yourg lady, who must have been a brave one. was the first to enter. She put out her hand to light a match. when it was seized by the ghost, whose hand was as cold as ice. She shrieked and fell down in a fainting fit. The persons with her struck a light, and saw an unearthly-looking apparition standing in the middle of the room. It remained stationary for perhaps a minute, and vanished. No one could tell how it got out of the room, whether it went up the chimney, out of the window, through the keyhole, no one could see. The young lady was attended to, and recovered in due time from her swoon. The affair has created great excitement in the neighborhood. The officers who "laid" the Albemarle ghost should be appealed to for assistance. The Conduct of Horses Under Fire. Mr. Kinglake remarks in one of the volumes of his history : The extent to which a charger can apprehend the perils of a battle-field may be easily underrated by one who confines his observation to horses still carrying their riders; for as long as a troop horse in action feels the weight and hand of a master, his deep trust in man keeps him seemingly free from great terror, and he goes through the fight, unless wounded, as though it were a field day at home; but the moment that death or a disabling wound deprive him of his rider, he seems all at once to learn what a battle is-to perceive its real dangers with the clearness of a human being, and to be agonized with horror of the fate he may incur for want of a hand to guide him. Careless of the mere thunders of the guns, he shows plainly enough that he more or less knows the dread accent that is used by missils of war whilst cutting their way through the air; for as often as these sounds disclose to him the near passage of bullet or round shot he shrinks and cringes, His eyeballs protrude; wild with fright, he still does not most commonly gallop home into camp. His instinct seems rather to tell him that what safety, if any, there is for him must be found in the ranks; and he rushes at the first squadron he can find urging piteously yet with violence that he too by right is a troop-horse; that he too is willing to charge, but not to be left behind; that he must and he will "fall in." Sometimes a riderless charger thus bent on aligning with his fellows will not be content to range himself on that flank of the line, but dart at some point in the squadron which he seemingly judges to be his own rightful place, and strive to force himself in. Riding as it is usual for the commander of a regiment to do, someway in advance of his regiment, Lord George Paget was especially tormented and pressed by the riderless horses which chose to turn round and align with him. At one time there were three or four of these horses advancing close abreast of him on one side, and as many as five on the other. Impelled by terror, by gregarious; instinct, and by their habit of ranging in line, they so closed' in upon Lord George as to besmear his overalls with blood from the gory flanks of the nearest intruders, and oblige him to use his sword." Donkey Riding. In her last book Mrs, Howe gives this pleasant account of a donkey ride: A donkey excursion pleasantly varies our experience in Sorrento. Do you know how much a donkey ride means in Sorrento? It does not mean a perpetual jolt, and horrible inter-asinicidal contest between the ass who carries the stick and the ass who carries you. The donkeys of Sorrento are fat and well-liking-smooth and gray are the pair that come for us, comfortable as to the saddle and bridle. And our donkey driver is a handsome youth, with a bold, frank countenance, and the ripest olive and vermilion complexion. His walk is graceful and robust; he knows every one he meets, and has his bit of fun with sundry of SUPPLEMENT TO THE COURANT. the groups who pass us These consist of men and women bearing on their heads large flat baskets filled with cogoons, or in their hands bundles of the same; girls leading mules, or carrying household burdens; soldiers, beggars, Neapolitan princes, the syndic of Sorrento, and other varieties of the species vaguely called human. He takes us up a steep and rough ascent to the telegraph station. There are many bad bits in the road; he is but one and the donkeys are two; but he has such a clever way, at critical moments, of holding on to the head of the second donkey in conjunction with the tail of the first, that he gets the two cowardly riders through many difficulties and more fears. Once on level ground, the donkeys amble along delightfully. So pleasant is the whole in remembrance, that, sitting here, at an interval of many miles in distance, and ten days in time, we feel a sincere twinge in remembering that we gave him only a franc for himself, paying by agreement two francs for either donkey. Forgive us, beauteous and generous Gaetano, and do not curse us in aggio and saggio, the open-mouthed patois of your country." Dickens at Home. Hans Christian Andersen once paid Dickens a visit. Here is a part of what he said about it : Without any previous practice in speaking English, and hearing it spoken, I understood from the very first all that Dickens said to me. Whenever I hesitated, he repeated the idea in another form; and no one caught my meaning quicker than he did. Danish and English are so wonderfully similar that we often were astonished at it, and when, at times, I was at a loss to find the right word, Dickens begged me to name the Danish word, and we often found that it was precisely the same as in English. When I acquired greater familiarity with the language, I longed more and more to converse on topics other than those of every day occurrence; I longed to express my feelings, and find in the foreign language words as natural to me as those of my mother tongue. I felt more and more at home; even the smaller children of the house began to understand me; nay, the smallest of them, who, when I asked him, on the first day, if he liked me, said, very honestly, "I will put you out of the window," assured me now, with a smiling face, that he would "put me in again." Dickens had no less than nine children, two grown daughters, Mary and Kate, and seven sons; Charles, Walter Landor, Francis Geoffrey, Alfred Tennyson, Sidney Smith, Henry Fielding and Edward Lytton Bulwer. The two eldest and the two youngest were at home; the other three came on a visit from Boulogne, in France, where they were at a boarding school. It was vacation time, and I soon saw them climb in the branches of the large cedar trees, or play at cricket with their other brothers and their father, all of them in shirt-sleeves, on the large meadow close to the garden; the ladies