Various

“ The reumda, on the contrary, is easily terrified, and leaves all to secure her own safety; so that it is usual to compare a man who bravely defends his tent to a delim, and a pusillanimous soul to a reumda. The delim finds himself more than a match for the dog, the jackal, the hyæna, or the eagle: man is his only invincible foe; yet he dares to wage the unequal war when the young are in danger. If the Arabs desire to make a prey of the ral, as the young ostriches are called, they follow their footmarks, and having nearly overtaken them, they begin to shout ”

“ Cleanliness and order are certainly the simplest manifestations of the love of the beautiful in the household—the germ, which the feeling in its highest development must include; but too many among us remain satisfied with the lower form, and from some reason or other, fail to see the further gratification that is possible to all. Nature, however, stimulates and satisfies this love everywhere, and society in many directions is following in her footsteps. Let us see what can be done in the matter. After all, rooms must still retain the impress of the character of their inhabitants. ”

“ Take the Argentine Republic, take Australia, and consider what they do with their meat there in times of drought, when they cannot get rid of it while it is fresh; they may boil it down, and mix the essence with flour—and we know they have the finest in the world—and so prepare a substance that can be preserved for times when food is not so plentiful, or sent to countries where it is always more difficult to procure food. ”

“ This is the theory of Russian taxation; but against its actual carrying out in fact, is opposed the old difficulty, that from him who has nothing, nothing can possibly be extracted; and as the poor serfs have no more means of paying taxes than the hogs and cattle their fellow-slaves, a considerate paternal government drops its theory, and makes the landowner pay the poll-tax for the slaves he possesses, much as an English gentleman pays taxes for his horses and dogs, horses and dogs being as little able to pay tax themselves as the Russian serf. ”

“ The assessor arrives, you must pay what he demands—pay to a soul. Eighteen die—it is all one—you pay the same. They are frightful, they are ruinous, these deaths!'
'Ah, Nastasie,' said Tchitchikof, 'it is the will of God: we must not murmur against Providence! ”

“ Are we dull? That beautiful Greek form rouses us into activity again. Are we weary of climbing, and dissatisfied with our want of success? Turn to that Raphael, and let us remember, that all who faint not by the way, and aspire worthily, shall at length be transfigured in the light of truth and beauty. There are few if any rooms that need be without some such suggestion and comfort. Nature offers them lavishly to all who care to seek them ”

“ What the 'vital principle' may be, neither chemists nor physiologists can tell us with any great degree of clearness; but it is this vital principle, whatever it may be, which prevents decay in a living organic substance, however complex. When life departs, the onslaught begins; the defender has been removed, and a number of assailants make their appearance. Air, heat, and moisture are the principal of these; they attack the dead organism, and gradually convert it into wholly different and inorganic compounds, such as water, carbonic acid, ammonia, phosphuretted hydrogen, and many others. ”

“ Bits of pine-bark and fir-cones are beautiful as to colour, and bring back to us pictures of woods gleaming in the western light, and well-known landscapes seen through vistas of tall stems; sprays of clematis and bryony, a group of ivy-leaves, or bunch of ripe corn, require nothing but a little graceful arrangement to throw a light of beauty over many a dull corner. ”

“ It is dull—beyond comprehension dull. No town in the universe can be duller; because, from its quintessential dulness, there is but one step to total inanition.
Thus, in Nikolsk, the ancient saying, that there is nothing new under the sun, was daily and hourly verified. Week after week, and year after year, the governor pillaged the people; the inspector of charities pillaged the charities; the inspector of nuisances sedulously avoided inspecting at all, lest, by removing them, the need for his services should cease; the landowner ground down the serfs; the tax-assessor ground the landowners ”

“ The ostrich drinks nearly every five days when there is water; otherwise it can do without it for a much longer time. Nothing but excessive thirst induces it ever to approach a human habitation, and then it flies as soon as it is satisfied. It has been observed, that whenever the flashing lightning announces an approaching storm, it hastens towards the water. Though single birds may often be shot on these occasions, it is a much less certain sport than killing them on the nest, and less profitable, as in the latter case the eggs form no contemptible part of the spoil. ”

