The Casual Club On last Thursday evening the Casual Club was gathered about a corner table in Sherry's. The great room was beautiful, the music brilliant, the setting and table appointments magnificent, and the dinner all that might be asked. There came but one thing to grieve the tempers of our members—the service was slip-shod, inattentive, vile. One wonders that so splendid an arrangement... more...

When I was a young man I once made a foreign journey, betaking myself to the royal court of X. on affairs of state. In those days politics would take strange turns, not of unmixed delight, and so it happened that my mission was prolonged well into the winter, and kept me at X. until the carnival season. But at this I did not repine, for to pass a winter in a beautiful climate and amid the fascinating... more...

THE SIDE DOOR It is as if Friendship Village were to say:— "There is no help for it. A telephone line, antique oak chairs, kitchen cabinets, a new doctor, and the like are upon us. But we shall be mediæval directly—we and our improvements. Really, we are so now, if you know how to look." And are we not so? We are one long street, rambling from sun to sun, inheriting traits of the parent... more...

A   POMPOUS old gander who lived in a barn-yard thought himself wiser than the rest of the creatures, and so decided to instruct them.He called together all the fowls in the barn-yard, and the pigeons off the barn-roof, and told them to listen to him. They gathered around and listened very earnestly, for they thought they would learn a great deal of wisdom. "The first thing for you to learn,"... more...

AUSTRALIAN EXPLORATIONS. MESSRS. GREGORY'S EXPEDITION TO THE EAST AND NORTH OF SWAN RIVER. 1846. EARLY CONDITION OF WEST AUSTRALIA. The colony of Western Australia was established in 1829; but its isolation from the older settlement of New South Wales rendered it necessary to import all the horses, cattle, and sheep by sailing vessels from Tasmania, or other remote sources, while the heavy losses... more...

THE HOMES OF ENGLANDThe stately homes of England!How beautiful they stand,Amidst their tall ancestral trees,O'er all the pleasant land!The deer across their greensward boundThrough shade and sunny gleam;And the swan glides by them with the soundOf some rejoicing stream.The merry homes of England!Around their hearths by night,What gladsome looks of household loveMeet in the ruddy light!The blessed... more...

MAY-DAY.   Daughter of Heaven and Earth, coy Spring,With sudden passion languishing,Maketh all things softly smile,Painteth pictures mile on mile,Holds a cup with cowslip-wreaths,Whence a smokeless incense breathes.Girls are peeling the sweet willow,Poplar white, and Gilead-tree,And troops of boysShouting with whoop and hilloa,And hip, hip three times three.The air is full of whistlings bland;What... more...

THE MORAL OF PUNCH. As we hope, gentle public, to pass many happy hours in your society, we think it right that you should know something of our character and intentions. Our title, at a first glance, may have misled you into a belief that we have no other intention than the amusement of a thoughtless crowd, and the collection of pence. We have a higher object. Few of the admirers of our prototype,... more...

CHAPTER I. THE THIEVES' CORNER At the foot of the hill on which stands the Campidoglio at Rome, and close beneath the ruins that now encumber the Tarpeian rock, runs a mean-looking alley, called the Viccolo D'Orsi, but better known to the police as the 'Viccolo dei Ladri,' or 'Thieves' Corner'—the epithet being, it is said, conferred in a spirit the very reverse of... more...

JOY IN SERVICE. This is one of the sentences that dropped from the lips of Christ, which let us into his personal spiritual life and in some measure lay bare his mind. To be permitted thus to share his confidence is one of our greatest privileges. Viewing him from a distance, we may admire his character; viewing him in history, we may confess his incomparable power; viewing him when convincing us of... more...