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warded men. They had many personal friends in all ranks of society. They were held in great honor and admiration by multitudes of men and women whom they did not know. They had princely pay for their labor, and were enabled by their power to earn money to give good homes to their wives and children. Yet neither of them, by the usages of English society, was socially among the highest class. They were petted and patronized personally, but they have left no higher social position for their children than they themselves originally held. Wider the circle may be, but its plane is not raised. These literary men whose labor was one of the highest glories of the realm, who carried untold pleasures, and exquisite culture, and pure sentiment, and fructifying thought into every hamlet and house in the kingdom, were not the social equals of an earl, though that earl may have been,--as many an earl undoubtedly has been,—an ass. That they both saw the injustice of this, and despised the constitution of society that made such injustice possible, is not to be doubted—thorough Englishmen as both of them were; and so thoroughly must they have seen the baselessness of the social distinctions which placed them where they stood in the social scale, that they could not but despise the titles and ribbons of which Mr. Thackeray spoke in his letter. The thought that the Queen of England can delight in having the works of her great novelists in her private apartments, and is shut away by social barriers from their genial, sparkling and fruitful society. and that those next below her must remain with those among whom they were born, may be a trial to them, it ought to be,—but it ought not to disturb the men whose society is so foolishly sacrificed.

After all, the matter is right enough as it is. In this country it is particularly so. In a free country like ours, where the social lines are not closely drawn, we do not see how a man can claim a right to any larger domain than he fairly conquers. The literary man who complains of lack of popular consideration and social reward for his labor, is, by rule, the man who has not comprehended the wants of his time, and has simply sought to serve himself. To complain of lack of public reward for the service of one's self is certainly childish; yet, the great mass of literary men in America who find fault with their winnings is made up of these. Those who are not up to their time, though they mean well, fail of necessity. Those who are above or beyond their time fail, perhaps, in a certain way, but, after all, the world knows enough to know who they are, and accredits them often with more than belongs to them. Emerson has a world of honor from men who do not pretend to understand him.

So we come back to the proposition that a man has no right to any more consideration for his literary labor than, in a fair, open field he can conquer.

Every literary man, by virtue of his constitution, owes a duty to his generation and his time;

and if, comprehending that duty, he performs it well, he has no stint of honor. There is no man around whom gathers so much interest, admiration, affection and respect as around him who charms, teaches, and inspires by his literary work. The young man who boasted that he once saw a railroad train passing, in one car of which sat Charles Dickens, and who felt exalted by the thought that though he had never looked upon his face, he had seen the car that held him, illustrates the enthusiastic affection in which eminent literary men are held. They are kings by right. Their kingdom may not be strictly of this world of titles, and dignities, and palaces, and lands, but it is a veritable kingdom, which holds only loyal subjects. literary man who would not rather be Walter Scott than the Napoleon whom he described, or Thackeray than the Emperor William, or Charles Dickens than the Prince of Wales, or Mrs. Browning than the Queen of England, or Washington Irving than Gen. Jackson, or William Cullen Bryant than General Grant, is a disgrace to his craft, undeserving of any literary reward, and incapable of winning

one.

The

This admitted, it is idle to talk of the inadequacy of literary rewards, so far as the social and personal honors of the world are concerned. They are abundant, and above all titular honors, all wealth, all official position. Mr. Everett is remembered today, not as our minister to England, but as an orator. Mr. Bancroft retires honorably from his Prussian mission, but Mr. Bancroft, the historian, has conferred more honor upon his office than the office has conferred upon him. The principle distinction that has ever come to the Liverpool consulate has come through Mr. Hawthorne's occupation of it. Names like those of Franklin, Adams, and Motley are those almost alone which have saved the bureaus of our diplomatic foreign service from absolute contempt. A hundred ordinary politicians come, go, and are forgotten; but glory lingers around the chairs once occupied by men whom office could not honor.

