Part 14

=Wisconsin (Berlin).=—Our society was organized in 1872, and named “Friends in Council, No. 3.” We are one of nine societies now bearing that name. In 1879, by a vote of the members, we adopted the C. L. S. C. course of study, fifteen of our number becoming regular members. We have received an addition of eight local members. We take sixteen copies of THE CHAUTAUQUAN, which we consider of almost inestimable value in the prosecution of our work. We aim to make our meetings, which are held semi-monthly, as interesting as possible to local members, and therefore we select such subjects from the regular course as are most pleasing to all. There is quite surprising unanimity of taste among us, and history, literature, and art have had the preference for regular society work. We agree with the author of the “Preparatory Greek Course in English” in thinking that “man is a part of nature, and language the noblest outward attribute of man.” So we delight to “study man in the monuments he has left behind him from the distant ages, of his life and activity on the earth.” The other branches are by no means neglected, but are studied at home or in smaller neighborhood gatherings. As a part of society work, the Text-Books—some of them perfect gems—are carefully studied, and then as carefully reviewed. The questions and answers in THE CHAUTAUQUAN are always used in meetings, and an additional list of questions is prepared by our committee of instruction, for our use. We are sufficiently informal in our proceedings to admit of considerable conversation. As we belong to the Class of 1883, we were not quite satisfied with the amount of “Timayenis” required of us, and at our first meeting in September, 1882 (this society never takes a vacation), we commenced at the beginning of the “History of Greece,” taking “Grecian Literature”—from the “Ancient Literature” which we studied last year—along with it. We have two or more carefully prepared papers at each meeting. Some of the topics were “Grecian Mythology,” “The Temple Gods of the Greeks,” “The Trojan War,” “The Eleusinian Mysteries,” “The Greek Drama and Dramatists,” “Greek Leaders in the Persian Wars,” etc. We have just completed the history and literature of ancient Greece, and that fascinating book, “The Preparatory Greek Course,” and though we would gladly go on with the modern history of that famous land, we bid a reluctant farewell to its classic shores and turn our attention for a while to the “Middle Kingdom.” For several years previous to our adoption of the C. L. S. C. course, we had a series of lectures during the winter, by some of the best talent that could be procured in the West. Since then, partly because we have been such diligent students that we could not afford the time for the necessary arrangements, and partly because the subjects of such speakers as we could obtain were not in the line of our work, we have had no entertainments of any kind. The success, financially and otherwise, of lectures, etc., depends somewhat upon local conditions, which have not appeared favorable. This society, like all the others bearing our name, consists entirely of ladies, but we rejoice in the sympathy and approval of all the gentlemen who are connected with us by family ties, some of them participating in the required reading in the home.

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=Nevada (Carlin).=—We have six members. Our president is the instructor. A motion prevailed at a recent meeting, “That the members should form themselves into a committee to go out and solicit new members.”

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=Montana Territory (Clancy).=—Seeing in THE CHAUTAUQUAN letters from nearly every State in the Union, and from some of the Territories, and not wishing to have Montana behind, I thought I would write a few lines as a representative of the C. L. S. C. in this Territory. I only know of one circle here though there may be many more. That is in a mining camp of about four hundred and fifty inhabitants. The circle has about ten members. My husband and I, living on a ranch some distance from a town, form a circle, if two can form one, of our own. This is our first year of work and I can assure you we derive a great deal of pleasure as well as profit from the readings. We commenced reading the day after we were married, and have read almost daily ever since, until we are now ahead of the C. L. S. C., though we did not begin until the last of October. Our interest in the books has taken us over the work faster than required; possibly it would be better for memory if we did not go so fast. I read all THE CHAUTAUQUAN, and think there is no part in which I am more interested than that of the correspondents.

