No. II.—SAN FRANCISCO SILHOUETTES.
This city is the whispering gallery of all nations. In Constantinople the clamor of tongues is bewildering, while here it is more harmonious, more representative. Here you have a polyglot at the Golden Gate, a universal language. In the east there is no fusion; in the west one better understands Tennyson’s vision of all earth’s banners furled
“In the parliament of man, the federation of the world.”
Of all places on the globe, go to the California metropolis if you would feel the strong pulse of internationalism. Few have caught its rhythm, as yet, but we must do so if we would be strong enough to keep step with that matchless, electric twentieth century soon to go swinging past. You can almost hear his resonant step on San Francisco pavements; his voice whispers in the lengthening telephone, saying, “Yesterday was good, to-day is better, but to-morrow shall be the red-letter day of all life’s magic calendar.” I have always been impatient of our planet’s name—“the earth.” What other, among the shining orbs has a designation so insignificant? That we have put up with it so long is a proof of the awful inertia of the aggregate mind, almost as surprising as our endurance of the traffic in alcoholic poison. With Jupiter and Venus, Orion and the Pleiades smiling down upon us in their patronizing fashion, we have been contented to inscribe on our visiting cards: “At Home: The Earth!” Out upon such paucity of language. “The dust o’ the ground” forsooth! That answered well enough perhaps for a dark-minded people who never even dreamed they were living on a star. Even now an army of good folks afraid of the next thing, just because it is the next, and not the last, will doubtless raise holy hands of horror against the proposition I shall proceed to launch forth for the first time, though it is harmless as the Pope’s bull against the comet. They will probably oppose me, too, on theologic grounds, for, as Coleridge hath it,
“Time consecrates, and what is gray with age becomes religion.”
Nevertheless, since we do inhabit a star, I solemnly propose we cease to call it a dirt heap, and being determined to “live up to my light,” I hereby bring forward and clap a patent upon the name
CONCORDIA.
“I move it as a substitute for the original motion,” and call the previous question on “the Parliament of Man”—aforesaid by the English Laureate. By the same token, I met half a dozen selectest growths of people in San Francisco who, in the broadest, international way are doing more to make this name Concordia descriptive, rather than prophetic in its application to our oldest home, than any other people I can name. They work among the Chinese, Japanese, and “wild Arabs of the Barbary Coast,” they go with faces that are an epitomized gospel, and preach to the stranger within the Golden Gate that he is a stranger no more; they bring glad tidings of good which shall be to all people, for to them, as to their Master, “there is neither Jew nor Greek, bond nor free, male nor female in Christ Jesus.”
Look at this unique group photographed upon the sensitive plate of memory by “your special artist.” A tall Kentuckian of the best type; “much every way;” “big heart, big head, fine, clear-cut countenance, blue, scrutinizing eyes, large form, wrapped in an ample overcoat, its pockets full of scientific temperance documents,” this is Dr. R. H. McDonald, President of the Pacific Bank, Prohibition candidate for Governor, and temperance leader “on the coast.” Go with me to his elegant home; see his mother, fair and beaming at eighty-four; and his talented sons, who, though educated largely abroad, have never tarnished their fine physiques with the alcoholic or nicotine poisons. Go to the “Star Band of Hope Hall” on Sunday afternoon and hear his accomplished daughter sing to the little street Arabs of the society, while the Doctor presides over the meeting and introduces the eastern temperance worker, your correspondent and her secretary, Miss Anna Gordon, after whose speeches he presents each dear little child to us, patting them on the head, whispering words of praise for each, and emptying his great pockets of goodies and children’s literature. Remember that he has heart and hand open for every good work; know that he has a fortune of seven millions, and pray heaven to send us more wealthy men with wealthy hearts. Beside him stands a small, plain looking man with a royal gray eye; a man of quiet manners, terse, vigorous style, and cultured English utterances, a former sea-captain, who in the ports of China and Japan, as well as Boston and Liverpool, has succeeded in keeping his crew sober, and in teaching them to lay up their money; a gifted head and loyal heart he has; witness his editorials in The Rescue and his leadership in founding the great Orphan’s Home at Vallejo in the suburbs (both paper and orphanage being conducted by the Good Templars, whose most gifted members are Will D. Gould, the genial lawyer of Los Angeles, Mrs. Emily Pitt Stevens, the best temperance lecturers on the coast, Mrs. M. E. Corigdon, of Mariposa, and Geo. B. Katzenstein, of Sacramento). Very different in method, though one in aim with the two men I have described, is another redoubtable champion of every good cause, Rev. Dr. M. C. Briggs, who is like a tower “that stands four-square to every wind that blows.” Observe that well-knit figure, those herculean shoulders, that dauntless face, and it will go without saying that this man is nature’s model of the Methodist pioneer, to whom all hardships are but play; who has a sledge hammer blow for evil doers, but a brother’s clasp for the repentant; a man whose deep, musical voice in the palmy days of his prime gave wings to such rhetoric and such argument as combined with the speeches of Starr King and Col. Baker, to save California to the Union. Near the gifted Dr. Briggs stand his life-time friends and allies, Captain and Mrs. Charles Goodall, the former our Methodist Mecænus in California, founder of the famous “Oregon Navigation Company,” and the true type of a Christian layman, his heart and home open to all who come in the name of the Master whom he loves with the simplicity and fondness of the child. A tall, dark-eyed, impressive man, in life’s full prime, comes next. “See Otis Gibson, or you have missed the moral hero of Gold-opolis”—this was concurrent testimony coming from every side. Garfield left no truer saying than that the time wants men “who have the courage to look the devil squarely in the face and tell him that he is the devil.” Precisely this fearless sort of character is Rev. Otis Gibson. He has been the uncompromising friend of “the heathen Chinee,” through all that pitiful Celestial’s grievous fortunes on our western shore. When others cursed he blessed; while others pondered he prayed; what was lacking in schools, church, counsel and kindness he supplied. It cost something thus to stand by a hated and traduced race in spite of hoodlum and Pharisee combined. But Otis Gibson could not see why the people to whom we owe the compass and the art of printing, the choicest porcelain, the civil service examination might not christianize as readily on our shores as their own. In this faith he and his noble wife have worked on until they have built up a veritable city of refuge for the defenceless and despairing, in the young and half barbarous metropolis of the Pacific slope. We went to a wedding in this attractive home, where a well-to-do young Chinaman was married to a modest, gentle Chinese girl, rescued from a life of untold misery and sin by this blessed Christian home. Contrary to popular opinion, a chorus of Chinese made very tolerable music, and while a Celestial played one of Sankey’s hymns, stately Mrs. Capt. Goodall, the generous friend and patron saint of the establishment, escorted the bride, and after a simple service (with the word “obey” conspicuously left out), the large circle of invited philanthropists was regaled on the refreshments made and provided for such entertainments.
We afterward visited the “Chinese Quarter,” so often described, under escort of Rev. Dr. Gibson. We saw the theaters where men sit on the back and put their feet on the board part of the seat; where actors don their costumes in full sight of the audience, and frightful pictured dragons compete with worse discord for supremacy. We saw the joss-house, with swinging censer and burning incense, tapers and tawdriness, a travesty of the Catholic ceremonial, taking from the latter its one poor merit of originality. We saw a mother and child kneeling before a hideous idol, burning tapers, tossing dice, and thus “consulting the oracle,” with many a sidelong glance of inattention on the part of the six-year-old boy, but with sighs and groans that proved how tragically earnest was the mother’s faith. Dr. Gibson said the numbers on the dice corresponded to wise sayings and advices on strips of paper sold by a mysterious Chinese whose “pious shop” was in the temple vestibule, whither the poor woman resorted to learn the result of her “throw,” and then returned to try again, until she got some response that quieted her. Could human incredulity and ignorance go farther? We saw the restaurants, markets and bazars, as thoroughly Chinese as Pekin itself can furnish; the haunts of vice, all open to the day; the opium dens, with their comatose victims; and then, to comfort our hearts and take away the painful vividness of woman’s degradation, Dr. Gibson took us to see a Christian Chinese home, made by two of his pupils, for years trained under his eye. How can I make the contrast plain enough? A square or two away, the horrid orgies of opium and other dens, but here a well-kept dry goods store, where the husband was proprietor, and in the rear a quiet, pleasant, sacred home. The cleanly, kind-faced wife busy with household cares, her rooms the picture of neatness, her pretty baby sleeping in his crib, and over all the peace that comes from praise and prayer. Never in my life did I approach so near to that perception, too great for mortal to attain, of what the gospel has achieved for woman, as when this gentle, honored wife and mother said, seeing me point to an engraving of “The Good Shepherd,” on her nursery wall: “O, yes! he gave this home to us.”
Otis Gibson conducts the Methodist Mission of San Francisco. In that of the Presbyterian, Mrs. P. B. Browne, a gifted lady, president of the W. C. T. U. of California, is prominent, as she has long been in the Woman’s Christian Association. Mrs. Taylor, president of the local W. C. T. U., is a lovely Christian worker, also Mrs. Williams of the same society, and Miss Annie Crary, daughter of that rare editorial genius, Rev. Dr. B. F. Crary of The California Christian Advocate, is our most talented and best taught Kindergartner.
But there remains a choice bit of portraiture ere my group of philanthropic leaders is complete. How firm and fine the etching that should accurately show the features of Mrs. Sarah B. Cooper, whose strong, sweet individuality I have not seen excelled—no, not even among women. From the time when our eastern press teemed with notices of the Presbyterian lady who had been tried for heresy and acquitted, who had the largest Bible class in San Francisco and was founder of that city’s Kindergartens for the poor, I made a mental memorandum that, no matter whom I missed, this lady I would see. So at 12:30 on a mild May Sabbath noon, I sought the elegant Plymouth Church, built by Rev. Dr. A. L. Stone, and found a veritable congregation in its noble auditorium. Men and women of high character and rare thoughtfulness were gathered, Bibles in hand, to hear the exposition of the acquitted heretic, whom a Pharisaical deacon had begun to assail contemporaneously with her outstripping him in popularity as an expounder of the gospel of love. She entered quietly by a side door, seated herself at a table level with the pews, laid aside her fur-lined cloak and revealed a fragile but symmetric figure, somewhat above the medium height, simply attired in black, with pose and movement altogether graceful, and while perfectly self-possessed, at the furthest remove from being self-assertive. Then I noted a sweet, untroubled brow, soft brown hair chastened with tinge of silver (frost that fell before its time, doubtless at the doughty deacon’s bidding); blue eyes, large, bright and loving; nose of the noblest Roman, dominant yet sensitive, chiseled by generations of culture, the unmistakable expression of highest force and mettlesomeness in character, held in check by all the gentlest sentiments: a mouth firm, yet delicate, full of the smiles that follow tears. Wordsworth’s lines describe her best:
* * “A creature not too bright or good
For human nature’s daily food,
And yet a spirit, still and bright,
With something of an angel’s light.”
The teacher’s method was not that of pumping in, but drawing out. There were no extended monologues, but the Socratic style of colloquy—brief, comprehensive, passing rapidly from point to point, characterized the most suggestive and helpful hour I ever spent in Bible class. There was not the faintest effort at rhetorical effect; not a suspicion of the hortatory in manner, but all was so fresh, simple and earnest, that in contrast to the pabulum too often served up on similar occasions, this was nutritious essence. A Bible class teacher is like a hen with ample brood and all inclined to “take to the grass.” How to coax them back from their discursive rambles by discovering the toothsome morsel and restfully proclaiming it, the average teacher “finds not,” but it is a portion of “the vision and faculty divine” in this California phenomenon. Let me jot down a few notes:
“What we call the new birth is but the opening of the eyes of the spirit upon its own world.” “There can be no kingdom of love to us, unless we enter it by love. We can not be mathematicians unless we enter the kingdom of mathematics. We can not perceive anything unless we address to it the appropriate organ of perception.” “Have we risen into any experience of the higher life? Are we in the way of completeness of soul? A soul dark toward God is in sad plight. No meaning in worship—none in prayer—that is a soul diseased.” “Baptism makes a child of God as coronation makes a king. But remember, he was a king before he was crowned.” As Lucretia Mott said, “We must have truth for authority, and not authority for truth.” “Dorcas did not bestow alms-gifts but alms-deeds; wrought not by a Dorcas society, but by Dorcas herself.” “Christ’s miracles were subject to the laws of the spiritual world. He could not spiritually bless those who were not susceptible to spiritual blessing.” “If I would prove to any one that God is his father I must first prove to him that I am his brother.”
When the delightful hour was over, among the loving group that gathered around her, attracted by the healing virtue of her spiritual atmosphere, came a temperance sojourner from the east. As my name was mentioned, the face so full of spirituality lighted even more than was its wont, and the soft, strong voice said, “Sometimes an introduction is a recognition—and so I feel it to be now.” Dear reader, I consider that enough of a compliment to last me for a term of years. I feel that it helped mortgage me to a pure life; I shall be better for it “right along.” For if I have ever clasped hands with a truth-seeker, a disciple of Christ and lover of humanity, Sarah B. Cooper held out to me that loving, loyal hand. The only “invitation out” which I gave to myself, and insisted on keeping, was to this woman’s home on Vallejo avenue, where, with her noble husband and true-hearted daughter, she illustrates how near the gates of Paradise a mortal home may be. One’s ideal seldom “materializes,” but in that lovely cottage, with its spotless cleanliness, fair, tasteful rooms, individualized so perfectly that he who ran might read how high the natures mirrored here, in the flower-decked dinner table and the “good talk,” in the study upstairs packed with choice books, and the sunset window looking out over the Golden Gate, I stored up memories that ought to yield electric energy for many a day. We talked of the past—and I found that my new friend, as well as her husband, had been for years the pupil of my beloved father in the gospel, our lamented Dr. Henry Bannister, late Professor of Hebrew in Garrett Biblical Institute at Evanston, Ill. With what reverence and tenderness we talked of that brave, earnest, sympathetic life! We spoke of her experiences as a teacher in the South, and she rejoiced in the good tidings I brought of a “Yankee school-ma’am’s” welcome for temperance’s sake in nearly one hundred cities of Dixie’s land. We talked most of all about God and his unspeakable gift of Christ Jesus our Lord. I found this tireless brain had busied itself with the study of all religions, the testimony of science, philosophy and art; a more hospitable intellect I have not known, nor a glance more wide and tolerant, but “Christ and him crucified” is to that loyal heart “the Chief among thousands and altogether lovely.”
Let me give a few sentences from the inspiring letters that come to me across the distance between that bay window by the Golden Gate, and my “Rest Cottage” by the inland sea:
“If I know myself, I have one regnant wish: To help build up the coming kingdom.” “I desire you to include me in all your invocations for light and guidance.” “We move on in one work, we are co-laborers for a common Master—blessed be His name. We both aim at one thing: character-building in Christ Jesus. I am to speak before the C. L. S. C. at Pacific Grove, Monterey, on the ‘Kindergarten in its Relation to Character-Building.’ I shall speak of temperance. Have tried to help women both north and south who are working in their little towns heroically.” “The Chautauqua of the Coast, energized by desperate, sometimes almost despairing love for their tempted ones.”
The Independent and other leading journals have in Mrs. Cooper a valued correspondent, and her work among the little, ill-born and worse-nurtured children of San Francisco’s moral Sahara has been described by her own pure and radiant pen. It is one of the most potent forces in that city’s uplift toward Christianity. Among the best types of representative women, America may justly count Sarah B. Cooper, the student, the Christian exegete and philosopher, and the tender friend of every untaught little child.
[TABLE-TALK OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE.]
When Napoleon was about fourteen, he was conversing with a lady about Marshal Turenne, and extolling him to the skies.
“Yes, my friend,” she answered, “he was a great man; but I should like him better if he had not burnt the Palatinate.”
“What does that matter,” he replied briskly, “if the burning was necessary to the success of his plans?”
Napoleon’s German master, a heavy and phlegmatic man, who thought the study of German the only one necessary to a man’s success in life, finding Napoleon absent from his class one day, asked where he was. He was told he was undergoing his examination for the artillery.
“Does he know anything then?” he asked ironically.
“Why, sir, he is the best mathematician in the school.”
“Well,” was his sage remark, “I have always heard say, and I always thought, that mathematics was a study only suitable to fools.”
“It would be satisfactory to know,” Napoleon said twenty years after, “if my professor lived long enough to enjoy his discernment.”
In 1782, at one of the holiday school fêtes at Brienne, to which all the inhabitants of the place were invited, guards were established to preserve order. The dignities of officer and subaltern were conferred only on the most distinguished. Bonaparte was one of these on a certain occasion, when “The Death of Cæsar” was to be performed.
A janitor’s wife who was perfectly well known presented herself for admission without a ticket. She made a clamor, and insisted upon being let in, and the sergeant reported her to Napoleon, who, in an imperative tone, exclaimed, “Let that woman be removed, who brings into this place the license of a camp.”
Bonaparte was confirmed at the military school at Paris. At the name of Napoleon, the archbishop who confirmed him expressed his astonishment, saying that he did not know this saint, that he was not in the calendar, etc. The child answered unhesitatingly, “That that was no reason, for there were a crowd of saints in Paradise, and only 365 days in the year.”
Dining one day with one of the professors at Brienne, the professor knowing his young pupil’s admiration for Paoli, spoke disrespectfully of the general to tease the boy.
Napoleon was energetic in his defense. “Paoli, sir,” said he, “was a great man! he loved his country; and I shall never forgive my father for consenting to the union of Corsica with France.”
One evening in the midst of the Reign of Terror, on returning from a walk through the streets of Paris, a lady asked him:
“How do you like the new Constitution?”
He replied hesitatingly: “Why, it is good in one sense, certainly; but all that is connected with carnage is bad;” and then he exclaimed in an outburst of undisguised feeling: “No! no! no! down with this constitution; I do not like it.”
1794. During the siege of Toulon, one of the agents of the convention ventured to criticise the position of a gun which Napoleon was superintending. “Do you,” he tartly replied, “attend to your duty as national commissioners, and I will be answerable for mine with my head.”
An officer, entering Napoleon’s room, found, much to his astonishment, Napoleon dressed and studying.
“What!” exclaimed his friend, “are you not in bed yet?”
“In bed!” replied Napoleon, “I have finished my sleep and already risen.”
“What, so early?” the other replied.
“Yes,” continued Napoleon, “so early. Two or three hours of sleep are enough for any man.”
When Barras introduced Napoleon to the convention as a fit man to be entrusted with the command, the President asked, “Are you willing to undertake the defense of the convention?”
“Yes,” was the reply.
After a time the President continued: “Are you aware of the magnitude of the undertaking?”
“Perfectly,” replied Napoleon, fixing his eyes upon the questioner; “and I am in the habit of accomplishing that which I undertake.”
“How could you,” a lady asked about this time, “fire thus mercilessly upon your countrymen?”
“A soldier,” he replied calmly, “is only a machine to obey orders. This is my seal which I have impressed upon Paris.”
Napoleon’s apt replies often excited good humor in a crowd. A large and brawny fishwoman once was haranguing the mob, and telling them not to disperse. She finished by exclaiming, “Never mind those coxcombs with epaulets on their shoulders; they care not if we poor people all starve, if they but feed well and grow fat.”
Napoleon, who was as thin as a shadow, turned to her and said, “Look at me, my good woman, and tell me which of us two is the fatter.”
The fishfag was completely disconcerted, and the crowd dispersed.
1796. “Good God!” Napoleon said in Italy, while residing at Montebello, “how rare men are. There are eighteen millions in Italy, and I have with difficulty found two—Dandolo and Melzi.”
“Europe!” Napoleon exclaimed at Passeriano, “Europe is but a mole-hill; there never have existed mighty empires, there never have occurred great revolutions, save in the east, where lived six hundred millions of men—the cradle of all religions, the birthplace of all metaphysics.”
One day Napoleon, conversing with Las Cases, asked him, “Were you a gamester?”
“Alas, sire,” Las Cases replied, “I must confess that I was, but only occasionally.”
“I am glad,” replied Napoleon, “that I knew nothing of it at the time. You would have been ruined in my esteem. A gamester was sure to lose my confidence. I placed no more trust in him.”
Some one read an account of the battle of Lodi, in which it was stated that Napoleon crossed the bridge first, and that Lannes passed after him.
