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LITERATURE, SCIENCE, AND ART. Fourth Series

CONDUCTED BY WILLIAM AND ROBERT CHAMBERS.

No. 943.-VOL. XIX.

SATURDAY, JANUARY 21, 1882.

THE SMALL FOLK'S POSTBAG. THERE is no sweeter greeting than a letter from a little child, a genuine juvenile letter, unprompted and uncorrected; full of mistakes, perhaps, but full also of simplicity-the very fragrance of childhood. Unfortunately, few such letters add their light weight to the load of Her Majesty's postmen; seldom the weak unsteady writing of small hands comes to any of our doors demanding quick entrance by the loud official knock. It is surely one of the big busy world's mistakes, that the small folks send so few genuine letters and get so few; they and the postbag are strangerscomparatively.

But in carrying other people's letters, they have very intimate acquaintance with the post-office. Have we not seen a living Tower of Babel, built of ragged little ones, swaying about near the pillar-box, while the top hand aimed a letter at the slit? The poorer children always carry the family correspondence, in one or two journeys a month, to the office or pillar; but the little people who know more about pothooks and hangers, and have more materials at hand, have far less to do in any way with letters. Boys and girls at boarding-schools certainly do write home; but the letters seldom can be called their own. They are not, indeed, tutored by the Complete Letter Writers, which recommended to former generations a pattern letter from an accomplished young prig at school to an awful personage at home-a Paterfamilias of formal tastes and awe-inspiring character. Tom has not to grapple with a book of pattern epistles in the letter-writing hour at his school-room desk; but he is chilled by the knowledge that Mr M'Quilter presiding yonder, will apply him gratis with punctuation by-and-by; and when the whole pile of letters is finished en the master's desk, and Tom recognises his own by that sputter in the top corner, he will watch daring five agonised minutes, reading his letter anew in the facial contractions of M'Quilter, the hams and haws and lurking smiles; and Tom will have guarded beforehand that those irritating

PRICE 11d.

smiles shall be few, and that there shall be no reckless vent given to comicality, lest it might be gravely read aloud as a warning example of the absurd.

Poor Tom! he had sufficient warning in that way once. Did not M'Quilter read out a certain unlucky letter-hurriedly written, honestly desirous of telling news at home, but somewhat confused by flowing freedom, innocent of punctuation ?-that letter in which Tom wrote a summary of events: the death of Bess the mare; the visit of the Colonel, and the jolly good tip' he gave before leaving; the surprise of the boys that the old horse went off so suddenly; the coming 'exam.'-its toughness and hard cramming; the decease, through over-feeding, of the guineapigs that he hoped Kitty would have from him at Christmas, and like them; and the alarming news, that a bad attack of gout and the mange were shared in some indistinct manner between Old Pluto and Dr Smithers. Alas! poor Tom, the Tommishness has departed out of his letters since then, under the too keen consciousness of the future spectacles and pencil, and cold judg ment by the rules of art. His letter now might belong to that staid and studious Jenkins, or to anybody else; and he is even censured for the sputter on the corner, till he cuts a hole in it with his scraping penknife, and then is detected in having imprinted upon it that human seal, of which it is said no two can be alike-the imprint of the thumb; and finally he copies his letter all over again, less Tommish than ever, but a credit to the school of Smithers.

Tom's sister is at the College for Young Ladies, one of the fashionable gardens of girls,' where young ladies of ten and eleven begin their college life, and walk out two and two-schools' in general being somewhat behind the age now, and beneath the level of learning for 'exams.' and 'matrics.' Tom's sister writes her weekly letter too, wins the golden opinion of Miss Straitlace, and is even amongst the advanced pupils, who are rewarded for their trustworthy conduct, and still more for their sound judgment about straight lines and

commas, by being allowed to despatch letters to their parents without any supervision. But the advanced pupils put in their letters nothing that they would have omitted if the letters were addressed to 'Dear Mamma and Everybody Else.' Little Miss Ethel takes by nature more pleasure in a careful letter than Tom ever would. Ethel has the feminine instinct of neatness and grace. If Matilda-Jane, diving under the table after a pen, jerks her elbow-especially when the letter has progressed faultlessly over that second page

that was not so nice to write on-a fearful scene of recrimination ensues; and Ethel will quarrel and weep over a blot, such as Tom, by the licking and swallowing process, would change in a moment into a faint purple moon in a damp atmosphere. If no accidents occur, Ethel's letter is a triumph of the Straitlace teaching. It is evenly written in even lines from My dear Mamma' down to 'Your affectionate daughter.' Miss Straitlace approves of 'affectionate daughters,' as more elegant than loving children' what Mamma thinks is another thing; but Ethel knows that especially in correspondence elegance and style are to rule supreme, if she hopes to write in after-life a lady's letter.'

Ethel's epistle studiously shows the 'lady's letter' characteristics-except the precious postscript. Miss Straitlace is known to consider postscripts the mark of a mind wanting in order and method, particularly if they have not 'P.S.' prefixed, and properly punctuated. Ethel knows all about punctuation; her commas are like a cruel scattering of her own fair little eyelashes. She knows all about grammar, and succeeds in not writing a single sentence as she would have spoken it. She knows all about the dignity of letter-writing; and there is nothing frivolous about this epistle, written in the finest succession of points, with a confusing family likeness between the 'ns' and the us, and the most scrupulous regard to crossings, dots, and elegant tails. Shut it up, Ethel, fold it mathematically straight, and direct it with practised confidence that the envelope is not upside-down! You are proficient in the writing of a school letter; but no one has cared to teach you what the letter itself should be.

Neat and legible letters, of course, the little ones should be taught to write; because legibility -the distinct forming of every word—is a better quality than any mere uniformity or prettiness of writing, and because an ugly careless letter is almost a slight to the person who is to read it. But before all else, it should be impressed upon young letter-writers that they are to write down exactly what they would like to say; that the letter that reads like talk is the best letter; and the formal one that never would have been spoken is the worst. When the children learn to speak faultlessly, and pick up in time the conversational habit of orderly sequence of ideas, their letters will naturally become perfect in wording and arrangement, but will still be a faithful transmission of the viva-voce speech of the writers. If this common-sense principle of teaching letterwriting were introduced, there would be a new and immense pleasure added to the life of all child-loving old folks; at some time or other, the children would find need of sending letters; and the prattle of the little ones, their fresh talk

breathing happy ignorance of all but their little world, where small cares, joys, and interests stand around them magnified-the very sound of their voices echoing out of the words they might have said-all this could be kept indelible and ever fresh; and in how many cases of distance, time, or sorrow, the old letters would become precious as gold!

It would also remove from children's minds much of the difficulty of learning to write letters. If the boys and girls are still too young to go to Dr Smithers' or Miss Straitlace's, a letter even to their loving and beloved Uncle John, is a labour approached with dread. They are shown where to begin, and after choosing a commonplace beginning about the pleasure of writing (!), or the safe receipt of the last letter, they beg to be 'set going just down the first page,' or to be told something to say. The beginning was easy; it was as fixed as a chess-opening; but facing three and a half blank pages, the brainransacking of the children is pitiful-and the pen-chewing, and the jealousy of the one that has first found something to say, and is going ahead. At last, they all go ahead,' and get their sheets turned inside-out for page two; during which process six-year-old Baby, who has been printing in pencil, questioned by Jack, reports about her sneezy cold, the picnic to-morrow, the pigeons, Tabby's kittens, the settlement of the monkey's name as Pongo, and Mab learning music. And Jack bursts out in a fury, that he has written every bit the same thing, only beginning with the picnic, and ending with the kittens and the cold; while Mab, with equal resentment towards both, as if they were marauders in possession of her exclusive property, complains: That's the very thing I've got my music, and the picnic and Pongo, and all the rest of it down to Baby's cold! Uncle can't read the same thing over three times, you stupid Jack! Baby, begin again with something else to say.' Then, probably, some peacemaker interposes, issues new writing-paper, and divides the universal topics into three separate lists: Baby is to keep her own 'sneezy cold and the kittens,' and Mab her own music and the pigeons, and the picnic; Jack may have the picnic too, and Pongo; but they are all to say a great deal more about the items of news. After this there is peace, until they become stranded again, and don't know, what to put next.

The whole letter, which Uncle John will receive as a spontaneous greeting, written with great pleasure,' is in reality a dreary, prolonged effort; and yet, if Uncle John were there, Mab, Jack, and Baby would hug him to pieces with genuine welcome, and make his head ache with three lively versions of information, all given irrepressibly and at once. Do let the peacemaker that hit on the plan of dividing the news fairly, explain to the children that they are to send their hugging welcome in words freely to weary, work-tired Uncle John, and that they are then just to think what they would say if they were talking, and say it that minute in the first words that come. This, and this alone, is teaching children to write the letters that are worth getting. The handwriting, the spelling, the neatness of the whole, are only the externals, important in their way, but not so important as the substance, the soul of the letter. As other teaching progresses, the writing and the spelling

Jan. 21, 1882)

will come right; but children's letters will not be a pleasure to the senders and the receivers, until the first lessons in letter-writing are the unfettering of child-nature, rather than the fettering of it by art and rule.

But when they write letters, children expect to be answered. Writing letters to little ones is like speaking to them; it is one of the arts the heart teaches. And though we write to them without the inspiration of seeing their bright expressive faces, we have another inspiration in knowing that a letter is a rare delight to a child; it is read over time after time; it is laid by and kept, if it has come from a loving hand.

It is remarkable that some of the most learned and brilliant minds have left, among their weighty and witty published correspondence, the most charming letters to children. Charles Dickens took the trouble to write a long tissue of jokes to a boy who wrote to him about the justice that ought to be done to the good and bad characters in Nicholas Nickleby. Sydney Smith, on getting a letter over-weight from a grandchild, sent an answer beginning: 'Oh, you little wretch! your letter cost me fourpence,' and promising that he would pull all the plums out of her puddings, steal her dolls' clothes, give her no currant jelly with her rice, and kiss her till she could not see out of her eyes. Another time, when he was writing to a boy who was recovering from illness, he put an element of boyish interest into his congratulations, by saying that the surgeon was skilful, and he would soon be well; and adding, that in the Trojan War the Greek surgeons used cheese and wine for their ointments, and in Henry VIII.'s time cobbler's wax and rust of iron were used-'so you see it is some advantage to live in Berkeley Square in the year 1837. Again, he found something pleasant to write to a little friend who was going away to Boulogne: Lucy, dear child, mind your arithmetic. You know, in the first sum of yours I ever saw, there was a mistake. You carried two (as a cab is licensed to do), and you ought, dear Lucy, to have carried but one. Is this a trifle ? What would life be without arithmetic, but a scene of horrors? You are going to Boulogne, the eily of debts, peopled by men who never understood arithmetic.' But the prettiest part of this etter is its beginning, where he advises Lucy not to tear her frock any more, but to be like her mother, 'frank, loyal, affectionate, simple, honest; and then integrity or laceration of frock is of little import.'

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One of the best letter-writers that ever covered paper with talk, was Jeffrey of the Edinburgh Review; and his correspondence contains gems letter-writing to his grandchildren, those 'imps of the third generation,' whom he called the light of his eyes, and the love of his heart. We shall close our plea for a better kind of attention to the all folk's postbag, by giving an example of one of his delightful letters, written from his charmg summer retreat of Craigcrook, near Edinburgh: MY SONCY NANCY -I love you very much, and think very often of your dimples and your pimples, and your funny little plays, and all your pretty ways; and I send you my blessing, and I wish I were kissing, your sweet TUBy lips, or your fat finger tips; and that you were near, so that I could hear, your stammering