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=Oregon (Portland).=—We have organized out here in the far West, in this beautiful and prosperous city, a local club of ten enthusiastic Chautauquans. We have the honor, as well as the pleasure, of being the first organization of the kind in the State. Already the influence of those few is beginning to be felt in different circles of society throughout the city, so that ere another Chautauqua year commences we expect not only to see our own numbers greatly increased but also several new clubs. We are reading the full C. L. S. C. course. We meet every Monday evening at the residence of some one of the members. Our plan of program adopted is as follows: After disposing of minutes of previous meeting and all miscellaneous business, attention is turned to the lesson, which is taken up in turn by each member, topics having been assigned by the president one week previous, on which they are all expected to be specially prepared on their several parts with questions to bring out the leading and most important points, so that each in turn becomes teacher. We are highly delighted with this systematic course of instruction, and our interest increases with each meeting.

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=California (Moro).=—Six of the eight regular members and four local members are working away at the C. L. S. C. course. We are very much interested in the studies. Some who thought the “Greek History” and “Preparatory Greek Course” would be unprofitable, have found them otherwise. The questions in THE CHAUTAUQUAN are used with free conversation upon “Astronomy” and all other works in the course.

ROBIN AND I.

By C. B.

Once, upon a winter day, As I sat, forlorn and sad, Thinking, in a fretful way, Of the time when I was glad— Hopping lightly o’er the snow, Came a robin that I know.

On the window ledge he stood, With a bright inquiring eye; ’Twas a compact that he should Always call in passing by, Just to show we might pretend Each to entertain a friend.

When I saw my tiny guest Waiting for his daily crumb, Dainty, trim, and self-possessed, Never doubting it would come, I could almost hear him say, “Mistress, food is scarce to-day.”

And my heart made sad reply, As the little dole I threw, “Strange that one so poor as I Should have store enough for two! Robin, if the thing could be, Would you throw a crumb to me?”

Not a sound disturbed the hush, Save my own impatient sigh— Robin to a neighboring bush Darted off without good bye. How! you leave me, faithless bird, As I waited for a word.

Ah! I wronged that heart of flame: Through the silence, sweet and clear, Forth his cheery carol came, And I held my breath to hear, For that dear familiar strain Woke my better self again.

Suddenly the music ceased, Yet the silence breathed of balm; Art thou flown, then, small hedge priest, Somewhere else to raise the psalm? “Man,” the Master finely said, “Doth not live alone by bread.”

[_Not Required._]

QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS.

FIFTY QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS ON HAMPTON TRACTS, NO. 5, “A HAUNTED HOUSE,” AND NO. 9. “CLEANLINESS AND DISINFECTION.”

By ALBERT M. MARTIN, GENERAL SECRETARY C. L. S. C.

1. Q. What is the subject of Hampton Tract, No. 5? A. “A Haunted House.”

2. Q. Where does the writer locate the haunted house? A. In one of the Middle States, in a little town built on the gently-sloping hillside of an inland lake.

3. Q. How long had the haunted house been built? A. About twenty-five years.

4. Q. How long had it been unoccupied at the time of the commencement of the story? A. More than six years.

5. Q. What occurred to persons who attempted to live in the house? A. They either got sick and had to leave or died.

6. Q. What was the current story as to those who died there? A. That those who died there staid there, and those who came after would see them.

7. Q. What does the narrator state is one of his hobbies? A. That a great deal of the sickness, and consequently a great deal of the sorrow, from which we suffer in this world, comes from ignorance of, or, worse still, disobedience to God’s laws.

8. Q. From what source had the entire supply of drinking water for the haunted house been procured? A. From a well in the garden some distance from the house.

9. Q. What did microscopic examination of the water reveal? A. That in its then present condition it was so impure as to be actually a slow poison to any who might drink it.

10. Q. What did digging in the vicinity of the well show? A. That a cesspool leaked directly into the spring, which formed the main supply of the well.

11. Q. What change was now made in regard to the supply of water? A. An artesian well was driven in the rear of the garden entirely out of the way of any drainage from the slope above.

12. Q. What followed from this change? A. The “ghosts” entirely disappeared, and the house was soon found to be as healthy as any in the village.