“Before me! before me!” Napoleon exclaimed. “Lannes passed first, I only followed him. I must correct that error on the spot.”
[EARLY FLOWERS.]
By FRANCIS GEORGE HEATH.
The fields and woods of January, when not covered by snow, offer much better opportunities for the study of flowers than we ordinarily believe. Mr. Heath has told, in his “Sylvan Spring,” of all the early-comers of the year. If all the flowers which he mentions here are not found this season in a locality, observation extending through several seasons will undoubtedly reveal them. A carefully kept note-book of all the changes in vegetation, the growth, blossoming, etc., will be found most interesting.
January in temperate latitudes is popularly believed to possess no wild flowers in our lanes, fields or hedgebanks; and the reason for the common belief is that no one expects or looks for them, and there is no conspicuous color to attract attention to them at that ordinarily cold and apparently “dead” season of the year. Yet there are not less than twenty-five of our wild flowers that may be found in bloom somewhere in January.
A January has probably never yet been known during which it was impossible to find out of doors a daisy (Bellis perennis) in flower: not in the open meadow, or on the cold slope of the hillside, but at least in some sheltered nook where a streamlet may flow, unhindered by frost. Says Montgomery:
“On waste and woodland, rock and plain,
Its humble buds unheeded rise;
The rose has but a summer reign,
The daisy never dies.”
And this last line explains the true meaning of the specific botanical name of the day’s “eye”—perennis—which does not mean, as it is usually understood in botanical language, “perennial,” simply to indicate that the daisy plant lives beyond a period of two years. It means “lasting throughout the year,” that is to say, lasting in blossom throughout the year, for our daisy is always in bloom somewhere.
Another January flower, and one whose blossoms, though it is an annual plant, may be found throughout the year, is the purple dead nettle (Lamium purpureum).
Though much like its relative, the later-blooming white or common dead nettle, this pretty plant may be known from Lamium album, not only by the purple color of its curious flowers, a color with which its leaves and its leaf-hairs are sometimes suffused, but by its smaller size and by the curious crowding of its alternately-paired heart-shaped leaves on the upper part of the stem, a feature which is not common to its white-flowering congener. The unobservant pedestrian who may linger by the wayside to pluck something which strikes his fancy in the low hedgebank, must often have dreaded the touch of the harmless dead nettles, under the belief that these plants were the widely different, though similarly leaved, “stinging” nettles. If disabused of this impression and induced to handle a flowering stem of the purple dead nettle, with square stem and whorl of stalkless axillary blossoms, he will marvel at the singular-looking corolla, separated from its calyx of five sepals. The generic name Lamium comes from a Greek word which means throat, and that, as referring to the blossom, it is aptly applied, will be seen at once. From the depths of this throat, or the corolla tube, in other words, rise the stamens on their long filaments, covered by the upper and concave lip of the corolla, which hangs hood-like over them, whilst the lower lip (for this species belongs to the large natural order called Labiatæ, labiate or lip-flowered plants) is prettily marked with spots of darker purple than the normal color of the blossom.
Though the most we can do with the winter aconite (Eranthis hyemalis) is to rank it among our doubtful wild flowers, we must at least give it “honorable mention,” noticing its whorl of green leaves at the apex of its solitary stem and its large, yellow, handsome blossom, for it is among the hardy little group of plants which flower the nearest in point of time to the first day of the new year.
We must not fail to allude in our enumeration of early January flowers to that sweet little plant, the wild heartsease, or pansy (Viola tricolor), the progenitor of its host of garden namesakes. Its natural tendency to vary in the color as well as in the size of its blossoms, under varying conditions of growth, will explain the ease with which it can be made subservient to culture. Had it no beauty of its own, its relationship to the violets would claim for it our love and regard; but it is a flower which can not be passed over, for it seems to look at us out of its yellow and darkly-empurpled face with a sort of thoughtful earnestness.
The hellebores come within our enumeration of the January flora, and of these the bearsfoot or fœtid hellebore (Helleborus fœtidus) is the earliest in flower. It grows to a height oftentimes of two feet. Its smooth stem and leaves are dark green; its leaves narrowly lanceolate, serrated along the edges toward their apices. The large flowers are cuplike, are produced in panicles, or branched clusters, and are light yellowish green in color, the cluster of yellow-anthered stamens forming a conspicuous center to each corolla. Every part of the bearsfoot is highly poisonous, but the plant pleases the eye by its striking and handsome form.
It must naturally follow that exceptional hardiness is indicated by capacity to blossom in January. But among all our early flowering plants, there are two which may fairly claim the possession of an especial character for robustness of constitution; for, whilst those we have already mentioned are more or less susceptible to the influence of cold, and some of them will only produce their early blossoms in sheltered nooks, the two we are about to notice can bravely withstand hard frosts in exposed situations.
Of these, the first we shall name is the common groundsel (Senecio vulgaris), and a hardier little plant than this, of its kind, it would be scarcely possible to find. We have seen it in flower in the early part of January, when every stream, pond, and ditch around was frozen almost to the bottom, its soft leaves looking as fresh and glossy as if it had been the height of summer. The groundsel is a member of a little group which includes the ragworts, and they all bear yellow blossoms, and have a strong family likeness. Senecio vulgaris really flowers all the year round, and that is why we have it so conveniently among our early January blossoms. That it is so plentiful and so hardy is a wise provision of nature; for its leaves, the florets of its blossoms, and its seeds are very welcome additions to the food of our small birds, who have at least this provision for their comfort during the rigors of our frosts.
