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of bean soup; kuchitori, chestnuts boiled and crushed into a mush; kamaboko, fish picked fine and then rolled into little balls and baked; sashimi, raw fish cut into tiny slices and covered with ice. This is dipped into a rich sauce called soy, and really doesn't taste as bad as it sounds. Each course is served with little cups of warm saké-the native brandy, made of rice. There is no bread and butter, and you will not have a napkin offered you unless you ask for it.

The second course is a small fish broiled whole, with the head and tail on, which is very difficult to eat with chopsticks; umani, bits of fowl boiled with lotus roots or potatoes; a little salad made of onions, peas and string beans, with a few leaves of lettuce and cresses; su-no-mono, sea slugs served with egg-plant, mashed as we do potatoes, and chawan-mushi, a thick custardy soup made of fish and vegetables with mushrooms for a relish.

The third course is usually a curry with rice and pickled vegetables, such as egg-plant, cabbage leaves, radishes and onions; and for a fourth and final course you have soba, a sort of buckwheat vermicelli served with soy and a sweet liqueur called mirin; shiruko, rice cakes, seaweed and all sorts of confectionery which is very sweet and tasteless.

The nesaus keep your saké cup full and during the course of the dinner each of the company rises and proposes the health of the host and then some other guest until the whole party is disposed of. This is a trying ordeal to one who does not like saké, for you must lift your little cup to your forehead in salutation each time and then empty it in three sips. It holds only a thimbleful, but it is fiery stuff and inflames the blood more than our brandy. It is customary also to drink the health of the waitresses, who bow their foreheads to the floor in acknowledgment while the compliment is paid them.

At the close of the dinner the tabako bon, a tray holding a tiny hibachi with live coals in a cone of ashes and a section of bamboo for an ash receiver is

placed before you, and cigarettes and cigars are passed around in boxes of cloisoune that tempt you to violate the commandment that forbids stealing.

You rise from a Japanese dinner with your legs aching, a sense of unnecessary fulness and a craving for food, and when you reach the hotel you feel inclined to send for a plate of crackers and cheese or a sandwich. The native diet is clean, free from grease and rich in carbon, but it does not satisfy a foreign appetite, and to sit on your heels for two hours is more tiresome than climbing a mountain.

From "The Yankees of the East," by William Eleroy Curtis. 2 vols. Stone & Kimball

Publishers.

POEMS OF JOHANNA AMBROSIUS.

Until a year and a half ago the name of Johanna Ambrosius was not known outside the little hamlet of Gross Wersmeninken, in East Prussia, where its bearer, as the wife of a poor peasant, led a humble and monotonous existence.

"Through the newspapers Professor Karl Weiss-Schrattenthal became acquainted with the poems of this poor peasant woman. He entered into communication with her and printed a number of her poems. These poems fell into the hands of the empress of Germany, who sent from her palace to learn the surroundings in which this peasant woman had learned the secret of a lofty spiritual life. The messenger found a woman of 40, but bent and worn to 60, with scarred, toilhardened hands that lay idle outside the cover of a poor bed in a snowdarkened cottage. Johanna had fallen a victim to pneumonia. The facts of her life have now been given to the world.

"Johanna Ambrosius was born, lived, toiled, suffered incredible hardships and privations, hungered in body, thirsted in soul, wept for knowledge of spiritual things, and almost died before the messenger of the emHermann Grimm press found her.

says: 'She was born, her cradle was rocked by the waterfall of a curious device of a wheel attached to the rocker, while her mother toiled in the slope, carrying soil to the naked rocks. She mended her father's nets in winter, oiled his great boots so that he could stand in the icy water to fish, dug the potatoes, cut the scanty wheat, gathered pine needles to fill the beds, sheared the sheep, spun and wove, looked forward all the year to the splendid candles of Christmas that dispelled the long night in the snowburied cottage.' She married a playmate, and her children were born to be rocked by the waterfall, as she had been.

"Not a word does she tell of these external things herself. She says when she writes she feels an indescribable exaltation. Hunger thirst, darkness, cold and pain afflict her no more."

and

She writes of simple things-the death of a child, its toys laid in the coffin; the infrequent flowers; every bird note, waited for during ten months of the year. Wherever a flower grew was holy ground to Johanna Ambrosius.