The great lack of reward to literary labor is in the matter of money. Not one author in twenty can live on his authorial earnings. We speak of this country of cheap books. We have altogether too many men who are still drudging for the bread that feeds themselves and their families, though they have done good, marketable literary work all their lives. Copyright is contemptibly small. We do not mean that publishers make too much, but that the books are sold so cheap that neither publishers nor authors can get a fair living. The consumers of books must remember that out of every dollar they pay for a copyrighted book, the writer gets but ten cents, and that publishers would be quite willing, as a rule, to share the losses and gains of publication with the authors. If copyright were double what it is, authors could not get a living exclusively by authorship. That this is all

wrong, is undoubted. That it ever will be right until we have an international copyright law, which will do away with the competition of American

authors with stolen books, we do not believe. When this wrong is righted, authors will have nothing left to complain of,

THE OLD CABINET.

WE were sitting, this evening, on the steps of a deserted church in the city, and talking about taste-not particularly taste in the fine arts, but what may be called the sense of the fitness of things in general.

It is always surprising to me that the sentence that sounds so fresh and original when you get it off spontaneously in conversation, has such a familiar and commonplace air when you come to write it down, and send it to the printer. For instance:

The law of taste is as omnipresent, as invincible, and as invisible as the law of gravitationwhich is its analogy."

Is there any sight more pathetic than that of a man who knows that somewhere in the vague universe is a supreme rule, whose observance in the conduct of life would place him in a mystic, high brotherhood, to belong to which he would give all his earthly possessions? On every wall he looks in vain for the handwriting, and yet to his neighbor it is blazoned everywhere in living letters. Now and then he hears an oracle, and thinks the rule at last is found. But a new oracle puts to naught the old, and he goes forward on his quest, perplexed and sorrowful.

If there is any sight more pathetic than that, it is the man who all his life is buffeted by a subtle, unseen power, whose individual existence he has no means of apprehending. He thinks it is something else that has touched him; it takes all manner of known shapes-of friend or foe, of mischance, lack of opportunity, misdirected energy; always it is something else than the true thing-the Avenger of taste. Ah, my poor fellow, though you take the wings of the morning, and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, there shall it be with you. It shall be with you when you go a-fishing, or conduct great social reforms; with you at the breakfasttable and at the Stock Exchange. It shall be with you in your letter-writings, your conversations, your prayers (I have heard a parson make a bad pun in a public supplication to the Almighty); with you in the crowded Sixth avenue car, and in the secret place where you think no eye is upon you, and you have the bad taste to soil your soul with plagiarism, Tupperism, or murder. It shall be with you in the doing, and in the failing to do; not only in the whole, rounded act, but in the manner of the act; for even in murder there is a "fine art." It shall be with you when you are reading

the morning paper, and giving easy credence to outrageous scandal, even if you dare not open your mouth and show forth the damnable faith that is in you.

The philosophers-and especially the theological philosophers, are squeamish about acknowledging the identity of bad taste and bad morals. It is a question too large for, at least, one "small philosopher," as Thackeray would say. But is it not a healthy, human and universal instinct that makes me impute moral depravity to the person who "did the decorations at Thomas's Garden-and is there not philosophy in my desire to slay him?

"

(On second thought, I, should prefer to have him taken in hand, given a severe classical training in art, or endowed with a new nature, and then brought back and made to sit there during an entire performance, with his eyes wide open, and his sins staring at him from every quarter of that dreadful room.)

If you will honestly bring the principles of taste to bear upon any moral question, I think you will see what I mean. You will not, of course, make the mistake of the vulgar, that good taste means any particular mode or custom of what is called society, or any particular canon of culture that happens to be reigning, but may be wrong. But bring the true instinctive rule of refinement to bear as a touch-stone upon any question, or any side or issue of any question, and note the decision.

Alas and alas! While I write this the air is full of such noisome things, that one can hardly take a full, wholesome inspiration. Shame and sorrow are in the faces of the just. Brief be the reference here to this pitiful matter; but let me ask you to take, if no higher rule, then this one of which we have been talking, and apply it to any part of all this melancholy proceeding, and see how its application by any one of those concerned, at any time, would have averted evil and misery.

A time of shame and sorrow!-yes; but not only on account of the strange and miserable matter itself, but because it has been, as some have said, a day of judgment for the world. For now have the secrets of all hearts been revealed. And as men have been prone to think evil or good; as they have been pureminded and generous, or narrow and unclean, so have they shown themselves what they were. Shame and sorrow for you and for me, who have seen those we have cared for pass not to the right, but to the left, in the great day of dividing.