The other little wildling of the two we have especially mentioned as being among the hardiest even of the hardy January flora is the common chickweed (Stellaria media), a pretty little plant, which, because of its marvelous power of reproduction, and its persistency in intruding within the prim domain of the gardener, is by the last named individual regarded with feelings of bitter enmity, and is mercilessly exterminated whenever it comes into the realm of graveled path and nicely-kept border. Very different are the feelings of the small birds toward the chickweed, for it furnishes them with food which is eagerly sought after and keenly appreciated. Its power of branching and spreading is really marvelous, and it seems almost to lead a charmed life, for the most persevering attempts to uproot and banish it from the ground whereon it has once fairly established itself, ordinarily fail. We have said that its flowers are pretty, but perhaps some unobservant and unreflecting people hardly credit it with the production of blossom, for the minute, oblong, white petals are so much hidden by the green five-cleft calyx which is oftentimes larger than the corolla, entirely enveloping them when in bud, that they are inconspicuous among the mass of spreading green.
And now we have reached, in our pleasant task of enumerating our earliest wild flowers, the delicate and beautiful snowdrop (Galanthus nivalis), the botanical name indicating a milk-white blossom; and though it can scarcely claim to take a place as
“The first pale blossom of the ripening year,”
it may be sometimes seen in bloom before the middle of January. Have the incurious and unobservant noticed more about this beautiful flower than that it is white and drooping, and early in appearing, and, of course, pretty? We fancy not. Yet this delicate white blossom will well repay careful and searching examination.
The advent of a buttercup in bloom in January would appear almost impossible to those who associate this plant only with the golden splendor of the May meadows; and it is a rare circumstance, but one, nevertheless, which has been noted, and noted, also, of the very buttercup (Ranunculus repens), to whose extensively creeping habit we owe so much of the profuse magnificence of the later spring. In the pretty lines familiar to almost every child,—
“While the trees are leafless,
While the fields are bare,
Golden, glossy buttercups,
Spring up here and there,”
we find the early-flowering fact recorded. And, again, the question arises, why is it that “here and there,” before the general leafing time, a buttercup may be found to rear its golden head in one spot, while not far off—and, indeed, within sight it may be—there are tens of thousands of plants of the same species which will not blossom until months later? Sometimes the circumstances of position, in the case of the plant in flower, are so obviously more favorable than those of adjoining flowerless congeners, that the necessary explanation is furnished. But oftentimes the early flowering remains a mystery, in spite of all attempts at elucidation. Does not every one of us remember some occasion when a long walk early in the year has revealed the sight of but one daisy or buttercup in bloom in a locality, which, later on, would have been thronged by countless members of the same species? The mere recollection of the solitary flower which gladdened such a walk is delightful. How much more delightful the event itself!
We need, surely, make no apology for giving something more than mere mention of the dandelion (Leontodon taraxacum) in our enumeration of early flowers. It is, doubtless, a very “common” flower: but that we venture to think is the very reason why it should not be contemptuously dismissed as if it were not worthy of description or consideration. Very often it will happen that the familiar yellow blossom of Leontodon taraxacum is the first which we encounter in the early days of the year, and this hardy and persevering plant has this especial claim upon our regard, that it selects ordinarily the most desolate and dismal places as its habitats, covering them oftentimes with a gorgeous sheet of color. Townspeople, and poor townspeople especially, ought to love this plant, for it lights up with its golden glow the surroundings of the most bare and wretched of human habitations.
The dandelion is worthy of attention. The origin of its common name has given rise to some little discussion. That it is a corruption of the French dents de lion is very generally accepted; but in spite of varying opinions as to what part of the plant resembles a lion’s teeth—whether its roots, by their whiteness, or its florets or leaves, by their indentations, we incline to the leaf theory. The circumstance to note in connection with the leaves is that their teeth-like lobes are turned backwards towards the root from which they all directly spring—a habit which is not at all common to plants with indented leaves. If we look, with a glass to assist the eye, at a dandelion leaf against the light, we shall find something to please us, and something to admire in its venation, in the acute points of the serratures, and in its smooth glossiness. Features of interest to note, too, are its brittle, fleshy, tapering, milky root-stock and rootlets; its hollow, brittle, milky and radical flower-stem; and its buds, with the golden tips shining above the conspicuous involucre (a word derived from involucrum, a case, or wrapper), the involucre in the case of the dandelion consisting of two sets of green scales, the one set enclosing the yellow florets in the manner of a calyx; the other, and narrower set, consisting of a whorl of bracts, or leaf-like appendages, reflexed or bent down. When the blossom opens the upper bracts remain erect. And by-and-by the yellow florets disappear, and are succeeded, each, by a feathery pappus, connected by a slender stalk with a seed, and serving as a wing to bear the seed away when the ripening time arrives. The convex receptacle, in form so much like a pincushion, is, indeed, covered with seeds, whose feathery appendages are crowded into semi-globular form, ready, however, to take flight on the least breath of wind which may be strong enough to bear away to fresh fields and pastures new the tiny germs of the hardy life which lends the beauty of its presence to brighten forlorn waysides and neglected wastes.