Through the "Gartenlaube," which she denied herself much to buy, she learned of the spiritual brotherhood of mankind, the sorrow of a nation for the death of a king, the striving and straining for freedom, the longing for peace that assails mankind. She longed to comfort those who mourn. She has not left her bleak home, but she now has books, pictures, leisureall the things she had dreamed of-and fair, white paper on which to speak to the hearts of all.

A QUESTION.

"Can't the child walk alone?" I hear where people gather, "Is it always falling prone,

Can't it say 'Dear father'?" See the happy mother smile, In her child's eyes reading That within but a brief while Its steps will need no leading.

Thus have I questioned my heart: "Canst thou not yet gather Strength to bear thy sorrow's smart?

Canst thou not say, 'Father'? Upward gaze with look elate

Where the stars are shining, And thou'lt bear thy bitter fate Smiling, not repining!"

FOR MY CHILD.

I.

For thee, my child, oft I lie waking,
For thy dear sake till late at night,
To grant thy ev'ry wish plans making,
To see thy bright eyes' laughing light.
E'en though my feet are often weary,
And my day's work is often hard,
If but thy face comes to my mem'ry,
No pain or grief do I regard.

Thank God! that one within my keeping
I have, who'll share my joy and woe.
Grow quickly, I shall soon be sleeping
My soul in thy youth's rosy glow,
How closely I will watch and cherish,
Protect thee, dear, from cold and wind,
Patiently bearing every anguish,

While I in thee a good child find.

Although my happiness is shattered,
If, but thy sun shines clear and fair,
I will forget Time's snow-flakes scattered
Too early whitening my hair,—
Rich gifts of heart and mind thy dower,
And gentle as May breezes mild,
Unfold thy petals, human flower;
I pray for thee alone, my child.

II.

On pillows snow-white, in a narrow chest, Sleep now forever, my darling, rest, Little one, in God's keeping!

Thine eyes thou hast closed for the long, endless dream,

Peacefully slumb'ring, scarce real doth it seem,

As I gaze at thee, weeping.

Dolls and all little books hither bring, Both loved far, far beyond anything, By my darling, now sleeping;

One more kiss, then lower the coffin, Deeper and deeper the dark grave in— Desolate by it I'm weeping.

"Poems of Johanna Ambrosius." Edited by Prof. Karl Schrattenthal. Translated by Mary J. Safford. Roberts Bros., Publishers.

BOOKS OF THE MONTH.

At Agincourt. A Tale of the White Moltke's Letters to His Wife and

Hoods of Paris. By G. A. Henty. Blackie & Sons, Publishers.

By the Deep Sea. By Edward Step, F. L. S. Jarrold & Sons, Publishers. Child of the Jago. By Arthur Morrison. H. S. Stone & Co., Publishers. Price $1.50.

Ebbing of the Tide, The. South Sea Stories. By Louis Becke. T. Fisher Unwin, Publisher.

Final War, The. By Louis Tracy. G. P. Putnam's Sons. Price $1.75. Five Great Skeptical Dramas of History, The. By Rev. John Owen. Swan, Sonnenschein & Co., Publish

ers.

Gospel for An Age of Doubt, The. The Yale Lectures on Preaching for 1896. By Henry Van Dyke, D.D. Macmillan Company, Publishers. Price $1.75.

Interludes. By Maud Oxenden. Edward Arnold, Publisher. Price $1.50. Iras. A Mystery. By Theo. Douglas. William Blackwood & Sons, Publishers.

Italian Highways. By Mrs. R. M. King. Richard Bentley & Sons, Publishers.

Life the Accuser. By E. F. Brooke. New Amsterdam Book Company, Publishers. Price $1.25.

Love Songs of France. From the Originals of De Musset, Gautier, Hugo and others. New Amsterdam Company, Publishers. Price $1.50. Lucky Number, The. By I. K. Friedman. Way and Williams, Publishers. Price $1.25.

