The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1866-10-05
GEMS OF PERIODICAL LITERATURE.
E..erpss from the Latest English Maga-
zines.

Zines.
Old Red-Ietter Days-Bvery one will under
stand what is meant here by Red-Lett Days.
We have all our official red-etter days, when 1t
IL incumbent on us to be happy and joyful IN de-
meanor, and when all the necessary prepara-
tions have been made to that end. Inere Is tue
tfuldr expedition, the picnic, the pleasure
PARTY by rail, when we go out to enjoy ourselves
as Dy recipe, and-do not. These are the regu-
Iation red-letter days, when we feast and make
merry, as per order; but fail slgnally we ind,
then, tuat we may call our spirits IRON
the vastly deep, or any other quarter, but
they decline to come. No; every red-letter
dav. if the reader will search back his memory,
will be proved to be accidental. Every one OF us
have-or should have, unless we be Miserimus-
a few of these glOrihed miestones along the
rutty dusty, ill-watered, weary high road which
we are all trudging along and call life. The
most exhausted and battered tramp of us all has
found these little bits of green grass, these
shady places, into which he has turned from
the glare and the dust, and dropped down TO
rest his limbs. But these places, as have said
before, we're not the places set down IN the
guides and road-books, but merely turned up by
chance. II we search back for those pleasant
spots we shall find that all these dissolving
views, Sc ttling before us with trembling, quiver-
ing, and faint colors, are not cuhningly and
artiully devised beforehand -"Ou Red-Letie'
Days" IN AHhe Ycor Round
Fairy Tales.-Fairy tales are serious things,
or they are nothing; and this age VIII not treat
them in serious spirit People are too 1ntelli.
gent nowadays, and Il great deal too Well-in-
formed, to endure the picture OF an arbitrary
world, without regular la VS. and uniformity of
sequence. If writer Is sufficiently 1aucifu to
try and tell tales of tairy-land, he is sure TO
accompany his marvels with some clumsy tacti
tlous tag, which makes ii very clear TO the
knowing that he has never really been in that
wonderful region at all. He is either humorous,
and then he is too funny; or earnest, and then
he is too deteTminedly moral; or poetical, and
then he is great deal too sentimental for fairy
land. In any case, he is sure to betray an uD
hot hn 10 yhn
does not believe his own story. No doubt there
are five or six traditionary tales unapprOachable
Tor beautiful simplicity and the gravity of their
magic, that even in this sophisticated generation
are still the delight of good children, and of
which the charming memory ut least, has not
vanished from the minds OF the old. But they
have come down TO us from simpler age; and
although they can never lose their hold on the
general imagination, perhaps they are scarcely
valued so highly as they should be. reading
public which thinks it q considerable thing TO
necessarily think it slight thing to have
written Jack and the Bean-stalk." The de-
PRAYED imagination which is fascinated by Lady
Audley is a great deal too credulous to believe
in the White Cat. 1t is little to say that nobody
can write such tales as these. We cannot even
edit them. II is truly painful to open the recent
editions of our old favorites. Not one of them
that is not contaminated by some degrading
moral or some impertinent wilticlsm. 1t any
one wishes to retain the conviction that we
are a great deal more simple and natural in
''this England and this nown than Frenchmen
were in the reign OF Louis XIV, let him by all
means avoid comparing the "Fairy Realm" of
Mr.. Thomas Hood with the ''COntes" of Per-
rault. The age of Louis XIV was itself too late
for the invention of the old fairy tales. They
are not the creation of a time that writes books.
But, if we cannot initiate them, let us at least
preserve them in their original simplicity, and
hand them down to our children as we got
them from our grandmothers. ''Tne man who"
inserts puns abont Chang and Anak into the
story OF "Tom Thumb" is worthy OF the most
severely virtuous denunciation with which
Joseph Surface" himself could have wound up
the sentence. - -"FdTy Tales" IN the North
British Reoie11.
Well-favored People.-Like her father, Eliza
bet h was careful to admit into her household
none but those, says Osborne, of stature aud
birth" and positively refused the services of
gentleman in these respects well qualified TO
attend her, only because one of his jaws was de-
fcient OF atooth Her successor, James l, as
Lord Thomas Howard once wrote from the
court to Sir John Harrington dwelt on good
looks and handsome accoutrements. Eighteen
servants he adds, were lately discharged,
and many more will be discarded who are not
TO his liking in these matters The celebrated
Lord Derby, TOO tne one who was beheaded at
Bolton), in his ''Advice to his Son, - is careful
TO remark, "It is very handsome to have comely
men to serve you" Of slender build himself,
James dishked corpulencY in others. He woald
say OF stout and burly divine that fiat men were
apt to make lean sermons" whilst ne would GER
talnly have promoted DR.. Bennet to the episco-
pal bench, had he not already attained that
honor on account merely OF his agreeable eX.
terror, remarking OF the doctor that If he (the
king) "were to choose bishop by his aspect,
he would certainly choose hlm OF all men he
had seen for a grave, revereni and pleasing
countenance." There is a story told OF the En-
peror Henry " of Germany going once INTO d
church where a remarkably ugiy-looking priest
otticlated; so ugly was he that the Emperor
wondered within himself whether God could
possibly accept services. rendered oy so i'll
favored a ministrant. Thefmperial meditatiOns
WERE however, interrupted by the priests boy
mumbling, almost uninteligibly, the versicle in
the Tooth Psalm" IpSe nos ttceTt, a non tpSl
nos It is He that has made us, not we our
selves)n whereupon the priest reproVed the AGO
lyte for his indistlnct and defective enunciatlon
and repeated himself, in q clear and sonorous
voice, the Psalmists words, which the Emperor
took as real If undersigned rebuke to his own
uncharltable thoughts; so when the service wa
ended he made himself known to the priest, OF
whom some time afterwards he conferred the
honors of the mtre and the crozler, Still, how
ever unprepossessing the aspect of this prizes
may have been, the Church OF Rome, as is wei
known-folloWiIg therein the spirit OF the
Mosaic law (Levticus XXI, lO-lnvaria0ll
refuses her ORDERS to such as are physically de
formed or exhibit any outward hideousness. In
deed. throughout the middle ages il was preva
lent belief that the ugliness of the wicked-anC
the wicked were everugly-was in precise pro
portion to their wickedness, and so the Spirit
of Evil himself was ever pictured as abomina Dly
hideous, and revoltingly trightful-very unlike
the mot less than archangel ruined" as his
outward presentment Is portrayed by Milton
Gas ugly as sin, dabocally hideous," arr
phrases to be found in other languages besides
our own. In the same way virtue and goodness
tue attributes OF the saint the characteristics o
the angel are habitualy linked, Doth In idei
ana expression, with either majestic charms o.
encnanJinP loVeliness. "As beautiful as al
angel, seraphic beauty" are modes OF expires
sion iamllargto our lips; and furthermore, 1t i
usual enough, when the desire is 10 convel