We must include the crocus (Crocus vernus) among the possible flowers of January, although the flowering calendar of the gardener will ordinarily be found to assign a later date for its period of blossoming.
The crocus blossom offers the advantage of largeness to those who may wish to carefully study the curious organs of plant flowers. The most conspicuous external feature of the common crocus is the long-tubed purple perianth, divided into six segments, or pieces, constituting the vase-like flower head. Within the floral envelope are contained first the ovary, surmounted by a style which traverses the whole length of the long, narrow tube of the perianth, and is crowned just above the point where the tube expands into its petal-like segments, by a curious three-cleft stigma, each lobe of which is club-shaped or wedge-shaped, and jagged at its extremity. Some little distance below the level of the stigma are reared the anthers of the stamens, three in number. When the pollen grains from these organs have fertilized the ovary, by the agency of the stigma and style, the office of the perianth is fulfilled, and it, with the stamens and stigma, begins to wither and disappear. Then the ovary is enlarged, and rising on a slender stalk from the top of the bulbous root on which it was seated when the floral envelope was present, becomes exposed to the air, and ripens the seeds within its three-celled capsule.
In some of our woods in January may occasionally be found, though it is not widely distributed, the green hellebore (Helleborus viridis). The five oval-shaped, green lobes which form the floral envelope are not, as at first might be supposed, petals but sepals, the much smaller petals, eight or ten in number, occupying the inner portion of the blossom, and immediately surrounding the numerous stamens. These petals, or, as they might be called, nectaries, contain a poisonous honey, and the whole plant, indeed—leaves and flowers—is very poisonous.
We may perchance, before the month is out, light upon the pretty blue blossoms of the field speedwell (Veronica agrestis), with its hairy, deeply-indented and somewhat heart-shaped leaves, placed in opposite pairs along its branching stems, or, perhaps, upon its relative, Veronica buxbaumii.
In wood and copse before the close of January, we may note the sylvan precursor of the green splendor of the later spring—the leafing honeysuckle, the earliest harbinger of sylvan verdure in the days to come. The little leaves have not yet revealed their size and form, and without close examination the light-brown, spiry twigs would appear to wear only their normal wintry aspect. But if we look narrowly at them we shall note the tiny spots of green at the stem knots, where the minute leaves are struggling to emerge from the bud cases. Earliest in leaf among the shrubs and trees of the hedgerow and forest, the woodbine is the latest in flower—spreading, even late in autumn, its sweet fragrance through thicket, copse and dell.
Childhood is the sleep of reason.—Rousseau.
[BOTANICAL NOTES.]
By Prof. J. H. MONTGOMERY.
The numberless uses for india-rubber in this century has made it an indispensable article of commerce and manufacture, consequently its production has become a great industry. Whether the known forests will continue to supply the demand for any considerable time is a practical question. Right here comes the intelligence, that the attention of the government in India has been called to a new source of this useful gum. This new plant which yields large quantities of pure caoutchouc is a native of Cochin China, and is common in Southern India. It belongs to the dog-bane family (the same family that yields strychnine), and is called Prameria Glandalifera. In lower China its liquid juice is used for medicine by the Anamites and Cambodians, and it also appears among the drugs of China.
The Norwegian, Schübeler, mentions some striking peculiarities of plants in high latitudes. He says that seeds produced in these regions are much larger and weigh more than those grown in more temperate climates. The leaves, also, of most plants are larger in the north than those of the same species farther south. Flowers which are white in warmer climates, become colored when they blossom in the north. All these differences he ascribes to the continued light of long days.
It is noted by naturalists that Arctic plants are destitute of odor as a rule; only a few having a faint scent.
It appears from an English paper that the secretary of the Royal Society transplanted sea-weed to earth that was kept constantly moist, and that the plants grew and flourished under what would seem to be very unnatural circumstances. This would be an experiment worth trying with our fresh water plants.
By placing the stems of freshly cut flowers in a liquid dye their petals may often be colored or changed in color. This will not always happen, however, as certain colors are not absorbed by flowers. These dyes do not in any way change or affect the perfume or freshness.
