“The Golden Floral” is a collection of beautiful poems, “Rock of Ages,” “Why should the Spirit of Mortal be Proud,” “He giveth his Beloved Sleep,” and several others, each in a separate volume elegantly illustrated. These poems are dear to thousands of worshippers, and they are made doubly attractive in their new binding. Each book has a different cover, with appropriate flowers, on a gold ground and is put up in a neat box or handsome envelope, price $1.75 each.
Somebody sent Mrs. General James A. Beaver of Pennsylvania, a copy of The Chautauquan for November with the lecture by Bishop Simpson on “God’s Hand in History” marked, and wrote a note requesting her to read it, after her husband was defeated for Governor of Pennsylvania. She read it and was benefited. We are inclined to believe that the doctrine of that lecture would be helpful to the class of men who were elected governors at the late elections, providing they could be persuaded to adopt the Bishop’s theory. Success in political life is more dangerous to the individual than defeat. More of God’s hand, and less of man’s, in shaping the events of the history we are making, would be better for the State and nation.
The New York Tribune says: “Thurlow Weed’s life almost spans the history of this country under its present Constitution. He was born before Washington died, and when Webster, Clay, and Calhoun were making their reputations he had edited several country newspapers and fought in the battles of his country. He was older than Seward, or Lincoln, or Greeley, and when Clay, Webster, and Calhoun were dead he had not entered upon the most important part of his career. He was alive when Napoleon’s star appeared in the darkness of the French Revolution, and was already a young man when the battle of Waterloo was fought. He lived and worked with three generations of public men. Most of the men who are now beginning to attract attention might have been his grandsons. Benjamin Franklin died seven years before Mr. Weed was born. The lives of these two journalists take the world back into the reign of Louis XIV, and beyond the birth of Frederick the Great. Another such would very nearly reach the time of Shakspere.”
Longfellow’s study remains just as he left it. Not a book nor a piece of furniture has been moved. The gates to the grounds of his old home are always open to the visitor, but within the house the bereaved family are secure from intrusion, and their life goes on as it did before his death, save for the great void that never can be filled. The poet’s grave at Mount Auburn is only marked by the flower-wreaths daily placed upon it by loving hands.
It is estimated that eleven hundred people lost their lives when the shower of ashes fell on the city of Pompeii. Two-fifths of the area covered by the ancient city have been explored, and the bones of four hundred and fifty victims have been exhumed. The skeletons of only three dogs have been found, and all the cats seem to have escaped.