Mexico weekly ledger., 1891-04-02
GEMS FROM KIprING.

Good Deal OF Thougnt IS Crowded
Great Literary Genius 0c-
casiona1y Gets Out of
Harmony With
Nature.
J. N. Basket. Mexico, Mo-, In Pittsburg Pa
Dispatch.
Here are a few Kipiingianse. OF
course much Is lost by taking them
from their settings, but they r gems
nevertheless:
"Never praise a sister to a sister in
the hopes of your compliments reach
ing the proper ears and SO preparing
the way for you later on Sisters are
women first and sisters afterward !;
and you will find that you do yourself
harm.n
"There never was any scandal about
Mrs. Reiver.1 She had not generous
impulses enough for that"
'This forced of skeptieisml was
made up In town where there is moth
ing but machinery and asphalt and
buildings all shut in by fog. Natural
one higher than himself, and that the
| Metropolitan Board OF Public Works
made everything. In India the eli
mate and the work are against play
ing bricks with words"
"That season there came up to Simla
one of those crazy people with only a
single idea. These are the men who
make things move, but they are not
nice to talk to-"
"How can a man who has never
married, who cannot be trusted to
pick up at sight a moderately sound
4 horse. whose head is hot and upset
with visions of domestic felicity, go
about choosing a wife, and the same
disadvantages exist in the case of the
girls fancies. n y Properly speak
ing, Government should establish a
matrimonial department, efficiently Of
ficered, with a jury of matrons, a
Judge of the chief court, and an awful
warning in the shape Of a love-match
that has one wrong, chained to the
trees in the court yard. All a
riages should be be made through the
department.
"Miss Castries said she would have
no breach of promise suit. She said
that if she was not a ]a6y she was re-
fined enough toknoy mat ladies kept
their broken hearts to themselves
SOME ERRORS OF GREAT WRITER'S.
When Milton spoke Of "impalpable
darkness that night he felt" he was
deep into the ridiculous, and was
scarcely out Of the depths when he
wrote
"Adam the goodliest man ofmen since
born.
His ons the fairest of her daughters
Eve"
Modern writers have not been free
from these errors of a vivid imagina-
ton. Let the reader cast his eye over
the following from Joaquin Miller
headed "Dakota:n
against the clear, cold sky a smoke
Curls like some column TO its dome
An ak with far Faint boyish stroke
Rings feebly from a snowy home;
father come. The fame burns low.
We freeze in this vast field CT snow
But far away, and long and vain
Two horses plunge with snow TO breast,
The weary father drops the rein
He rests in the eternal rest,
And high against the blue profound
A dark bird circles round and round"
Beautiful and graphic, isn't it? A
prairie home-in Neutrality-suspicious.
but the boy chopping wood, with no
timber in nine counties, seems a lit
tie incongruous. If he had had tho boy
twisting prairie hay or carrying in the
last bit of coal it might have been less
poetic, but more real. Glance at that
last couplet, and if any ever saw a
turkey bnzzard, a bird that emigrates
at the first touch of frost, sailing
around in such a temperature as that
he should communicate with the
American Ornithological Association
at once. This was published in 'S3.
It is not known whether the poet had
seen the Verestchagin paintings then
OIL net but if these things may hap
pen in Russia the poet ought to know
that they should not be imported with
out paying duty.
oCTAvETHANET's WONDERFUL oUAIIs
OCTAVE THANET, in her story of x
piation that ran through the 'S9 Scrib-
ner, after quoting an elaborate French
sentence, speaks of the equals hop
ping in the brush.n Whether she is
accurate in her French I cannot gay,
but her most ignorant rustic reader
must smile at the idea of a healthy
quail hopping. These may have had
one leg kroken.
Again In the same story,a man some
distance away in the woods, fires q
gun aud nearly kills all old parson,
and the poor hero near by supposes
that a pistol in his own hand had gone
off and shot the preacher. Not only
that, but he thinks that he Intentional
ly pulled 1t off. Yet she says nothing
about any form of hypnotism, and has
those Immediately around believing
the same thing as the young man, as
though mems ears would not appre-
ciate the difference of q sound off gun
shot under the nose and n 80 yards
away. IF Octave should fire such u
pistol as the ~ described, she would
find that the recoil to her delicate
wrist would indicate. whether it had
gone of or not.
A MIRAGE RIGHT SIDE UP.
JULIA HAWTHORNE has a story in
which the hero saw q murder by
means of a mirage many miles away.
The illustrations in a first class week
ly had the figures all drawn upright,
when 1t Is well known fact that
images of actual things seen by mirage
are always inverted. A. little knowI-
edge of the law of optics might have
prevented the blunder, but then it
might have spoiled a good story.
One of our weeklies published for
young people prides itself upon the
accuracy of his natural history notes.
Manuscripts are submitted to the Z
animation of "a naturalist whose name
you would recognize at once were it
mentioned, y they say. Yet a recent
contributes, describing the orgies of q
Kentuck consolidating among the
negroes, says, s'and sleeping bats
awoke from midnight sltlmbers.r The
naturalist with a lame perhaps had
not awakened from his midday slufr-
bers when that was passed.
OF course Robert Lonis Stevenson
has 50 much company in the rising
new moon that it A needless to
mention them. When Il writer turns
his imagination loose in description, 1t
ID apt, not only 10 ag,lnlbeI on the
greenfs 8 little, but to enter into some
speculatlon chat can scarcely be