The record-union., 1898-03-20

dreary circumstances, fedNIHS MS NoIh
to win considerable fame for him,
prints q striking letter from Robert
Louis Stevenson. 1t was written to
Craibe Angus of Glasgow, and runs as
follows:
when your hand is in, will you re-
member our poor Edinburg Robin?
Burns alone has been just to his prom
ise; follow Burns. He knew best; he
knew when to draw fsh-from the
poor. white faced, drunken, vicious boy
who raved himself to death in the Ed
inburg madhouse. Surely there is
more to be CLEANED about Ferguson,
and surely it is high time the task was
set about
L may tell you because your poet
is not dead) something of how I feel.
We are three Robins who have touched
the Scots Tyre this last century. Well,
the one is the worlds. He did it; he
came off; he is forever; but l and the
other-ah, what bonds we have Born
in the same city, both sickly, both Vi
cious, both pestered-one nearly TO
madness and one to the madhouse-
with a damnatory creed; both seeing
the stars and the moon, and wearing
shoe leather on the same ancient stones.
Under the same pends, down the same
closes, where our common ancestors
clashed in their armor rusty or bright.
He died in his acute, painful
youth. and left the models of the great
things that We're to come; and the man
who came after outlived his green
sickness, and has family tried to parody
his finished work.
If you will collect strays of Robert
Ferguson, fish for material-collect
any last re-echoing of gossip, command
me to do what you prefer-to write the
preface-to write the whole, if you pre-
fer; anything, so that another monu-
ment (after Burns) be set up TO my
unhappy predecessor, on the Causey of
Aud Reelie. You will never know,
nor viii any man, how deep this feel
ing is. 1 believe Ferguson lives in
me But tell it not in Gath Every
man has these fanciful superstitions
coming, going, but yet enduring; only
most men are so wise (or the poet in
them so dead) that they keep their fol-
lies for themselves"
IF ever there was an active, powerful
brain, it was Ruskin's. No doubt he
worked very hard, but doubt whether
hard work by itself can ever upset
healthy brain. 1 believe it rather
strengthens than weakens it, as eXer-
else strengthens the muscles of our
body He was. no doubt, a very sem
sitive nature, and an overwrought SEN
sitiveness is much more likely to cause
mischief than steady intellectual ef-
fort. And what a beautiful mind his
was, and what lessons of beauty he
has taught US ALL At the same time,
he could not bear anything unbeauti-
full; and anything low or ignoble in
men revolted in him and made him
thoroughly unhappy. I remember once
taking Emerson to lunch with him, N
his rooms in Corpus Christi College.
Emerson was an old friend of his, and
in many respects a cognate soul. But
some quite Indifferent subject turned
up, a heated discussion ensued, and
Ruskin was so upset that he had to
quit the room and leave US alone. En-
erson was most unhappy, and did all
he could to make peace, but he had to
leave without a reconciliation. From
Professor Max Muller's "Auld Lang
Syne.'
Pail Mall Gazette: ''Vivos voco NOR
tuos plango" The great bell from
which Schiller took his motto for the
Lied Won der GIocke'' will shortly be-
long to the voices of the past. This is
the bell of the Munster at Schaffhau-
SEN 1t was cast at Bale in 1886,
though in this century the families and
guilds which supplied the great bel
fries of Europe were at Nuremburg
and augsburg, and in Holland, while
the K1inge or Klinghe family in North
west Germany gave their name to the
domestic bell wherever the German
language is spoken. The Glocke Won
Schaffhausen was originally passing
bell, and it has tolled its own passing
for more than a century. A piece of
the metal broke away more than
hundred years ago, and new and dan
gerous crack was revealed last year
For the sake of it's historic past it was
treated with all possible care, it was
covered up in winter and it's voice was
heard only on Sunday in summer Now
it is TO be melted with the four other
bells of the minister, and a new peal VIII
take its place Another historic bell
in Switzerland is the silver bell in the
minister at Berne. 1t rang for the
service of God, the festivals of State
and the execution of the evildoer. F"
When the forces of the young French
Republic captured Berne in 1898 the
citizens painted it a funeral black, and
under this disguise it escaped from
the rapacity of the Gaul.
London Daily News: A brief examina-
alton of those precious bundles of pa
per shows that even the scrupulous
Dickens was not always wont to hark
back or to resist his thoughts. Look
at the bold, free hand of oliver Twist,
evidently going at express rate, and
compare it with the painfully minute
characters of Edwin brood 1t is open
at the last page the great man
ever wrote, a blue slip, almost square,
in blue ink, resembling an inky fish
ing net (to use a graphic expression
which he applied to some manuscript
of contributor after he had done with
it) rather than a page of a novel for
which all the world was waiting. New
erthaless, it is not difficult to read,
even under a glass case. He was too
old a hand not to sympathize with the
tried compositor, who reads not
for pIeasure-God help himi-but for
his daily bread.
Pugin the architects, friendship with
Wiseman was commemorated by
Browning in his Bishop Blougram'
(confessedly a study of Wiseman), who
is made TO speak Of
some masterpiece
Like this of brother Pugin's. bless his
heart!"
Mr.. Ward says of Pugin: