vibrations; it lacks everything.

Mine, on the contrary, indecisive and floating, has a pair of diapered wings, which never allow it to rest heavily on the object brightened by it.'

"One has to turn to chance to get illumination with you, I suppose,' answered the old lady, with some maliciousness.

"We have proclaimed the independence of formthe respect due to the outline-which is undetermined! What right has the model to ask that we should copy it servilely? Is not the interpretation the fundamental rule in art? I interpret-therefore I feel; I feel-therefore I'

"Ta, ta, ta! Enough about your feelings. Have you remembered the recipe you promised to give me for that famous soup, with cheese à la Savoyarde?'

Then there is the American girl," Miss Colorado," who will answer nothing but "Yes" to all the respectful advances of Potet. When, however, he is betrayed into advice, couched in the broken French suited to an ignorant foreigner, "Miss Colorado" turns upon him in excellent French, laughs at him, gives him to understand that she does not care to be spoken to by strangers, and goes off to her lunch.

Dropping Potet, the bright writer of dialogue gives a series of talks between copyists at the Louvre and the ghosts of the masters whom they copy. Regnault, for example, is astonished to hear the musical terms which his copyist employs. All this is very good fooling, especially in a daily paper; but it may be questioned whether there is anything like art-criticism in it. Amusement of the reader, at any cost, seems to be the effort.

The figures by M. Renouard (some engraved and some "processed") are very clever in the expression of character, but the engraver has sometimes evidently failed to preserve the original effect.

Miss Hale's "Peterkin Papers."

It is an unpleasant moment to a young man when he hears that the boy who was at the foot of the junior class, when he left school, is married and has two children. For the first time he realizes that his capital of youth is diminished; that men will soon ask of him-not, What will he do? but, What has he done?-and that the answer to this question may not be wholly satisfactory. There is many a young man who, to-day, will feel that depressing period brought back to him with unwelcome iteration when, looking for a book for his old chum's eldest boy, he comes across Messrs. James R. Osgood & Co.'s reprint of Miss Lucretia P. Hale's "Peterkin Papers." He will find it hard to realize that it is not yesterday, but a good fourteen years ago, that he himself smiled over those quaint sketches in the pages of "Our Young Folks"; and that "Our Young Folks" has since died, like the "Riverside," and has risen phoenix-like in "St. Nicholas." Yet he will find that he can smile over them still, and that the boy of eight will enjoy them as heartily as did the older boy who read them at sixteen.

Two generations have become intimately ac

quainted with the Peterkins. Mrs. Peterkin is the original Lady Who Put Salt in Her Coffee, and who called in the Chemist, who tried to neutralize the objectionable element with chlorate of potassium, and bichlorate of magnesia, and tartaric acid, and hypersulphate of lime, and ammonia, and oxalic, cyanic, acetic, phosphoric, chloric, hyperchloric, sulphuric, boracic, silicic, nitric, formic, nitrous-nitric, and car. bonic acids, and calcium, and aluminum, and barium, and strontium, and bitumen, and half of a third of a sixteenth of a grain of arsenic, and a little belladonna, and atropine, and some granulated hydrogen, and some potash, and a very little antimony, finishing off with a little pure carbon. Then, as all the world knows, she called in the Herb-Woman, who doctored the brew after her own empirical method, and said the coffee was bewitched. And poor Mrs. Peterkin never got her cup of coffee until an inspired genius from Philadelphia suggested to her to make a fresh

cup.

Mrs. Peterkin had quite such a family as might be expected of her, comprising Mr. Peterkin, Agamemnon-the eldest son, who had been to five colleges, and had been graduated at none, because the professors would ask him just the questions he could not answer; Elizabeth Eliza; Solomon John, and the Little Boys, who may have been two and may have been three-"they were always coming in or going out, and it had been difficult to count them."

The adventures of the whole family are recounted at length in this volume. They go to the Centennial; Solomon John writes a book-or rather gets ready to write it, and then finds he has nothing to say; they have a Christmas-tree, and alter the house to fit the tree; and they do many things highly entertaining to those who read about them.

All this is told in an agreeably clear, straightforward style, marred only occasionally by the use of New England phrases, perplexing to outside barbarians. It is mere fooling, of course, and not wholly original fooling-being but an amplification, in fact, of the French conception of "Calino," or his antique prototype, that rare old myth known as “a certain simpleton," of whose antics the boys are now reading in the "Gesta Romanorum"; but it has a natural, wholesome humor of its own, such as children like, and here and there are passages the cleverness of which their elders can better appreciate-such as the demure explanation of some unexpected exhibition of common sense by the significant statement, "for there was a driver in the wagon beside Solomon or such as this, from "The Peterkins celeJohn; brate the Fourth":

"Mr. Peterkin thought there actually was no danger, and he should be sorry to give up the peanut. [Mrs. Peterkin was afraid that the roasting-machines would burst.] He thought it an American institution, something really belonging to the Fourth of July. He even confessed to a quiet pleasure in crushing the empty shells with his feet on the sidewalks as he went along the streets. Agamemnon thought it a simple joy.'

Recent Progress in Photography.

THE introduction of the highly sensitive dryplates used in photography (see THE WORLD'S WORK for May, 1881) has been accompanied by a wide-spread interest in the whole subject of photography. The ease with which pictures can now be taken in all climates and under every imaginable circumstance, and by persons of only moderate skill, has called the attention of both artists and men of science to the subject, and from their labors have sprung a number of improvements in the art that promise to be of real value in the shop, the field, and schoolroom. First among these improvements is the manufacture of small portable cameras, suitable for surveyors, reporters, contractors, builders, manufacturers, tourists, and teachers. In bringing the camera from the studio to the field and workshop, it is essential that both the apparatus and process should be cheap and simple. A camera suitable for business purposes can be easily carried in a hand-bag, and the price is about ten dollars. The usual size for dryplates for industrial purposes, which are now made on a commercial scale for about one dollar and fifteen cents a dozen, is four by five inches. With such a camera and plates, pictures can be taken of buildings, architectural details, works and machinery in process of construction, furniture, decorations, patterns and models, tools, railroad work, and landscapes. The pictures are of a convenient size for mailing, and are sufficiently large and clear for all business purposes. In printing from the negatives, the blue ferro-prussiate paper proves for some purposes quite as good as the more expensive and troublesome photographic paper. A very brief exposure of the paper, under a negative, to the light, and a soaking in cold water in the dark, is sufficient to print and fix the pictures. This paper saves all the trouble and expense of using the photographic printing chemicals. It costs forty-five cents a square yard, and may be purchased of the dealers in artists' materials. The prints are blue on a white ground, but this is not objectionable where the pictures are to be used as advertisements, or as memoranda of work done, or as mementos of travel. All the chemicals and apparatus used in developing dry-plates are very cheap, and a small shelf in any closet will answer for a laboratory. Any room may be used as a dark room at night, because the plates after exposure can be developed at any time, provided they are kept in the dark. The faculty of taking the pictures and developing the plates can be easily acquired by any boy or girl in two or three lessons, and a person of ordinary intelligence can gain sufficient skill for all business purposes in a week's practice. The portable camera and dry-plates have also proved of the greatest value in schools, both in making pictures of places and things studied by the classes, and as a simple and inexpensive method of making pictures of geological formations, plants and minerals, studies in

drawing and plastic models, and in making copies of maps.

Among the most useful applications of the dryplates is their use in the manufacture of transparent slides for lantern projections. The lantern has now become indispensable in the lecture-room and in schools, and it might become a valuable adjunct of the manufactory and salesroom. For instance, suppose an agent has a certain piece of real estate to sell, or a carriage-maker, or a dealer in furniture, other goods to dispose of. A photograph can be taken of the goods, carriages, or buildings, and when it is important to exhibit the picture in the minutest detail, or before a large number of people, a lantern will throw up the picture on a large scale, and give every detail, and with a very fair degree of projection. In this way, the purchaser can get a better idea of the place or goods than can be obtained from a photographic print. Slides of the usual size can be made very quickly and cheaply by using the dry-plates. The plate is put in a common printing-frame (in the dark room), and covered by a negative. It is then exposed to the light of a gas or oil lamp for about five seconds. The developing is the same as if the plate had been exposed in a camera. The result is a positive copy on glass of the negative, and, when properly protected by varnish, such a plate is ready for use in a lantern. The advantages claimed for this use of photographic positives as slides are evident. The copy is direct and simple, and, in the lantern, details that would not be visible in the print are quite clear. The method is one that can be recommended for the use of schools.