sat in the tall grass. under the trees, peasant children peeped over the hedge, and Turk, the watch dog, who was fastened all night, had now been delivered from his chain and led the life of a tree dog, while his long chain and his kennel were left to a big, old raven, who no doubt considered himself a relative to the raven in "Barnaby Rudge," which, though stuffed, still existed, and was to be seen in the house. Nahant Cottages, Some one who has visited Nahant writes to one of our cotemporaries : The cottages are built generally with French roofs, and have wide piazzas. Here and there you meet with one built half of wood and half of stone, the effect of which is more singular than beautiful. The prettiest cottage here is a log cabin, every log of which was brought from Canada wrapped in cotton wool. This 131 cottage, unlike most of its neighbors, is embowered in trees and shrubbery, and with its vermillion colored wood-work, and the grey linchens on its sloping roof, is one of the most picturesque objects in Nabant. Longfellow's cottage has nothing to distinguish it materially from its neighbors, but Agassiz's summer residence is conspicuous and positively attractive for its oddity and ugliness. It is finely situated directly on the sea, but as viewed from the road, consists of a stable-like structure, to which is attached by each gable end, a square one-storied building. Like many of these sea-side homes, there is no privacy and seclusion save within doors. The family lounge on the piazza, or play at croquet before the house, in full view of the neighbors, and even the clothes, on washing days, (which seem to come oftener than once a week at Nahant,) flap noisily or hang limpy on the line, as the case may be, with a most refreshing disregard of appearances. Not very far from Agassiz's is a little cottage occupied at present by Mrs. Elizabeth Murray, the artist. The cottage itself has not much to recommend in point of comeliness, but through the taste of its occupant it has been made singularly attractive. Hanging baskets and a radiant nautilus shell are suspended from the low roof of the piazza, and make up. by their greenness and beauty for the want of trees and vines. Within, the sharp angles of the door ways and the small size of the windows are concealed by pretty chintz drapery; and books, pictures, and above all the glimpse we get through the open door of the studio, of innumerable stretches of a more picturesque and sunny land than ours, transforms what would be otherwise a most commonplace abode, into a most refined and charming home. A Scotch "Cran Nog." During twelve years past great archælogical interest has been centered in Scotland from the fact that in various parts of the country lakedwellings have been discovered, which, though differing in size and structure from the Swiss and Italian lake-dwellings, are evidently sufficiently similar in idea to form another link between the ancient populations inhabiting these widely-separated lands. The first cran-nog was found upon draining a fresh water loch in Arisaig. It appeared to have been placed in deep water, as the soft and wet mud around it is not fathomable by a long pole; the nearest point of land is about two hundred and fifty yards distant. It is formed of the trunks of trees, some of which are of very large size; one that was measured is twenty-eight feet long and five feet in circumference, at two feet from the base; another is thirty-nine feet long, and five feet eight inches at the base. The structure consists of several tiers or layers of these trees; two layers have been partially washed away by returning tides; four layers were exposed to view in examining the building, and a probe of eight feet long detected timbers at that further depth. Each layer in succession lies across the one below it, forming a strong, arm structure of rectangular shape; the sides are forty-three feet by forty-one feet. Or, the floor were several flagstones in three or four places. which evidently had been the fire-places of the inhabitants. At a distance of about two feet six inches from the building was a rampart, formed of upright posts, inclined inwards and sharpened at the top, across which are placed large trees that were fastened at the corners by a hollow scooped out of the wood. The following are the distances on the Pacific railroad from Omaha to San Francisco:-From Omaha to Cheyenne, 515 miles; from Cheyenne to Denver and Golden City, 111 miles; from Cheyenne to Salt Lake, 535 miles; from Salt Lake to Lake's Crossing, on the Truckee, 499 miles; from the Truckee to Sacremento, 154 miles, thence to San Francisco 124 miles; making the total distance between Omaha and San Fran cisco, 1836 miles. Supplement to the Courant. HARTFORD, SATURDAY, AUG. 29, 1868. EXPORTS OF WHEAT AND HAY For a time there was a prophecy of short crops in England and increased exportation of wheat and corn from the United States during the coming winter. But a late number of the Mark Lane Express, the chief authority of London in agricultural matters, reviewing the harvest, admits that the reports from the root crops are exceedingly unfavorable, and that the hay crop, owing to the prolonged dry weather, is extremely light, though of good quality, yet says that the brilliant weather had a most favorable influence on the wheat crop. Cutting commenced much earlier than usual; the general quality is excellent; a large extra breadth was sown; the yield is heavy as compared with that of last year; "and the total crop will be much in excess of that of 1867.” The value of the European market for the surplus grain products of this country has been increasing with astonishing rapidity, and its importance has been greatly magnified by the decreased production of cotton. The following table shows the ratio of increase in the value of the grain exported from the United States for a period of 40 years : Years. 1823 to 1833. 1833 to 1843. 1843 to 1853. Aggregate value of exports of grain. ........ 67,842,211 73,303,440 198,594,871 512,380,514 Percentage of increase. 8.0 *170.9 1853 to 1863. 