Lyrics of Lowly Life. By Paul Lau-
rence Dunbar. With an introduction
by W. D. Howells. Dodd, Mead &
Co., Publishers. Price $1.25.
Makers of the American Republic,
The. By David Gregg, D.D. E. B.
Treat, Publisher. Price $1.50.
Millet, Jean Francois. His Life and
Letters. By Julia Cartwright. Swan,
Sonnenschein & Co., Publishers.

Other Relatives. Translated by J. R. McIlraith. Longmans Green & Co., Publishers. Price $10.00. My Brother. By Vincent Brown. Rand, McNally & Co., Publishers. Price 75 cents.

New Ballads. By John Davidson. John Lane, Publisher. Price $1.50. On the Broads. By Anna Bowman Dodd. Macmillan Company, Publishers. Price $3.00.

Oriel Window, The. By Mrs. Molesworth. Macmillan Company, Publishers. Price $1.00.

Poets Laureate of England, The. By J. C. Wright. Jarrold & Sons, Publishers.

Principles of Sociology, The. By Herbert Spencer. Vol. III. D. Appleton & Co., Publishers. Price $2.00. Quo Vadis, a Narrative of the Time of Nero. By Henryk Sienkiewicz. Translated from the Polish by Jeremiah Curtin. Little, Brown & Co., Publishers. Price $2.00.

Sir Knight of the Golden Pathway. By Mrs. A. S. P. Duryea. G. P. Putnam's Sons, Publishers.

Studies in Hebrew Proper Names. By G. Buchanan Gray, M.A. A. and C. Black, Publishers.

Treasury of Minor British Poetry, A. By J. Churton Collins. Edward Arnold, Publisher.

Uncrowned King, An. By Sidney C. Grier. G. P. Putnam's Sons, Publishers. Price $1.25.

Veil Lifted, The. By H. Martyn Kennard. Chapman & Hall, Publishers. Well at the World's End, The. By William Morris. Two volumes. Longmans, Green & Co. Price $7.00. With Cochrane the Dauntless. A Tale of the Exploits of Lord Cochrane in South American Waters. By G. A. Henty. Blackie & Sons, Publishers. Wymps and Other Fairy Tales. Evelyn Sharp. John Lane, Publisher. Price $1.75.

By

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PUBLISHED EVERY SATURDAY BY

THE LIVING AGE COMPANY, BOSTON.

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FOR SIX DOLLARS remitted directly to the Publishers, THE LIVING AGE will be punctually forwarded for a year, free of postage.

Remittances should be made by bank draft or check, or by post-office money order, if possible. If neither of these can be procured, the money should be sent in a registered letter. All postmasters are obliged to register letters when requested to do so. Drafts, checks, and money-orders should be made payable to the order of THE LIVING AGE Co.

Single copies of THE LIVING AGE, 15 cents.

GEO. A. FOXCROFT, Manager Advertising Department, 36 Bromfield St., Room 3.

THE HEATHER.

THE SEASONS.

If I were king of France, 'that noble fine The crocus in the shrewd March morn,
land,
Thrusts up his saffron spear;
And the gold was elbow-deep within my And April dots the sombre thorn

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If I might earn them where the heather, waving,

Gave fragrance to the day.

With gems, and loveliest cheer. Then sleep the seasons, full of might;

While slowly swells the pod, And rounds the peach, and in the night

The mushroom bursts the sod.

The winter comes: the frozen rut
Is bound with silver bars;
The white drift heaps against the hut;
And night is pierced with stars.
COVENTRY PATMORE.

Every one knows that the rose will fade, (Sure, I knew too!)

So why would I be a whit dismayed
When you died, Roisin dubh?
For a day and a night and a morrow,
The bloom of you-

Then death: and what use of sorrow
For a rose, Roisin dubh?

Yet, little black rose, so dear you were-
So sweet you grew;

And your stem is sad now you are not there,

And your leaves, Roisin dubh! little black rose! my soul I'd give,

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The stars might see me, homeless one and Sweet, sweet, till the world was glad for

weary,

Without a roof to fend me from the dew,

you, And kinder too;

And still, content, I'd find a bedding Now your bush and your world are sad for

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