13. Q. What are the first directions given as to keeping a house clean? A. There must be no decaying vegetables or fruit, no rubbish of any kind kept in the cellar, and the air must be kept perfectly fresh and sweet.

14. Q. What direction is given as to the sink? A. Be sure that your sink is clean, don’t let the drain get stopped up, and once a day, at least, wipe it out thoroughly clean and dry.

15. Q. What precaution is given in reference to the collection of rubbish? A. Don’t let rubbish of any kind collect in the house, keep all your pantries and cupboards clean, and don’t get into the habit of pushing things away into holes and corners.

16. Q. What is said about the care of beds? A. Be sure that your beds are well aired, and that the bedsteads are occasionally wiped off with hot water and soap.

17. Q. What is the subject of Hampton Tract, No. 9? A. “Cleanliness and Disinfection.”

18. Q. What is the name given to the most offensive things? A. Filth.

19. Q. What class of diseases kill about one-half of all who die in England, and are diseases most common in our American towns and homes? A. Filth diseases.

20. Q. For what purpose is this tract written? A. To show why and how to make continual warfare against uncleanliness for the protection of the health and comfort of the people.

21. Q. How may the water of a well or spring be poisoned so that the use of it will destroy life? A. By permitting the drainage into it through the soil of defiling matter.

22. Q. In what substances will some kinds of contagion long remain? A. Porous substances, like the clothing or bedding used by the sick, or in the carpets and cloths, and even in the floors and wall-paper, or unwashed walls of the sick-room.

23. Q. Of what are the contagious disorders of the skin, the eyes and mouth the results? A. Of neglect of cleanliness.

24. Q. What is doubtful in regard to persons who become filthy in their habits, and neglect to provide for the purification of their bodies, clothing and premises? A. It is doubtful if they will ever be found pure and sweet in their thoughts, language and influence.

25. Q. Mention some of the things that in their respective ways and times require the faithful application of sanitary rules. A. The air, the water, the streets and grounds, the clothing and dwellings of individuals, and waste and decaying matters.

26. Q. What should be prevented from defiling the air in any region where it is to be breathed? A. Foul vapors and gases, and smoke and sickening odors.

27. Q. What is said as to the water used for drinking and in households? A. The wells, springs, cisterns, and reservoirs of water used for drinking and in households must always be protected against defilement.

28. Q. Name some articles of food that quickly become unwholesome if in the presence of decaying matter and putrid gases. A. Meats, and especially fish, milk and butter.

29. Q. When are the pathways and grounds about dwellings, and all roadways, best kept clean and free from nuisance? A. When so graded and sloped as to give easy surface drainage for the water.

30. Q. How are the freshness and healthfulness of paths and grounds improved? A. By an occasional layer of fine gravel; but never by sawdust, chips, or planks.

31. Q. What is the best of sanitary rules for all undergarments? A. The modern practice of boiling as well as washing.

32. Q. What are some of the essential means of cleanliness of habitations? A. Through-and-through ventilation, sunlight, the hot scrubbing of wood floors, and the wiping and dusting of walls.

33. Q. What is said of the putrescence of refuse materials used for food? A. It is not only excessively offensive, but may be the cause of sudden and even fatal sickness.

34. Q. How has many a valuable life been lost and many a family prostrated by sudden sickness? A. By the putrid emanations of a few bushels of rotting potatoes or cabbages, or by putrid animal matters and melons, in cellars or store-rooms.

35. Q. What should be done in regard to sewerage matter if it is not completely washed away by flowing water? A. It should be led, in tubes, to porous grounds at least two hundred yards away from the house.

36. Q. What are essential for every person and every dwelling in order to secure purity and health? A. Pure water and fresh air, and means for applying these elements for cleansing.

37. Q. What allowance of water is needed by every individual who is to be kept perfectly clean in person, clothing and premises? A. From twenty to thirty gallons daily.

38. Q. How much fresh air should every person have supplied every minute? A. From twenty-five to one hundred cubic feet.

39. Q. What is necessary as well as ventilation for preserving the cleanliness and purity of a dwelling or any apartment? A. Sunlight.