words, from a mouthful of curds, and a great purple tongue (as broad as it's long); and see your round eyes, open wide with surprise, and your wondering look, to find yourself at Craigcrook! To-morrow is Maggie's birthday.' Then he tells about the bonfire and the merry-making that is to be; about the garden full of flowers; Frankie's new wheelbarrow, with which he does a great deal of work, and some mischief now and then; the good health of all the dogs-Foxey, Froggy, Neddy, Jacky, and Dover, and their present separate appropriation by himself, Tarley (little Charlotte), Frankie, and Granny. Next he sends the donkey's compliments, and hints that the donkey believes he is sending them to a near relation. Frankie,' who is described as hammering in the corner to flatten the carpet, is reported to be very good and really too pretty for a boy, though I think his two eyebrows are growing into onestretching and meeting each other above his nose! But he has not near so many freckles as Tarleywho has a very fine crop of them-which she and I encourage as much as we can. I hope you and Maggie will lay in a stock of them, as I think no little girl can be pretty without them in summer.' So the letter winds on, past the pea-hens who are suspected of laying somewhere in secret; the papacock who pretends to know nothing about them, and does not care a farthing; the slow kitchengarden; and the hope that the grandchild will come to Craigcrook with a lapful of green peasuntil at last the loving Grandpa' comes to the end of his sheet, with Bless you ever and ever, my dear dimply Pussy.'

Does not this letter descend most winningly to the level of the young eyes it was meant for Soncy Nancy! How applicable, doubtless, to his little Scottish grandchild. Dimply Pussy, a woman grown; perhaps lived to be a grandma, with dimply pussies of her own to love. Are not its home-pictures bright with nature, with life, love, and innocence? And may not a letter to a child be a thing worth doing well?

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'Val's a noble sailor,' said Reginald. To my personal knowledge, he has crossed the British Channel several times; and I believe, but I'm not quite certain, that he has been to the Isle of Man.'

'Ireland, you depreciatory ruffian! Rotterdam! Antwerp! Lots of places!'

'Yes,' said Reginald; you're a mighty seaman.'

'Ah, well,' said Strange; 'I'm a better sailor than you are.'

'I don't believe it,' the little man returned. 'You suffered more than I did, when we crossed to Calais together last summer.'

'Well,' said Strange, reclining luxuriously in an arm-chair and puffing a cloud of smoke towards the ceiling, I like to face a difficulty. I like to battle with something that gets me down and rolls upon me, to begin with. The sea has always beaten me until now, and I'm resolved to become an accomplished seaman.'

'He'll provision himself for a year,' said Reginald, and he 'll start for Pekin or Pernambuco; and before he has been out a day, he'll feel unwell, and order himself to be put in at the nearest port. I'll wager half-a-crown that he never gets a hundred miles from British shores. I'd offer more; but I can't afford it.' 'I am resolved on making a voyage round the world,' said Strange, laughing good-humouredly. -Will you come, Gerard?'

"Eh?' said Gerard, waking up, at the sound of his own name, from a dream of the violet eyes.

'You're dull this morning,' cried Val cheerily, 'Wake up, man. I'm going on a voyage round the world. Will you come with me?'

No; thank you,' said Gerard; 'sailing's dull -duller than I am.'

Thought you'd jump at the chance,' said Val. 'I know you're a first-rate yachtsman.'

'I got tired of it,' said Gerard in reply, and lapsed into his day-dream.

'You'll get tired of it too,' said Reginald, turning anew upon Strange.

'Don't be too sure of that,' he replied. 'You only know one side of me. There's a good deal of the Spartan in my constitution. I find hardship pleasant. I like a rough-and-tumble life. I should revel in a campaign.'

'You'd pretty soon revel out of it,' said the little man with some disdain. 'Call yourself a Spartan, you Sybarite? Rough-and-tumble? Gammon !'

'Pooh!' said Val, a shade less good-humouredly than before. 'You don't know me, my good fellow.'

Don't I?' returned the sceptic. 'Who went out of training for the College Eight on the very first day, and was caught by me in the act of smoking whilst brewing cider-cup?'

"Very good cup it was too,' said Val, striving to propitiate his critic.

