Wood County reporter. [volume] (Grand Rapids [i.e. Wisconsin Rapids], Wis.) 1857-1923, 1890-07-03

cuts the pencils apart. Another machine
shapes them, making them octagonal, or
round. or fiat, or three-cornered. as the
case may be. Tho pencils are FURNISHED
by machinery, and are then ready to be
tied IN buncnes, boxed and put out.
The different grades in value of a lead
pencil are made by fine manipulation of
the graphite and the use of better ma
terlal. The average pencil in everyday use
costs about one quarter of a cent to make
We are content with 100 per cent profit on
1t when we sell it to the dealer. What
his profit is you may figure for youself if
you have one of the pencils about you that
you paid cents for. Of this grade of pen
ell an operator will turn out $500 in a
day:
The most valuable lead pencil that |
know OF Is owned by lawyer In this city,
1t Is cheap looking affair. but | don t be-
lleve it could be bought for $780, The
wood in this pencil came from a ceder tree
that was probably centuries old before any
cellar tree now standing began to grow
1t was taken from the bottom OF a mari
bed IN Orange county, at depth of nearly
100 feet below the surface. Near it was
found the remains of a mastodon. The
knob on the end of the pencil was made
from piece OF the mastOdon' S tooth. The
pencil has never been sharpeded, and
probably never will be-"
Tennyson's Habits.
Like almost all authors, Tennyson does
the greater part of his literary work in the
morning hours. between breakfast and
luncheon, and sometimes breaks the
back of his work before breakfast. His
invariable habit is to take long stroll
before luncheon. accompanied often by
friend, and always by two of his dogs.
The afternoon and evening are given up to
rest and social recreations.
The poet is seldom. as we have said,
seen In the streets of the metropolis: but
occasionally his tall, studry form. his broad
soft hat and inevitable cloak his shaggy,
grlzzled shocks of hair, his deep dark eyes
beneath heavy brows, and heavy grey
beard. may be seen threading the region
round st. Paul's. Although stunning the
''madding crowd. it must not be inferred
that Iennyson is In a social sense grim and
gloomy
When with a few devoted friends, he
delights in conversation, and often takes
up himself the. thread of talk in fascinating
monologue; describing sometimes, the
days of his own youth and sometimes
talking freely OF the eminent people ne has
seen and known throughout his long
life
Especially fond is Tennyson of reading
extracts from his own poems to apprecia-
tive listeners. Reading, is it?' says
Miss Thackeray. lone can hardly de-
scribe it. 1t is sort of mystical incanta-
ton a chant in which every note rises and
falls and reverberates again. As we sit
around the twilight room at Farringford,
with It's great oriel-window looking to the
garden, across fields of hyacinth and self
sowed daffodils toward the sea, where the
waves wash against the rocks. we seem car
ried by a tide not unlike the ocean s sound;
it fills the room. it Gibbs and flows away;
and when we leave, it is with a STANCE
music in the ears, feeling that we have for
the first time, perhaps, heard what we
may have read hundred times before.
George Makepeace Towle. in Frank
Leslie's Popular Monthly for July.