ualities
gradually photographed out of him. This could well be the result of
too prolonged indulgence in the effort to "look natural." First the man
loses his charming simplicity; then he begins to pose in intellectual
attitudes, with finger on brow; then he becomes morbidly self-conscious,
and finally ends in an asylum for incurable egotists. His death might be
brought about by a cold caught in going out bareheaded, there being, for
the moment, no hat in the market of sufficient circumference to meet his
enlarged requirement.

THE evening we dropped anchor in the Bay of Yedo the moon was hanging
directly over Yokohama. It was a mother-of-pearl moon, and might have
been manufactured by any of the delicate artisans in the Hanchodori
quarter. It impressed one as being a very good imitation, but nothing
more. Nammikawa, the cloisonne-worker at Tokio, could have made a better
moon.

I NOTICE the announcement of a new edition of "The Two First Centuries
of Florentine Literature," by Professor Pasquale Villari. I am not
acquainted with the work in question, but I trust that Professor Villari
makes it plain to the reader how both centuries happened to be first.

THE walking delegates of a higher civilization, who have nothing to
divide, look upon the notion of property as a purely artificial creation
of human society. According to these advanced philosophers, the time
will come when no man shall be allowed to call anything his. The
beneficent law which takes away an author's rights in his own books just
at the period when old age is creeping upon him seems to me a handsome
stride toward the longed-for millennium.

SAVE US from our friends--our enemies we can guard against. The
well-meaning rector of the little parish of Woodgates, England, and
several of Robert Browning's local admirers have recently busied
themselves in erecting a tablet to the memory of "the first known
forefather of the poet." This lately turned up ancestor, who does not
date very far back, was also named Robert Browning, and is described on
the mural marble as "formerly footman and butler to Sir John Bankes of
Corfe Castle." Now, Robert Browning the poet had as good right as Abou
Ben Adhem himself to ask to be placed on the list of those who love
their fellow men; but if the poet could have been consulted in the
matter he probably would have preferred not to have that particular
footman exhumed. However, it is an ill wind that blows nobody good. Sir
J