158.0 The repeal of the Corn Laws of Great Britain in 1840 greatly encouraged the exportation of American breadstuffs. The supply of wheat from the United States to England and Ireland during 1861, '62 and '63 was estimated to amount to 371⁄2 per cent. of our whole export. Of the imports of flour into Great Britain 58.3 per cent. were from the United States. There were shipped to Great Britain and Ireland in 1862, of wheat, 34,102,785 bushels, valued at $47,916,266: in 1863 it rose to 47,082,026 busheis, valued at $56,059,360. The Mark Lane Express estimates that the average consumption of wheat in Great Britain is sir bushels per head per annum, and as the population amounts to about thirty millions, the total consumption is 180,000,000. Of this the United States supplied in 1863 over forty-seven millions, or about 26 per cent.furnishing their bread more than one quarter of the year! It is believed that the exportation of grain from Eastern to Western Europe will decline rather than increase, and as the population of the latter increases it will be more and moie dependent upon the United States, whose valley of the Mississippi is capable of becoming the "granary of Europe." It is believed that the crop of cereals throughout Europe and the United States will be unusually large this year. Now flour and cotton, being dependent to so large an extent upon a foreign market, do not rise and fall in price in proportion as other articles with the contraction and expansion of the currency. In the commerce of the world values are measured in gold, while non-exportable articles are governed by the quantity of local currency in use. It seems certain, therefore, that we are to have a year of cheaper breadstuffs, and be taught again that a depreciated currency is an evil, and that gold and silver are the only real money. The singular fact that we are exporting hay attracts attention. Our telegraphic columns inform us that last week five thousand bales were sent abroad and as much more will go this week. If this is to go on, it will be a matter of interest in Connecticut. It is reported that there are in in this State eight thousand less acres of corn than last year. It is a very considerable item in our production, but if hay should maintain a good price it would compensate, for the crop here is extraordinary, Farmers are by no means done gathering it, though we hear some of them say that their barns are full, and they have much in stack. It will pay to gather it all. The Mark Lane Express of the first week in this month says that the prices of hay in London were: new meadow hay £3 10s. to £5, or about from $24 to $35 in our currency. Old hay was £4 to £5 108., or from $28 to $37.50 in greenbacks. New clover, £3 108 to £5 5s.; old clover, £4 to £6, (or from $28 to $42.) Straw £1 10s. to £1.16s. When gold is at 144, multiplying the pound sterling by seven will give very nearly its equivalent in our paper dollars. COURANT NOTES. Princes are all well enough in their way, but they are a luxury in which poor countries can hardly afford tor indulge. For instance, Albert Edward, the hope of England, is subsisted by the "right little, tight little isle" at a yearly expense of nearly £100,000. But he now finds this sum too small, and the London Morning Herald announces that, if the Disraeli ministry lasts another year, the House of Commons will be asked to vote an additional appropriation of £25,000, a good deal more than four times the yearly salary which this economical republic pays to its Presidents! Mr Foote, editor and proprietor of the Salem Gazette, makes the centennial anniversary of the establishment of that paper the occasion for a review of its history. It was established August 5th, 1768, as the Essex Gazette, by Samuel Hall. His apprentice, Thomas Cushing succeeded him in 1786, and gave it the name of the Salem Gazette. The present editor, Mr. Foote, was an apprentice of Mr. Cushing, and became with a partner, his immediate successor, so that at the close of the century the third editor and proprietor is in charge. The Gazette is four years the unior of the COURANT. Immigration is slightly falling off. The entire number of immigrants arriving at New York in 1868, up to August 5, is 132,875, against 154,289 to the same date last year, and about 160,000 for the same portion of 1866. Although the German and Scandinavian immigration is increasing, that from Ireland is falling off. There came to New York in July, in 67 vessels, 25,955 immigrants, of whom 2,368 were cabin passengers. Of these, 317 gave Connecticut as their destina. tion; but of the 7,617 who designated New York, many will eventually come this way. Besides the actual money and other property brought with them, it is sometimes estimated that each person adds the equivalent of a thousand dollars to the nation's wealth. Mr. Wm. B. Jones writes an interesting letter to the Sun about the past and present of the Welsh language. He asserts that it is unquestionably older than the Gaelic," and one of the oldest as well as most scientific in the world. "In construction," he adds, "it resembles the Sanscrit more closely than it does the Hebrew, and its elementary sounds are more numerous than those of either." Mr. Jones finds something wonderful in the hold which this language has upon the Welsh people. This hold is as strong in England, Australia, and this country as in Wales itself. On this point Mr. Jones remarks that "wherever the Welsh people migrate, they cling to their ancient language, and build churches in which they worship in the mother tongue, One denomination alone in Liverpool has over 5,000 communicants in its Welsh churches. There are in this country four monthly magazines and two newspapers in the Welsh language, and in Wales more works are issued from the Welsh: press than at any former period in the history of this remarkable people." We presume, however, that even the enthusiastic secretary of the St. David's Benevolent Society will admit that there are younger languages which are pleasanter both to the eye and ear. We have already mentioned that General Halpine's brain weighed 56 ounces. The Times of New York makes this fact the text for a brief lecture on the relative brain power of this country and Europe. It says the average weight of twenty-four "white American brains," accurately weighed by Dr. Ira Russell, was 52 ounces; the maximum being 64, and the minimum 44. But Dr. Hammond tells us that the average weight of "white Europeans" is 49% ounces; the maximum that of Cuvier, being 64%, and the minimum 34. Spurzheim's brain weighed just one ounce less than that of poor Miles. It would seem that in the matter of brains as well as political institutions we have nothing to fear from a comparison with the "bloated despotisms." Mr. Seward's attempts at prophecy have not always been successful; but in at least one instance he forecast the future correctly. When the bill for the admission of California was pending in the Senate, he made a speech which contained this passage: If, then, the American people shall remain one undivided nation, the ripening civilization of the West, after a separation growing wider and wider for four thousand years, will, in its circuit of the world. meet again and mingle