“Ruskin,” it says in the introduction to The Crown of Wild Olive which my little friend reads at school, “is certainly one of the greatest masters of English prose.” That has often been declared. But is he? Or is our tribute to Ruskin only a show of gratitude to one who revealed to us the unpleasant character of our national habits when contrasted with a standard for gentlemen? It ought not to have required much eloquence to convince us that Widnes is unlovely; the smell of it should have been enough. It is curious that we needed festoons of chromatic sentences to warn us that cruelty to children, even when profit can be made of it, is not right. But I fear some people really enjoy remorseful sobbing. It is half the fun of doing wrong. Yet I would ask in humility–for it is a fearful thing to doubt Ruskin, the literary divinity of so many right-thinking people–whether English children who are learning the right way to use their language, and the noblest ideas to express, should run the risk of having Ruskin’s example set before them by soft-hearted teachers? I think that a parent who knew a child of his, on a certain day, was to take the example of Ruskin as a prose stylist on the subject of war, would do well, on moral and aesthetic grounds, to keep his child away from school on that day to practise a little roller-skating.

From the essay “Ruskin” in Waiting for Daylight, by H. M. Tomlinson. New York: Knopf, 1922.

To The Illustrator

In grateful acknowledgment of his amiable condescension in lending his exquisitely delicate art to the embellishment of these poor verses from his sincerest admirer

The Author

From: The Bashful Earthquake & Other Fables and Verses by Oliver Herford with many pictures by the Author (Scribner’s 1898).

The experiment of free government is not one which can be tried once for all. Every generation must try it for itself. As each new generation starts up to the responsibilities of manhood, there is, as it were, a new launch of Liberty, and its voyage of experiment begins afresh.

Robert C. Winthrop, Addresses and Speeches on Various Occasions. Boston: Little, Brown, and Company, 1852, p. 163. Noted in Lord Acton, A Lecture on the Study of History Delivered at Cambridge, June 11, 1895. London: MacMillian and Co., 1911.

(Say 1 vol., octavo, about 128 pages, wanting very much a publisher.)

To Death.

Welcome, sad Death, creed of the glazèd eye,
Our last true friend, the fickle hand of maid,
The faith of dame replacing, unafraid
Who clasp they own and with one latest breath

Bid, “Lead me to some palace of the night
That all must know, deprived of mortal sight,
Of earthly comfort, health, and human aid”;
Welcome, thrice welcome, final hope, sweet Death!

Perhaps in that long vision signs decree
Of aspirations and unclaimed desires
That fitly rose to feed immortal fires

The consummation that came not to me
Within this weary width of land and sea,
Of parents, pavements acres, homes, and spires.

From: My Soundspeed Discovery, by George Winslow Pierce. Boston: Published by the Author, 1895.

Gleanings from Old Journals.

Old newspapers make good reading–if they are old enough. Like the deciphering of moss-covered epitaphs, the reading of journals of other days gives rise to reflections that mingle the sweet with the sad. It shows plainly that time does not alter human nature, much as customs may change.

The Scrap Book, Volume 1, Number 3, published May, 1906 by Frank A. Munsey.

from: The Queen of the Block, by Alexander L. Kinkead.

CHAPTER IV.

THREE-SISTERS.

It is one town and not three contiguous villages as its name might suggest. Three blast-furnaces stood on the bank of the river below the town. These Colonel Hornberger had named for his daughters, Martha, Sarah, and Henrietta. So the town that grew up near them came to be known as Three-Sisters, and was often spoken of as Three-Girls.

On all sides of it mountains, through which there were three gaps, rise precipitously. Through one of the gaps Boomer Creek, a clear and rapid stream, given to sudden rises, runs into the river, which is picturesque and famous, and almost encircles the town. Through another gap the river glides to the village, and by still another pursues its journey towards the sea.

Beginning above the town, and running parallel to the river, the race conducts the water to the huge wheels in the bellows-house and at the saw-mill.

The railroad runs to the left of the village, crossing the flat on which it is built, while the river flows to the right.

A long wooden covered bridge spans the river and race, and the island between them, and connects Three-Sisters with Boomer Creek Valley, in which are many farms that are gradually encroaching on the forests.

Many of the streets and alleys in the town were given high-sounding titles, but nearly all have their nicknames. The street on which the proprietor dwells is called Big-bug Avenue. There are Goose Street and Backbiter’s Alley. Harmony Lane is where the worst wranglers in the village live. And there is the Block-of-Blazes, standing at the head of Big-bug Avenue, yet giving it the cold shoulder, for not a door of the Block opens, not a window looks, except askance, upon the Avenue.

The people of Three-Sisters, in the days of this story, were laborious, frugal, and patient; they had few grievances. Strikes were unheard of, and no trouble was fermented, except by the tavern whiskey, which flowed freely on Saturday nights, when there were frequent fights among the men.

The women were given to gossip, but were honest. Scandal was rare among them, and they prided themselves on being good cooks and tidy housewives.

Belford’s Magazine, Volume 2, Issue 1, December 1888.

It is said that when Victoria, late queen of England, had read Alice in Wonderland she was so pleased that she asked for more of the author’s books. They brought her a treatise on logarithms by the Rev. C. L. Dodgson….

In an academical discussion held at Oxford he once published three rules to be followed in debate. This is one of the three: “Let it be granted that any one may speak at any length on a subject at any distance from that subject.”

From: Stories of Authors, British and American, by Edwin Watts Chubb, 1910.

One Henry Higden, a dramatic writer about the close of the seventeenth century, wrote a comedy, called the Wary Widow, in which he introduced so many drinking scenes, that the actors were completely drunk before the end of the third act, and being therefore unable to proceed with the play, they dismissed the audience.

Another snippet from The Mirror of Taste and Dramatic Censor (Volume 1, Issue 4, April 1810.).