But the little man arose, and stood over him sternly. 'Who always went headlong for the Newdegate, and wrote twenty lines, and then chucked it? Who came back from his last lounge in Brussels, and'

'Never mind more instances,' said Strange. 'I admit them all. I don't care to live by line and rule. I don't want to be hampered by

restrictions. As for the training, I never believed in the system. I should have pulled as well after a cigar and a glass of cider-cup, as I could have done without them.' He laughed with renewed good-humour. 'But you must needs come prowling round, like the tyrannical dwarf you are, to see what I was doing. It was you who ordered me out of training, not I who went out of it.'

'I ordered you out of the boat,' said the little man, still standing over him. 'A precious cosun I should have been, if I hadn't.' 'I don't believe in training,' said Strange, with much decision. 'We overdo it, and go stale.'

'You never overdid it,' said his late coxswain severely. 'You are an idler by nature, plus circumstance. You are disgustingly rich, and that fact fosters your natural proneness to selfindulgence. You wallow in gold and purple and fine linen. Your feet are set for ever in the Primrose Way.'

'I like the Primrose Way,' said Strange. 'I am fond of primroses.'

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Many there be," quoted the coxswain with unbending air, ""who go the Primrose Way

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'Say the workhouse,' pleaded Val languidly. 'I know! Regy, my boy, you're perpetually preaching. You're too energetic and too shamelessly and outspokenly good, for me. Now, look at me. I am athletic by stealth, and blush to find it fame. I cover up my good works. I don't brag of them.'

'You are a lotus-eater and a Sybarite,' said the little man severely. 'And you crown your offences with a crown of aggravation, when you come and crow over a hardy son of the soil like me, and call yourself a Spartan.'

I am a Spartan,' said Strange lightly. 'I'll do this voyage and something more.'

'Who is going with you?' asked Gerard, waking up again.

'Gilbert. You remember Gilbert at Oriel? First-rate man for the commissariat.'

'Ah,' said Reginald, relighting his cigar, and looking round at Strange with an expression most comically like that of a parrot bent on mischief; 'he's another Sybarite. Wanted to train on truffles and Heidseck's monopole !'

'Did he?' said Strange, laughing. The good old Billy. It was like him. Well, he has the complete control of the commissariat department, and carte-blanche to lay in what he likes. He has found a wonderful cook, a sort of nautical Soyer; and he's invented a capital wine-case to swing on- I forget what the things are called; but the wine doesn't get shaken in any sort of weather.'

'It's a very Spartan sort of expedition altogether,' said the critic. 'I hope you've a piano on board!'

'Of course,' said Strange. 'A crate of books. Cards, backgammon, chess, everything in that way we could think of. Because, you see,' he continued with a chastened air, there's a good deal of tedium in living aboard a yacht; and since I am rather a man of action than otherwise, I'm likely to find it dull.'

'Poor Spartan!' said Reginald, with a comic crackling laugh.

'There is no form of humour so cheap as the catchword,' said Val sententiously. Then the two laughed together, and Gerard came out of a new day-dream.

'I suppose,' said Gerard, 'you remember that you are engaged to run up to town with me, next week??

'No. Am I?' asked Val, sitting up with an air of apology. 'So I am. I'm really sorry, Lumby; but I'm afraid I can't keep Gilbert waiting. You'll excuse me, won't you?' 'Certainly, if you wish it,' said Gerard, a little ungraciously.

I'll write, and put Gilbert off for a week, if you like?' said Val with a penitent look.

'No,' said Gerard heartily, forgetting his momentary pique. 'Don't do anything of the sort, for me. I don't know that I've any special reason for going, after all.'

'It's curious,' said Strange, sinking back into his arm-chair again-'it's very curious that I should have forgotten that engagement. If there's a thing I'm careful to do, it is to remember an engagement.'

comic papers; and parted from his friends in a sudden burst of high spirits and alacrity.