“ Independent country gentlemen, west-country manufacturers, and merchants of substantial capital, were summarily pounced upon by the fangs of the law, and all simultaneously stripped of everything they possessed in the world. Professional men, the fathers of families genteelly bred and educated, were summarily bereft of every farthing, and condemned in the decline of life to begin the world afresh. ”

“ It is therefore self-evident, that if the former occur—that if his serfs propagate their species with due rapidity—the serf-owner is a clear gainer during the interval between the soul-censuses, as he will be paying tax for a given number, while he is actually reaping the profit of the labour of treble or quadruple that number; while, if cholera, fever, or any other of the ills that flesh, and especially serf-flesh, is heir to, come and slay their thousands, the exact converse obtains, and he will be paying tax for a certain number, while he only reaps the profit of a third. ”

“ We love this room as we do few others, not for the evidences of wealth in it, though these exist, but because the idea regulating its arrangement is predominant through all its details. Affection and love of beauty were present at its creation for home-life, and worked it into harmony. ”

“ Some subjects in art are best suited for enjoyment in rooms destined for solitary use, others for those of general resort—some touch us peculiarly in one mood, some are welcome to us in all. Of this last character 'St Catherine borne by Angels' is a specimen: the earth sinks beneath them, they fly so swiftly and yet so calmly! we are in the air too with them, and mark how small the world looks, with its burdens of wrong and suffering, as we cleave our way through the fields of ether up towards the stars ”

“ The active measures taken to discover a north-west passage, and to prosecute scientific research, in all but inaccessible regions, first created a demand for this sort of food; and the Admiralty stimulated the manufacturers to great perfection in the art. As soon as the value of these preparations in cold climates became generally admitted, their use was extended to hot ones, and for the sick on board ship under all circumstances. Hitherto they had been employed only as a substitute for salt beef or pork at sea, and if eaten on shore, it was at first as a curiosity merely. ”

“ At St Petersburg, when winter is approaching, the fish in the markets become almost like blocks of ice, so completely are they frozen; and in this state they will remain sound for a lengthened period. Dead poultry, and other articles of animal food, are similarly kept fresh throughout the winter in many rigorous climates, simply by the powerlessness of the attacking agents, when heat is not one of the number. And that which nature effects on a large scale, may reasonably be imitated by man on a more limited one. ”

“ Young and rising tradesmen, who had had the misfortune to inherit from a relative or a patron but a few shares, or even a single one, saw themselves at once precipitated into bankruptcy. One case, for which we can personally vouch, is beyond measure distressing: a gentleman of good fortune dying, had bequeathed to each of a large family of daughters a handsome provision; shortly before the bursting of the fearful bubble, the mother also died, dividing by will her own fortune among the young ladies, and leaving to each one a few shares in the Romantic Valley Brewery. ”

“ The difference in the social scale between a landowner, a tenant, a member of the professions, a tradesman, a publican, a sweep, and a beggar, is accurately prescribed and religiously observed—with this addition, however, that in Nikolsk the owners of land are also owners of the serfs upon the land, and that the numerous representatives of that most centralised of all governments cut an important figure in the snobberies of the place. ”

“ France and Germany exhibiting chiefly made-dishes, game, and delicacies—of meat, fish, soups, and vegetables.' It is an important fact for our colonies, that viands of this description are as well prepared in Australia, Van Diemen's Land, Canada, and the Cape of Good Hope, as in the mother-country. 'Animal food is most abundant and cheap in some of those colonies. In Australia, especially, during seasons of drought, it is wasted in extraordinary quantities; flocks are slaughtered for the tallow alone, and herds, for their bones and hides. ”

