y-school, his advice to young Roderigo was
wisdom itself--"Put money in thy purse." Whoever disparages money
disparages every step in the progress of the human race. I listened
the other day to a sermon in which gold was personified as a sort of
glittering devil tempting mortals to their ruin. I had an instant
of natural hesitation when the contribution-plate was passed around
immediately afterward. Personally, I believe that the possession of gold
has ruined fewer men than the lack of it. What noble enterprises have
been checked and what fine souls have been blighted in the gloom of
poverty the world will never know. "After the love of knowledge," says
Buckle, "there is no one passion which has done so much good to mankind
as the love of money."

DIALECT tempered with slang is an admirable medium of communication
between persons who have nothing to say and persons who would not care
for anything properly said.

DR. HOLMES had an odd liking for ingenious desk-accessories in the
way of pencil-sharpeners, paper-weights, penholders, etc. The latest
contrivances in this fashion--probably dropped down to him by the
inventor angling for a nibble of commendation--were always making one
another's acquaintance on his study table. He once said to me: "I 'm
waiting for somebody to invent a mucilage-brush that you can't by any
accident put into your inkstand. It would save me frequent moments of
humiliation."

THE deceptive Mr. False and the volatile Mrs. Giddy, who figure in the
pages of seventeenth and eighteenth century fiction, are not tolerated
in modern novels and plays. Steal the burglar and Palette the artist
have ceased to be. A name indicating the quality or occupation of the
bearer strikes us as a too transparent device. Yet there are such names
in contemporary real life. That of our worthy Adjutant-General Drum
may be instanced. Neal and Pray are a pair of deacons who linger in the
memory of my boyhood. Sweet the confectioner and Lamb the butcher are
individuals with whom I have had dealings. The old-time sign of Ketchum
& Cheetam, Brokers, in Wall Street, New York, seems almost too good to
be true. But it was once, if it is not now, an actuality.

I HAVE observed that whenever a Boston author dies, New York immediately
becomes a great literary centre.

THE possession of unlimited power will make a despot of almost any man.
There is a possible Nero in the gentlest human creature that walks.

EVERY living author h