The demand for colored photographs is so great that efforts have been made to find some mechanical means of producing prints in colors direct from nature. The search for a material sensitive of itself to all colors, and able to copy them in the camera, appears, however, quite as hopeless as ever. Nothing of this kind is expected, in a new method of making photographs in colors that is now receiving some attention, but to make colored pictures that may be an improvement on the prints painted over by hand. Supposing the object to be photographed to exhibit two colors,-say a green-leaved plant with red flowers,-two negatives are taken, one designed to represent the leaves and the other the flowers. This has been done before by taking the two negatives and treating them mechanically, stopping out in one all the leaves and in the other all the flowers. From each negative a print is taken and each is colored, either mechanically or by using colored sensitive films, or, in fact, in any manner that will give a semi-transparent colored film. The two prints are then laid one over the other, and, if properly "justified" or fitted together, give a single colored picture of the green-leaved plant with red flowers. The prints are said to show the half-tints, and to give all the gradations of light and

shade, with none of the hardness and density of painted photographs. The novel feature of this process appears to be confined to the method of taking the negatives. Instead of stopping out the green portions of one negative and the red portions of the other by hand, two negatives are exposed to the plant at the same time, and by the use of colored screens each is caused to select its own color. By this is meant that only red light is admitted to one camera and green light to the other. These screens are made by filling thin glass vessels with colored liquids. For the negative designed to show only the red flowers, a red screen is set up before the camera. This transmits red light only, and seen through it the plant appears to have dark or black leaves, with red flowers. Through the green screen, it appears to have green leaves with black flowers. The two negatives exhibit, when developed, only the parts where the light was transmitted, the black portions being unaffected or blank. Prints are taken from each negative in its proper color, and are laid one over the other to give the finished picture in two colors. It will be seen that in making two such negatives, each reflecting its own color, it is essential that they should be exactly alike. It is clearly impossible that they can be taken at the same time from the same point of view, and to take one after the other would make it very difficult to give each exactly the same aspect. To overcome this difficulty, two cameras, each with its colored screen, are placed side by side, and before the first one is set up a sheet of clear plate-glass, at such an angle that the image of the plant will be reflected from the surface of the glass into the camera. As the glass is transparent, the larger portion of the light passes through it, and, falling upon a mirror placed at the same angle, is reflected into the second camera. In this way each camera has precisely the same aspect, for each faces its mirror, and the two mirrors are in line and at the same angle with the light. Three mirrors and three cameras have been used, but this is probably the limit, as the transparent mirrors absorb so much light that the third must reflect all that is left or the image will be too faint.

Besides these interesting discoveries in photography, a general advance is to be observed in the progress of the whole art, both in methods and materials. Some of these are yet in the experimental stage, and will be considered more fully at some other time. The general tendency seems to be to find cheaper methods of taking the negatives, making prints on a large scale, and to bring the art more and more into use in science, education, and business. Among the most valuable of these improvements is the use of the salts of platinum, in place of the salts of silver, in making the sensitive paper used in printing from negatives. The development is by the ferros-oxalate process, and the prints

have the merit of great permanence. Among the more curious of the recent discoveries is the art of making what are known as composite pictures. These are made by taking the portraits of a number of persons, say the members of a family, or of patients suffering from the same disease, and exposing these portraits, one after the other, to a sensitive plate. The result is a compound or composite picture, that is not exactly like any one individual, but resembles all. Composite pictures made up of a dozen portraits of criminals of a certain class have given ideal portraits, showing all the facial characteristics of that class. In like manner, a composite picture made by combining the portraits of a family of brothers and sisters has given a picture having a strong resemblance to one of the parents or grandparents. The most recent improvement in photographic printing is in the so-called rapid printing paper. From experiments seen in the laboratory of a photographer of this city, who brought the paper from England, it appears that the new paper will prove of the greatest value in making prints, either of the same size of the negative or enlarged. The paper is coated with a film of bromo-gelatine, prepared precisely as if for dry-plates. The paper examined was placed in a printing-frame with a negative in the dark room, and then exposed to the light of a common match for five seconds. The development after soaking was by the ferros-oxalate process. The fixing was in a solution of hyposulphite of soda, the paper being placed in the bath for one minute and then washed. A large sheet of the paper was set up on an easel, and a common magic lantern was used to project a negative upon it for five minutes by diffused light. The development showed a lifesize picture, perfect in all its details. An oil lamp may be used in the lantern, and prints are only limited in size by the size of the paper.

