faults of a class is more than we can bear, while the single offender has not the power to disturb us, and we are ashamed to oppose ourselves to so small and defenseless an enemy, these thoughts were not directly suggested by human beings, but by flies. One recoils from the sound of their name, as a reminder of their constant annoyance in some places and at some times of the year ; but I must confess that, sitting for hours at a time by the same sunny window in winter, I have more than once become fondly attached to a single fly, which has hovered about my desk and basked in the corners of the window-panes. This year it is a singularly tame little insect, and unusually free from troublesome tricks. He is not sticky-footed, neither is he one of the pertinacious sort, which insists upon returning again and again to the same spot on ray nose or eyebrow. He is more apt, when away from the window, to take up his position on my stamp-box, or the edge of a Grand-Canal-colored Venetian shell, which is fastened against the wall, near it. From thence he looks at me steadily, as if he were waiting to fly my errands for me; and I have wondered if it is he who brings back to me the words that I sometimes miss from my sentences, as I write. He buzzes them gently into my ear, and returns to his post to trim his wings for the next flight. I fancy that he sees my stories in detail, letter by letter, and that a word of four syllables has to be carried back by piecemeal, so that I vainly search my brain for the whole when only part has yet arrived.

If I have had a bit of candy, my fly is sure to find some fragments of it which escaped me, and he walks boldly among the edges of letters and sheets of paper; and if I must move them about, he takes the shortest possible flight, and comes back again fearlessly. I wonder that it does not strike him dead with terror when I stir, or when even my hand passes over him, eclipsing the rest of the world for the time being; and yet he only flies out of its way, when the hovering weight is at too close quarters. I cannot conceive why the smaller animals are no more afraid of us, and do not appear more sensible of their danger when we approach. The least of the insects probably have the same feeling that we do when astronomers tell us that the world spins round and moves through space; and who knows what theories the wise spiders have made, being proficient in geometry and other exact sciences ! They must look upon human beings as we look upon comets, and think of life as filled with accident and disaster from the eccentricities of our orbits.

The winter fly is less energetic than his summer friends, and takes life calmly, and indulges himself in quiet pleasures. He seems sometimes like a very old man, who has outlived his generation, and whose horizon grows narrower every year. The recollection of the past season must be a great surprise to my friend the last fly ; and to find the world a changed and depopulated place must be melancholy. It may be that insects and animals have much more affection for each other than we suppose, and even seem to each other to be possessed of souls. They may anticipate a future life with awe, and the caterpillar, who weaves his own shroud, may do it with a solemn sense of his future angelhood. He may have been told by some longer-lived neighbor that he will not always grovel among earthly things, or at best climb perilously up a grass stalk or fence post, but will wear shining wings, and wander at his will through space and from flower to flower. He would almost be sure of the millennium, if he did not know that his heaven and hell were dismally interfused, and that such things as sharp-beaked birds, and little boys with nets and pins, and Death himself were lying in wait for him in the bowers of his paradise.

On those days when a flood of sunshine comes through the window my lonely winter fly takes courage, and soars and buzzes as if it were summer again ; but when the sky is gray he goes afoot altogether, as if he were rheumatic, and he stays a great while in one place, and does not venture into the air except for safety at a time of great danger. There is a pot of geranium on the window-sill, which serves him for a garden ; and here he gets a drink of water, once in a while, or goes aloft to sit in the middle of a broad green leaf. He behaves at such times as if he wished for company ; and I pity him, and should be very much shocked if I were reminded how many of his relatives I have killed with a newspaper or other engine of destruction, in the summer months. His is sleeping place is behind a little picture, and I am always glad to see him walk out in the morning ; for I have learned from sad experience that some day I shall miss him, and my pen will bring a dreadful blotting fragment from the depths of the ink bottle, which will drop upon my sheet of paper, to remind me that my fly was mortal, and tell me that his life is spent. His is crumb of cake will presently be dusted away, and for many days I shall forget that he is dead, and be careful to avoid throwing books upon him, or to carelessly harm the fragile creature, whom I fancied had learned not to be afraid of me while he shared my fortunes. I liked to see him sit upon my hand, and ride back and forth along the lines as I wrote. But why do I speak as if my poor friend were already dead, since here he comes, brisk and busy, to see what we have before us in the way of scribbling, this pleasant winter’s day.

— While condemning with proper severity the cockney maltreatment of the eighth letter of the alphabet, we might find something, on this very point, to censure in ourselves. The American, confident that no countryman of his ever denied the aspirate its full right, has not listened with critical ear, else he has not happened to meet the people who say w’ich, w’at, w’en, w’y, etc. Such slighting of the letter h is by no means uncommon, while it is especially characteristic of certain sections of the country; stranger yet, the persons thus transgressing are, as often as otherwise, possessed of liberal education and mental refinemeut. I have heard these suppressors of their h’s complain that, in trying to amend the fault, they fell into error on the other side: in restoring the h to w’ich and w’at, they were apt to insert it where it does not belong ; for example, converting will into whill.

What shall be said, O conservers of English in its purity ? Will you find it a lesser cruelty to smother h in the middle of a word than to strike it down at the beginning? But perhaps we shall not be able to prove ourselves guiltless of the latter offense. The decapitated words in “ We met ’im ” and “ I love ’er ” may present a strange appearance in print, but when tried orally are recognized as only too familiar acquaintances.