The time honored method of determining the age of trees by counting their concentric rings has received some very hard blows from recent observations made on the growth of trees. An article in the Popular Science Monthly, from the pen of A. L. Childs, M.D., gives some facts which show that these rings do not indicate the age of the tree, and shows what they do indicate. The following passages from the article will give the ground on which his deductions are based: “In June of 1871 I planted a quantity of seed as it ripened and fell from some red maple trees. In 1873 I transplanted some of the trees from these seeds, placing them on my city lots in Plattsmouth, Nebraska. In August, 1882, finding them too much crowded, I cut some out, and, the concentric rings being very distinct, I counted them. From the day of planting the seed to the day of cutting the trees was two months over eleven years. On one, more distinctly marked (although there was but little difference between them), I counted on one side of the heart forty rings. Other sides were not so distinct; but in no part were there fewer than thirty-five. * * * * Hence, from my own record, I knew the tree had but twelve years of growth; and yet, as counted by myself and many others, it had forty clear concentric rings. * * * Hon. R. W. Furness, late Governor of Nebraska, so well known as a practical forester, has kindly furnished me with several sections of trees of known age, from which I select the following: A pig-hickory eleven years old, with sixteen distinct rings; a green ash eight years old, with eleven very plain rings; a Kentucky coffee-tree ten years old, with fourteen very distinct rings, and, in addition to these, twenty-one sub-rings; a burr-oak ten years old, with twenty-four equally distinct rings; a black walnut five years old, with twelve rings. * * * In conclusion, that the more distinct concentric rings of a tree approximate, or in some cases exactly agree, in number with the years of the tree, no one, I presume, will deny; but that in most, and probably nearly all trees, intermediate rings or sub-rings, generally less conspicuous, yet often more distinct than the annual rings, exist is equally certain; and I think the foregoing evidence is sufficient to induce those who prefer truth to error to examine the facts of the case. These sub-rings or additional rings are easily accounted for by sudden and more or less frequent changes of weather, and requisite conditions of growth—each check tending to solidify the newly-deposited cambium, or forming layer; and, as long intervals occur of extreme drought or cold, or other unfavorable causes, the condensation produces a more pronounced and distinct ring than the annual one.”
[C. L. S. C. WORK.]
By Rev. J. H. VINCENT, D.D., Superintendent of Instruction.
The readings for January are: “Philosophy of the Plan of Salvation,” fourteen chapters; Chautauqua Text-Book, No. 18, “Christian Evidences;” Chautauqua Text-Book, No. 39, “Sunday-school Normal Work;” Required Readings in The Chautauquan.
“Memorial Day” for January: “College Day,” Thursday, January 31.
The map of southern Europe, by Monteith, contains a good map of Greece. Published by A. S. Barnes & Co., of New York. Price, $5.
Persons who are reading for the additional White Seal for graduates of ’82 and ’83 need not read the Brief History of Greece if they read Timayenis, Vols. 1 and 2.
By sending forty cents to Miss Edith E. Guinon, Meadville, Pa., members of the classes of ’82 and ’83 may procure badges.
A student of the C. L. S. C. in Idaho writes: The pupils of the public school will one day be Chautauquans. There is enthusiasm over everything in the course that we enjoy together, and that is a considerable portion of it. We talked over the air when the loveliest blue mist hung for days between us and our most beautiful mountains’ snowy peak. * * * My pupils have treated our very near Chinese neighbors with more consideration since the reading of “China, Corea, and Japan.” * * * This is only the second year of school-life in our place, and we are largely indebted to the C. L. S. C. for help in overcoming some difficulties incident to a first struggle.
One good English sentence committed every day will greatly enrich one’s vocabulary in the course of a year.
“Don’t” is a good little manual of manners, but Miss Josephine Pollard’s Chautauqua Text-Book, No. 43, on “Good Manners,” is better. “Don’t” fail to read and practice “Good Manners.”
Try to pronounce your words accurately and distinctly. Accept with gratitude all hints which drive you to the dictionary. Avoid over-sensitiveness when corrected by fellow-student, friend or foe.
A telegraph operator writes: “Coming from the beautiful village of ——, Wis., where I was a member of a flourishing circle, and finding myself in this little western town on the Minnesota prairies, how could I pass the long tedious hours of the night if it were not for the studies of the C. L. S. C.? I am a night operator for the railroad company, and while the great majority of the great army of the C. L. S. C. are asleep and dreaming, I am studying. Thank God for the C. L. S. C.! How much broader life seems since I commenced these studies, and it is a pleasant thought to me that in ’86, when I graduate, I shall possibly be able to go to Chautauqua, and to shake hands with you.”
The Monteagle Assembly (Tennessee) last summer developed an intense C. L. S. C. enthusiasm. The meetings were lively, largely attended, and increased in interest to the very close of the Assembly. A committee was appointed to erect a C. L. S. C. building at Monteagle. I call upon all members of the C. L. S. C. to do what they can in the way of contributions to this Monteagle building. I am anxious not to turn the C. L. S. C. into an advertising channel for local interests, but the Monteagle movement, covering as it does the whole southern field, deserves our hearty sympathies, and I hope that many members will feel free to send contributions of any sum to the secretary, Rev. J. H. Warren, Murfreesboro, Tenn.
I take pleasure in commending to the members of the C. L. S. C. the “Comprehensive Biographical Dictionary,” by Edward A. Thomas, published by Porter & Coates, Philadelphia. It contains several steel-plate engravings and 590 pages. Price, $2.50 to $4.50, according to the binding.
Miss S. A. Scull, of Philadelphia, has prepared, and Porter & Coates have published an admirable abridgement of “Greek Mythology,” helpfully classified. It is amply illustrated and adapted to the school or to private use.
Every Chautauquan will mourn over the death of Mr. Van Lennep. He was a simple hearted, sincere, unselfish worker, a member of the class of ’86, a true friend, a loyal Chautauquan.
Scripture Readings for January, 1884:
First week, Genesis, 1st chapter.
Second week, Genesis, 13th chapter.
Third week, Genesis, 23d chapter.
Fourth week, Genesis, 32d chapter.