not read much; and you and the minister | I like animals, though I don't know much have read so much."

about them."

"I have not," said she. "But you are "Oh, do you? I am so glad! I was our guest; and mother says I must make it | afraid you would not like animals, as you did pleasant to you. We wont talk of books. not like books."

What must we talk about?"

"I don't know. How old are you? "Seventeen last May. How old are you?" "I am nineteen. Older than you by nearly two years," said I, drawing myself up to my full height.

I wondered why she said this. I think it was because she had begun to fancy all our tastes must be dissimilar. We went together all through the farmyard; we fed the poultry, she kneeling down with her pinafore full of corn and meal, and tempting the little timid, downy chickens upon it, much to the anxiety of the fussy ruffled hen, their mother. She called to the pigeons, who fluttered down at the sound of her voice. She and 1 examined the great sleek cart-horses; sympathized in our dislike of pigs; fed the calves; coaxed

"I should not have thought you were above sixteen," she replied, as quietly as if she were not saying the most provoking thing she possibly could. Then came a pause. "What are you going to do now?" asked I. "I should be dusting the bed-chambers; the sick cow, Daisy; and admired the others but mother said I had better stay and make out at pasture; and came back tired and hunit pleasant to you," said she, a little plain-gry and dirty at dinner-time, having quite fortively, as if dusting rooms was far the easier gotten that there were such things as dead task. languages, and consequently capital friends.

"Will you take me to see the live-stock?

cavity, reached only by crawling on the belly for rods. These are covered overhead with crystals and stalactites of wonderful beauty. A canoe lies in the mouth of the cave, which will take the adventurer to the source, seven miles into the interior; but I had had enough of explorations, and did not care to repeat it.

NICOJACK CAVE.-Nicojack Cave, from which | caverns whose only entrance is through a small the enemy derived their chief supply of nitre for the manufacture of gunpowder, is a wonderful cavern, extending under the base of Sand Mountain, a distance of over seven miles. The earth is impregnated with nitrate of lime, and this is mixed with carbonate of potash. A double de composition takes place. The nitric acid of the nitrate of lime goes over to the potash, forming These visits are not unattended with danger. It nitrate of potash, and the carbonic acid of the is necessary to have the services of an experienced carbonate of potash passes over to the lime, form-guide, or there is great likelihood of losing one's ing carbonate of lime, which, being insoluble, way in the labyrinth of caverns and curious windprecipitates to the bottom, leaving the nitrate of ings. Several accidents of this nature are repotash in solution, and this is afterwards crys-lated. One of them happened within the last ten talized by boiling in iron kettles after the manner days. A lieutenant and three men went into the of the manufacture of potash. Before their capture, these mines produced three hundred pounds of nitre a day.

cavern for an afternoon's diversion, and have not been heard from since. They doubtless lost their way, and wandered about until starvation and then death relieved them.

The name of the cave had its origin in a similar incident. A negro, by the name of "Jack," entered the cave, and has never since reported. This was thirty years ago. Hence "Nigger Jack Cave," and then, for the sake of euphony, "Nicojack Cave."-Cor. Chicago Tribune.

I yesterday procured a guide and visited the cavern. We dressed ourselves in rough clothing, and procuring long pitch-pine torches and canoes, penetrated and explored its devious windings and turnings for more than three miles. The entrance is through a large opening or gateway in the rock at the base of the mountain, eighty feet broad, and as many feet high, through which rolls a volume of water large enough and deep enough to be called a river. The water is as cold as ice, and clear as crystal. In the wet, stifling atmosphere, floundering in mud and water and darkness, we clambered over rocks, and explored the interior for more than six hours, OUR author's chief authorities in this very useuntil we were glad enough to come out into the ful compilation are Crabbe, Richardson, and light again. There are caverns here of infinite Webster; and, from the very careful and comsize and capacity, so lofty and so broad that we plete manner in which he has got up his "Anacould not throw a stone to the rocky roof over-lytical Index,' we should think the volume head, or the rocky wall beyond. "There are other would readily serve every purpose intended.

The Desk-Book of English Synonymes. Designed to afford assistance in Composition, and also as a work of reference requisite to the Secretary, and indispensable to the student. By John Sherer. Groombridge and Sons. Pp. 240.