Gerard and his new acquaintance rode away together leisurely. The young fellow was in a singular tumult, and had before this begun to suspect the truth concerning himself. Yet the truth, to a man so little sentimental, seemed absurd and laughable. To have seen a girl for a second or two, and to be thrown into a flutter by it for four-and-twenty hours, and to find the rout of sense and senses growing completer even then, was an experience which would have seemed ridiculously improbable in any man's case to Gerard; and that it should happen to him, made him ashamed of himself. We can read with equanimity of the folly even of sages; but that we should ourselves be vulnerable, though we make no especial claim to wisdom, is startling to discover. This stalwart young Briton had indulged in no flirtations had never played with the grand passion-had spoken despitefully of itbragged a little in his secret heart that he was not a lady's man; and believed himself, when he thought about the matter at all, to be cut

At this moment, Hoskins entered with a tele-out for a comfortable bachelorhood.
gram, which he handed to his master. 'Excuse
me,' said Strange; and opening the missive, he
laid down his cigar and read it.

'Dear me!' he said, rising. 'Here's poor Gil-
bert wiring to me to say that we made arrange-
ments to sail yesterday. I thought it was
Thursday; and the day turns out to have been
Tuesday. I was going down this afternoon to
join him.-Well now, turning upon the gleeful
Reginald, who was chuckling at this practical
illustration. What is there to laugh at?'
'Nothing in the world,' the little man re-
sponded. Pack up at once; wire to Gilbert;
and start by the next train.'

'I'm afraid I must,' said Val, a little ruefully-Hoskins! Find out the first train for Bristol.'

'Yes, sir,' said Hoskins, and departed. 'Have you made any arrangements to reduce your establishment, while you sail round the world?' asked Reginald.

O no,' said Strange. "The voyage round the world is not an enterprise to be undertaken without experience. We shall make preliminary voyages, and get gradually inured to the

work.'

'You can catch a train in an hour and a half from now,' said Reginald. Off you go; and we'll ride with you to the station; and then'-bowing solemnly to Gerard-'perhaps Mr Lumby will do me the honour to come and lunch with me at home?'

Very happy,' said Gerard, rather clumsily. His heart began to beat with some irregularity, and he was conscious of a curious restraint.

Val, having made his moan about the breaking up of a pleasant lounge, and having enlarged on the disagreeableness of railway travelling in the summer-time, went off to superintend his packing; and in due time the three started; Strange lolling in an open carriage, surrounded by sandry portmanteaus, and his companions riding on each side of him. Arrived at the station, the Spartan-minded mariner fortified himself for the journey, which was to last an hour and a half, by the purchase of all the daily and the

IS THE INTERIOR OF THE EARTH
MOLTEN OR SOLID?

THE question of the condition of the earth's
interior, like that of the plurality of worlds, is
one which does not submit itself to the process
of direct and tangible experiment, hence any
knowledge that is to be derived on the subject
is mainly inferential. We cannot descend to the
central core of the globe, any more than we
can ascend to Mars or Jupiter, and are therefore
constrained, in dealing with either question, to
content ourselves with such outlying phenomena
as are within our reach, and to argue from
the little that is known to the much that is
unknown.

The original condition of the globe, previous to its assuming its present shape and dimensions, cannot be certainly known; but there are indications that it was at the first in a comparatively soft or plastic condition, as is attested by its present shape. A body of this plastic nature, rotating rapidly on its axis, would, in consequence of the centrifugal force caused by the motion of rotation, have a tendency to bulge out at the equator, and to contract itself at the poles, thus losing its strictly spherical form, and becoming orange-shaped. This indeed is the shape which the earth has assumed, and hence may be taken as supporting the theory that its material was originally in a pliable condition.

But while the earth was in this state of plasticity, and gradually assuming its present shape and configuration, a cooling process was at the same time going on, tending to solidify the mass. As we know from analogy, the earth would begin to cool first at its surface-that is, the heat of the exterior parts would be lost by radiation or diffusion into the surrounding medium. The portion so cooled would gradually undergo a hardening process, till in course of time a crust was formed round the whole exterior of the globe. Two questions, therefore,

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