40. Q. What habit and duty should be established by all? A. The habit and duty of revolting against foul or stagnant air.

41. Q. What study should be established by all? A. The study of available means for supplying fresh air.

42. Q. For what are disinfectants not a substitute? A. They are not a substitute for cleanliness, and the use of water and fresh air, which are the great purifiers.

43. Q. What is the most important use of disinfectants? A. It is that which destroys the infections and invisible virus of the contagious or infectious diseases.

44. Q. What are the principal disinfecting agents employed? A. Heat and chemical substances.

45. Q. What is it found that boiling heat will destroy? A. Infectious or contagious virus in clothing and infected apartments.

46. Q. What are some of the chemical substances used as disinfectants? A. Sulphate of zinc, carbonate of soda, chloride of lime, and carbolic acid.

47. Q. How is the special drying of a damp apartment best secured? A. By the continual and strong currents of air, blowing through and through.

48. Q. What proportion of the volume is air contained in the grounds upon which we walk, or that are under and about our houses? A. It is found to be nearly one-fifth of the entire volume or quantity of every solid foot or yard of earth.

49. Q. How is this air clean and fresh, or impure and sickening? A. According to the condition of the grounds and the places out of which it comes.

50. Q. Like habits of personal virtue and the right use of our time and thoughts, what will these habits of cleanliness and the sanitary regulation of houses become? A. Sources of personal and domestic happiness and health.

OUTLINE OF C. L. S. C. STUDIES.

APRIL.

For the month of April the required C. L. S. C. reading comprises two of the Hampton Tracts—No. 5, A Haunted House, and No. 9, Cleanliness and Disinfection—and the designated reading in THE CHAUTAUQUAN. The following is the division of the work for the month according to weeks:

FIRST WEEK—1. Hampton Tract, No. 5, A Haunted House.

2. Russian History, in THE CHAUTAUQUAN.

3. Sunday Reading, selection for April 1, in THE CHAUTAUQUAN.

SECOND WEEK—1. Hampton Tract, No. 9, Cleanliness and Disinfection.

2. Scandinavian History and Literature, in THE CHAUTAUQUAN.

3. Sunday Reading, selection for April 8, in THE CHAUTAUQUAN.

THIRD WEEK—1. Readings in Physiology, in THE CHAUTAUQUAN.

2. Pictures from English History, in THE CHAUTAUQUAN.

3. Sunday Reading, selection for April 15, in THE CHAUTAUQUAN.

FOURTH WEEK—1. Selections from English Literature, in THE CHAUTAUQUAN. [See page 423.]

2. Sunday Readings, selections for April 22 and 29, in THE CHAUTAUQUAN.

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Poesy is a beauteous young lady, chaste, honorable, discreet, witty, retired, and who keeps herself within the limits of the strictest discretion; she is the friend of solitude, fountains entertain her, meadows console her, woods free her from ennui, flowers delight her; and, in short, she gives pleasure and instruction to all with whom she communicates.—_Cervantes._

THOMAS HOOD.[N]

I have a delightful rather than a difficult, or even a delicate duty to perform in speaking of those remains of Hood which are not in the keeping of the graveyard’s silent warders, but in the custody of ever-living generations of men and women. I have at this day no intelligent opinions of Thomas Hood’s ability and achievements to oppose; no detractions from his just and symmetrical fame to rebuke; no reluctant acknowledgments of his mastership to stimulate. The most that can be done now for the dear, dead poet, is to waft his fame, on the breath of honest applause, to circles of men outside of the serried ranks which have already closed in upon his shrine.

It appears from the researches of his children that he was born May 23, 1799.

It rarely happens in the history of genius that the verdict of posterity becomes unanimous within its own generation. Yet, this is true of Thomas Hood. He was, indeed, broadly and lovingly appreciated in life, and he had not been long dead when every murmur of doubt, every dissonance of judgment concerning his kingship among the humorous poets of the nineteenth century, died away. Where now he is not admired and extolled and loved for what he did for letters and humanities, let us charitably suppose he is only _not known_. Of him it is preëminently true,

“None know him but to love him; None name him but to praise.”