“ One of the principles of Russian taxation is this: that as every individual in the empire, European or Asiatic, is the child of the czar, owes him fealty and obedience, and receives protection, light, and glory from him, as from a central sun, so every individual owes in return a direct contribution to the fund by which the czar-father supports that light and glory. ”

“ A person can but eat one dinner in the day; two or three coats are about all he needs for the outer man; he can but live in one house at a time; and, in short, after paying away all he needs to pay, he finds that he has not a little over for—investment. Since our young days, this word investment has come remarkably into use. All are looking for investments; and as supply ordinarily follows demand, up there rise, at periodical intervals, an amazing number of plans for the said investments—in plain English, relieving people of their money. ”

“ Others—accustomed perhaps for half a century to the appliances of ease and luxury, and who were the owners of hospitable mansions, the centres of genteel resort—at the present moment hide their heads in cottages, and huts, and eleemosynary chambers, where they wither in silence and neglect under the cold breath of alien charity. Some, at threescore, are driven forth from a life of indulgence and inactivity, to earn their daily bread. ”

“ The more farinaceous vegetables, such as green peas, do not preserve so well.
One of the most remarkable, and perhaps valuable recent introductions, in respect to preserved food, is the American meat—biscuit, prepared by Mr Borden. A biscuit-beef is prepared by a Frenchman, M. Du Liscoet, resembling an ordinary coarse ship-biscuit; but this is said to have 'an animal, salt, and not very agreeable taste.' The American meat-biscuit, however, is prepared in a way which renders its qualities easily intelligible. It contains in a concentrated form all the nutriment of meat, combined with flour. ”

“ In some rooms, we see that life is respectably got through in a routine of eating, sleeping, comfort-loving; in others, that it glances to the stars, and lives with the flowers; in others, again, that it finds out good in shady nooks or crowded cities, and is filled with affection and intelligence. ”

“ So plausible was everything made to appear, that men of commercially acquired fortune, of the greatest experience, and of long-tried judgment, invested their capital in the fullest confidence of success. ”

“ We find, in the effect of the whole, such a delicate reflex of the nature outside, that we live with a half-conscious perception that but a tent-like division exists between us and the birds and blossoms in the garden. ”

“ The young ones, having received this their first nourishment, are immediately dried in the sun, and begin to run about; in a few days they follow the parent-birds to the pastures, always returning to shelter under their wings in the nest.
The paternal affection of the delim is remarkable: he never leaves his offspring; he faces every danger, and combats every foe in their defence. ”

“ Then there will be danger of crowding rooms with good things—a great mistake also: an ornament should have a simple background, should 'shew like metal on a sullen ground.' Rooms, from temptations of wealth or taste, should never become mere pretty curiosity-shops. ”

“ Well, a landowner paying so much per soul to the government, and it being a work of much time and trouble to take a census of souls every year, an estimate is made at long intervals—say ten or twenty years—and the landowner is compelled to pay accordingly till the period expires, whether the number of his serfs increase or diminish. ”

“ In rooms where we need care to please only ourselves, we can follow our own tastes more entirely and freely. In them, shall we not have a Madonna whose 'eyes are homes of silent prayer?'—a copy of De la Roche's 'Christ,' so touching in its sad and noble serenity? ”

“ As soon as he falls, the other sportsmen, attracted by the report, run up and bleed him according to the laws of the Koran. They hide the carcass, and cover with sand every trace of the blood that has been shed. When the reumda comes home at night, she appears not uneasy at the absence of her mate, but probably concluding that he was hungry, and has gone for some supper, she takes his place on the eggs, and is killed by the second marksman in the same way as the delim. ”

“ All that could be got for the creditors has been extorted long ago from the wealthier portion of the victims; but the loans are not yet all liquidated, and the claim yet remaining unsatisfied, is now the pretext under which the lawyers are sucking the life-blood from the hard-working and struggling class of shareholders, who, while industriously striving for a respectable position, are considered worth crushing for the sake of the costs, though they will never yield a penny towards the debt. ”