with the declining civilization of the East on our own free soil, and a new and more perfect civilization will arise to bless the earth under the sway of our own cherished and beneficent democratic institutions, This was said eighteen years ago. To-day, Chinese immigrants are swarning into California; the completion of the Pacific railway will bring the Chinese trade to San Francisco; and Mr. Seward has just had the pleasure of receiving a Chinese ambassador of Yankee birth, and of negotiating a treaty which promises to bring the two countries still more closely together. Scientific gentlemen are apt, when they get together in convention, to talk a litle above the heads of the unlearned, but Professor Stoddard read a paper the other day at Chicago on the "Nature of Electric Discharge" which treats of a matter in which every one is interested. After some preliminary theorizing, he remarked: It need hardly be said that to insulate a rod from the building it is intended to protect is use less if not worse. The house is in a state of electric tension as well as the rod, and the object of the rod is to relieve all such tension. To do this it must be in electric communication with the house. Indeed the insulation is after all a sheer pretense and is practically impossible, for the building and rod are connected through the earth. If the roof is metallic all the better. It affords surface to diffuse the force, and sharp edges and innumerable points to discharge it. No better rod can be constructed to connect such a roof with the earth than its water conductors. Pass iron or copper rods from these into meist earth, or better, with the water pipes of a city, or the water of a well, or with the gas pipes, and insurance against lightning would be profitable to the company insuring. We commend these practical hints to the attention of both insurers and insured. They have an equal interest for both. In her last letter to the Revolution Mrs. Stanton reports a conversation which she had the other day with Mr. Gerrit Smith. They were "talking over the old anti-slavery days." Mr. Smith inci ما dentally mentioned the fact that the first woman appointed on a business committee in this country was Abby Kelley, and that he had the pleasure of doing it himself. It seems that at a meeting of the Anti-Slavery society held in New York in e839, Mr. Smith presided in the absence of the president, Mr. Tappan. In discharging the duties of his place, he appointed John G. Whittier, Rev. John Fost and Abby Kelley "Committee on books and publications." Abby intrenched herself in her position, "and in one year," says Mrs. Stanton exultingly, "the society was rent in twain on the woman question. No wonder the dear men are afraid of our getting a foothold anywhere." This exploit of Abby's rather disgusted one of her colleagues on the committee whom Mrs. Stanton vaguely refers to as "a distinguished Quaker poet," and he wrote as follows to Mr. Benjamin Jones: For me, I can say, as Hamlet did, "Man delight not me, nor woman either." I am getting rather off from woman's rights. This last exploit of my good friend Abby, in blowing up the American society, is too much for me. It is the extra ounce that broke the camel's back. Ah, these women, Benjamin! Think of the conduct of Mrs. Adam formerly-how Delilah shaved Samson-how Helen got up the Trojan war-how Mrs. Eaton dissolved General Jackson's cabinet; and last, not least, this affair of Abby's and the society. Well, I suppose thee will say it is all right, but it seemed to me rather out of the way, to say the least of it. NOTES ON SCIENCE. The twenty-first annual exhibition of the Maryland Institute for the promotion of science and art, will be held at Baltimore, in October next. The spacious institute building has been refitted and will be used for the exhibition. The Albert medal, which was instituted to "reward distinguished merit in promoting arts, manufactures, or commerce," has this year been awarded, by the Council of the Society of Arts, to Joseph Whitworth, of Manchester. A German editor asserts that a new metal has been discovered, the component parts of which are water, glass and copper:-"It is of a deep orange hue, can be melted and cast, wrought under the hammer, and rolled. Files will not scratch it. It is translucent, and capable of being wrought into ornaments of rare beauty." It has been found by experiments that a stream of electricity derived from a powerful electromagnetic machine driven through a solution of brown unrefined sugar, will bleach it, electricity being thus made to perform the function of charcoal. One of Wilde's electro-magnetic machines, driven by a fifteen-borse power engine, has been set up for this purpose in a sugar refinery in Whitechapel. 14 medal. ⚫ Shafts have been sunk on the Osmund Mountain in Sweden for the working of certain petroleum springs which have been discovered. A depth of 253 feet has been reached. The mate. rials dug out are impregnated with that species of petroleum known in America as surface oil, and which is of a deeper color than that generally used in Europe. It has been determined that the boring shall be carried to 600 feet, where the real petroleum is supposed to lie in great abundance. weighs but 125 pounds. The body is one piece of hard rubber, one eighth of an inch in thickness. It is without the usual carriage bolts and screws, and presents a perfectly smooth surface, which is not soiled or tarnished by rubbing or by handling. The rubber is tougher than wood, and very much more elastic. The running gear is of wood, but the next carriage made will be entirely of rubber. The Paris velocipede is sometimes constructed of two large wheels, one following the other, and connected so as to provide a comfortable seat for the rider. Generally, however, three large, nicely balanced wheels are used, and with a powerful ●rank and easily-working levers, the machine is propelled a ong with the greatest ease and at a high rate of speed. An English photographer lately conceived the idea of covering a sheet of paper or glass with a layer of a phosphorescent substance, and then treating it in a similar manner to paper or glass sensitized in the ordinary way for taking a photograph. Pictures taken in this way seem, by daylight, to have no existence; but the places where the light has acted upon become phosphorescent or luminous in the dark, the shadows remaining invisible, the semi-tints slightly lumi. nous; and the result is such a change in the surface that the picture is only perceptible in a dark room, by an unearthly glow of a greenish, blue, red, or purplish tint, according to the preparation used. "Inquirer" writes to the American Artisan:— "The constitutions of liquids and aeriform bodies depend on their latent heat, which becomes sensible during the conversion of vapors into liquids and liquids into solids. When cold water is changed into vapor under the pressure of the atmosphere, something like 1,212 degrees of heat are absorbed, of which only 212 are sensible to the thermometer, the rest becoming latent in the steam. Is it the same when the change is made with the atmospheric pressure removed? And what are the facts when nature converts water into vapor, which she is constantly doing over rivers, lakes, and oceans? Does the same quan. tity of heat become latent in natural as in artificial evaporation? If so, its influence on meteorology must be very great.” BREVITIES. Orange satin petticoats have made their appearance on Broadway. Mr. Beecher defines war as "God's method of spanking the nations." An enterprising Milwaukee mill has cut 650, 000 shingles in sixty-six hours. One third of all the railroad spikes made in the United States are turned out at Pittsburg. The Boston Post has the heartlessness to say "Connecticut mosquitoes are mistaken for canaries." An unnatural cat, residing in Memphis, has adopted several little rats, and is rearing them with her kittens. The Evening Mail has committed the unpar donable sin of saying "diving belles are very fashionable at Long Branch." The dreadful old lady who drank ten glasses of Congress water at Saratoga the other day, has since footed a doctor's bill of $25. The Providence Jonrnal says:-"The humilia tion that we have long apprehended, and which we have hardly dared to contemplate, has come upon us. Our market is mainly supplied with Massachusetts clams." The largest rose-bush in France is at Toulon, "It covers a well seventy-five feet long by eighteen in hight, and near the root measures two feet eight inches round. In the months of April and May it produces fifty thousand roses." A REMINISCENCE OF TWO EMINENT WOMEN.— The following interesting bit of biography is from the forthcoming book, "Eminent Women of the Age":— Sara Willis was educated in Hartford, in the far famed seminary of Miss Catherine Beecher. At that time, Harriet Beecher (Mrs. Stowe) was a teacher in this school. She was amiable and endearing in her ways, and was recognized as a decidedly clever young lady, with a vein of quiet humor, a sleepy sort of wit, that woke up and flashed when least expected, but of a careless, unpractical turn of mind. She was not thought by any means the equal in mental power and weight to her elder sister, whose character was full of manly energy, who was a clear thinker, and ar. excellent theologian, a good, great, highhearted woman, with a strong will and remarkable executive abilities. Of all his children, Dr. Beecher is said to have most highly respected Catherine. Sara Willis must here have laid an excellent foundation for successful authorship, though probably nothing was further from her thoughts at the time than such a profession. It would have seemed too quiet and thought-compelling a career for her, with her heart as full of frolic as a lark's breast is of singing. There are yet traditions in that staid old town of Hartford, of her merry school-girl escapades, her "tricks and her manners," that draw forth as hearty laughter as the witty sallies, humorous fancies and sharp strokes of satire that give to her writings their peculiar sparkle and dash. If she grappled with the exact sciences it is not probable that they suffered much in the encounter. For geometry she is said to have had an especial and inveterate dislike. Indeed, her teacher, Mrs. Stowe, still tells a story of her having torn out the leaves of Euclid to curl her hair with. So she laid herself down to mathematical dreams, her fair head bristling with acute angles, in parallelogrammatic and parallelopideonic papillotes-in short, with more geometry outside than in. A novel way of getting over the "dunce bridge," by taking that distasteful fifth prop osition not only inwardly, but as an outward application; so that it might have read thus: "The angles at the base of an isosceles triangle are equal to one another; and if the equal sides be produced in curl papers the angels on the other side of the os-frontis are also equal." But in the laughing, high-spirited girl there must have existed, unsuspected by those about her, almost unsuspected by herself, the courage and energy, the tenderness, the large sympathy, the reverence for the divine and the human, which love and sorrow, the trials and stress of misfortune, were to evolve from her nature, and which her genius was to reveal. A seer that might have perceived towering above the ringleted head of her absent-minded young teacher, a dark attendant spirit, benignant but mournful-poor, grand, old world-bewept, polyglotted Uncle Tom-might also have seen in the few shadowy recesses of her young pupil's sunny character, the germs of those graceful "Fern Leaves" that were to bring to the literature of the people new vigor and verdure, the odors of woodlands, and exceeding pleasant pictures of nature. AGRICULTURAL JOKES.-The Ohio Farmer lets off the following: Large horses are generally most admired by farmers; but farmers are most admired who pony up. Prosperity is generally based upon knowledge and industry; the swine will always get most that nose most. Farmers are like fowls; neither will get full crops without industry. Because a man who attends a flock of sheep is a shepherd makes it no reason that a man who keeps cows should be a coward. We like to see a farmer increase the growth of useful plants and shrubs around his home, but do not like to see him use rails, poles, and boards to prop-a-gate with. Negro footmen in purple stockings are an ad junct of high life in Paris. The Rothschiids have just bought the finest blue diamond known in Europe. Silver and golden anklets are coming already stylish, and will soon be de rigeur. Mr. Arnold, of the London Telegraph, has mar ried a Yankee girl by the name of Chanuing. THE SIREN'S MUSIC. The weary sails a moment slept, The oars were silent for a space, As past Hesperian shores we swept, That were as a remembered face Seen after lapse of weary years, In Hades, when the Shadows meet, Dim through the mists of many tears, And, though a shadow, sweet. So it seemed the half-forgotten shore, That slumbered, mirrored in the blue, With havens where we touched of yore, And ports that over-well we knew. Then broke the calm before a breeze, That sought the secret of the West, And idly all we swept the seas Toward the islands of the Blest. Beside a silver-sanded bay We saw the Sirens, very fair, The