The second annual convention and exhibition of the Photographic Association of America, held in this city August 16th, 17th, and 18th, gave an opportunity to examine the present position of photogra phy as an art. It would appear that the tendency in this profession is toward greater artistic skill in the studio and retouching room. Mechanical excellence in the camera and printing-lantern, and thoroughness in the chemical department, have been attained. The photographer must now become an artist. The use of backgrounds painted from nature, the adjustment of light, and the combination of scenic effects with truthful and natural accessories, and artistic posing in the studio, now give ample scope for knowledge and taste. Retouching the negatives also gives a wide field for skill. The exhibition, composed of pictures from all parts of the country, and the valuable papers read at the convention, showed that the aim to raise the artistic standard of the work has been resolutely and intelligently taken up by the profession.

WHEN I was at Latin a tyro,

I read, in the old classic story, About a dear damsel named Iö,

Who had a penchant amatory

For Jove; but his wife showed her power-
(Æneas once felt it, as you know),-
And so, most completely to cow her,

She was changed to a heifer, by Juno!

But after her buzz by that gad-fly,

When Jove had remade her a maiden,
I often have questioned, and sadly,
Who aided my lady to Aidenn.

At last, a fair female physician

(From skill does the pride of the lassie come) Disclosed me her final condition.

She said: "Iodide of potassium!"

The Dame and the Critic.

[Versified from Hans Christian Andersen.]

Two waiting souls, just freed from fleshly guise,
Knelt, suppliant, at the gates of Paradise:
He, arrogant, imperious, bold of mien;
She, meek, yet fearless, patient and serene.
And as, to him, the time seemed long to wait
Before the final opening of the gate,
He fell, at length, to talking.

"Dame," quoth he, "While good St. Peter searches for the key, Pray tell me if to ask be no offenseYour name and station, how you came and whence; What you accomplished in the world below." (He was a critic, reader, you must know. Well skilled to censure, little given to praise, The man had spent the substance of his days In idle ease, while yet his caustic pen Belabored better, because busier, men.)

66

"I am old Margaret," the dame replied;

My home was in a hut the sea beside:

I've lived a calm and uneventful life,
By crime unsullied and unvexed by strife;
But as for aught that I have done, or been,
These blessed gates of Paradise to win,
I have no plea to make."

"But tell me now," The curious critic questioned, "why and how You left the world."

"Indeed, I scarce can tell," Replied the dame, "since what at last befell Seems strange to me and dim. I can recall One dreadful night: beyond the great sea-wall, Built up to keep the bristling tide at bay,

The towns-folk, young and old, had gone to play

And sport upon the ice, to skate and feast
And dance to pleasant lutes. The crowd increased
With every moment; large and round and red
I saw the moon rise, looking from my bed:
For I was feeble, sickly, worn and old,-
Nay, well-nigh helpless, if the truth were told.
But, as I said, I saw the red moon rise,

A ball of fire from out the eastern skies,
And marked, along the marge, a strange, white
cloud

Slow-spreading, like a spectral, ghastly shroud;
And, as I gazed, behold, its center grew
Black-black as ink. Oh, horror! then I knew-
For I had seen the fearful omen twice,

In my long, lonesome life beside the shore-
Its import, and the errand that it bore

To the doomed people skating on the ice.

"I knew that terror, tempest, flood and wreck
Waited like demons on its awful beck;
That, ere an hour had passed, the frightened deep
Its icy bonds would break and overleap
The wall in frightful floods. Was it too late
To save the people from impending fate?
Alas! alas! what hand, unless 'twere mine,
Could give them warning, knowing not the sign?
'Oh, impotent! great heaven! but give me power
To save my people in this awful hour!'

I cried aloud, in sorest agony.

The dear Lord heard; he heard and answered me :
A strange strength came to me in every limb,
My mortal weakness seemed a sick-bed whim;
I rose, I ran, I hurried to the door,

I rent the air with shrill and frantic cries,—
'Good friends! good neighbors! hear me, I implore!
Yon cloud! yon cloud! oh hasten! make for shore!'
In vain, in vain: no questions, no replies
Came floating back to me. My voice was drowned
Amid the merry-making and the sound

Of tinkling lute and viol. Once again,
Twice, thrice, I called. Oh! was it all in vain,
And must they perish?