Part of an Article in Blackwood's Magazine.

MR. HAWTHORNE.

be called a peculiarity, is an inclination to paint obliquities of character. His fondness FORTUNATELY for us, only the best of Amer- for the analysis of the moral and mental ican literature ever secures a footing among framework of humanity is evidently absorbus. There is a vast quantity of what passes ing; and as our greatest anatomists are much for very fine writing in the States, which it more apt to accumulate in their museums the would be worth nobody's while to republish deviations and fantasies into which nature here. But when an American's claim to has strayed in diversifying the human form, whisper in the world's ear is once established, the giants and curious abortions, inseparablo his transatlantic birth seems to affect favora- twins, and two-headed bodies, than more combly for him his English audience; so that monplace if more comfortable tenements of when he comes among us he is already natu- clay, so Hawthorne seems especially to deralized, and, uniting the claims of a distin- light in displaying moral twists rather curiguished foreign guest with those of an illus-ous than delightful to contemplate. And, trious denizen, he receives far more honor than would be bestowed on a native writer of equal merit and celebrity. His foreign extraction, his different breeding, and the union of the strange and familiar in his language and ideas, are what probably confers on his companionship, in the estimation of our social epicures, all the superiority of flavor which game possesses over poultry.

along with these, co-exist in his pictures highly idealized and sublimated personagessingular, not so much for unusual gifts as for freedom from defects, and perfect with a negative perfection. Anybody who has read his latest novel, "The Romance of Monte Beni," will recognize most of these elements and types -the mystical, in the character of Donotello, with his strange gifts, his more than semiIt is many years now since the name of supernatural origin, and his metaphysical Nathaniel Hawthorne was inscribed among transformation; the misty, in the obscurity those English worthies of the time, whom of the influences which surround Miriam, and Britannia delighteth to honor. Everybody which are never explained; the sublimated who could pretend to a 1 taste capable of dis-being, in the girl-painter Hilda; while, for cerning a flavor more delicate than that of the specimens of studies more curious than pleasred-herrings and devilled bones so agreeable ant, we would take Clifford of "The House to the popular palate, perceived and com- of the Seven Gables, "old Roger Chillingworth mended the strange, wild, simple charm of of "The Scarlet Letter," and Zenobia and this writer's genius. A still more select body other personages of "The Blithedale Roof admirers-among whom we do not claim mance. But however diverse and seemingly to be admitted-were enraptured with char-unreconcilable his characters, he always manacteristics which, whether blemishes or addi- ages to surround them with an atmosphere in tional charms, are doubtless inherent, and which they can live and act together harelements of his individuality, and without moniously for the ends of the work, as fairies which the image of his mind could not be and classic personages and absurd mechanics projected truly on the disc of literature--to all unite in producing the gracefully grotesque wit, a certain mysticism and mistiness; mys-effect of the "Midsummer Night's Dream." ticism, in dimly showing us strange and indis-The strangest circumstance of all is, that, tinct corners of our moral world, where the whatever the obscurity of incident or mistiobjects are so faintly defined that, like shapes ness of plot, there is perfect limpidity in the in the glowing coals, they admit of as many language; so that the vague effects are prointerpretations as there are lively fancies in duced rather by strange associations than by the interpreters; and mistiness, in a wilful blurring or confusion, as the shadows of the • incompleteness of incident, and refusal to ex-sky mix with roots and pebbles in the dark plain the various hints and other devices by which curiosity has been stimulated, for the purpose of aiding the general moonlight effect. All these are peculiarities which his readers will recognize as distinctive of him, whether they like them or not; and another characteristic, which can scarcely, perhaps,

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depths of a pellucid fountain.

