ent
fireplace,--which is a sort of domestic window into the ancient
world,--in the loves of Bernice and Abaces at the court of the Pharaohs.
I see that it is the same thing as the sentiment--perhaps it is the
shrinking which every soul that is a soul has, sooner or later, from
isolation--which grew up between Herbert and the Young Lady Staying With
Us. Jeremiah used to come in to that fireside very much as the Parson
does to ours. The Parson, to be sure, never prophesies, but he grumbles,
and is the chorus in the play that sings the everlasting ai ai of "I
told you so!" Yet we like the Parson. He is the sprig of bitter herb
that makes the pottage wholesome. I should rather, ten times over,
dispense with the flatterers and the smooth-sayers than the grumblers.
But the grumblers are of two sorts,--the healthful-toned and the
whiners. There are makers of beer who substitute for the clean bitter of
the hops some deleterious drug, and then seek to hide the fraud by some
cloying sweet. There is nothing of this sickish drug in the Parson's
talk, nor was there in that of Jeremiah, I sometimes think there is
scarcely enough of this wholesome tonic in modern society. The Parson
says he never would give a child sugar-coated pills. Mandeville says he
never would give them any. After all, you cannot help liking Mandeville.

II

We were talking of this late news from Jerusalem. The Fire-Tender was
saying that it is astonishing how much is telegraphed us from the East
that is not half so interesting. He was at a loss philosophically to
account for the fact that the world is so eager to know the news of
yesterday which is unimportant, and so indifferent to that of the day
before which is of some moment.

MANDEVILLE. I suspect that it arises from the want of imagination.
People need to touch the facts, and nearness in time is contiguity. It
would excite no interest to bulletin the last siege of Jerusalem in a
village where the event was unknown, if the date was appended; and yet
the account of it is incomparably more exciting than that of the siege
of Metz.

OUR NEXT DOOR. The daily news is a necessity. I cannot get along without
my morning paper. The other morning I took it up, and was absorbed in
the telegraphic columns for an hour nearly. I thoroughly enjoyed the
feeling of immediate contact with all the world of yesterday, until
I read among the minor items that Patrick Donahue, of the city of New
York, died of a sunstr