I am sure that those of us who, through much tribulation, reach it at last, will find Heaven to be a place of perfect taste; that there will be there neither bad art, nor bad manners, nor bad of any kind.

And on our way to this most desirable Heaven let us stop in at the print-shop, and meditate awhile upon that picture of the self-complacent lamb in the arms of the Good Shepherd. From the bad taste of the Pharisee, good Lord deliver us!

Which Shall It Be?

HOME AND SOCIETY.

In view of the great dangers besetting young people of the present day, in the form of bad newspapers, illustrated "juvenile" monthlies and weeklies of a vile character, surreptitiously and extensively circulated, and finding their secret way into the best homes and school-houses of the land, the dullest managers of a pure periodical for the young hardly can fail to burn with a holy fire. If they only can do a negative good, in crowding bad reading to the wall, in taking up the children's attention so that foul publications are unheeded, a great work is accomplished; their mission is a blessed one, and good citizens everywhere should rally to their assistance. Let not parents deceive themselves. No home is too sacred or too carefully guarded for those fiendish invaders, the venders of low and dangerous juvenile publications, to ply their unholy trade. Every child is in danger for whom good, well selected, enjoyable reading is not provided by those most directly having its best interests at heart. All dangerous publications do not betray their character at a glance. Often they wear the mask of useful information, and even of piety. A mere general oversight will not suffice. Do not force your child to spend time in reading, but look to it that all his or her reading-time be properly and pleasantly filled. While you blindly congratulate yourself that your boy or girl, through a fondness for books and periodicals, must necessarily be learning something, it may be well to know what that something is. Undue intellectual stimulus for children is bad enough, but emotional stimulus is worse. In the hands of unprincipled purveyors, it opens the way to moral errors of every kind, and by quickening an else slow growth to what is holy, develops only precocity in vice. The point of the wedge is easily inserted, and, at first, as easily thrust back; but beware of the silent force that having once gained an entrance may split the peace and purity of your home.

Foreshadowings of the Styles.

THE earliest suggestion of seasonable changes in apparel is always observable in hats and bonnets. The first hint of spring or autumn is found in the slight, yet distinct, variations of head-coverings.

Already the shop windows are filled with hats, loaded with velvet, and feathers, and brilliant wreaths, which, were it a month later, would be the envy of the passing crowds. Now these milliners' foreshadowings are merely glanced at, and forgotten -at least for the time. There will be no essential variations of shapes during the early Fall. The favorite style will be the Leghorns, with low, round, flat crowns and finger wide brims, turned up against the crown on one or both sides. This style has been moderately popular all summer, the liking for it increasing as the season waned. For autumn, these hats have the under side of the brim faced all over with velvet, an inch-wide binding showing on the outside. Around the crown a band, flatly folded, or a loose-lying scarf of velvet fastens in a number of loops without ends, on the left side, not so far back as formerly. Mingled with the loops is a bunch of small feathers or a long plume. Under the curling edge of the brim, turned up against the crown, is a spray or short wreath of bright colored leaves and berries. Ornaments of all metals, notably burnished silver,-except oxydized silver (this has run its course), are sparingly placed upon the velvet garniture; and this, with insignificant variations, is the regulation model for an October hat.

High authorities declare that plaids, stripes and figures are to be fashionable in all dress materials, for cool and cold weather, which is equivalent to saying that plain and simple shapes and meager trimmings are to be the coming rule. Plaids, and stripes, and figures are so difficult to trim with any semblance of grace or beauty, that, when they are the mode, excessive garniture ceases to be practicable.

The pretty, old-fashioned Gabrielle dress, modi. fied and improved, is re-introduced under the more pretentious title of the Princesse. It is well adapted to in-door costumes, and like the longloved and soon-to-be-lamented polonaise, is quite becoming to most people. A good figure is set off, and a bad figure much helped, by the graceful Princesse costume.

However strongly Fashion may declare in favor of stuffs with other than plain colored surfaces, there can never be a question as to the more genuine

elegance of these. They are more refined and tasteful, and always more satisfactory and economical than any figured, striped or plaided goods can be. One requires a less quantity of this material, which may be turned, according to necessity, upside down and inside out, than of such as has an "up and down" or right and wrong side.