But it would be unfair and untrue to leave the inference possible, that all the main characteristics of his style were summed up in calling it a clear and harmonious rendering of strange combinations of ideas. For he has a singular power and felicity of observation,

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the power being shown in the ease and cer- prefers to draw on imagination and on a nartainty with which he grasps and plays with a row circle of reality for his subjects, rather subject, the felicity in the faculty of selection than to look abroad on the actual world; and which unconsciously winnows what he wants because an acquaintance with that world to describe of all its chaff and commonplace could only be maintained at the expense of investiture. And when his genius takes this that delicate bloom and wild fragrance which direction, the results, conveyed in his clear, are the chief among his charms. Dreamy he excellent form of expression, are such as to must be, listless of aim, as seeing little to alrecall the simple yet subtle charm with which lure him in the ordinary material objects of Addison and Goldsmith and Irving wrought. men, and given to look at common things in As a specimen of this style, we especially re- an uncommon light, which transfigures and member the account of the old custom-house even sometimes distorts them; yet capable of which forms the introduction to "The Scar- the shrewd glance that penetrates into surlet Letter," and is a charming piece of Old-rounding realities, and saves him from being World painting. And, lastly, he has a gentle a visionary. But above all, whatever else he yet spirited humor, never better displayed might turn out to be, we should have prethan in "The Celestial Railway," that happy dicted that he was eminently, with all his sketch of modern "Pilgrim's Progress," shyness and reserve, a gentle and a genial showing the changes which have taken place man. For while he is stern as a prophet in since Bunyan's time in the mode of journey- denouncing crime and sin, he has the most ing towards the Shining City; where the pil- tender indulgence for the criminal and sinner, grims are passengers, and the journey is made judging him extenuatingly, setting forth his by train from the City of Destructign-Apol- temptations, and sorrowing greatly as he lyon, the ancient foe of wayfarers, having taken the office of stoker, and every facility being given for observing the humors and temptations of Vanity Fair; while the travellers, far from bearing, like poor Christian, their burdens painfully on their backs, see them safely consigned to the luggage-van, with a promise (admirable stroke of humor!) that all shall be punctually given back to the owners at the end of the journey.

All of us form, almost unconsciously, an idea of the personal character of a writer with whose works we are familiar, when his walk in literature is, like Hawthorne's, such as to admit of the display of individuality; and few have impressed their audience with a more distinct stamp of their personality than this author. We think of him as a man unusually shy and reserved, both because he habitually

abandons him to the inevitable law;—a kind of soft-hearted Rhadamanthus, held by an unhappy fascination on the judicial bench, and forced in conscience to punish the culprits whom he would willingly set free; so that we know not what degree of iniquity a character must attain to, absolutely to deprive it of his sympathy. Looking thus on the tragic parts of his subject, he prefers, in treating of simple and common matters, to regard them in their graceful and sunny aspect. His sharpest satire is kindlier than the geniality of a really sarcastic man; and for mere weaknesses which do not amount to vice-indolence, vagabonḍism, and suchlike-he does not conceal his partiality. Kindly, clear, picturesque, graceful, quaint-such are the epithets which define his path in literature.

COLMAN'S "GIBRALTAR."-This celebrated, breathable atmosphere, breezy waters, translupicture remains on exhibition in Sowle's Gal- cent distances, and general harmonious effect, lery, and is daily visited by hundreds. The es- truer to the qualities of the Mediterranean than is his Gibraltar." timate in which it is held abroad may be inferred His rendering of smoke from the following criticism in the last issue of gracefully uncoiling itself before a light breeze, would delight Ruskin; coal-smoke heavily but the Fine Arts Quarterly Review (London) :- as it slowly mounts the sky, letting the eye "Colman has much of the qualities of design through its dark masses into the clear light beand composition which distinguish Gifford, with-yond. Smoke, steam, air, or vapor, are too ofout his false tint. Neither Turner nor Pyne, in ten made of one quality, tough, opaque, and our view, has painted a picture more replete with 'lifeless."

From All the Year Round.
THE CAGE AT CRANFORD.
HAVE I told you anything about my friends
at Cranford since the year 1856? I think

not.

a cap, as I see those from Paris mostly are; and now I had to veer round, and advise her to go as fast as she could, and secure Mr. Johnson's cap before any other purchaser snatched it up. But Miss Pole was too sharp for me.

Why, Mary," said she," it was only yesterday you were running down that cap like anything. You said, you know, that lilac was too old a color for me, and green too young; and that the mixture was very unbecoming.'