Suddenly, a thought, A daring purpose (it was heaven that wrought And sent the inspiration)! I would fire My hut, my home, and haply thus the dire And dread calamity forestall. I knew The people were too good, too kind and true, To guess what plight was mine and fail to come Straight to the rescue. So, with trembling, dumb, And eager haste, I lit the scanty straw That filled my frugal bed. Oh, joy! I saw The quick flames kindle-saw them rise and rise; I heard the startled people's sudden cries, And, groping blindly to my open door, Beheld them hurrying wildly to the shore,Beheld them reach, at length, the great sea-wall, And knew, thank heaven, that I had saved them all!

"Then came a rushing, roaring, deafening sound,
A thunderous crash, as if the solid ground
Were breaking up; then silence, chaos, night.
I know no more; the tumult and the fright
Were too much for a weakly, helpless thing
Like me, and so death's kind and pitying wing
Hovered above and brought me safely here,
To find, perchance, a home of light and cheer
In place of that I lost. But this I know,-
'Tis all of God's sweet grace, if it be so."

With that, the gates of heaven opened wide,
And straight an angel to the good dame's side
Glided with noiseless speed. He had been sent
To lead her in; but lo! as on they went,
A single straw, which had escaped the fire
When at the first she lit her funeral pyre,
Fell at the woman's feet; and as the two
Looked down upon it, suddenly it grew
Into a spray of brightest, purest gold,
With lovely leaves and blossoms manifold.
"Fair pledge and symbol of a good deed wrought!
The angel, stooping, cried; "and hast thou aught,
Thyself, O critic,-aught like this to show
In proof of service done to man below?

Then learn thy doom "--but here the dame's kind soul

Was moved to tender pity: "Give him dole

Of the large grace vouchsafed by heaven to me,"
She bravely pleaded of the angel: "See!
His brother wrought me, in my sorest need,
Bricks for my hut; shall not this kindly deed
Atone for him?" "You hear;" the angel cried;
"Another's work, forsooth, must be applied
To cover your life-lack! Nay, nay, not so!
And yet, this respite I would fain bestow:
Remain outside these walls; a day of grace
Is granted you. If, haply, in this place,
Where yet a late repentance may avail,
You see your sinful folly, and bewail
Your error, and, by dint of earnest quest,
Accomplish something-not, perhaps, the best,
But something, something-it may be that you,
Saved as by fire, at length may enter, too,
And find a home within this blissful gate."

The proud and hapless critic heard his fate:
"That clumsy little speech I could have wrought
Much more effectively myself," he thought;
But from expressing it in words refrained,

And that-for him, at least-was something gained!

Aphorisms from the Quarters.

DE squ'el kin beat de rabbit clammin' a tree; but den, de squ'el makes de bes' stew, an' dat sort o' ekalizes de thing.

De waggin-wheels aint 'fraid to tell you whar' dey been.

Don't was'e no time coaxin' a sick 'tater-slip; stick a fresh one in de hill.

'Taint no countin' on de notions ob a gra'-vine nor de chune ob a morkin'-bird.

It don't make much diffunce whar de rain comes fum, jes' so it hits de groun' in de right place. De crab-grass b'lebes in polertics.

A short crap an' a long face.

De old sheeps wonder whar de yarn socks come fum.

A feather-bed aint much service to de young corn. Palin's wa'n't fixed for clammin' ober.

Some smart folks can't tell a rotten rail widout settin' on it.

De people dat stirs up de mos' rackit in de meetin'house aint always de bes' Kwis'chuns.

'Arly peach-blossoms got to run de risk o' de fros'.

Ef you aint got nuffin' smaller'n a dime when de hat comes 'round in chu'ch, drap it in; you'll git de change some o' dese days.

De fat beef aint got much conferdince in de butcher.

Sometimes de runt pig beats de whole litter growin'.

Don't trus' a mad bull jes' 'cause he aint got no horns; he kin do some right sharp pushin' anyhow. You better not fool wid a water-milion dat puts orf gittin' ripe till horg-killin' time.

A meller apple dat drops on de groun' widout any shakin', is mos' too willin'.

Folks dat go to sleep in de meetin'-house do heap o' late settin' up at home.

Muskeeters don't suit long pra'rs.

De people dat do de bigges' talkin' at home is ap' ter do de mos' whettin' in de harves'-fiel'.

Don't trus' a man dat nebber got tired in his life. Satan habs de Scripter in his school-'ouse.