flowery hill whereon they lay, The flowers set amid their hair. Their old sweet song stole down the wind Remembering music waxing strong, Ah now no need of cords to bind, No need had we of Orphic song. It once had seemed a little thing To lay our lives down at their feet, Was more than any Siren's song. REMINISCENCES OF 1 HADDEUS STEVENS. The special Washington correspondent of the New York Tribune sends to that paper the notes of a conversation which he held with Thaddeus Stevens on the day before the organization of the Court of Impeachment. We quote the most interesting passages: THE IMPEACHMENT MANAGERS AT LUNCHAN ANECDOTE. I first met Mr. Stevens in the room of the impeachment committee, just across the lobby from the Speaker's desk in the House of Representatives. When I went into the room the committee was not, of course, in session. Only Mr. Stevens, General John A. Logan, and General Benjamin F. Butler were present. Mr. Stevens was at one end of the long table, munching a soda-cracker; Logan and Butler were at the other end, digging with huge pen knives into a large cheese, and eating cheese and crackers with evident relish. Occasionally they would address a word or two to Mr. Stevens on the all absorbing question of impeachment, but at that moment-the lunching hour-their chief attention was devoted to the edibles. At the moment, Mr. Stevens was waiting for his servants to come to carry him to the carriage which usually conveyed him to his house, and, not being able to talk to him freely and fully there, I made an engagement with him for an hour or two of the afternoon. While I was still in the committeeroom talking to him and his associates, the servants, two young and stalwart white men, came for Mr. Stevens. They took him up as he sat-chair and all-and conveyed him through the lobby to the southern entrance of the capitol, where the carriage awaited him. The incident served to remind General Logan of an anecdote of Mr. Stevens which illustrat ed at once the humor and indomitable spirit of the man. General Logan stated that on one occasion while he was being thus carried by his servants, who are both young men hardly yet in the prime of life, Mr. Stevens turned to them and said drily but besitatingly, sbowing by his feeble manner and tone his exhausted condition : : "Boys, I wonder how I'll get to the house when you two die." He seemed to think he was never to die, but always to be a member of the house. MR. STEVENS'S LODGINGS. I found Mr. Stevens in a small, shabby, lowroofed room of a small, dilapidated brick House in a not very pleasant-looking and cer tainly an unfrequented street. He had evidently chosen it for convenience rather than comfort or style. A very plain, low-posted bedstead, a small wardrobe and bureau, a desk and an easy chair, formed the furniture of the room. The decorations consisted only of photographs of Mr. Lincoln and himself, and one of Miss Vinnie Ream's busts, but whether of Mr. Lincoln or himself I cannot now remember. Mr. Stevens was lying on the bed, his head tied up in a red handkerchief, and his feet in a pair of plain slippers; he was minus coat and vest. So nearly complete was his dishabille that he alluded to it. on my entry, and said he was compelled to rest all he could, and that when not at the Capitol he was seeking renewed strength in repose. It was not sleep he wanted, only rest for his bones in a reclining attitude, and he was ready and able to talk as long as he had interested hearers. WHAT MR. STEVENS SAID ABOUT IMPEACHMENT. This led to my asking him the chances for the success of impeachment. He answered very promptly : Good, I think, now. We managed to get Butler's additional articles adopted to-day; and I think Mr. Johnson will be convicted on them. Before the adoption of those articles we hadn't a case at all-none at all, and an acquittal would surely follow if we prosecuted on the original articles only. Besides, there are some disagreements among the managers. Bingham refused at first to serve with Butler, because of his language about Mrs. Surratt's execution and the hanging of an innocent woman, Then Boutwell was elected chief manager, and Bingham objected, claiming that he was entitled to the first place in the committee because he had received the highest number of votes in the House, although Colfax had distinctly stated that the vote would not decide the question of priority in the committee. Then Boutwell resigned to keep peace in the committee, and that disgusted me. But I hope we shall convict-I hope so. MR. STEVENS ESTIMATE OF HIS OWN PUBLIC SERVICES. We came to speak of the course of the newspapers towards him, and the vast amount of vituperation which had been poured on his head. He remarked that he did not fret at that, it was all he could expect, "for you know," he added, "that I have always been a plain speaker myself." This led to my asking scmething in regard to his early life and his history. As I used the word "history," he glanced at me quickly, and I thought rather suspiciously, and directly said, "You newspaper men are always wanting to get at a man's history. As I said to a young girl who came to see me some time ago to collect materials for a biography of me, I have no history. My life-long regret is that I have lived so long and so uselessly." I ventured to suggest that his friends were not disposed to agree with him in the use of the word "uselessly," as applied to his Congressional achievements. "I have achieved nothing in Congress. Until the war began, I was a plodder without influence, and since it began I have been so radical that I had no control over anybody. Some of the papers call me the 'Leader of the House.' I only laugh at them. I lead them, yes; but they never follow me or do as I want them until public opinion has sided with me. "No," he added, after a pause of a moment or two. "I'm not over proud of my Congressional career. I like my state service better. I think and feel, I hope without vanity, that the crowning utility of my life was the adoption of the common school system of Pennsylvania." A LITTLE FAMILY HISTORY "That is the work," he said, "that I take most pleasure in recalling, except one perhaps. I really think the greatest gratification of my life resulted from my ability to give my mother a farm of 250 acres, and a dairy of 14 cows, and an occasional bright gold piece, which she loved to deposit in the contribution box of the Baptist church which she attended. This always gave her great pleasure, and me much satisfaction. My mother," he suddenly added, "was an extraordinary woman, and I have met very few women like her. My father"-he hesitated for a moment, and sev eral