The letter r is perhaps subject to more trying vicissitudes than is the letter h. As you travel westward in this country, you shall hear (so it is said) an ever-increasing burr, or roll of the final r ; vires acquirit eundo, — going West. I confess that the burr does not offend my auditory nerves : I even like it; it brings up the rear so bravely. All honor to r final, by whose agency horrors are rendered more thrilling and effective, rivers more suggestive of strong and turbulent currents. Of course these onomatopoetic sounds are not heard in the East save as your Westerner imports them ; there, indeed, the letter r reaches the lowest ebb of its fortunes. Yet, unless I am misinformed, there are some New England regions where it succeeds in foisting itself into the good graces of the vernacular. Ghost of an alphabetical Banquo, it rises at the most unseemly times, to avenge its taking-off. The place it chooses to fill is at the end of a word, following the vowel a. Thus it happens that we sometimes hear such peculiar feminine appellations as Idar and Emmar: from this source we receive a novel idear in orthoepy.

I sometimes think there is a disease of the ear corresponding to what in the eye is termed color-blindness. Colordeafness might be defined as the inability to distinguish the nice shades of difference between related sounds. It is possible that persons afflicted with this infirmity are unable to recognize all the values of the vowels and consonants of spoken language; the sounds of certain letters may not reach their ear, or their ear may report unwarranted sounds. A school-teacher (from Hew England, I believe) was instructing a class in the science of punctuation. On her calling attention to the use of the comma, some of the children laughed. “ What are you laughing at ? ” asked the teacher. “ You said commar,” answered a forward boy. “ And what do you say ? ” “ Comma ” (with sharp precision). “ Well, I say commar, too,” was the teacher’s reply. In much the same way, a Southern lady of my acquaintance suffers from color-deafness, mistaking broad a for r. On being charged with defrauding the r in “good-morning,”she good-humoredly attempted to acquit herself: “Listen: I say good-mawning, too ; ” but she only dwelt a little longer than usual on the aw sound.

— A contributor, who at some period of his life must have been an editor, sends us the following neat Motto for the Waste-Basket: —

— Sometimes, when benevolent persons tire discussing the result of any special method of charitable action, they seem to separate people sharply into two classes, those who are to — try to — do good, and those who are to be done good to ; as if there were no interaction, and as if philanthropy had no effect upon society at large other than its effect upon such persons as are afflicted with poverty. In this way, even some who object earnestly to any setting apart of poor individuals as a a poor class do unconsciously classify them, and separate them from the rich, who are to — be urged to — benefit them. I have sometimes wondered, on the contrary, whether Providence did not permit poverty to exist for the sake of the rich man’s higher good. It was Lazarus who gave Dives the chance by which he might have saved his soul. If there be any truth in this idea, how objectionable becomes that attitude of philanthropic ease which assumes that Dives is of much greater value to Lazarus than Lazarus can be to Dives! In spite of the severe political economists, disciples of what Emerson calls a “ brutal political economy,” there are aspects of the social question which suggest the possibility that some of the suffering of the poor is, if not a vicarious atonement, at least a vicarious punishment, inflicted for the sins of the rich. If this be so, how does our condescension to their suffering look ? In estimating the value of a charitable relation, it seems to me, we should consider its effect on everybody concerned ; not merely upon those persons whom we designate as its “ objects.” It may be as important that Arthur Percy of Spire Street should not be wholly self-absorbed as that Dick Jones of Tavern Alley should not go hungry; and I have suspected that there might be a God who was interested in Arthur Percy’s misguided efforts to procure Dick Jones a dinner as much on Arthur’s account as on Dick’s. This is not saying that it is not desirable that Arthur should learn to go about his business in the wisest way. It is only asserting that the business is a matter affecting two souls, and that the one is not more superior to its need than the other. Oliver Johnson used to say that perhaps he had been able to do little or nothing for the antislavery cause, but the antislavery cause had done everything for him. It had revealed to him the new heavens and the new earth. That is a spirit touched with humility befitting a philanthropist.

The idea of charity once was of a service done to God through his “ little ones,” — the opening of communion with him through them. There may be danger that the modern opinion of the relation, or lack of relation, between men and the unknown, unknowable God will strip the wretched part of humanity of the halo of kinship with divinity, which once shone in the eyes of all gazers ; and that as we, in our secure superiority, look upon its nakedness, from which that reverent conception is withdrawn, we shall withdraw also our own spirits, and even while we serve learn to despise our fellow-men. There may be danger, for every idea that has ever possessed earnest minds has had a tendency to push itself too far in the thoughtful, and to brutalize itself in the unthinking.

I do not, of course, advocate a return to the mediæval way of looking upon almsgiving merely as a method of purchasing one’s own salvation, without much regard to the beggar’s good; yet was there not a kernel of blessing in that great shell of error, in the feeling which made the beggar’s misery the rich man’s chance, and thus bound their lots together ? Together, — that is the moral I seek. The evil that we do the poor man hurts us as well as him ; the good we fail to do him may peradventure be turned to our need. We are all needy together.

— This morning, in the serene world of books. I met a certain chansonnier, — a complaisant spirit, with a charter for making the songs of a people, whoever might have the making of their laws. As it happened, however, the song I heard him singing was something quite different from a popular ballad : seeming to direct the melodious shafts of his humor at himself alone, he in reality aimed at, and brought down, all of us whose achievement in art falls short of our original conception. Wherefore, as I could not think of a revenge more exquisite, I determined to render into such English as I could command the charming reflections of Pierre-Jean de Béranger on

LES GRANDS PROJETS.

THE GRAND PLANS.