You remember the Gordons, don't you? She that was Jessie Brown, who married her old love, Major Gordon, and from being poor became quite a rich lady: but for all that, never forgot any of her old friends in Cranford. Well, the Gordons were travelling abroad, for they were very fond of travelling; people who have had to spend part of their lives in a 66 Yes, I know," said I; "but I have regiment always are, I think. They were thought better of it. I thought about it a now at Paris, in May, 1856, and were going great deal last night, and I think—I thought to stop there, and in the neighborhood all-they would neutralize each other; and the summer, but Mr. Ludovic was coming to Eng-shadows of any color are, you know-someland soon, so Mrs. Gordon wrote me word. thing I know-complementary colors." I I was glad she told me, for just then I was was not sure of my own meaning, but I had waiting to make a little present to Miss Pole, an idea in my head, though I could not exwith whom I was staying; so I wrote to Mrs. press it. She took me up shortly. Gordon, and asked her to choose me some- Child, you don't know what you are saything pretty and new and fashionable, that ing. And besides, I don't want compliments would be acceptable to Miss Pole. Miss Pole at my time of life. I lay awake, too, thinkhad just been talking a great deal about Mrs.ing of the cap. I only buy one ready-made Fitz Adam's caps being so unfashionable, which once a year, and of course it's a matter for I suppose made me put in that word fashion-consideration; and I came to the conclusion able; but afterwards I wished I had sent to that you were quite right." say my present was not to be too fashionable; for there is such a thing, I can assure you! The price of my present was not to be more than twenty shillings; but that is a very handsome sum if you put it in that way, though it may not sound so much if you only call it a sovereign.

Mrs. Gordon wrote back to me, pleased, as she always was, with doing anything for her old friends. She told me that she had been out for a day's shopping before going into the country, and had got a cage for herself of the newest and most elegant description, and had thought that she could not do better than get another like it as my present for Miss Pole, as cages were so much better made in Paris than anywhere else. I was rather dismayed when I read this letter; for, however pretty a cage might be, it was something for Miss Pole's own self, and not for her parrot, that I had intended to get. Here had I been finding ever so many reasons against her buying a new cap at Johnson's fashion-show, because I thought that the present which Mrs. Gordon was to choose for me in Paris might turn out to be an elegant and fashionable headdress; a kind of cross between a turban and

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"O dear Miss Pole! I was quite wrong; if you only knew-I did think it a very pretty cap-only-"

Well, do just finish what you've got to say. You're almost as bad as Miss Matty in your way of talking, without being half as good as she is in other ways; though I'm very fond of you, Mary, I don't mean I am not; but you must see you're very off and on, and very muddle-headed. It's the truth, so you will not mind my saying so."

It was just because it did seem like the truth at that time that I did mind her saying so; and, in despair, I thought I would tell her all.

"I did not mean what I said; I don't think lilac too old, or green too young; and I think the mixture very becoming to you; and I think you will never get such a pretty cap again, at least in Cranford." It was fully out, so far, at least.

"Then, Mary Smith, will you tell me what you did mean by speaking as you did, and convincing me against my will, and giving me a bad night?"

"I meant-O Miss Pole, I meant to surprise you with a present from Paris; and I

thought it would be a cap. Mrs. Gordon | Pole could not resist the opportunity of diswas to choose it, and Mr. Ludovic to bring playing it, and said, in a solemn way to Miss it. I dare say it is in England now; only Matty,it's not a cap. And I did not want you to buy Johnson's cap, when I thought I was getting another for you.'

"It was not much money; and it was not a pair of shoes. You'll let me go and get the cap, wont you? It was so pretty-somebody will be sure to snatch it up."

"I don't like getting a cap that's sure to be unbecoming.'

“But it is not! it was not! I never saw you look so well in anything!" said I.

Mary, Mary, remember who is the father of lies!'

"But he's not my father," exclaimed I, in a hurry, for I saw Mrs. FitzAdam go down the street in the direction of Johnson's shop. I'll eat my words; they were all false: only just let me run down and buy that cap -that pretty cap!"

Well, run off, child. I liked it myself till you put me out of taste with it."

I brought it back in triumph from under Mrs. Fitz Adam's very nose, as she was hanging in meditation over it; and the more we saw of it, the more we felt pleased with our purchase. We turned it on this side, and we turned it on that; and though we hurried it away into Miss Pole's bedroom at the sound of a double knock at the door, when we found it was only Miss Matty and Mr. Peter, Miss