times commenced the sentence before pursuing it further; it was evident he was trying to make a confession he did not like. At length the innate love of truth and plain speaking got the better of him, and he continued: "My father, you see," he said, “was not a well-to-do man, and the support and education of the family depended on my mother. She worked night and day to educate me. I was feeble and lame in my youth, and as I could not work on the farm, she concluded to give me an education, I tried to repay her afterward, but the debt of a child to his mother, you know, is one of the debts we can never pay. Poor woman! the very thing I did to gratify her most hastered her death. She was very proud of the dairy and fond of her cows, and one night going out to look after them she fell and injured herself so that she died soon after." MR. STEVENS' FAILURES IN BUSINESS. I had heard the fact mentioned that Mr. Stevens had on one occasion given $100,000 to the poor of Lancaster county, and I asked him about the truth of it. "Oh! it was not true," he said. "I have never been able to do any thing. I have been a failure in everything. I have failed financially three times. The first was through going bail and security, and it broke up a very fine practice I had in Adams county. The second was through the carelessness of a partner in some iron mills. Notes were presented to me for payment which I had never executed or known of. I went to my partner and asked how it was. He explained that he had been losing money for some time, but as he had induced me to embark in the enterprise he had not the courage to tell me of the losses, and had signed the firm name to notes without consulting me. Well,' I said, 'what's to be done?' He began to make a piteous mouth, but I cut him short. 'I don't come to upbraid you,' I said, 'I come to get at the facts. I looked over the books and saw that we were deeply involved. Then I said to him, 'You take the works and pay all claims, releasing me entirely.' He declined and I at once said, "Then I will; and it was thus the iron works near Chambersburg came into my possession. The third time I failed was when the rebels burned these works. My friends in Lancaster and elsewhere raised about $100,000, which they tendered to me, but I declined it, and it went to the Poor Fund, but I did not give it. I managed to get through my trouble, and have never taken advantage of a bankrupt law yet." He evidently had some feeling on this subject, and I asked him his views on the bankrupt law. "Well," he said, "personally I feel that my creditors are entitled, among my other worldly goods, to my labor until I am dead. If my debts are not paid, then the bankrupt law of another world will cancel them." HOW. MR. STEVENS WISHED TO DIE. "I am going to die like Nicanor," he said to me "in harness. I mean to die hurrahing." He attached a peculiar meaning to this last phrase, which was a favorite one with him, and I have heard of his using it on two or three occasions. One of these is noteworthy. A citizen of Knoxville, Teun., had visited him, and had conveyed to him a message of respect and good wishes from Governor Brownlow, who, by the way, is an admirable prototype of Lamartine rarely honors the Academy with his presence. and now, alas! that his grand intelligence is dying out-for Lamartine is in his dotage-he never more will cross the threshold of the sacred temple. Never did there live a more complex character to vex historians and intrigue the critics. Proud of his noblesse, and yet willing to beg; conferring princely gifts on his poor tenante, and looking to the rest of mankind to reimburse him; boasting of his aristocratic descent, while waving the flag of the Republic; the prince of theorists in politics and a quack in practice-Lamartine is the enigma of his time Generous to himself, he has allowed his friends to convince him that his famous speech at the Hotel de Ville saved France from a second Reign of Terror, and he is indignant that the state does not pay his two millions of debt for it. He boasted of America and her institutions till the day that she followed the example of France and refused to subscribe money for the liquidation of his debts. His spite even betrayed him into the writing of an unjust and abusive article against the United States for their intervention in the French scheme of imperializing Mexico. This was his last political act-as it ought to have been. Politicians who knew him best had least to do with him. He was a sort of firebrand that parties threw back from one to the other, because all were alike afraid to trust themselves to him. Since the death of his wife, three or four years ago, we no longer see Lamartine about the streets. His lyre is hung up, his great soul is dying out. The tall form is growing thinner and more crooked, and we no longer recognize in him the elegant, and erect, and vigorous Lamartine of the days of the Republic. His Cours Literraires go on uninterrupt ed, but they are made up from matter long ago prepared for the press. The illustrious poet spends half of his time at his house in the Rue Cambaceres, and half at the house at Passy, built for him by the city of Paris. He is surrounded by some relatives of a younger generation and by some faithful old friends. VICTOR HUGɔ. Another of the statues of the Academy is Victor Hugo. He, too, shines by his absence. He clings to his island home at Guernsey, and refuses to be comforted. Long ago amnestied or the events of '50, he still pouts, and de clares he will never return to France so long as the present dynasty reigns. Is it parade or Probably a little of both. He is sincerity? comfortably installed on the island; he has a large house on the seashore, with a magnifient view of the other islands, and even of the shores of France; he is a Grand Seigneur where he lives, and people make pilgrimages to look at the house he lives in. Would you believe it ?