CHAPTER I. It was evening—evening in Oxford. There are evenings in other places occasionally. Cambridge sometimes puts forward weak imitations. But, on the whole, there are no evenings which have so much of the true, inward, mystic spirit as Oxford evenings. A solemn hush broods over the grey quadrangles, and this, too, in spite of the happy laughter of the undergraduates playing touch last on the... more...

THE IDEAL TENDENCY. We are all interested in Art; yet few of us have taken pains to justify the delight we feel in it. No philosophy can win us away from Shakspeare, Plato, Angelo, Beethoven, Goethe, Phidias,—from the masters of sculpture, painting, music, and metaphor. Their truth is larger than any other,—too large to be stated directly and lodged in systems, theories, definitions, or formulas.... more...

IF I WERE A FAIRY.If I were a fairy slight and small,Say, about as tallAs a span-worm forming the letter O,What do you think I would do? I know!In the bell of the lily I'd rock and swing,Twitter and sing;And, taking the gold-dust under me,I'd splash the hips of the buzzing bee,That he might have meal to make his bread,With honey spread,For his thousand babies all in rows,Each in a bandbox up... more...

SURREY ZOOLOGICAL GARDENS.CIRCULAR BUILDING FOR LIONS, TIGERS, &c.INTERIOR OF CIRCULAR BUILDING.ROCKWORK FOR BEAVERS, &c. SURREY ZOOLOGICAL GARDENS. [Although the reader will scarcely fail to recognise the typographical amendments contemplated in the Preface to our last volume, we may be allowed to point attention to the most important change. To give our souls "elbow-room," we have... more...

FITZ-GREENE HALLECK. The author of Fanny, Burns, Marco Bozzaris, etc., was born at Guilford in Connecticut, in August, 1795, and in his eighteenth year removed to the city of New-York. He evinced a taste for poetry and wrote verses at a very early period; but the oldest of his effusions I have seen are those under the signatures of "Croaker," and "Croaker & Co.," published in the... more...

THE COUNTRY HOUSES OF NORMANDY. THE houses chosen for illustration in this number are of different types, of different dates, built for men of different stations in life, and are constructed of different materials. They are, however, all in the province of Normandy, in northern France, and they are all situated outside the towns; further than this it may not be well to go in attempting to classify them... more...

ithin a thick-walled sphere of steel eight feet in diameter, with crystal-clear fused-quartz windows, there crouched an alert young scientist, George Abbot. The sphere rested on the primeval muck and slime at the bottom of the Pacific Ocean, one mile beneath the surface.Marooned on the sea-floor, his hoisting cable cut, young Abbot is left at the mercy of the man-sharks.The beam from his 200-watt... more...

NOTES ON DOMESTIC ARCHITECTURE. If building many houses could teach us to build them well, surely we ought to excel in this matter. Never was there such a house-building people. In other countries the laws interfere,—or customs, traditions, and circumstances as strong as laws; either capital is wanting, or the possession of land, or there are already houses enough. If a man inherit a house, he is not... more...

The Latest Viewpoints of Men Worth While Stuyvesant Fish Says That Americans Are Wasteful, While Pastor Wagner Praises Our National Character—John D. Rockefeller, Jr., and Professor Fagnani Discuss Joseph's Corner in Corn—Thomas F. Ryan Holds That Opportunity to Win Wealth is Necessary to Industrial Progress—Andrew Carnegie as the Financier of Spelling Reform—With Other Opinions of... more...

DRURIOLANUS IN (MUSIC) AULIS. The Augustan Age is to be revived at the new Palace Theatre of Varieties, late CARTE's English Opera House, for two of the imperial name of AUGUSTUS are foremost among the Directors of this new enterprise—which word "enterprise" is preferable to "undertaking." Sir AUGUSTUS leads; and GEORGIUS AUGUSTUS follows in the cast as Second Director,—with or... more...