It is believed that the deep, rich shades of maroon, brown and blue will be quite as popular as black during the winter, both for in and out-door wear. They are a pleasant change from black, and there is much greater security in purchasing lowpriced colored silks than in purchasing black, which has become so unstable that the largest dealers refuse to warrant even the best makes. Among woolen fabrics, cashmere, drap d'été, and camel's hair cloth will, as heretofore, be the most widely worn; and a promised compromise between the light cashmere and heavy drap d'été will fill a longfelt gap in winter goods.

Weddings.

As the semi-annual bridal season is at hand, it is the time to plead for a reform in weddings. Every year this sacredest of all occasions is turned more and more into a mere opportunity for display, and for replying to some fancied social obligation. Instead of the time when a few of the closest friends gather to witness the solemnest compact human beings can frame, it is chosen as the moment for bringing together the larger part of a family's social circle, to show the bride in her bridal garments; to prove how many flowers and refreshments the family can afford; and, with shame be it said, to exhibit to criticism and light comment the precious tokens that should have come with tender regard to the maid on the eve of her new life.

Hints for Anniversary Presents.

WHEN those grateful anniversaries, popularly known as wooden and tin weddings, occur to our friends and acquaintances, there are many anxious debates over the selection of a suitable offering to mark the day. It is quite difficult enough to choose something for the original wedding, when everything under the stars, from a silver thimble to a check for a hundred thousand dollars is entirely appropriate; but limit the propriety of the gift to a single substance, and mental distraction forthwith sets in. It is not so difficult as it used to be before the pretty Swiss carvings came in vogue, for among these are found book-rests, card-receivers, cardboxes, handkerchief and glove-boxes, jewel-cases, letter-racks, napkin-rings, crumb-brushes and trays, bread-plates and knives, salad-bowls, knives and forks, fruit-dishes with carved stands, flower-dishes similarly made, screen-frames, picture and mirrorframes, easels, ink-stands, pen-racks, portfolios, brackets of all shapes, sizes, styles and prices, flower-vases, and dozens of other things so graceful and comparatively cheap, that there would seem to be no trouble in being suited. Then, for larger and more imposing presents, are the numberless pretty, odd chairs-for instance, the new old-fashioned, high-backed, wooden rocking-chairs, with slats of willow for seat and back, and similar chairs that do not rock; the folding chairs that belong to the steamer chair family, and are so comfortable for piazza lounging in summer; the coquettish folding-chairs, painted the brightest of scarlet, and dubbed croquet chairs, though they are just as charming in-doors as out; and, to end the list, those graceful Vienna foldingchairs, made of rosewood and fine cane-work, which have four legs, but no front ones, and are especially appropriate for parlor use. All these are rated at less than fifteen dollars, some as low as three or four; so that they are within reach of everybody. The penchant for having no full set of furniture, but many pieces of varied styles and kinds, is so great, that it is rare, except in old-fashioned houses, to find the former desideratum of a well arranged parlor-a sofa, four straight and two arm-chairs, all showing so close a relationship as to make it seem an inhumanity to separate them. Now-a-days, people furnish their houses by picking up here a table, there a chair, and somewhere else a lounge. A studied ease is the aim, and a pleasant chaos the result. Nests of tables are among the most acceptable of gifts to housekeepers. Whether of rosewood, or walnut, or Japanese lacquered work, there are always corners and odd spots into which they fit with charming facility.

A wedding must not be uncheerful; but it must certainly be solemn to all who realize what it is. On the one side, it is renouncing old ties, promising to begin with faith, and hope, and love a new and wholly untried existence. On the other, it is the acceptance of a sacred trust, the covenant to order life anew in such ways as shall make the happiness of two instead of one. Can such an occasion be fitting for revelry? Is it not wiser, more delicate, to bid only the nearest of friends to a marriage ceremony, and leave the feasting and frolic for a subsequent time? We are sure there are few girls who, if they reflect on the seriousness of the step they are about to take, will not choose to make their vow merely within the loving limits of their home circle. All our best instincts point to the absolute simplicity and privacy of wedding services; only a perversion of delicacy could contemplate the asking of crowds of half-sympathetic or wholly curious people to attend the fulfillment of the most solemn of contracts. Let there be as much party-pails, cake-boxes, spice-boxes, kitchen-spoons, wire

making, rejoicing and pleasure-taking afterward as hearts desire; but let the solemn vows be made in the presence only of those nearest and dearest.