I have no hesitation in making my discourse this afternoon his eulogy. If I could not have praised him as a matchless humorist, as a great poet, and as a noble example of manhood, I would have kept silence concerning him.

No name in the literary annals of our century better deserves to be inscribed upon the hearts of the people than does his. He was the friend of the people, and of all the motley he chose to wear, no garb better fitted him, or was more commonly worn, than that of brotherly kindness. This, indeed, he always wore, like a close-fitting tunic, and even when the gay tissues and tinsel of Momus or Harlequin glittered upon the outside, the cerement of charity was between them and his bosom.

The chief reputation Hood achieved in his lifetime was not that which now cleaves to his name. He was known and admired for what is, however admirable in itself, the lesser of his two great gifts. These were wit and poetry, and he shone most to the public eye in the former. I have pronounced him a matchless humorist and a great poet. The proof of my words must be sought in his works.

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He was as peculiar in his humor as he was in his character. His passion for punning was never exceeded, perhaps. It would have aroused all the dogmatism of Dr. Johnson’s elephantine nature to explosive indignation against him. Looked at superficially, very much of what Hood wrote appears to be the veriest wantoning of verbal merriment. There are whole volumes of prose and verse, in which he seems to riot in fun, and to ransack the English language for sounds and synonyms of nonsense; but, even in his wildest abandonment to the mood of mirth, there is discoverable a method in his madness, a meaning in his mummery, which is the token of a great brain, throbbing under the jester’s plume, and of a noble heart beating right humanly beneath the mummer’s spangled vest.

The world at first mistook him, no doubt, for a literary harlequin, a poetical pranker, at whose antics they were called upon to laugh only. The admirable humorist lived to see their great mistake rectified, and to behold

“Laughter, holding both his sides,”

not infrequently lift his restraining hands to eyes all suddenly dashed with great blinding tears, or to a bosom growing tempestuous with sighs and throes of human sympathy.

Yet there were not, I think, two distinct sides to Hood’s nature, as some of the earlier critics said, to account for the mysterious pathos welling up from the founts of his wit, but rather a unique single, capable of many manifestations seemingly distinct and diverse, and even antagonistic, but all alike, whether grave or gay, imaginative or practical, comic or tragic—phases only of a homogeneous soul.

It was truly said of him that he introduced comedy and tragedy to each other, and taught them to live together in a cordial union. When his most whimsical poems are scanned, for the discovery, not of their feet, but of their feeling, they reveal his heart beneath the rattling ribs of verbiage.

In that extraordinary poem, “Miss Killmansegg and her Precious Leg,” which to the hasty or over-serious reader seems only a foolish though glittering pageant of rhetorical figures and fancies, a motley troop of “whims and oddities,” there is nevertheless a deep vein of wisdom, which, if visible nowhere else, leads plainly enough to the surface in the terribly grotesque catastrophe. The heroine having lost a member by a casualty, wore instead of it a leg of gold, which she laid under her pillow at night, to keep it from the clutches of her spendthrift lord, who had hinted to her—

—In language low, That her precious leg was precious slow, A good ’un to look at, but bad to go, And kept quite a sum lying idle. That instead of playing musical airs, Like Colin’s foot in going up-stairs, As the wife in the Scottish ballad declares— It made an infernal stumping; Whereas a member of cork, or wood, Would be lighter and cheaper, and quite as good, Without the unbearable thumping.

Dissensions ripened into quarrels. The countess, in her anger, destroyed her will, which act hastened the dreadful end. That night her sleep was broken;—

’Twas a stir at her pillow she felt, And some object before her glittered. ’Twas the golden leg!—she knew its gleam, And up she started, and tried to scream; But e’en in the moment she started— Down came the limb with a frightful smash, And, lost in the universal flash, That her eyeballs made at so mortal a crash, The spark, called vital departed!

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