Chapter 6

Another view of this plan may be taken. Suppose ten, or twenty, or thirty persons of narrow means were to associate for the purpose of taking some large, old-fashioned house in the country--many such may be found--and agree upon a joint scheme of cheap living and independent labour, plain and economical dress, plain furniture, and a simple but wholesome table: would not this be better than all the risks and privations of expatriation? The Americans do not emigrate--they migrate; and there are spots in any of these three kingdoms, as wild, as solitary, and as healthful, as can be found in the regions of the Far West. But we do not, however, suggest migration as a substitute for genteel emigration--although we suspect it would in many cases prove so--but merely as a step towards it--a school of trial, or training, or both.

COLOURS IN LADIES' DRESS.

Incongruity may be frequently observed in the adoption of colours without reference to their accordance with the complexion or stature of the wearer. We continually see a light-blue bonnet and flowers surrounding a sallow countenance, or a pink opposed to one of a glowing red; a pale complexion associated with a canary or lemon yellow, or one of delicate red and white rendered almost colourless by the vicinity of deep red. Now, if the lady with the sallow complexion had worn a transparent white bonnet; or if the lady with the glowing red complexion had lowered it by means of a bonnet of a deeper red colour; if the pale lady had improved the cadaverous hue of her countenance by surrounding it with pale-green, which, by contrast, would have suffused it with a delicate pink hue; or had the face

'Whose red and white, Nature's own sweet and cunning hand laid on,'

been arrayed in a light-blue, or light-green, or in a transparent white bonnet, with blue or pink flowers on the inside--how different, and how much more agreeable, would have been the impression on the spectator! How frequently, again, do we see the dimensions of a tall and _embonpoint_ figure magnified to almost Brobdignagian proportions by a white dress, or a small woman reduced to Lilliputian size by a black dress! Now, as the optical effect of white is to enlarge objects, and that of black to diminish them, if the large woman had been dressed in black, and the small woman in white, the apparent size of each would have approached the ordinary stature, and the former would not have appeared a giantess, or the latter a dwarf.--_Mrs Merrifield in Art-Journal._

SITTING ON THE SHORE.

The tide has ebbed away; No more wild surgings 'gainst the adamant rocks, No swayings of the sea-weed false that mocks The hues of gardens gay: No laugh of little wavelets at their play; No lucid pools reflecting heaven's broad brow-- Both storm and calm alike are ended now.

The bare gray rocks sit lone; The shifting sand lies spread so smooth and dry That not a wave might ever have swept by To vex it with loud moan; Only some weedy fragments blackening thrown To rot beneath the sky, tell what has been, But Desolation's self is grown serene.

Afar the mountains rise, And the broad estuary widens out, All sunshine; wheeling round and round about Seaward, a white bird flies; A bird? Nay, seems it rather in these eyes An angel; o'er Eternity's dim sea, Beckoning--'Come thou where all we glad souls be.'

O life! O silent shore Where we sit patient! O great Sea beyond, To which we look with solemn hope and fond, But sorrowful no more!-- Would we were disembodied souls, to soar, And like white sea-birds wing the Infinite Deep!-- Till then, Thou, Just One, wilt our spirits keep.

THE PALO DE VACA, OR COW-TREE OF BRAZIL.

This is one of the most remarkable trees in the forests of Brazil. During several months in the year when no rain falls, and its branches are dead and dried up, if the trunk be tapped, a sweet and nutritious milk exudes. The flow is most abundant at sunrise. Then, the natives receive the milk into large vessels, which soon grows yellow and thickens on the surface. Some drink plentifully of it under the tree, others take it home to their children. One might imagine he saw a shepherd distributing the milk of his flock. It is used in tea and coffee in place of common milk. The cow-tree is one of the largest in the Brazilian forests, and is used in ship-building.

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_Just Published, Price 6d. Paper Cover,_

CHAMBERS'S POCKET MISCELLANY: forming a LITERARY COMPANION for the RAILWAY, the FIRESIDE, or the BUSH.

VOLUME III.

To be continued in Monthly Volumes.

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Printed and Published by W. and R. CHAMBERS, High Street, Edinburgh. Also sold by W.S. ORR, Amen Corner, London; D.N. CHAMBERS, 55 West Nile Street, Glasgow; and J. M'GLASHAN, 50 Upper Sackville Street, Dublin.--Advertisements for Monthly Parts are requested to be sent to MAXWELL & CO., 31 Nicholas Lane, Lombard Street, London, to whom all applications respecting their insertion must be made.

End of Project Gutenberg's Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 426, by Various