-he has even the royal habit of allowing the public to visit certain portions of his house at certain hours of the day, and finally as the supreme of happiness, to peep through a window at his back while at work in his library! To have seen Victor Hugo at work at "Les Miserables" or the "Toilers of the Sea" is, therefore, to count hereafter as an event in a common mortal's life. Victor Hugo is but sixty-five years of age, and is yet capable of much work. He is not nervous, like Lamartine, and will not wear out so soon. His presence is much missed at the Academy. In a body which anites every type and mould of mind in the upper fields of literature, the architectural or sculptural type fills an important place, and this place is Victor Hugo's. There is none other like him.in the Academy. His poetry is a rounded column of virgin marble; his prose a finished corinthian column. Lamartine's verses flow from a glowing imagination; Victor Hugo's from a hard, mathematical mind, which whips and moulds the words into forms of astonishing simplicity. The one charms and intoxicates; the other astonishes and overwhelms. The one is a genius; the other a prodigious talent. GUIZOT. One of the working men of the Academy is M. Guizot. Born in 1787, he is now eightyone years of age. He is one of the greenest old men of the Academy, and comes nearer realizing M. Flouren's long-life system than did its inventor himself. Medium size, slim and straight, white hair and skin, sunken cheeks, a bright eye, M. Guizot is the type of the austere, old-school gentleman. Some one has given the following etymological definition of his name “Guizot-Aiguise: a puritan statesman, a statesman puritan, a name and character cold, sharp, and cutting as steel." M. Guizot is in effect a Protestant of the Puritan type, cold. severe, for himself as well as for others a Christian by his head more than by his heart, who makes of Christianity an institution parallel with the civil law, and therefore useful in the regulation of men's actions toward each other. It is this philosophical view of the church and its mission that leads him to support the temporal power of the Pope, to the disgust of his Protestant brethren. But one must see the cold, elegant old man in the tribune of the Academy. His diction is perfection itself; his voice grave and sonorous. By his voice alone he makes himself respected. He does not talk at his audience; he launches, apparently, his grand ideas, his cold philosophy, aphorisms as cutting as a sword, above the heads of his hearers, at some unseen object beyond. One might imagine it was Bossuet descended from the pulpit to take part in the turmoil of worldly things, in order to dominate, to govern, and to reprove them. When he sets himself about it M. Guizot is an oracle, neither more nor less. What a pity his lot had not been cast in the church instead of in the forum! What an incomparable sacred orator he would have made! How that sonorous, and penetrating, and anathematizing voice would have resounded under the vaulted arches of a cathedral! And if he had clung to sinners and the sins of mankind as he did to office, what a reformer he would have been! The Queen Marie Amelie said of M. Guizot, "He is a crab with unyielding claws, who has so fastened himself to the rock of power that he will never yield till the rock crumbles." Prophetic words, poor queen! On the other hand, some one asked Royer Collard, "Is it true that you called Guizot an austere intriguer?" "I did not say austere," replied Royer Collard. THIERS. M. Thiers, since he has been elected to the Legislature, has almost abandoned his fauteuil at the Academy. On grand occasions, however, the restless, irrepressible little bourgeois is there, ready to take part in any melee that may offer. Born in 1797, he is now at the age to be garrulous, diplomatic, and afraid of nothing. His name is covered with reputation and honor; and if in politics he has been compared to the squirrel in a cage, or to a weathercock, he has left a monument in the "history of the consulate and the empire" which will perpetuate his name very far into the future. In effect, the history of that epoch was written, and need not be recommenced. Excitable and uncontrollable in the forum, M. Thiers grows calm and even-tempered and steady the minute he takes his pen in hand. Above all he is a patriot, and whatever political gyrations he may have performed, he blames all to this element of his character. M. Thiers lives in princely style in his house at the Place St. Georges, where he receives all who call upon him. His house is a mu seum of art and literature. Wealthier than either Lamartine or Guizot. and more expansive in his friendships, his house is a rendezvous for the elite of all parties. EMILE AUGIER. M. Emile Augier, the poet of the moment, the man whose poetry is most before the public, on the stage and in the boudoir, is yet a young man, who is rapidly hewing out a rep. utation and a fortune. With men of such vigor as he and Prevost Paradol, one cannot say that the Academy is a museum of fossils. M. Augier is also a sort of Adonis in form and manly beauty. In 1859, the journalists that followed in the train of the French army in Italy were stopping at Dezenzano, on the Lake di Garda. There were Emile Augier, his friend William Guizot (son of the illustrious Guizot) Edmond Texier. Paul d'Ivoy, Auguste Villemot, and others. There was a great scarcity of food, and landlords held what little they had for those only who paid well. Two chaplains of the army came along who had had nothing but apricots and stale bread to eat for days, and asked if they could have something. The landlord declared he was eaten out. Was it because he was the largest man in the party, or that he had seen more of the cupidity of that class of people than the rest of us? At any rate, it would have done a first-class pugilist good to see Emile Augier jump upon that landlord and shake him till he cried for mercy, and till he promised the poor chaplains all he had in his kitchen. We have liked Emile Augier ever since and read his long tirades against the corruption of modern society with much more satisfaction. MONTALEMBERT, PREVOST PARADOL, RYER, SAINT BEUVE. BER: The Count de Montalembert, so long an invalid, has appeared in his fauteuil at the Academy again, and there is much rejoicing thereat. His is one of the sympathetic faces of the learned assembly, but that sympathy extends only to his person and his talent. His opinions stand alone; his whole existence is given up to polemics; he is like the cuirassed ship, which strikes boldly in front against whatever opposes him, and whether he crushes his opponent or not, he is sure to irritate him and leave a sting behind. Mon. talembert will leave no work behind to mark his passage on the earth. M. Prevost-Paradol, the youngest man in the Academy, and innocent of the least versi fication, or the least leaning toward the clas sics, found his way into the learned assembly by his talent as a political critic and by the purity of his language. As he ripeas, we may look for works of political philosophy which will mark an epoch. He is friendly to Amer ica, and largely infused with the spirit of her institutions; and in the coming struggles for political supremacy in Europe he will surely play a large part. M Beriyer, the brilliant lawyer, takes hi ademie duties seriously to heart, and wil |