It is not so easy to suggest presents for tin as for wooden weddings; still, besides the practical pans,

covers, cookie-cutters and candlesticks, there are many things sufficiently allied to tin to render them legitimate for such occasions. Among these are

wire flower-stands of many shapes and sizes, hanging baskets of wire lined with moss, and filled with growing vines, crystal vases with twisted wire stands, fruit and flower dishes similarly held, washstands, especially adapted to small country houses, drinking-cups, cutlery, piazza brackets of iron, and lawn and piazza seats, letter-scales, watch-stands, Wardian cases with metal bases, table-trays, and many other things useful or ornamental, or combining both qualities.

Politeness to Servants.

Is there not, or at least ought there not to be, a code of etiquette for the kitchen as well as for the parlor; for conduct toward inferiors as well as equals?

We make our plea for politeness in the kitchen on the following grounds:

1. No lady can afford, for her own sake, to be otherwise than gentle, thoughtful and courteous in the administration of household matters. If she reserves her best manners for the parlor, where so small a portion of the average American housekeeper's time is spent, it is likely that they will not always be easily put on. The habitual deportment leaves marks upon the countenance and the manner which no sudden effort can produce. And at housekeeping there are at best, so many unexpected occurrences, not always agreeable, that nothing but a habit of self-control and serenity can tide us over them creditably. According to John Newton, it sometimes requires more grace to bear the breaking of a china plate than the death of an only son; and there is a good deal of truth under the seeming absurdity. Have we not all proved by experience that we bear with least equanimity the daily, petty vexations which are unexpected, and apparently unnecessary? But there are many small miseries to one great affliction, and if character is to be improved by tribulations, it must be mainly by ❘ those of every day—the pin-pricks for which we are ashamed to demand sympathy.

2. For the sake of family comfort we must have comfort in the kitchen. Willing and unwilling service are readily distinguishable by every member of the household. We can all of us remember how the atmosphere of a dinner party has been suddenly chilled by a few words of unnecessary blame to a servant. To mortify a person is not usually to reform him. On the other hand, how delightful to a guest are those homes where the relations of masters and servants are friendly; where shortcomings on the part of the latter are delicately excused in public, and judiciously investigated in private. I say, advisedly, investigated rather than reproved; for undeserved misfortune may happen alike to all, and there may be occasion for sympathy rather than blame. If Biddy has had bad news from over the sea, must we not take that into account when we find fault with the gravy? I think sometimes we do not remember sufficiently that those who serve us are not machines, but men and women of like passions, and sorrows, and tempers with ourselves.

3. For the sake of our servants themselves, we must pay them due politeness. Humanity, says Bacon, is sooner won by courtesy than by real benefits. If one would make thorough and efficient servants out of raw material, it must be done by patience and long suffering. You say they are provokingly stupid; we will suppose they are; but if we have to deal with stupidity, let us use the means best adapted to it. Will intimidation succeed? Did you ever find that scolding made an order more intelligible, or caused anything but broken dishes and ill-cooked dinners? Then try gentleness a little while; if that will not accomplish anything, send away your servant, and try another. You can not afford to lose your temper; and a person on whom persistent kindness is thrown away, can render you no intelligent or permanent service.

We put it to the common sense of our readers, whether self-preservation, comfort and duty, do not all require of us a little more attention to kitchen etiquette ?

Wilkie Collins.

CULTURE AND PROGRESS.

WE don't like Mr. Wilkie Collins's stories, "and there's the humor of it." At least, we don't like the most of them. He wrote one, a long time since, that we did like very much-"The Dead Secret." Only, even then, his love of sensation, and mystery, and horror in general, led him to give a simple story, with a lovely heroine not a bit too bright and good for human-nature's daily food, a silly title,

which for many people the writer might have been glad to have for readers, shut the book out of their circle, and turned the key upon it. But, this story apart, Mr. Collins has done little since except to minister to those faculties and feelings we have in common with the weakest, and dashiest, and most hysterical of the human race. Our misliking Mr. Collins is not at all a case of Dr. Fell. We can tell the reason why, and we propose to do it; and if our objections seem idle to his admirers, they may con

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